Jens grabbed a rope hanging from a hook by the stairs and leapt after the captain, following him up the stairs. One more sacrifice for the fairies. One more meal for the kaboutermanekkes to feast on.
He looped the rope over the captain’s head and pulled hard, and the two of them crashed back down the stairs they had just climbed, rolling and struggling all the way to the floor of the hold.
Jens was younger, fitter. He recovered first, and the rope was still in his hands, still around the captain’s neck. He swung himself up and sat over the older man, planting his knees against the floor for leverage, sawing the rope against his throat again and tightening it as much as he could. The captain made a choking, coughing, wheezing noise, struggling for air, the pain in his throat his uppermost thought to begin with.
Jens had done this enough times now to get a measure of what they were thinking and feeling. How they reacted. They didn’t start to truly fight until—
The captain drew a gasping breath that had no oxygen in it and then began to kick and buck, doing everything he could to throw Jens off him. He had the advantage of weight, but it didn’t matter. He pushed up hard enough to tumble Jens, but he took him to the side, going down hard on his elbow but ignoring it. He kept the rope tight at the captain’s neck, hanging onto it with everything he had, refusing to let go. The longer he held on for, the less the captain would be able to fight.
He just had to hold on until the captain went limp—until he stopped fighting forever.
Jens could hold on until then.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“Here,” Laura whispered. It was pitch-dark in the harbor with the moon behind a cloud. The ship didn’t even look like how she remembered it in the light, but it was the same. An examination of the name painted on the side as well as a recalibration of her expectations told her that.
Nate looked up, his gaze travelling over theSaint Marie. “I can’t hear anything,” he whispered back. “Which ship do you think he’ll target?”
Laura looked around, biting her lip. There was theSaint Marie, theJones Harbor Jim, another ship she didn’t know before theSaint Marie. Past theJones Harbor Jim, another ship, too, the last one anchored at the docks before open water. She had seen all of them from the window. Which one was the target?
“We have to check them all,” she realized.
“You start on this end,” Nate said. “I’ll head up to the far end and start there. You find anything, you better shout at the top of your lungs. I’ll come running. Got it?”
“Same to you,” Laura said with a raised eyebrow, letting him know that his overprotectiveness went both ways.
Nate gave her a mock salute and then he was gone, slipping down the walkway in the darkness, the only sign he had been there was the sound of his footsteps echoing out along toward the last ship in the row.
Laura looked up and took a breath. The ship she didn’t know—the one next to theSaint Marie. She had to start there.
She found a ladder fixed to the side of it and started to climb, hauling herself up. She walked slowly along the deck, straining her eyes, trying to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything. When the moon came out, she was able to see better, though only just. Everything was painted in silver. Being unfamiliar with the normal layout of a ship didn’t help. She wasn’t sure she knew where to look.
She checked the whole of the top deck and turned back, hesitating. There was a hatch that led downwards, and stairs on each side of the deck leading to another below. Was she supposed to go down there? Would the killer be waiting below, or would he remain on the top deck?
She was still hesitating when she heard it: a voice from theSaint Marie. No, two voices, conversing in low tones.
She looked over. The ships were docked next to one another, but they were big, with a large distance between them to avoid any crashes. In the darkness, it was hard to make out what was going on—and with the sea whooshing and breaking around them, it was hard to hear what the voices were saying. They were both male, she thought.
TheSaint Marie—and they had just released Cody Schafer. Surely it would be him, come to check out his ship and take care of anything, right?
But then who was he talking to?
And even if he was only talking to a member of his crew, getting things sorted out for the next working day…just being together maybe wasn’t enough to keep them safe. If there was a killer out there, it would be easy for either of them to become his latest victim, especially in this darkness.
Laura hurried back to the ladder she had climbed up, and raced down it to the harbor walkway, needing to check it out for herself.
She was sure that it would be nothing. In fact, maybe their presence would be enough to stop the killer from carrying out whatever plan he had, for fear of being caught.
But…
She needed to be sure.
Laura saw the gangway they had set up to board the ship easily. It was still there from when they had disembarked with Schafer earlier, marching him down to the harbor and up to their waiting car so they could travel to the Sheriff’s station. It must have been left in place by the crew, unsure of whether it was going to be needed again before the day was out. Laura walked up it, glancing behind her as she did for any sign of Nate. There was nothing. He was probably still checking out the ship right at the far side of the harbor. With the distances involved and the sound of the waves, he probably hadn’t even realized that someone else was around.
Laura crept up onto the upper deck, glancing around. There was no sign of any movement, and she could no longer hear the voices…
There was a clattering sound nearby and what she thought might be some kind of shout, and she rushed—as quietly as she could—over to where it had come from. A hatch which led down into the belly of the ship, a ladder descending down from the darkness above into a semi-lit space below. Laura heard some kind of scuffling noises, then a grunt—another scuffle—a wheeze—