Wiping icy rain off her coat, Val walked into the busy ferry terminal and headed straight for the ticket counter.
“Which of these ferries goes to Bremerton?”
The woman on the other side of the Plexiglas looked up from her computer. “The Kaleetan.”
“Give me a ticket to that one.” She shoved a twenty under the glass and checked her watch; the ferry would sail in five minutes. “Now, please.”
The woman huffed. “Well, someone’s an Anxious Alice.” She took about a hundred years printing out the ticket, then slipped it to Val. “There you go. Have a nice—”
Val snatched it up and ran toward the loading ramp, ignoring the ticket lady’s cries about her change.
“Val!”
She stopped and turned to see Stacey waving at her from the middle of the terminal. Stacey jogged up to her and gave her a quick, tight hug.
“What do you want me to do?” Stacey asked.
“I’m looking for this person.” Val showed Stacey the picture of Eleanor. “I’m getting on the ferry to look for her, but if you see her come through here, text or call me. Don’t approach her. She could kill you.”
“Got it. I’m the lookout.”
“Thanks, Stacey.”
Her friend nodded, and they hugged one last time before Val took off for the loading dock. She crossed onto the ferry without a second to spare, the pedestrian ramp disengaging right after she set foot on the deck.
Okay, she’d made it. Now to find Eleanor—if she was even on this trip. Val knew Eleanor would be on a nighttime ferry ride, but this ferry had four more trips to make that evening. Val walked the perimeter of the ferry before she searched the interior, scanning for any sign of yellow hair or red lips. She repeated the process two more times on each deck, even the car transport area.
“Shit,” she muttered to herself when she came up empty. No sign of Eleanor. The ferry was just too big for one person to effectively canvas the entire thing. She could ask Stacey to help her, but that would be too dangerous. Keeping an eye out for Eleanor at the terminal was a nice, low-risk task. Maybe today would be the day Eleanor decided not to take the ferry. If she was quitting her job and cutting ties with old clients, she could have left behind whatever brought her to Bremerton as well, and this was another lead that would go nowhere.
As Val stalked the ferry, growing more frustrated by the second, she saw a Native American man with a face carved out of granite, wearing an orange vest with the green “T” decal for Washington State Ferries on it. He walked a few feet, jotted something down on a clipboard, and repeated the process through the length of the ferry—some kind of inspection.
She approached him. “Hey, this boat is the Kaleetan, right?”
“Yup,” he said without looking at her.
“Going back and forth between Bremerton and Seattle?”
“Yup.”
Val showed him Eleanor’s picture. “Have you seen this woman?”
“Nope.”
“What if I told you she was the woman responsible for the toy store collapse this morning?”
Finally he looked at her, though his face didn’t budge from its stony expression. “I’d tell you to report that information to the police.”
“Let’s say I came by this knowledge though a visit from my spirit animal—the red raven.”
“That’s offensive stereotyping, ma’am.”
Sighing, she rubbed the bridge of her nose as hopelessness and exhaustion began to set in. “Sorry”—she glanced at his name tag—“Ed. I’ve had a long day. I think I’m cracking. Which deck is the coffee on again?”
“Deck One.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a voucher for one free cup of joe. “You need it more than I do.”
She smiled at the gesture. “Hey, you’ll tell me if you see this woman, won’t you?”
The granite of his face reshaped itself as one eyebrow lifted. Then he wordlessly resumed his inspection. At least he didn’t seem to recognize her.
Val grabbed coffee from Deck One and sipped it as she circled the ferry, showing anybody who looked like an employee the photo. They all shook their heads. No one recognized Eleanor.
A whistle blew. “Attention, attention. Debarkation will begin in ten minutes. Please gather your personal effects and return to your cars. The Kaleetan crew thanks you for sailing with us today.” As everyone filed off, Val lingered, scanning every face she could see, which was only a fraction of all the passengers.
When it seemed as if everyone had debarked, Ed approached her. “You need to get off now,” he said with zero affect.
“Yeah, yeah.” Val left the boat, immediately bought tickets for the next four round trips between Seattle and Bremerton, and got back on. When Ed saw her again, he blinked—his version of a polite greeting.
“Seen an evil-looking blond woman yet?” she asked him.
He walked away, probably officially sure she was crazy.
Once again she searched the ferry as best she could, and once again, no Eleanor. She repeated the process over the next two round trips, until her mouth tasted like stale coffee and her eyes burned with fatigue. As the last group of people got off in Seattle, she allowed herself to sit down on an upholstered bench in a quiet corner for a moment. Not long ago—a matter of days, really—she’d been happy. Mostly happy. The feeling wouldn’t be complete until she wiped the evil people who threatened her family off the face of the earth. And that might never happen. This was her life—the frantic struggle, the constant worry, the burning anger. The years in between had been the exception.
Simon looks at me with tear-filled eyes. “Help me, Mommy! Please help me—”
“Attention, attention. Debarkation will begin in ten minutes. Please gather your personal effects and return to your cars. The Kaleetan crew thanks you for sailing with us today.”
Val’s eyes snapped open, and she sat up from where she’d been slumped against the bay window. Hadn’t they just arrived in Seattle a few minutes ago? Watching people pick up their stuff and shuffle toward the exit, it hit her—she’d fallen asleep. Son of a bitch.
Forcing her weary body to stand, she dug her phone out of her pocket and gasped, feeling the blood leave her face—three missed calls and four texts from Stacey. I think I see her. She’s getting on the boat. What should I do? Are you getting this?
While Val had been fucking asleep, Eleanor had got on the boat. She was here somewhere.
A shot of adrenaline kicked Val’s senses into high gear. She rushed up and down the length of the boat, fighting against the crush of people meandering toward debarkation and cutting off her line of sight. Could be Eleanor wasn’t even on this deck. Goddammit—then Val saw it on the other side of the boat—the yellow hair, the red lips. Eleanor.
Val bolted after her as she disappeared down a skinny stairwell. Descending the metal stairs, Val stopped for half a second at a door marked “Control Room—Authorized Entry Only,” which stood partly open. Eleanor wouldn’t go in there; she’d be trapped if she did. So why was it open—
The sound of running footfalls farther down the stairs caught her attention. She kept going down until the stairs ended at a door that led into the car transport area, rumbling as people turned on their engines in preparation to drive off the boat. Through a gap in the vehicles, she caught a flash of Eleanor running to the other side of the ferry. Val took off after her, weaving through the maze of cars, and saw Eleanor disappear through another door, going up. Taking the stairs two at a time, she burst through a door on the top deck, ran halfway down the aisle, and stopped, frantically scanning for any sign of Eleanor. Where the hell could she have gone?
“Ma’am?”
She spun around to see Ed looking at her, the thin lips on his stony face turned down a hair in disapproval.
“Did you see her?” Val asked as she worked to catch her breath, her heart still hammering in her chest.
“Who?”
“The blonde! The evil blonde!”
“The ferry is about to dock in Bremerton. You need to proceed to the exit.”
“She was just here…”
Ed turned away from her, suddenly distracted by the approaching city lights outside. “Strange,” he said to himself. “Why aren’t we slowing down?” Then his usually expressionless face warped into terror. He dropped his clipboard and sprinted away from Val, toward the other side of the boat…toward the control room. Something happened there. Eleanor had done something, and Val had been too busy chasing her to investigate, even though she had known the control room door hanging ajar couldn’t be right.
I failed again, she thought as shock numbed her body. I had a chance to stop her, and I failed. Now people are going to die.
A terrible force jerked the entire ferry backward. Val pitched forward over a bench and landed hard on the other side, then slid along the linoleum until she slammed into the base of the next bench over. The loudest scraping noise she’d ever heard filled the ferry as everything around her shook violently. After about an eternity it stopped, and there was eerie silence.
Sucking air back into her lungs, Val pushed herself to her knees, then her feet. She stood in a daze for a moment, looking around the empty deck with sluggish eyes. All she could hear was the rasp of her own breathing. Was she dreaming again? Something warm ran down her face; she touched it and saw blood on her fingertips. She must have hit her head at some point, though she didn’t feel any pain.
What now? Do something. But I don’t know what to do. But I should do something. But I don’t know what to do…She walked onto the outer deck and stumbled to the railing, looking over the black waters and then to the lights of the shore, where a cacophony of screams and sirens began to rise.The ferry had rammed the dock.
“Val, look out!”
Was someone yelling at her? Still in a fog, she turned just in time to see Eleanor about thirty feet away, pointing a gun straight at her, as Stacey grabbed the woman from behind. Val heard the high-pitched pew of a bullet pushed through a silencer, and flinched at the clink of the bullet ricocheting off the metal railing a couple feet away. Shit, Stacey had followed Eleanor onto the boat after all, and she’d just saved Val’s life. And now Eleanor was about to kill her.
At once, the world snapped back into focus. Oh God, Stacey. Val sprinted toward them as Eleanor wheeled around and easily kicked Stacey away. Stacey stumbled backward and landed hard on her back, then threw up her arms as Eleanor trained the gun on her. A fraction of a second before she could pull the trigger, Val tackled her. The two women tumbled to the ground, the gun falling from Eleanor’s hand and sliding across the deck. In a murderous rage, Val punched Eleanor twice in the face, drawing blood from those evil red lips. On the third swing, Eleanor deflected Val’s fist and followed with a palm strike to her jaw and a knee to her ribs. So Eleanor knew how to fight, too. Great. While Val was distracted for half a second by the pain, Eleanor took the opportunity to flip Val onto her back and land a couple punches to her cheek, then shoved a forearm into Val’s neck and leaned in, choking her.
“You know what’s in Bremerton?” Eleanor hissed through clenched teeth as she pinned Val down. “The deaths of all these people. That’s what’s in Bremerton.”
Val reared up and slammed her forehead into Eleanor’s nose. Eleanor cried out and jerked backward, and Val shoved the woman off her.
They both jumped to their feet at the same time. With blood running down her face from cuts on her cheek and nose and a furious snarl on her face, Eleanor lunged for the gun where it teetered on the edge of the boat only a few feet away.
“Stacey, run!” Val yelled, a moment before Eleanor got her hands on the gun, and pointed it at Stacey.
“No!” Val threw herself into Eleanor before she could pull the trigger, and the women tumbled off the side of the ferry together.
The icy water hit Val like a sledgehammer. The shock of it froze her for seconds that felt like years. From all sides, death tried to seize her in a cold embrace, until her arms and legs fought free and struggled frantically for the surface. Her head popped out of the water, and she gasped for air amid a barrage of lights and sounds, and something that might have been Stacey’s screaming. She spotted a smear of color in the distance—the shore, too far away. Swim, she ordered herself. Swim there, and don’t stop.
She flailed her numb limbs until her body started moving toward the dock, toward life. Slowly the sirens became louder, the flashing lights brighter. Her energy waned as if she were sprinting a marathon, sucked out of her through the barely above freezing waters of Puget Sound.
Keep moving, goddammit. Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving—
Her arms and legs thrashed against something hard, and she realized it was rocks against the edge of the waterfront. She’d made it. With the last bit of strength she had left, she pulled herself out of the water and collapsed at the base of the pier. Then she felt herself lifted somehow, over the edge of the dock and onto pavement.
“We’ve got another one over here!” someone yelled.
Val opened her eyes to see two medics leaning over her. One wrapped her in a thermal blanket, and she was lifted again, then set down at the edge of an ambulance with warm air blasting out the back. Feeling slowly returned to her body, and she began to shake so hard, her teeth chattered.
The medic held up his index finger and moved it back and forth in front of her face. “Follow my finger if you can,” he said.
Val did as she was told.
“What day of the week is it?”
“S-S-Saturday.”
“Where are we?”
“B-Bremerton.”
“Good,” he said, apparently satisfied she was in her right mind. “What’s your name?”
“Jane.”
“Do you feel pain anywhere, Jane?”
Val shook her head.
“Good. Sit here and warm up. I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”
She nodded, and he ran off to join the chaos of injured people, emergency workers, and confused and panicking bystanders. Val sat at the edge of the ambulance until her shaking subsided and her mental and physical strength were replenished enough for her to consider her options. Reaching inside her coat, she wasn’t surprised to find her waterlogged cell phone dead. She’d need to call and check on Stacey, though it looked like Eleanor hadn’t been able to seriously hurt her friend before they fell overboard, thank God. At least she still had her cash and credit cards, soaking wet but functional. Eleanor was nowhere in sight, and Val wasn’t in a condition to search for her. And she couldn’t allow herself to be recognized at yet another disaster scene. What if Ed told the authorities what she’d said to him? They couldn’t pin anything on her, but she didn’t need the scrutiny.
Taking a deep breath, she dropped the blanket, walked inside the ferry terminal, and used a pay phone to call a cab.
“You one of the people in the ferry thing?” the cabbie asked in a thick Middle Eastern accent, looking at her through the rearview mirror.
“No.”
After a minute, he asked, “Need to go to the hospital?”
“No.”
Her whole body began to shake again, and she thought she might grind her teeth down to nubs.
First, Eleanor had committed an act of terrorism by blowing up the Thornton Building, almost certainly to kill Max. Then, she tried to burn down a church by somehow murdering an old man and making it look like a natural death, and the resulting fire an accident. Then she collapsed the toy store platform, knowing Val and her family would be there, on that day at that time…and then she crashed the ferry—
To lure me here.
She knew exactly when Val would be at the toy store, and she knew exactly when Val would be on the ferry. She knew exactly how to get away with murder. Holy shit, Eleanor was a seer, like Max and Val. She must be. How else could she always be one step ahead? But why was she targeting them? She couldn’t be an agent of Northwalk; those bastards wouldn’t risk the children’s lives. Maybe Mother had sicced her on Val’s family—but again, why?
Why was a question she could think about while standing over Eleanor’s dead body.
She should have brought a knife for close quarters combat. Now Eleanor would kill again, to get at Val, and it would be Val’s fault. Next time, she’d show no mercy. No mercy for anyone.