Chapter 13 - THE BOAT
Police and fire crews flooded the property.
Ethan did not wait for them.
He ran toward the guesthouse.
“Stay with Sophie!”
“She’s with the paramedics.”
“You’re injured.”
“So are you.”
Below, William’s speedboat cut across black water.
Vanessa had told police about the offshore accounts.
Graham, fading in and out of consciousness, gave them the marina location.
But William had a ten-minute head start.
Ethan grabbed the keys to the smaller house boat.
“You’re not coming.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You were imprisoned for eighteen months.”
“Which is why I’m not letting him disappear again.”
Wind slapped spray across the windshield.
William’s boat headed toward a larger yacht waiting offshore.
“He planned this,” Claire said.
“He plans everything.”
“Not Sophie.”
“No.”
“That’s why she scares him.”
A Coast Guard helicopter appeared in the distance.
Then gunfire cracked from the yacht.
“Is that him?”
“No.”
Ethan saw another man on deck.
The smaller boat’s windshield shattered.
Claire grabbed the rail.
“Ethan!”
“I see it.”
William’s speedboat reached the yacht.
The larger vessel accelerated.
Then Ethan’s phone rang.
“You’re going to kill yourself,” William said.
“You’d like that.”
“No.”
“You’re my son.”
“You lost the right to say that.”
“You think Claire is innocent?”
“Ask her why she waited three months before telling you about the missing money.”
“Don’t.”
William smiled through the phone.
“She was preparing to leave you.”
“It’s true.”
William said, “Everyone lies, Ethan.”
Then Claire grabbed the phone.
“Yes. I planned to leave.”
She spoke into the phone.
“But I didn’t sell my daughter. I didn’t fake my death. And I didn’t build my life on bodies.”
She threw the phone into the ocean.
William’s yacht changed direction sharply.
“What is he doing?”
“He’s not escaping.”
The yacht raced toward an old private pier beneath the Cole family estate.
May you like
A place Ethan had not visited since childhood.
“He’s going back for something.”
