Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

disordered of them all. He had some serious questions for Jared, the prime one being what in the hell was he doing showing up at Annie’s house in the middle of the night. One of the firemen had told him the truck had passed a man running full-speed towards the house a couple of miles out from the blaze. The description fit Jared, so he was likely in the clear, not that Clarke had ever had any doubts about that. But there were questions that still remained unanswered. What had raised him out of bed and sent him flying down the road to Annie’s at that unearthly hour? Had he received a phone call, some kind of threat or warning? If so, why hadn’t he taken a taxi? Clarke hadn’t questioned Jared at the hospital, the call had come in about Joseph’s body being discovered before he’d had the chance, and he’d had to head back to the scene. What a horrible bloody night. He’d been fond of the old man and somebody was going to pay dearly for this.

He gathered up Danny and they drove back to the hospital in the squad car, stopping to pick up coffee on the way. Clarke had told Jared to wait for him at the hospital so they could do their interview when he got back and he’d promised he would, but it didn’t really surprise him all that much when he arrived at the hospital and found Jared gone.

It did surprise Clarke, though, when he arrived at the vacant slip in the marina and found Arrow had disappeared as well. The night watchman said that she had left two hours earlier. Not surprisingly, Jared hadn’t bothered to tell anyone where he was going. Clarke dialled Jared’s cell phone and the call went straight to message. He then proceeded to the marina office and repeatedly hailed Arrow on channel sixteen in as civil a voice as he could manage. There was no reply to his broadcast, and Clarke slammed the handset back down on the cradle so hard he broke it.

“So send the fucking bill to the department, then,” he snarled to the cowed watchman, who hadn’t said a word.

Chapter 36

Jared brought Arrow under the Lions Gate Bridge, the engine screaming at 2800 RPM, a blue-tinged white fog rising in protest behind her. The revs were dangerously high but he was in a mad hurry. He knew Clarke would come looking for him sooner rather than later and be onto the harbour patrol the moment he saw the empty berth. He wouldn’t begin to feel safe until Arrow was a good three hours out from the city, and even then he didn’t put it past Clarke to send up a chopper or float plane. Arrow was an easy target to spot with her two sticks as Jared couldn’t afford the time to drop the mizzenmast. He figured it would probably be a waste of time in any case, there weren’t that many old wooden sailboats of her size out on the water and the authorities would certainly check any that they saw, whether they had one mast or two.

Time wasn’t something Jared had to spare, the fog that had shrouded the city earlier in the day was beginning to dissipate out on the water, and the tips of Arrow’s masts might break out into clear view at any moment. He’d given the barometer a knock on the way by and it dropped sharply, so there was a chance that some wind and weather was on the way. A southeaster would be welcome, push Arrow north with maybe some rain as well to help screen her from the search, which would soon be full on if it wasn’t already.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t waited for Clarke at the hospital and given him his statement. Maybe because he didn’t really believe his story himself. You woke up in the middle of the night with a bad feeling? Okay. Got dressed and started running like a madman towards Joseph and Annie’s house at three o’clock in the morning? Right. That’s it then? That’s your story? Okay then. Got it. Hold out your hands for the cuffs, please!

He’d always been close to Joseph in spite of the fact that the two of them had never carried on a normal conversation. Fifteen lousy words in English spoken by Joseph to him over the years and that was it. Fifteen! And yet they communicated in some unfathomable way. Always had, right from the beginning. And what if he’d told Clarke that what he thought had roused him in the middle of the night and sent him careening through the empty streets was a final contact from Joseph? A message of farewell or a summons to revenge?

He was an atheist, he didn’t believe in any of that crap. And yet he’d awakened and dressed and run as if programmed, subject to some deeply coded genetic impulse that had pulled him from his berth and blew his reason and common sense away and sent him sprinting out into the blackness like an automaton. During times like this, when your mind was seared with blame and you had a black hole in your heart that was expanding and consuming you, a little religion would have been a good thing. But he had nothing to cleave to. If he’d ever had an ounce of faith it had been obliterated by his grandfather, that pious monster who emphasized his daily sermons with weekly whippings.

He moved out from behind the anchored freighters into Georgia Strait and set the autopilot. There was no traffic nearby and he laid a course paralleling the coast a couple of miles off, and after a last glance around he went down below. He stripped and stood before the mast support where it came down from the cabin top and grounded on the steel plate that spread the load along the keel. The post was whipped in