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

Clarke. You’ll remember I came by last week. My friend Merlynn Saunders gave me your private number.”

He waited for the hang-up but it didn’t come. So he pressed on. “The thing is, Mr. Ivery, I’m trying to locate James Albright and I understand you’ve leased the Blue Harp out to him. We think he’s cruising somewhere up north at the moment. Desolation Sound was mentioned. Merlynn Saunders and I are thinking of taking her boat up there on an unofficial basis for a look around, and I was hoping you might be able to give us an idea of where we could start looking.”

Clarke paused for a moment, trying to think how to frame the next part. Diplomacy was not one of his strong points. “We know of an individual whom some people might consider erratic who holds Albright personally responsible for an injury to a friend of his, and we understand he’s gone looking for him. We think the situation could be potentially dangerous.”

Clarke listened to Ivery’s response, shook his head in bewilderment, said, “Okay, I suppose I could ask her,” and ended the call.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said to Merlynn. “He and Rodgers want to come along.”

Chapter 45

Jared woke into darkness. His eyelids were glued shut and he was aware in those first moments of the echoing sound of a big diesel working hard and a faint disagreeable smell. He lay there motionless, fighting off the nausea, and wondered if he was concussed. He remembered the men on the Zodiac signalling him and then the two of them coming aboard Arrow. After that, everything was a blank.

His head was pounding and he reached up and felt the dried blood congealed in his hair, then licked his fingertips and gently rubbed them over his eyelids, prising them apart, but it was still black and he still could see nothing. He wondered if his vision had been affected. He rapped his knuckles softly on the floor and realized it was metal. It suddenly seemed to slope and tilt and nausea overcame him and he shut his eyes against the dizziness. The floor abruptly dropped away from under him and then slammed back up and he bounced a little and put it all together.

Good news his vision was probably okay, bad news he was inside a pitch-black room on a big powerboat that was bucking hard into rough seas. The details came flooding back to him then, the big inflatable with the twin Yamahas and Albright’s men coming aboard Arrow . . . The Blue Harp took a hard list into a sharp turn and the diesel slackened off and the motion eased. A short time later he heard chain running out and the boat falling back and coming up tight on the anchor.

He waited silently in the darkness, trying not to think about Arrow and what must have happened to her. It was almost quiet now, the engine throttled right down, and just above that distant murmur Jared thought he heard a snuffling sob. He listened intently for several minutes, but it wasn’t repeated. He began crawling slowly along the floor with his arms extended out in front of him and came up against a wall. Rising to his feet he flattened his back against it and began to shuffle along in the direction he thought the sound had come from. His eyes were adapting to the darkness now and he could just make out a faint sliver of light coming through the outlines of a heavy steel door set flush into the wall ahead of him.

He felt for the handle and tried to turn it but it was locked. He ran his hands around the wall on both sides of the door searching for a light switch but couldn’t locate one. He continued on past the door, sliding his feet carefully along the floor in small, incremental steps, moving even slower now as the smell became stronger. The sharp odour of urine mixed with something faintly sweet and rotten.

His foot came up against something soft and he froze. He heard a thin whistling intake of breath, and then the sobbing sigh he thought he might have imagined earlier. Crouching down he stared into the dark, willing himself to see.

Something reached out and touched him and he jumped back, startled.

“Light.” A faint whisper. Jared reached down and felt the hand grasping a stub of candle and box of matches. He struck a match and lit the candle.

The man lying on the stained blanket was shattered, his face puffed and misshapen, one eye half closed, the cheekbones swelling blue lines. His nose was flattened and bent to one side above cut and swollen lips. He opened his mouth and took a sighing breath and Jared saw the jagged stumps of teeth that framed the gaps. He was wearing an old maroon coloured pair of Everlast boxing trunks, and above them his bare chest and belly were covered in welts and bruises. It would be a miracle if he didn’t have broken ribs.

“Water,” the man whispered, and Jared saw the water bottles lying alongside him. He picked one up and twisted the cap off and the man reached out for it but couldn’t grasp it. His knuckles were swollen and misshapen and his right arm was twisted at a crooked angle and surely sprained or broken. Jared held the bottle to the man’s lips and he lifted his head and took a small sip and then fell back again.

“Pissed myself,” the man mumbled. “Can’t get up.” Jared looked down and saw the broken thigh bone jutting through the skin above the knee and the suppurating wound that surrounded it. Up close the smell from it was overpowering. The pain would be intolerable.

“Pills,” the man rambled. “Finished. The leg. Two days.” The man’s voice ran down and he closed his eyes and drifted off. Jared didn’t know who the man was or what he might have done, but