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***
Cora could feel her pulse pounding. He’d shot the marshmallow. The dead-eyed man hadshotWarbucks.
The woman in the chair was now whimpering and crying. She hadn’t known what had happened but had certainly heard the gunshots and the explosions.
Cora, for one, was glad the explosive had gone off. She’d rigged it to the fuel tank of the small Coast Guard boat.
The thing had certainly done the trick. A column of ash was billowing over the prow, sweeping the deck, and choking the other soldiers scattered around the yacht. Sink or swim.
They wouldn’t have time to take shots at her while drowning.
That had been the whole goal, after all.
But now...
She shivered, back pressed to the console. She thought she heard movement on the other side of the metal container.
“Hey!” she called out. “Hey, can you hear me?”
No reply. Some small motion. She hurried again, moving like a slide rule down the console, away from the sound of motion.
She tensed, hand gripping the weapons she’d stolen. Then, hesitating only a second, she aimedatthe metal divider and fired twice. A second later, the killer emerged, rising like a wraith and aiming towards her. Cora dove to the side, behind the console once more.
Shouting now.
He’d admitted to killing Janice. This was her target. And now, as she struggled to her feet, searching for an opening, she realized her mistake.
The ship was tilting. The floor now slanted. The yacht was sinking, and she hadn’t accounted for this. Now, she stumbled, cursing as she slammed into the glass in the front of the bridge.
For a brief second, she stared down, eyes wide as the water rolled over the deck. She realized the C4 must have detonated some fuel storageinsidethe boat to allow for such a rapid descent. The smoke was pouring over the front of the vessel now. Dark water reached up, threatening to swallow the boat whole and gulp it into the endless depths.
Cora rested against the glass—the whimpering woman in the hood lay sideways against the glass as well.
The killer was still on the console. But now, instead of across from her, he wasabove her.As the ship tilted, it elevated his slot behind the console.
And as she lay on her back, shoulders against the window now, she realized she had no clear line of sight. Her fingers trembled horribly as she tried to focus on the hiding spot above her rather than the ocean below or the smoke spreading out around the glass, enveloping her.
It felt as if she was quite literally descending into hell.
“What happened to your hand?” she shouted, if only to rile him up.
A sneer. Two more gunshots. The glass behind her shattered and she rolled to the side. Now, smoke billowed into the compartment. Cora tensed.
“Please,” the woman in the hood was mewling. “H…help!”
The killer seemed to realize how to jar Cora from her hiding spot. Instead of aiming at her, she spotted his gun snaking out from around the console, pointing towards the woman on the ground, pressed against the window. Smoke poured through shattered glass. The ocean roared beneath them, cresting and swallowing the yacht.
And the killer squeezed off a shot just as Cora grabbed the woman’s leg and yanked.
Another window shattered, but the bullet missed. “Hey! Smart guy!” Cora screamed.
The killer didn’t emerge. He kept low and quiet. She was busy scrambling for the belt of one of the three guards she’d shot. A grenade. She held it tight. Then she pulled the pine and tossed the thing out the window to avoid making a sound that might give away her intention. Then, instead of tossing the grenade, she placed it on the ground. The space was small enough that the incendiary present would blow them both away.
But instead of waiting, she held tight to the woman’s leg, aimed at the glass beneath her and shouted, “See ya!”
And then she pulled her trigger twice.
The glass frame shattered, and Cora and the woman tumbled in a free fall, plummeting towards the ocean. The grenade, meanwhile, lodged against the metal console, suddenly ignited.
