Chapter 5 - BLOOD AND WATER
Z
I ducked instinctively, throwing my weight to the right.
The heavy iron crowbar slammed into the rotten wooden siding of the bait shop with a sickening CRACK, splintering the old cedar boards and showering wood fragments across my face.
Julian’s momentum carried him forward, his shoulder slamming into the wall. Before he could recover, I drove my knee upward into his groin with all the force I had left.
He let out a choked gasp, bending double. I didn't waste a second. I grabbed the heavy iron padlock dangling from the broken door latch, twisted it violently, and hurled the iron shackle directly into the side of his face.
The lock struck his cheekbone with a metallic thud. Blood erupted from the cut, blinding his left eye. He stumbled backward on the slick, wet planks of the pier, howling in pain and rage.
I threw my shoulder against the weakened wooden door of the bait shop. The rotted frame gave way with a loud groan, and I tumbled inside into the pitch-black darkness, slamming the broken door shut behind me and sliding a heavy wooden beam across the interior brackets.
Inside, the air smelled of salt, old engine oil, and damp rot. Rain pounded thunderously against the tin roof above.
"Evelyn!" Julian screamed from outside, slamming the crowbar against the door. The wood splintered, light leaking through the cracks. "Open the damn door!"
I backed away into the shadows, my heart hammering against my ribs like a jackhammer. My hands were bloody, my feet raw and bleeding from the gravel, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins drowned out the pain.
I was inside my father's shop. I knew every square inch of this place. As a child, I had spent hundreds of summer hours here while he repaired fishing nets and serviced boat engines.
I reached out into the dark, feeling along the wall until my fingers touched the cold metal of my father’s old workbench. My hands scrambled across the surface, past rusted screwdrivers, empty oil cans, and tangled fishing line.
Something. Give me something.
Outside, the crowbar slammed into the door again. A large plank of wood shattered, falling inward. Julian’s arm reached through the opening, feeling for the wooden beam locking the door.
My hand closed around the cool, heavy grip of an old flare gun—a heavy marine signal pistol my father kept on his commercial boat.
I pulled the breech open by feel. Empty.
"Damn it," I whispered, tears of frustration hot against my eyes.
I searched the shelf beneath the workbench. My fingers hit a dust-covered plastic box. I flipped the latches open and felt inside. Three thick, cylindrical plastic cartridges—12-gauge aerial flares.
Outside, Julian found the beam. He lifted it out of the brackets and kicked the door wide open.
The silhouette of the murderer stood framed in the doorway against the pale gray light of the storm, blood streaming down his face, his eyes wild and insane.
"End of the line, Eve," he growled, stepping into the shop, swinging the crowbar side to side.
I jammed a flare into the chamber of the pistol, snapped the barrel shut with a sharp CLACK, and brought the heavy orange frame up with both hands.
Julian stopped dead in his tracks.
For a second, the sight of the flare gun pointed directly at his chest made him hesitate. Then, a dark, mocking laugh bubbled out of his chest.
"A flare gun?" he scoffed, taking a slow step forward. "You think that scares me, Evelyn? You don't have the guts to pull that trigger."
"Try me, Victor," I said, my voice ice cold, steady as granite.
"If you fire that in here, this whole rotted wooden shack will go up in flames," he warned, his voice dropping into a low, predatory hiss. "We both burn."
"Then we burn," I said.
He lunged.
I pulled the trigger.
A deafening BANG echoed through the enclosed space as a blinding blast of white-hot magnesium erupted from the barrel.
The flare struck Julian square in the center of his chest. The kinetic force knocked him off his feet, sending him flying backward through the open doorway and out onto the wet pier. The magnesium charge ignited instantly upon impact with his heavy leather jacket, bursting into a roaring, blinding white flame that burned at two thousand degrees.
Julian screamed—a high, agonized shriek that cut through the thunder of the storm. He rolled frantically on the wet planks of the pier, trying to extinguish the blinding white fire, but the chemical charge burned relentlessly, searing through leather and fabric.
In his panic, thrashing wildly near the edge of the pier, his foot slipped on the wet, moss-covered wood.
He lost his footing completely.
With a final, desperate cry, Victor Hale tumbled off the side of the pier, plunging twenty feet down into the dark, violent ocean below.
I stumbled out of the bait shop onto the pier, clutching the smoking flare gun.
Below me, the black waves smashed violently against the sharp, jagged rocks. For a fraction of a second, I saw a burst of bright white magnesium light burning beneath the surface of the dark water, illuminating the swirling foam.
Then, the ocean swallowed the light whole.
The water churned black and empty.
I stood there in the pouring rain, chest heaving, hair plastered to my face, staring down into the abyss where my husband had disappeared.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Red and blue lights flashed through the pine trees along the cliff road as three police cruisers and Detective Reed’s unmarked SUV came tearing down the dirt path, tires screeching to a halt near my abandoned car.
Tactical officers flooded out, weapons raised, flashlight beams cutting through the dark rain.
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"Evelyn!" Detective Reed’s voice roared over a bullhorn. "Evelyn! Where are you?!"
I lowered the flare gun to my side. I didn't yell back. I just turned and walked slowly down the pier toward the lights, my bare feet leaving bloody prints on the wet wood, finally stepping out of the shadows of a marriage that had almost killed me.
