Page 57 of Anchor
I drain the glass of water and immediately make another. I chug that one as well and by that time, Rudy’s done outside and is scratching to come back in.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” I tell him as I close the door behind him.
When I look up, I catch a movement in the glass and I only have a few seconds to duck before the gun the man is holding discharges and a bullet shatters the glass. My leg screams in pain as I crouch down and glass rains down around me.
“Get up,” the man shouts.
“I’m about fucking sick of people pointing guns in my face,” I say as I get to my feet. I feel wetness on my thigh and my feet are probably sliced to hell, but I’m done.
The man flicks on the dining room light where the dishes from our dinner still sit and I nearly fall backward when I realize who the man is.
It’s the captain. The one no one’s been able to find since Jones threw him overboard that night. He sure doesn’t look dead.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, trying, and failing to keep my voice level.
“I’m here to finish what that idiot couldn’t.”
“Finish…” I trail off. “What are you talking about?”
“He never was good enough for my daughter,” he says.
“Daughter?” I repeat numbly. “Your daughter.”
“Shelia,” he says. “He never appreciated her, but man, I never thought he was stupid as well as useless.”
My brain, still hazy with sleep, takes a second to piece things together. When I do, my first thought is of Chloe, who’s still in the other room. If she isn’t awake by now, it’d be a miracle.
“You’re—”
“That’s right. Sheila’s father. Phillip Langford.”
“We saved you,” I say.
Phillip spits on the floor by my feet. “You ruined me. My daughter is dead because of you.”
I shake my head, but the images of Samuel Jones and his wife, both still, so goddamned still, surface in my brain, distracting me even as the gun twitches in Phillip’s hand.
“I never meant for anyone to get hurt,” I tell him. I start to back up into the backyard. I don’t even feel it as the shards of glass bite into the soft soles of my feet.
“I give a fuck for your intentions. Now shut the fuck up and get that bitch out here, too.”
I make it across the doorway and take the first step onto the back porch. He jerks the gun at me.
“Don’t take another step,” he says as he moves toward me, “or I’ll fucking shoot you right now.”
“I won’t let you hurt her,” I tell him.
He takes a step closer. “Too bad,” he says.
Then he jerks forward with a sound of surprise and I find Chloe behind him, with a bat she must have found in my closet, poised over him.
“Are you okay?” she asks breathlessly.
Chloe
“I don’t think we can see each other anymore,” I tell Gabe once the furor dies down.
He looks at me, too exhausted to react. “Why’s that?”