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Pete made it to the boat with no problem. In the morning, he had Mickey call him again. Then he called back to the cell phone and left a message, saying “No problem. Don’t work too hard. I’ll talk to you later.” Then he went to pick up Jo.

On the way, he drove past the parking garage, looking carefully around the area. There was no police activity, no sign of Crime Scene tape.

He picked up Jo, and they drove off. Pete carefully explained that Mickey had some kind of emergency at the office and that she would drive her own car down later. Jo narrowed her eyes at him. Pete reassured Jo that he had all Mickey’s stuff with him and that she had promised she’d be there by five.

Jo had still seemed doubtful, so Pete handed over his cell phone and said, “Call her.”

He could feel Mickey’s cell phone vibrate in his pocket as Jo listened through the rings until the voice mail came on. She left a message saying, Don’t work too hard, and we’ll see you later at the boat.

It couldn’t have been any more fucking perfect if he’d written it himself. Pete smiled and stepped on the accelerator.

“What are you so happy about?” asked Jo.

Pete shrugged. “Just getting on the boat, that’s all.”

Jo looked like shit. She said her stomach was upset, had been since she got back from Europe. Pete inquired solicitously every half hour if she was okay. At one point, he pulled over and got her a drink at a 7-11. A few miles down the road, she told him to pull over. He barely got the car stopped before Jo opened the door and vomited onto the road.

Pete reached over and grabbed her hair, holding it back for her. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out some tissues. He was tempted to push her out of the car and drive off, but he didn’t. He needed her for the moment.

Still, a few miles up the road, when he stopped to buy some bottled water for her, Pete shoplifted a small can of rat poison.

Pete felt his spirits lift when he stepped aboard the Sunset Voyager. It wasn’t the boat he would have chosen for himself, but it was still a pretty luxurious vessel. Pete wished he could take it out on the ocean and find out what it could really do, but he knew he couldn’t. That was expressly forbidden in his contract.

Pete got all the luggage aboard. Then he told Jo to take a nap, that he was just going to walk around and look at things and get the grocery order. He came back an hour later with a sandwich he’d bought from the snack bar. He’d checked out the other boats. He really liked one called the Lenore. Pete wished he could own that one. He wished stupid George Hannaford would give up his friggin’ quest for justice, so that Pete could buy his own boat.

Pete willed the time to go faster and for the grocery man to get here. He wanted to be underway. He wanted to be nowhere near Fayetteville or Calabash when Mickey’s body was discovered. He also didn’t want Jo to have any means of contacting anyone.

As much as Pete didn’t want Jo around, he knew she was his ace in the hole…his star witness, the person who could testify that Pete hadn’t been nervous or jittery, that he’d been kind and sincere, that he believed that Mickey was still alive and coming to Calabash.

Yeah, Pete could do this. He had to.

And then along came Nick.

Pete couldn’t believe his luck. At first, he thought he’d just found a character witness, someone who could say that Pete had been planning on proposing to Mickey and couldn’t wait for her to get there. He’d also sown a few seeds of doubt about Jo’s stability just in case.

Pete had asked Nick out to dinner because he wanted to continue to show how relaxed he was, how he was looking forward to Mickey coming and how Mickey would faint when she met Nick.

And then in the middle of dinner, inspiration struck. He pulled out his cell phone and started talking. He excused himself politely from the table after establishing who he was ‘talking’ to. In the hallway of the restaurant, he pulled Mickey’s phone out of his other pocket and dialed his number. This was too perfect, he thought. If it ever came to it, he would plant Mickey’s cell phone in her apartment and then ‘find’ it. Check the records, he’d tell the police. That will prove my innocence.

Pete accompanied Nick back to the Lenore for a beer, even though his better judgment told him not to. He’d accomplished what he wanted, and he should have just let it go, but his desire to see the interior of the Lenore got the better of him. He was careful to keep the conversation about boats, and then he said goodbye to Nick and went back to the Sunset Voyager. It was all going well.

Except that the stupid bastard showed up in Charleston!

Pete nearly pissed himself when Nick called his name at the marina. Pete thought Nick was supposed to be taking it slowly. Pete figured by pushing hard the first day, he’d leave Nick behind.

But apparently, he’d been so goddamn fucking charming that the blond popstar couldn’t wait to see him again.

Pete blundered through an explanation of Mickey’s continuing absence and took another step toward making Jo look ‘fragile’. Later, on the Lenore, he took that a huge leap further by confiding in Nick about Jo’s illness. Pete wasn’t even sure why he was doing that, but once he got started, he couldn’t stop.

The next day, Pete got up and away early. He wanted to get ahead of Nick. He didn’t know how far he’d get that day, but he did know one thing. He wasn’t stopping in Beaufort. He’d dropped the name, thinking that, if Nick was longing for their company again, he would go there. Instead, Pete anchored in the channel, even though the guidebooks recommended against it.

The water was rough, and it upset Jo’s stomach again. It even made Pete feel a little queasy. He made her another cup of the herbal tea he’d been plying her with and dropped in a little more rat poison. He didn’t want to kill her yet; he just wanted to keep her sick.

Pete was glad he’d done it when they got to Savannah and Nick showed up again. Pete watched Nick standing there listening to Jo puke, and he could see that Nick believed she was doing it to herself.

Pete had had to take deep breaths and rein in his anger when he saw Nick standing on the dock. He’d wanted to run at the guy and beat him. Why did he keep turning up? Why didn’t he take his rich boy boat and go to Florida and mind his own fucking business?

The next day Pete got up even earlier. He started the engines and slipped the boat out into the channel without even turning on the running lights. He wanted to get away and find a place to hide so that Nick would go past him. It wasn’t doing Pete any good apparently to try and outrun him, so let the stupid prick pass him and be done with it. Pete could afford a day or two of just sitting. He would still get to Fort Lauderdale on time.

He moved the boat up the middle of the channel. He came to the Herb River, but it was still dark and he didn’t want to chance it. He passed Moon River. That one wasn’t deep enough. The sky was getting lighter as he made his way carefully through Hell Gate, avoiding the shoals. Pete checked the charts and the guidebook. Shit! He had to find a place to hide.

He came up on Bear Island. He swung around it to the left. He checked the chart again. Redbird Creek. Yeah, that’s what he’d do. He’d turn into it. The guidebook said that it had lots of nature and wildlife, and he’d pull in there. He could tell Jo that they were taking a nature break and bore the shit out of her until she went below for a nap. Then they would meander a few more miles and stop at the nearest marina. That would give Nick plenty of time to get by them.

And then the bastard pulled into the creek right behind them.

Pete was so angry he wanted to pull out his gun and shoot Nick, just blast him right between the eyes. It was a good thing the gun was locked in the cupboard below, thought Pete, taking deep breaths and trying to regain control as he smiled and waved at Nick.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The funny thing was, thought Pete, that Nick seemed to be the nervous one. Something was making him uncomfortable. For some reason, Pete thought it was Jo. Pete rattled on about the birds, and everything seemed to go fine. Pete had named a marina way far down the waterway and even conned Nick into phoning it for a reservation. Then they got on their separate boats and drove away.

Except Nick wouldn’t go around him. He wouldn’t pass. It didn’t matter how slowly Pete went, Nick stayed behind him. If Pete sped up a little, so did Nick. Finally, Pete had no choice but to do what he’d said he was going to. He headed for the Golden Isles Marina on St. Simon’s Island.

That’s when it all started going to shit. Jo had been on his case all day about Mickey, asking weird questions. She refused to eat or drink anything he prepared and made cryptic remarks about past lives coming back to haunt and shit like that.

Then she disappeared at the marina, and Pete knew his story was unraveling fast. If that stupid, fucking Carter had just done what he was supposed to and got the hell out of his life, Pete would be in the clear. Now he was caught in a myriad of lies.

Still, he had Mickey’s cell phone. Now he just had to get rid of Jo and Nick. Because Pete knew she was with him. The first time, Pete dropped by the boat to say Jo was missing, Nick was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t seen her. Pete could always tell whether someone was telling him the truth or lying to him. The second time, Nick was lying. He’d seen Jo. Pete was sure of it.

Pete was actually kind of surprised when Nick agreed to let him search the Lenore. He hadn’t found Jo, but he’d found some strands of her hair. Pete knew that Jo had never been below deck on the Lenore before that day, so it had to have been since dinner. Pete smiled and said ‘thanks’ and left the boat, but his mind and stomach were churning. Then his cell phone rang and it was Jo telling him that she was in a hotel and not coming back. Pete wanted to believe her, but he didn’t.

Pete paced up and down and tried to decide what to do. He wondered if Mickey’s body had been identified yet. He was sure it would have been found but since she hadn’t been reported missing, maybe she hadn’t been identified.

But when she was…

Pete had trapped himself in his own web of lies. Sure, Nick could attest to the fact that Mickey had called that first night, but he’d also have the other story to tell…about Jo’s illness.

No, Jo had to go. And so did Nick.

They were coming up on the Dead Zone in the waterway. Pete could do something there, somehow get them to pull their boat over, kill them both and dump their bodies. He’d have to destroy the Lenore, and that was a shame because it was such a beautiful boat but…no, it had to go.

Pete tiptoed over to the Lenore in the middle of the night. He climbed carefully aboard and shone his light into the cabin. He saw the beer bottle and the plastic water bottle. He grimaced in satisfaction. He’d been right. He looked in all the windows but saw no more evidence of Jo.

Pete went back to the Sunset Voyager and thought things over. This was perfect, he decided. This was even better. He didn’t have to worry about getting rid of Jo. She was gone…gone off with Nick. Pete would establish that and then kill them both.

Of course, it meant that he’d have lost his witness, but he still had the cell phone. If he needed it. Maybe he wouldn’t even need it. Maybe he could just disappear. Not go back to Fayetteville. Just disappear completely.

Pete told himself to stop…stop thinking…stop planning so far ahead. Let’s take this one day at a time. And let’s start with tomorrow. Get some sleep now, you’ll need it.

The next morning, Pete waited until he saw someone on the dock. He didn’t care who; he just needed a witness. The clerk came along, and Pete offered him fifty dollars if he would call him on his cell phone when the Lenore left the marina.

Then Pete took his boat out of the harbor and waited. When Nick passed him, Pete ignored the churning emotions inside him and waved. Nick waved back, but he looked very uncertain. Pete followed the Lenore, but then he lost sight of her. He cruised up and down for a while and checked a few inlets but couldn’t find her. He was about to break out into high speed and see if he could catch up with her when his cell phone rang.

The signal was weak, but Pete managed to make out that it was the clerk from the Golden Isles. Did Pete want to know where the Lenore was?

Yes, he surely did.