Hour Game

"Holy shit. But there's a deputy with Sean."

"He may already be dead."

"I'm on my way."

"Me too."

Michelle put the cell phone to her ear as she raced back to the Battle mansion. She sprinted to her room, grabbed her truck keys and ran back outside. She was about to jump in her truck but then stopped and ran back inside. She hurtled to Savannah 's room and threw open the door. Savannah was on her bed. She jumped up when Michelle burst in. Michelle covered the speaker hole of her phone so nothing she said would reach Eddie Battle's ears.

"My God, what is it?" asked Savannah.

"I need your phone."

"What?"

"Give me your damn cell phone!"

Seconds later Michelle was climbing in her truck, her phone still pressed to her ear, straining to hear anything that might help her figure out where Sean was.

Wait a minute. She heard something. What was it?

"Boat!" Sean was asking where Eddie was taking them on the boat. She heard that clearly.

She punched in the numbers on the phone she'd taken from Savannah.

"Todd, they're on a boat on the lake."

"A boat! Where the hell did Eddie get a boat?"

"There's a bunch of them at the dock here. Including a really fast one."

"Shit!"

"Todd, do you have a boat?" she asked frantically.

"No. I mean the Game and Inland Fisheries people have one, but I'm not sure where it is right now."

"Well, that's just great!" Michelle thought quickly. Idiot. Of course.

"How fast can you get here?"

"What, uh, ten minutes," answered Williams.

"Make it five and meet me at the Battles' dock. It's a hike, but there's a golf cart you can take. The path is lighted, and there are signs pointing the way."

"But what about you?"

"What about me what!" she cried out.

"Don't you need the cart?"

"It'll just slow me down. Now listen really carefully, on your way here you need to get on the horn to the Game people, find that boat and get some armed men out onto the water. Make sure you lock down all roads that have lake access. And call the FBI and the state police and get a chopper up here with a big searchlight pronto. Tell them to roll out SWAT or Hostage Rescue. We're going to need some snipers."

"That'll all take time, Michelle."

"Which we have none of, so just do it!"

"It's a big lake. Over five hundred miles of shoreline. Lots of places to hide."

"Thanks for the pep talk. Just get your ass here."

She clicked off, jumped out of her truck, ran around behind the house and raced at the top of her speed down to the dock along the lighted path. She kept listening on her phone for helpful sounds, but all she could hear was a roar. If they were in the boat, the engines would drown everything else out.

She reached the dock, hit a switch, and the entire area blazed with light. At that instant an enormous streak of horizontal lightning shot across the sky followed by a snap of thunder so loud she put her hands to her ears.

Her gaze immediately caught the empty slip. "Shit, he's in the FasTech."

She got back on the phone. "Todd, he's in a Formula FasTech. A thirty-five-footer, white with a red-"

"I know that make of boat. You got any idea of the engines that thing's got?"

"Yeah, twin Mercs, five hundred horses each with kick-ass Bravo screws. If you're not here in three minutes, I leave without you." She clicked off.

"Okay, what do we got?" she asked herself as she ran from slip to slip. Sea-Doos were nimble and fast but they had no running lights, and she couldn't exactly see big Todd being able to either hang on to her while she drove or else maneuver one by himself. Plus, after the lopsided road duel with Roger Canney, if it came down to a battle of the boats, she wanted a little more beef on her side.

She stopped at the big Sea Ray performance cruiser berthed in one slip. It clearly couldn't match the FasTech in speed, but it was a big boat with big engines-that's all she needed. She shot the lock off the storage shed, went in, found the keys for the Sea Ray and the remote for the lift the Sea Ray was on and got the boat ready.

Todd Williams came flying up in the golf cart minutes later. He grabbed a life jacket and climbed on board.

"I got hold of everybody. The Game folks are putting their boat in at Haley Point Bridge, that's fifteen miles upriver. Both the FBI and the state police are sending choppers and snipers just as fast as they can. I got roadblocks setting up at all lake access roads."

"Good. Now take this and listen carefully. Sean may give us some clues as to where they are." Williams took the phone and held it to his ear.

Michelle hit reverse throttle, and they sped backward out of the slip so fast Williams fell against the gunwale and almost pitched over the side.

Righting himself, he said, "Shit, Michelle, do you know how to drive this thing? It's not a damn rowboat."

"I'm a fast learner. Sylvia's house-tell me approximately how far it is from here and the compass heading."