The Never Game

Instinctively grabbing for a handhold, he let go of the knife and saw it vanish in a graceful spiral on its way to the ocean floor. He kicked to the surface and muscled his way once more onto the forward deck.

Back to the window, loosened but not free.

Okay. Enough. Angrily Shaw gripped it with both hands, planted his feet on the exterior side wall of the cabin and pulled — arm muscles, leg muscles, back muscles.

The frame broke away.

Shaw and the window went over the side.

Oh, hell, he thought, grabbing a breath just before he hit.

Kicking to the surface again. The shivering was less intense now and he felt a wave of euphoria, hypothermia’s way of telling you that death can be fun.

Scrabbling back onto the foredeck, he dropped into the front portion of the cabin and slid to the bulkhead separating this part from the aft. The vessel was now down by the stern at a forty-five-degree angle. Below him, exhausted Elizabeth Chabelle had left her bunk bed perch in the half-flooded aft section of the cabin. She gripped the frame of the small window in the door. He saw wounds on her hands; she would have shattered the glass and reached through to find the knob.

Which had been removed.

She sobbed, “Why? Who did this?”

“You’ll be fine, Elizabeth.”

Running his hands around the perimeter of the interior door, Shaw felt the sharp points. It had been sealed from the other side with Sheetrock screws, just like at the factory where Sophie had been stashed.

“Do you have any tools?”

“No! I l-looked for f-fucking tools.” Stuttering in the cold.

Where was the hypothermia clock now? Probably ten minutes and counting down.

Another wave crashed into the boat. Chabelle muttered something Shaw couldn’t understand, her shivering was so bad. She repeated it: “Wh-who...?”

“He left things for you. Five things.”

“It’s so f-fucking c-cold.”

“What did he leave you?”

“A kite... th-there was a kite. A power bar. I ate it. A f-flashlight. Matches. They’re all wet. A p-p-pot. F-flowerpot. A f-fucking f-flowerpot.”

“Give it to me.”

“Give—?”

“The pot.”

She bent down, feeling under the surface, and a moment later handed him the brown-clay pot. He shattered it against the wall and, picking the sharpest shard, began digging at the wood around the hinges.

“Get back on the bunk,” Shaw told her. “Out of the water.”

“There’s n-no...”

“As best you can.”

She turned and climbed to the top of the bed. She managed to keep most of her body, from ample belly up, above the surface.

Shaw said, “Tell me about George.”

“Y-you know m-my boyfriend?”

“I saw a picture of you two. You ballroom dance.”

A faint laugh. “He’s t-terrible. But he t-tries. Okay with f-fox-trot. Do you...”

Shaw gave a laugh too. “I don’t dance, no.”

The wood was teak. Hard as stone. Still he kept at it. He said, “You get to Miami much, see your folks?”

“I... I...”

“I’ve got a place in Florida. Farther north. You ever get to the ’Glades?”

“One of those b-boats, with the airplane p-propellers. I’m going to d-die, aren’t I?”

“No you’re not.”

While the glass knife might have cut through plaster to free Sophie, the pottery shard was next to useless. “You like stone crabs?”

“Broke my t-tooth on a... on a shell one time.” She began sobbing. “I d-don’t know who you are. Thank you. Get out. Get out now. S-save yourself... It’s t-too late.”

Shaw looked into the dim portion of the cabin where she clung to the post of the bunk.

“P-please,” she said. “Save yourself.”

The ship settled further.

Level 2: The Dark Forest

Saturday, June 8, One Day Earlier

25

At 9 a.m. Colter Shaw was in one of the twenty-five million strip malls that dotted Silicon Valley, this one boasting a nail salon, a Hair Cuttery, a FedEx operation and a Salvadoran restaurant — the establishment he was now sitting in. It was a cheerful place, decorated with festive red-and-white paper flowers and rosettes and photos of mountains, presumably of the country back home. The restaurant also offered among the best Latin American coffee he’d ever had: Santa Maria from the “microregion” of Potrero Grande. He wanted to buy a pound or two. It wasn’t for sale by the bag.

He sipped the aromatic beverage and glanced across the street. On his drive to the mall he’d passed imposing mansions just minutes away, but here were tiny bungalows. One was in foreclosure — he thought of Frank Mulliner’s neighbor — and another for sale by owner. Two signs sat in the parking strips of houses. VOTE YES PROPOSITION 457. NO PROPERTY TAX HIKES!!! And a similar message with the addition of a skull and crossbones and the words SILICON VALLEY REAL ESTATE — YOU’RE KILLING US!!

Shaw turned back to the stack of documents he’d removed from the university the other day. Stolen, true, though on reflection he supposed an argument might be made that the burglary was justified.

After all, they had been written or assembled by his father, Ashton Shaw.

Two of whose rules he thought of now: