“What is it?” Payne gasped as he sat up.
Vanessa untied and used a paddle that was already there to push them clear of the Dolores’s stern. “Those things. They’re everywhere.”
Payne lowered the outboard into the water and ran out the starter cord to turn the motor. But before he could let the cord back in for a real starting tug, another mec leaped from the floor, grabbed ahold of the cord with all four of its limbs, and wedged itself tight in the outlet. Payne pried at it with his fingers but couldn’t budge it. “It’s stuck. I can’t move the cord.”
“Damn!” Vanessa looked around desperately. The pall of smoke was descending around them from above, while confusion spread along the dock. A fire truck was stopped behind the van at the top of the access road, lights flashing, blaring to get past. Two more fire trucks appeared behind the parked cars, hoists, and slipways in an adjoining yard, while figures ran ahead to open a gate connecting through to the quay behind the Shoals building. A fire tender launch was also moving out farther along the shore of the lake.
On the far side of the Dolores from the dock was a floating pier connected to the quay by a wooden bridge. Beneath the bridge, a narrow channel led through to the next basin, which fronted the adjacent yard that the fire trucks were moving through. Vanessa pointed.
“Never mind the motor. Just get us through there. There’ll be a way out somewhere in all that.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. One thing at a time, Martin.”
With Payne paddling canoe fashion, they moved away from the stern through the smoke, under the bridge. Looking back, it seemed that the whole aft section of the Dolores was ablaze. Lines had been thrown from the quay to stop it drifting farther. More figures were jumping to join those in the water. As the inflatable came out behind the boats moored at the next dock, the sounds of approaching police sirens added to the whooping of fire trucks and wailing of the dock siren. As far as they could tell, their getaway had not been detected. Other small craft were putting out here and in the basin they had left, and nobody seemed to have singled them out.
Payne brought the craft to a wooden jetty leading to steps going up, and steadied it while Vanessa got out. He threw a turn of line around one of the mooring stanchions and followed her up. At the top, Vanessa stopped dead, too stunned to say anything for several seconds.
Eric had arrived. Not fifty yards away, the maroon Jaguar was screeching to a stop among the other parked vehicles, trailing a procession of police cruisers flashing red and blue lights and making noise like a sabbath of banshees. Eric jumped out, and without waiting or even turning his head, strode through the gate that had been opened for the fire trucks, toward the commotion taking place at the back of the Shoals building, around the burning vessel. The police cars halted in disarray, doors flying open, uniformed figures leaping out and chasing after him.
“My God! What’s happening?” Payne breathed. “How did he get here?”
Vanessa didn’t answer as she took in the situation, her mind racing feverishly. Everyone was focusing on the burning boat and the crowd on the quayside in front of it. The Jaguar was in the next yard, outside that periphery of attention. She felt in her coat pocket. Her keys were there. She showed them to Payne and indicated the Jaguar with her eyes. He followed her glance, understood, returned a nod.
They walked across quickly to the car. Vanessa climbed into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and started the motor. Payne dropped down in the passenger seat moments later, dripping and squelching. She backed up and turned, conscious of the risk that somebody left in one of the police cars might notice and intervene—but there was no other choice.
Nobody noticed, however. Vanessa kept her speed down as they left the dock area, then accelerated along Westlake not minding the direction, anything to get away from the general area.