She’d turned off the studio lights. After the wine she had a lingering headache, more from stress than from drinking. The light hurt her eyes and made it more difficult to see anything outside. At full dark she relied on the glow from the heater and the red warning strobe atop the studio for illumination.
When she tired of walking in circles and trying to see through the fulminating storm, she slumped in the rocking chair with her feet tucked under her. She was past sulking, brooding, and prayer. It was time to get tough with herself. You have a little problem, Mary C. ? Solve it.
That was when the pulse of the strobe overhead gave her an idea of how to begin.
On the way down from Bangor in the three-passenger Eurocopter that had become surplus when Manuel Noriega fell out of favor with the CIA, Peter had plenty of time to reflect on the reasons why he’d never taken up flying as a hobby.
It was a strange night, clearing up in places on the coast but still with force eight winds. The sea from twelve hundred feet was visible to the horizon; beneath them it was a scumble of whitecaps going every which way. The sky overhead was tarnished silver in the light from the moon. Lola, dealing with the complexities of flying through the gauntlet of a gale that had the chopper rattling and vibrating, looked unperturbed, confident of her skills, although she was having a hard chew on the wad of grape-flavored gum in her right cheek.
“Should’ve calmed down some by now,” she groused. “That’s why we waited.”
Silkie had become sick to her stomach two minutes after they lifted off at twelve-thirty in the morning, and she’d stayed sick and moaning all the way. Peter, whose father and uncles had always owned boats, was a competent sailor himself and used to rough weather, although this was something special even for him. The knife wounds Taja had inflicted were throbbing; at each jolt they took he hoped the stitches would hold.
Lola and Peter wore headphones. Silkie had taken hers off to get a better grip on her head with both hands.
“Where are we now?” Peter asked Lola.
“Over Blue Hill Bay. See that light down to our left?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his teeth clicking together.
“That’s Bass Harbor head. Uh-oh. That’s a Coast Guard cutter down there, steaming southwest.
Somebody’s got trouble. Take a dip in those waters tonight, you’ve got about twelve minutes. Okay, southwest is where we’re heading now; right two-four-zero and closer to the deck. It’s gonna get rougher, kids.”
Peter checked the action of the old Colt Pocket Nine he’d borrowed from his Uncle Charlie in Brookline before heading up to Maine. Then he looked at islands appearing below. A lot of islands, some just specks on the IR.
“How are you going to find—”
“I know Kincairn by its light. Problem is, I don’t think anyone’s tried to land a helicopter there. Not a level spot on the island. Wind shear around a rock pile like Kincairn, conditions are just about perfect for an SOL funeral.”
“SOL?” Silkie said. She’d put her headphones back on.
“Shit outa luck,” Lola said, and laughed uproariously.
From a window of his study John Ransome observed through binoculars the lights in the studio flashing. A familiar sequence. Morse code distress signal. Mary Catherine’s ingenuity made him smile. Of course he wouldn’t have expected less of her. She was the last and the best of the Ransome women.
When he looked at the base of the Kincairn light, then down the road to the town, he saw one of the two Land Rovers he kept on the island coming up from the cove. When it stopped near the lighthouse, he wasn’t surprised to see Taja get out.
Mary Catherine’s face appeared behind salt-bleared glass, then vanished quickly, as if she’d seen Taja.
When the Woman in Black started toward the lighthouse, she walked slowly and stiffly, head lowered against the blasts of wind. She held her right side as if she’d been thrown around and injured while bringing the boat in through rough seas. Watching her, Ransome felt neither pity not regret. She was just a blight on his soul, as he had tried to explain to Mary Catherine. The time had come to remove it.
He put the binoculars down on his desk and unlocked a drawer. He kept an S&W police model .38
there. Hadn’t fired the revolver in years but the bore was clean When he checked it.
Afterward a couple of phone calls and everything would be taken care of for him. As it always was. No messy publicity.
He felt deep empathy for Mary Catherine. It was unfortunate she had to be a part of the cleansing. But he would take care of her afterward, as he had all of the Ransome women. He had never used his genius as an excuse for poor behavior. When her own god failed her—as He would tonight—John Ransome would provide.
He was putting on his coat when he heard, above the wind, a helicopter fly low over the house.
“Peter, it’s Taja!” Silkie yelled.
He saw the Woman in Black, looking up at the helicopter a hundred yards away. She had opened the door at the base of the lighthouse.
The studio lights were blinking again. Then Echo rushed to the windows, frantically signaling the helicopter.
“Who is that?” Silkie said.
“It’s Echo,” Peter said happily. Then, as Taja entered the lighthouse his momentary elation vanished.
“Put us down!” he said to Lola.
“Not here! Maybe in the cove, on the dock!”
“How far’s that?”
“Three miles south., I think.”
“No! Can you drop me off here? Next to the lighthouse?”
“What are you doing?” Silkie asked anxiously.
“I can’t maintain a hover more than three-four seconds,” Lola advised him. “And not closer than ten feet off the ground!”
“Close enough!” Peter said. “Silkie! Go back with Lola. There’s an APB out on Taja. Call the state cops, tell them she’s on Kincairn!”
He opened the door on his side, looked at the rocks below in the undercarriage floodlight. The danger of it chilled him more than the wind in his face. If he landed wrong, a ten-foot jump onto frozen stony ground was going to feel like fifty.
In John Ransome’s studio, Echo saw Taja get off the small elevator outside. They looked at each other for a few moments until Echo turned to the windows, seeing the helicopter fly away.
When she turned again Taja had unlocked the glass door and walked inside.
With the door open Echo’s only thought was to get the hell out of there. But she couldn’t get past Taja, who was quick and strong. An image of the PR boy in the subway repeated in Echo’s mind as she was caught by one arm and pushed back. All the way to the easel that still held Ransome’s beginning nude study of her. The portrait seemed to distract Taja as Echo struggled in her grip, swearing, swinging a wild left hand at the Woman in Black.
Taja’s free hand came away from her side. The glove was sticky with blood. She groped behind her on the worktable. Her fingers closed on the handle of the knife that Ransome honed daily before trimming his brushes.
And Echo screamed.
Peter was halfway up the circular iron stairs, hobbling on a sprained ankle, when he heard the scream.
Knew what it meant. But he was too slow and far from Echo to do her any good.
Taja struck once at Echo, slashing her across the heel of the hand Echo flung up to protect her face.
Then, instead of a lethal follow-up, Taja took the time to drive the knife into the canvas on the easel, ripping it in a gesture of fury.
Taja’s body was momentarily at an angle to Echo, and vulnerable. Echo braced herself against the worktable and drove a knee high to the rib cage where Silkie had shot her in the Cambridge apartment.
Taja went down with a hoarse scream, dropped the knife. She was groping for it when Peter barreled into the studio and lunged at her.
“No, goddamn it, no!”
He grabbed her knife hand as she tried to come up off the floor at him. His free hand went to Taja’s face, street-fighter style. He missed her eyes, tried to get a grip as she jerked her head aside.
Part of her flesh seemed to come loose in his hand. But it was only latex.
The face beneath her second skin was pocked with random, circular scars, as if from a dozen cigarette burns.
They were both hurt but Peter couldn’t hold her. He knew the knife was coming. Then Echo got an armlock on Taja’s neck and pulled her back; Peter stepped in with a short hook to Taja’s jaw that dropped her in-stantly. He wrenched the knife away and pulled her back onto her feet. She wasn’t unconscious but her eyes were crossing, no fight left in her.