Murder on the Lake, page 16
"Should I have a weapon?" Andrew asked.
"Can you use one?" Thorbjorn asked.
"It seems pretty self-explanatory," Andrew said, looking at the axe on Thorbjorn's belt.
"You'll be fine without one," Thorbjorn said, resting a hand on Andrew's shoulder. I could imagine what he was thinking, weapons in inexperienced hands swinging wildly in the narrow confines of a yacht meant for intimate parties, but he didn't let a bit of it show. Instead, he let Andrew climb up on the prow of the ship and reach for the ladder. He didn't offer him a boost, but he did keep his hands near in case Andrew should start to topple over.
But he didn't. He caught the bottom of the ladder on the first try and pulled himself up the side of the yacht.
"Your turn," Thorbjorn said to me. I nodded, putting my booted foot into his interlaced hands.
He lifted me up into the air like I weighed nothing, but my amazement at that was only a momentary flash before I realized I had made a mistake.
The ship behind me was falling apart. The moment my bottom foot had left the deck, I felt it start to happen. Even though the shields were still stationed all around the hull, I had taken the magic powering them with me. The instant I was no longer in contact with the ship, the waves started bashing it against the side of the yacht.
"Thorbjorn!" I shrieked into the wind. I could feel his hands on my ankle, and my throat tightened with fear. At any moment, the only thing keeping us both on the side of the yacht was going to be my grip on the rope ladder. And he was heavy.
We were never going to make it. I could feel my fingers slipping on the wet rope already.
But Thorbjorn didn't drag me down. He leapt off the deck of the Viking ship and jumped past me, grasping the same rung of the ladder as I hung from.
I looked back down at the ship and felt my heart break. The waves were bashing it against the side of the yacht over and over again, and the boards were starting to break like kindling. This was so much worse than watching Kara spear the side of the yacht.
It was more than a ship; it was a living, breathing work of art. And I had just killed it.
"No!" Thorbjorn yelled at me, as if he could sense my fingers letting go of the ladder before it even quite happened. He snaked an arm around me and held me fast against his side.
"I can save it if I go back," I said.
"We can build another," he said. "Let it go."
I squirmed, but it was pretty obvious that trying to break free from his hold was never going to happen. And the deck below us was already half underwater. Then the rope holding the ship against the side of the yacht snapped. The ship rolled back with the next wave, then a little further back with the wave after that.
The third wave caught it crossways, rolling it over on its side. By the fourth wave, it was gone.
I don't know how I got up that ladder. I suspect Thorbjorn carried me as much as I climbed. The rain in my eyes was too blinding to see what was happening. Then hands reached out to pull me over the railing and I sat down hard on the deck, mostly out of the wind.
It wasn't rain in my eyes. It was tears.
Thorbjorn landed more gracefully on the deck beside me, then crouched down to gather me up in his arms.
"I know," he said. "I know. The next one won't be the same. Not without Solvi."
"I'm being silly," I said, wiping at my eyes. "It's just, it deserved a better end."
"It brought us here," he said. Then added with a twinkle in his eye, "you can say it died in battle. There's no better end than that."
That got a laugh out of me. Not a big one, but still it eased some of the tightness around my heart.
We both turned at the sound of boots running across the deck to where we stood by the rail.
"There you are," Andrew said, his eyes moving between us. They didn't have to move far; we were standing very close. I took half a step back away from Thorbjorn and swiped the last of the tears from my face. "You better come quick," Andrew said.
"What is it?" Thorbjorn asked, his hand on the handle of his axe.
"We found Adam," Andrew said. "He isn't at the helm like he ought to be. He's below. And the only cool head down there with him is Loke."
That was not good.
"Lead the way," Thorbjorn said grimly.
Chapter 21
It wasn't easy moving around on that yacht. The Viking ship had been hard enough, but it had been taking the waves head-on and magically propelling through them. Not only was there no magic aiding us now, there wasn't even anyone at the wheel. Now we were at the mercy of every errant wave, bucking and rolling this way and that.
At least it wasn't far to the door that led below decks, and then we were out of the lashing cold rain. I pushed back my sou'wester to drain the water from its rolled-up brim and get it out of my eyes, but then nearly fell through an open doorway to my left as the yacht climbed a wave then slid down the back of it sideways.
"Can you captain this vessel?" Thorbjorn asked Andrew. They had both lunged to catch me before I fell, and for a moment they each had a hold of one of my arms. Then I was standing between them, but Thorbjorn behind me had no trouble keeping eye contact with Andrew in front of me. I wasn't exactly short, I was on the tall side of average in height, but in that moment it was like I wasn't even there.
"I don't think so," Andrew said to Thorbjorn. "But I'll go up and look. At the very least, I can put out a distress call."
"Do it," Thorbjorn said.
"Wait, Adam?" I said as Andrew started to run up the hallway. He looked back towards me but didn't quite meet my eyes. Well, he was in a hurry to keep us from all getting dumped in the lake if the yacht turned over. Which was clearly a good possibility.
"They're all in that room there," he said, pointing to his right as he ran to the end of the hall and up a set of stairs so steep it was nearly a ladder. Then he was gone, and Thorbjorn and I headed for the closed door he had pointed to.
We could hear voices, angry voices, and someone sobbing in terror. That one wasn't hard to guess, even before we pushed the door open to find a dark-haired young man cowering in a chair, Nilda and Kara both leaning over him with long knives drawn.
I hadn't gotten a good look at Adam in that photo in his room, just a general sense of a rich kid who dressed well but not flashy. He was dressed much the same now, his fashion sense apparently confined to knowing which labels were the "right" labels. And his dark hair was cut in that dual-purpose style where he could slick it back for an office look or let it flop over his forehead like a K-Pop star for parties.
But at the moment all of that was subtext, because his designer clothes were wrinkled and stained as if he had been wearing the same outfit for days. Maybe even since Gullveig had died. And that floppy hair was hanging limply over his bloodshot eyes.
He looked like he'd been having an awful time even before two Norse women had shown up to threaten him with knives.
"Stand down," Thorbjorn said to the two of them in his growliest voice.
"Oh, thank you," Adam said when Nilda and Kara stepped back. But they didn't put the knives away, and the look of grateful relief that had washed over his face immediately shifted back to trepidation. He looked up at Thorbjorn expectantly but then his brows drew together in confusion when Thorbjorn merely shut the door behind us then stood in front of it with arms crossed like the bouncer outside of a VIP room.
I looked around the cabin. It was cozy like a family space, with couches built into the curve of the hull all along one wall, an entertainment center on the wall opposite. There was a wet bar on my left and bookshelves on my right. Adam had taken a seat at a pull-down desk, all the cubbies with little panels to keep the contents safe in rough weather. Rather like what we were in now. There was a family portrait over the desk, as well as a large drawing of Lake Superior. Not a proper chart, more art than map.
All that makes the space sound bigger than it was. I'm sure it was great for a family of four, particularly if half that family were kids. But with ten of us piled up on those couches and leaning against every shelf and table, it was a bit claustrophobic.
So I had to squeeze past some shoulders and elbows when I stepped forward to stand right in front of where Adam cowered in the desk chair. Adam's eyes finally jumped from Thorbjorn to me. He didn't seem to quite be able to focus on me. Then I smelled alcohol in the room and looked around to see a spilled bottle on the floor. Rum. It looked like most of the bottle was soaking the carpet, but there were other empty bottles tossed in one corner.
Great. It looked like I was going to be racing against time to get answers out of him before he passed out entirely. I hadn't anticipated that wrinkle.
"You're Adam Taylor?" I said.
"Who's asking?" he shot back. His tone was sufficiently aggressive, but the swallowing thing he did afterward spoke more of nerves. He was going for bluster to hide his fear, but he was failing.
"You already know who we are," Kara said darkly.
"No, I don't," he insisted. "You just said friends of Gullveig, but the only friend of hers I knew was Lisa. And Lisa is dead!"
"We should ask him about that too," Jessica hissed from where she was sitting pressed up against Michelle on the couch.
"No," Roarr said. He started to say more, but I shot him a furious glare and he sat back down, his eyes on the hands twisting together in his lap.
"Who are you people?" Adam asked and gulped again.
"You met Gullveig at Lisa's memorial service, correct?" I asked.
"Look, what you need to understand is-" he started to say, when Nilda leaned forward and pricked his thigh with the tip of her knife.
"Nilda!" I gasped.
"Sorry," she said in the least apologetic tone ever.
"Stick to yes or no," Kara said to Adam. "Answer her questions and only her questions. Is that clear?"
His eyes were on her knife, but the focus had gone all fixated and I was worried he was about to pass out right then and there. Then the yacht made another sickening roll, and it seemed more likely he would vomit first.
I had never actually seen anyone turn green before. I always thought that only happened in cartoons. But this was no time for sympathy.
"You met Gullveig at Lisa's memorial service, correct?" I said again.
"Yes! Yes!" he said from behind the hand pressed to his mouth. He swallowed, then shakily dropped his hand. "I had seen her around before that, at parties, but I never met her until that day. Is that answer enough for you?"
Thorbjorn made a growling sound that was almost subaudible, rumbling through the room like a stereo set to all bass, no treble.
"Then what happened?" I asked. "The two of you made a date?"
"No, not at first," he said. "She was playing it coy."
"Gullveig didn't play," Nilda said.
"Didn't she?" Adam asked, as if that didn't make any sense to him. Then he started to spiral, babbling nonsense. "Did she? Was she?"
I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get his attention focused back on me. "What happened at the service? She agreed to meet you later?"
"No, but she said some things," he mumbled. "I gathered that she had Lisa's cellphone. I don't know why, but she had it and it still worked, so I started texting her."
"She knew it was you?" I asked.
"Of course she did," he said. "I mean, she was coy. Or whatever." He glanced nervously at Nilda, then at Kara, who were both watching him through narrowed eyes, knives at the ready. "It took a few weeks to even get her to agree to meet."
"Where did she meet you?" I asked. "If she was in Runde and you were in Duluth. Did you pick her up here?"
"No, she was weird about that," he said. "She wouldn't go down there, I couldn't come up here, halfway between wouldn't do either. It was a lot of work." He started to grin despite himself.
"I bet," Loke said drily. Adam glanced his way as if they were going to share that knowing grin, but when his eyes met Loke's at their flintiest, he dropped both his gaze and the annoying little smirk.
"So what happened?" I asked. "We know you saw her again."
"Yeah, I did," he admitted, shooting defiant looks at me then Loke then Thorbjorn. But the defiance melted when he locked eyes with Nilda again.
"We know this yacht was offshore near Runde on the night she died," I said.
"How do you know that?" he asked, then rubbed at his forehead. "Look, I don't have to answer your questions. I shouldn't answer your questions. We get ashore and I'll call my dad's lawyers and then we can see about your questions."
"I think you might be misjudging the situation," Loke said.
"How?" Adam asked.
Loke held up a finger as if commanding us all to wait for something. Then two waves rocked the yacht at once, tossing us up then down again with the sickening lurch of a rollercoaster ride. "First of all, there's that."
"And then there're the knives, right?" Adam said with a bark of a laugh. "Do you really think you'll get ashore alive without my help? Can any of you steer this craft?"
"Can you?" I asked. "How much have you been drinking?"
"Not enough," he said, looking at the spilled rum with something like regret. Maybe he had spilled more than one of the other bottles. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I feared. But from the look of his pupils, he was over any legal limit for boating.
"I want him to admit what he did," Nilda said. "I want to hear him say it!"
"She swam out to me!" Adam said. "I thought it was all a joke, that I'd sail up to Runde and just sit around all day while she laughed herself crazy from the shore. But I did it anyway, and sure enough, just before sunset she swam right up to the side of the yacht and climbed over the rail."
"Do you have any idea how cold that water is?" I asked.
"She was wearing a wetsuit," he said. "Look in that cabinet. It's still there."
He pointed to a door behind Kara. She turned to open it, then showed us all what was inside. A wetsuit, face mask with snorkel, and flippers.
"Would this be warm enough?" I asked.
"Could be," Kara said as she lowered her head to sniff at the suit. "I just smell lake water, not Gullveig."
"She washed ashore with clothes on," Jessica pointed out.
"Oh, she had clothes on underneath it," Adam said. "She was like a lady James Bond. One minute she was dripping on my deck in that wetsuit, the next minute she'd unzipped out of all of that and her hair was perfect, and she was wearing jeans and a top. Blouse. Whatever. Then she opened this waterproof bag she had with her and took out a sweater and a pair of flats. It was like magic."
Michelle stifled a laugh that felt more nervous reaction than genuine humor, and I ignored it.
"It sounds like a magical date indeed," I said. "You had dinner ready on the deck, I assume? Under some heaters? Or maybe in the galley down here. It's pretty snug here."
"I did have dinner waiting down here," he said. "We had roast chicken and new potatoes in a white wine sauce."
"You cook?" I asked.
"No, I brought it from a place down in Duluth," he said.
"Then what?" Nilda asked.
"Then I put it in the oven on the Keep Warm setting until I got here," he said.
"Not what she meant," I said.
"Oh. Well, then we went back up on the deck to drink champagne and watch the sunset."
"And then what?" Nilda asked again.
Adam risked shooting her an annoyed glance. "Then nothing. She left."
"Without her wetsuit?" I said, and Kara thrust the suit towards him in case he had forgotten it.
"She left in a hurry," he said. "Look, see this here?" He turned his face, sweeping his hair back with one hand and leaning a little further into the light. Then I saw that his left cheek was a little swollen and discolored, a bruise only partly healed.
"She did that?" Nilda asked.
"She punched me and jumped overboard," he said, throwing up his hands. "She chose to do that. It's not my fault."
"You didn't throw out a life preserver or anything?" I asked.
"Why? She made a beeline for the shore, and she swam like an Olympic champion. By the time I could get to a life preserver, she'd be on shore. What would be the point?" he asked.
"You watched her all the way to shore?" I asked. "You saw her get out of the water? You knew she was okay before you left?"
"Well, no," he said, rubbing at his cheek and flinching slightly. "She had just slugged me. I was angry. I could see she was fine, but I wasn't sticking around. I went home."
"But today you got back in this yacht and tried to run away," I said. "If you thought she was safe, why did you do that?"
"I read the news," he said.
"The news didn't run her picture, or even her name," I said.
"Well, who else could it have been?" he asked.
I heard the sound of distant shouting and turned to give Thorbjorn a questioning look.
"Andrew," he said. "We need this fellow manning the wheel, soonish."
"I'll get us ashore," Adam said. He started to push up from the chair, but froze when both Nilda and Kara leaned in on him. "I told you what happened! The last time I saw her, she was still alive. Whatever happened after that has nothing to do with me! Now, I'm not saying another word until we're safely ashore."
"And you safely have your lawyers," Jessica said with a glower.
"I'm entitled to lawyers," he said.
"Your story skipped over something," I said. "Romantic dinner, romantic sunset viewing, then Gullveig out of nowhere slugs you and swims away?"
"It must've been something I said," he said with a failed attempt at a charming grin.
"Or something you did," I said.
"I never laid a hand on her," he said.
"Not that you can prove that," Michelle said, and he grinned again and shrugged.
"We have proof," I said.
He looked up at me, startled. His eyes were starting to focus better. That was something.
"Proof I never touched her?" he asked like it was a dare.
