Page 101 of Hate Wrecked

I can hear their voices, though their words are still hazy. They become clearer when I step aboard the back of the boat. I can smell alcohol in the air. They probably haven’t gone to sleep. Our plan to ambush them early has failed.

“I didn’t think he was gonna croak, alright?” Chuck’s high-pitched voice cuts through the air. He’s the one with the black eye. I creep closer, staying low.

The blond one—Butch—speaks next. “Well, he did. The whole plan’s gone to shit. The husband is where he should be—bottom of the ocean. We need to find the trunk. We need to find her body. We’re fucking done for if they find her.”

“And what about Glenne?” Chuck asks.

Butch’s voice is low when he speaks again. “She’s all over the damn news. Her mother’s already put up a bounty the size of Texas. You’d know that if you weren’t locked up. We’d be done with this if we didn’t have to fucking wait on you.”

Chuck sounds contrite. “I’m here, ain’t I? She ain’t dead. He says he’s alone, but he’s a liar.”

“We find her, we use her to collect the reward,” Butch says. “But if she’s dead, we’re fucked six ways from Sunday. And it’ll be your fault for getting locked up. If you weren’t kin, I would have left you behind.”

“He sucker punched me,” Chuck sneers. “How was I supposed to know the damn owner was there and would call the cops?”

“You probably deserved it. I told you not to go back to Barney's. You’ve been kicked out five times.”

“And you deserve the boat? Don’t act like you spent your hard-earned money on it.”

“It’s my payment for being the only one man enough to put a bullet in their heads. We wouldn’t be here if you left her alone while we tended our lot.”

“The crop was never going to amount to a damn thing. And she came ontome.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Butch says.

“You think the Scot knows yet?” Chuck asks.

Butch laughs, rough and humorless. “Nah. He’s going to think we’re heroes. We just need that trunk. It has to be one of the lagoons. And we need to lay eyes on the girl. Then we radio in from somewhere else. Make it look like a happy coincidence that we found them.”

“So we leave him be?” Chuck sounds disappointed.

“Yeah,” Butch says. “Falcon is likely where he’s staying. I wanna check out Gerald’s shit now that that ole wet blanket is gone.”

“Don’t we have everything we need?”

“Yeah, but I wanna see what the ole son of a bitch was hiding. He liked to write in that goddamn notebook. Maybe he left it behind.”

“He liked his rules. And he wasn’t stupid.”

“Smart people do stupid shit all the time. Look at you.”

Chuck makes an awe sound. “I think that’s the first compliment you’ve ever given me.”

“Don’t hold your breath for the next one.”

“And if the Scot found the body?”

“Three of us. One of him.” Butch shrugs. “We get rid of him. Away from the girl.”

Their words rattle around inside me, cold and heavy.Ransom.Something worse for me.

I freeze as their footsteps scrape across the deck. There’s a clink of bottles. Laughter, low and ugly. They’re distracted—for now.

But then a thought slices through my panic: There were three of them. I only hear two. Where’s Domet?

I shift carefully, peering into the dimness. If Domet’s out there…

These men aren’t just drunk idiots. They’re killers.

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