Soundkeeper by Michael Hervey Page A

screamed again when he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a small closet. She hit him as hard as she could on the top of his head but he didn’t even blink. After several blows her hand started to hurt, and she opened her hand to claw his face with her fingernails.
    Every speaker she’d ever heard talk about personal security told women not to fight their attackers because a violent response usually meant the victim was hurt worse than they would have been if they were submissive. Separate your mind from your body and imagine anything to ignore what was really happening, she had always been told. But one speaker was different. She had been raped and told women to fight like hell. Scratch their eyes out. Bite their tongues off. She told them if they could tear twelve sheets of typing paper in half they were strong enough to rip an ear off of their attackers head.
    She reached for his ear but he caught her by her wrist.
    “He’s here. Don’t make any noise. He’ll kill you this time,” Arnold warned before he closed the closet door.
    “Arnold!” Gale heard someone outside yell. She recognized the voice. It was the man she thought of as Blondie. The one with the knife. She held her breath.
    “Since you’re lying around on your ass I assume you fixed the boat,” Blondie said when he walked into the building. He put a fresh six-pack in the cooler and took one back for himself.
    “Yeah, sure,” Arnold mumbled. “Have you got some money for me?” he asked Blondie.
    “I told you you’d get paid when we finished. You nervous ‘bout that bitch?”
    Arnold nodded his head.
    “Don’t worry. They haven’t found the body yet. The sharks and crabs she loved so much will take care of her. Back the truck up and dump the dirt into the barge. I want to drop another load and get back to town before it gets dark. That old truck doesn’t have any taillights.”
    Arnold looked at the closet and hesitated.
    “Go on. You know I can’t back that thing,” Blondie said.
    Arnold shuffled out the door.
    Gale was on her hands and knees watching through the space between the bottom of the door and the floor and lying as still as a stone with her cheek pushed against the dusty floor. She watched Blondie sit on the lounge chair and drink his beer, draining it in two gulps. He tossed the can on the floor and opened another one. While she watched he took a leather pouch out of his back pocket and set it beside him on the chair. There was a small glass pipe in the pouch, and he held a lighter to the end of it. He inhaled and held his breath until he started coughing and wheezing. Then he cursed and pounded on his chest with his fist.
    She heard the truck start and then felt the vibrations as it backed down the wharf that was attached to the fish house. She relaxed a little when Blondie took another hit from the pipe and walked outside.
    “All done. There’s no more room in the boat,” she heard Arnold say when they walked back inside. Arnold stared right at the closet.
    “Yeah, let’s go,” Blondie said and stretched his arms above his head. Then he walked over and relieved himself through a hole in the floor. Both men walked back outside, and Arnold closed the door to the warehouse behind him.
    Gale’s heart was pounding when she heard the old marine diesel engine cough to life. Free from the chain she stood up and got ready to run, waiting to hear the old barge depart. She would go right through anyone who got in her way. Her hand was on the closet doorknob when she heard the warehouse door open, and Arnold came back inside. He opened the closet, and without saying anything he locked the handcuff around her ankle and went back outside.

Chapter Sixteen
    Coming back from St. Helena Island, Hall slowed for the no wake zone in Skull Creek and looked over at the Lowcountry Seafood docks. He saw someone on one of the shrimp boats and decided to stop.
    The fishing guide, the one who helped him free the dolphin and turned out to be