Page 157 of Maddy's Justice

At the beach, the girls prepared to get on the skis but Maddy stopped them.

“We’re not taking them,” she said.

Maddy looked at the boat house and said, “Wait here.”

She ran to the boathouse and a couple of minutes later she returned carrying fifty feet of rope.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. Tie the handlebars straight and the skis together. We’ll tie down the throttles just enough to get them going. Then we’ll turn them loose and let them go by themselves.”

“But we can escape…” Abia said.

“That’s the first place they will come for us,” Salma said. “This is what you call a diversion.”

“Yes. Let them chase across the lake. We’ll go the other way. If this works, we may get out of here.”

“The guards in my room will tell them we used the jet skis. You are very clever,” Abia said flashing a smile.

“We’ll see about that.”

It worked. A few minutes later, barely going faster than walking speed, the skis slowly puttered along, engine cutoff plugs firmly in place, out onto the lake straight toward the western shore.

“Do they have dogs?” Maddy asked,

“Yes,” Salma said. “They are very nice. We are their friends.”

“They’ll use them to find us. Come on,” Maddy said.

She walked into the water until it was up to her waist. With the girls following, Maddy waded along the shoreline. They went about two hundred yards when the alarm sounded.

“What’s going on?” Zane asked Evan. He was in a bathrobe and slippers having been soundly asleep. The two men met near the middle of the compound at the helicopter landing pad.

“Get the alarm shut off,” Evan told one of the guards.

He turned to his boss to tell him the bad news. “The girls are gone. All of them. That useless Founier was found dead in the Rivers woman’s bed. I don’t know how or what he did, but she cracked his skull and got out.

“She then went next door and took out the two guards there and now they’re gone. Here,” Evan said as he handed his boss the note Maddy left for him.

While Zane read the note, Evan continued. “The jet skis are gone. The two idiots guarding the twins said they overheard them planning to use the skis to get away.”

“This woman has fifteen-pound brass balls,” Zane said with a chuckle. “That’s probably why I’m so goddamn smitten with her.”

Odessa joined the two men and said, “The jet skis are gone.”

“They must have taken them,” Evan said.

“I agree. They’ve had a head start and that’s a lot of ground to cover. Get everybody moving and get them over there. Take the boats and cars. Find them, but you stay here. This woman is not to be underestimated. She wants me and may still be around here.”

“Maybe we should make plans to get out of here. At least for now,” Odessa said.

“Yes, I think you’re right. If she gets away, we had better be gone,” Zane said.

Carvelli’s rescue team had reached the perimeter fence when the siren went off and the compound’s lights came on. Carvelli and Sorensen had just begun snipping open the chain link fence with the bolt cutters Roy brought when the excitement began.

“Something’s going on,” Roy said when they heard the siren and saw the lights. Everyone stood up and watched for a few seconds. They were barely five hundred yards from the compound. At this time of night, they could easily see the lights and hear the alarm.

“A hundred bucks says it’s Ms. Rivers,” Carvelli said.

“I won’t take the bet,” Dan Sorenson replied.

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