Page 88 of Slack Tide Kill

The grille hammered into the flat-bottomed boat with a rending crash, cracking the hull and sending its splintered halves whipping away like pieces of a bobbed cork.

The Rooks were tossed violently into the water. The front air bags blasted into Sally and Bledd's faces. The Mustang's front wheels bounced and the chassis surfed across the narrow channel of water then slammed into the far bank.

Sally rocked and gasped as the bodywork furrowed deep ruts into the grass then halted.

The world spun and there were screams. Sally blinked and slapped down on the air bag. The seat belt wrung tight across her chest, and she managed to free it, then turned.

Bledd looked back at her. He had a cut on his forehead, trickling blood, but otherwise seemed OK. In the back Liam was tangled in two sets of seatbelt straps, staring back at her wide-eyed.

"What the fuck, Sally?" he croaked.

"Rooks, now!" she rasped back, then kicked out the door and tottered out onto the grass.

The Rooks were in the water. Sally ran unsteadily, head spinning, picking out Roarke. He was ashen-faced, eyes wide and lungs wheezing, the shotgun gone. He waded toward the bank, right arm clutched by his left.

Sally fumbled for the cuffs from her belt, retrieved them on the second try then jumped into the water beside him. He didn't even seem to see her. She grabbed his right wrist and swung it behind his back.

"What the hell happened?" he muttered. "I don't… what…?"

Shock. Sally used it, snatching his left arm. The wrist felt loose, probably broken, and he shrieked as she clamped the cuffs tight.

He cried out. "Shit! Watch my wrist!"

Sally shoved him toward the bank, the words coming unbidden. "Roarke Rook, I'm arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Jason Harrow and Nancy Cagen." The words sounded stronger and clearer than she felt. "You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say–"

"Cagen?" he shouted, twisting his head awkwardly. "She's not even sodding dead!"

"–anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law."

A splash came in the water beside her. It was Arthur Bledd. He strode through the sewer like it was his second home, like the water didn't slow him at all.

"I've got this one," he called, grasping Jerome Rook bodily in a tight bear hug.

A third splash followed. Liam was there, cuffs in hand, heading directly for Silas Rook. The slim Rook brother was already to the other side of the ditch, trying to tug himself onto the bank.

Liam dived and caught Silas' trailing leg, yanking hard. He flopped sideways back into the water, splashing and spluttering. Liam got the first cuff on him while he flailed, dodged a wild punch then caught that arm and dragged it down into the cuffs.

Silas swore and thrashed, trying to headbutt Liam, but with the cuffs on he was now a spent force.

"You've broken my arm," Roarke Rook barked, staring at the scene in disbelief; the car buried in the bank, the boat split in two, two blue and white coolers bobbing on the black water. "Bitch. You fucking bitch. How did you do that?"

"Little bit of Owler magic, you littering piece of shit," she answered. "Now come on. Out."

She drove him toward the bank, just as the distant sound of sirens carried across the wide open land.

35 WHOSE EYES?

Sally sat the three Rooks down in a row on the mud-splattered grass. They swore and spat, but she barely heard any of it.

Everything hurt. Her neck. Her spine. Her jaw. A deep, surging headache was coming on, and she didn't know what to do next.

Arthur Bledd was in the water still, trawling up and down like some swamp farmer, plowing furrows in mud. Liam stood on the bank, dripping and staring at the Mustang. Its front half was wedged solidly into the bank, the rear wheels still spinning just above the brackish sewer water.

Pieces of the Rooks' boat drifted by. An empty bag of crisps. A wooden oar. The sirens grew louder. Now Sally saw lights.

"You just hit the boat," Liam murmured. He didn't turn. "You just hit it."

Sally walked over. Every step hurt. She looked at his face, and was surprised to see tears trickling down his cheeks. That hit her in the chest. A sickening sense of shame swelled inside her, twisting her stomach.