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He shook his head with amusement. “You always did have a soft spot for the ladies. Of course, I know why you had a burning desire to get Maris in bed. You wanted to cuckold me. You went to a hell of a lot of trouble to do it, so I hope you weren’t too disappointed. She’s not exactly a firecracker in the sack, is she?”
He looked pointedly at Parker’s lap. “Or maybe you’re pitifully grateful for any kind of sexual activity. Even Maris’s stilted efforts.” Thoughtfully, he scratched the side of his nose. “She does have that luxuriant bush, though. If you left the lights on, I’m sure you noticed.”
Parker wished very badly to kill him then. He wanted to watch him die, slowly and in agony and feeling the flames of hell licking at his ankles.
Seemingly oblivious to the murderous impulses he was fostering, Noah continued nonchalantly. “Not that I’m complaining about Maris, you understand. She’s certainly proved herself useful.”
“In the furtherance of your career.”
“That’s right.” He took a step closer. “And you must know, Parker, that I won’t let anything or anyone rob me of all that I’ve achieved. This book of yours will never be published.”
“Actually, Noah, I didn’t write it for publication. I wrote it for myself.”
“As a cathartic autobiography?”
“No.”
“As a ticket to fuck my wife?”
“No.”
“You’re stretching my patience, Parker.”
“I wrote it to get you here, on my turf, so that I could be watching your face when you die, just like you were watching me from the pilot’s wheel of the boat that night.”
Noah snorted. “What? You’re going to run me down with your wheelchair?”
Parker merely smiled and withdrew a small transistor from his shirt pocket.
“Oh, I see, you’re going to beat me to death with a remote control.”
“I own this building,” Parker said conversationally. “I like it. Good atmosphere. But some folks think it’s a hazard to kids who might wander in here. That abandoned well and all.” He hitched his thumb in that direction. “So I’ve decided to do my fellow islanders a favor and destroy it.”
He depressed one of the rubberized buttons on the transistor. Out of the shadows in a far corner came a loud pop followed by a spark. Startled, Noah spun around and watched as a flame leaped up against the weathered wood.
Parker gave his chair a hard push toward him. Noah, sensing the motion, turned and lunged at him. Noah’s daily workouts in the gym had kept him trim. His reflexes were good. He landed a couple of good punches.
But Parker’s arm and chest muscles were exceptionally well developed from years of having to rely on them. He staved off many of Noah’s slugs and had enough upper body strength to keep himself in his chair. His real advantage, however, was in knowing how Noah fought. Noah fought dirty. Noah fought to win. And he didn’t care how he won.
When Noah began pushing him backward toward the open well, Parker wasn’t surprised. His efforts became defensive. He took reckless swings that Noah easily dodged. Sensing that Parker was weakening, Noah fought even harder. Parker’s frantic struggling only increased Noah’s determination to defeat him. He came on more ferociously, blindly, the predator moving in for the kill.
Then, at precisely the right instant, Parker jammed down the brake lever of his wheelchair. It bit into the rubber wheel and brought the chair to a jarring stop. Noah hadn’t expected it. Inertia propelled him forward. His Gucci shoes caught the low rim of the well, tripping him. He groped at air. Then he stepped into nothingness.
His startled cry was a hellish echo of Mary Catherine’s scream as she fell backward over the railing of the boat.
Parker’s breathing was harsh and loud. He wiped his bloody nose on his shirtsleeve.
“You son of a bitch!” Noah shouted up at him.
“So the fall didn’t kill you?”
“Motherfucker!”
“You’re a sore loser, Noah. The cripple outsmarted you. Isn’t that what you had in mind for me? To push me down that well? Why do you think I kept referring to it? Foreshadowing, Noah. Any writer worth a damn should have recognized it for what it was.”
“Get me out of here.”
“Ah, don’t be such a crybaby, Noah. It’s not nearly as deep as the Atlantic. To the best of my knowledge there are no saltwater carnivores in there. Don’t know about snakes, though,” he added in an intentional afterthought.
