Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best way to read books txt) 📕

from giant skylights in the roof and the floor-to-ceiling windows spaced along the twenty-foot-high exterior walls. When his father died the building was part of the estate Ronald Ivery inherited, and he’d sold a second smaller building left to him and used the greater part of that money to convert the top floor from a giant warehouse and storage area into a luxurious private penthouse complete with a gym, a therapy pool, and a chef’s kitchen where Thomas cooked for the two of them. Ivery had used an offshore construction company signed to a non-disclosure agreement to do all the work, and since its completion he and Thomas were the only men who had set foot inside.

There was the occasional woman, selected now and again by Ivery from an exclusive and discreet website and paid well for her services. Thomas brought these dates into the building late at night, through a rear alley entrance, and none of them could have found their way back there on a bet, nor did they have any idea of who they had met with once inside. But women, as was the case with a lot of things in Ronald Ivery’s life, were not very important.

What was important was the pill that Thomas now handed to him. He assisted Ivery with undressing and strapped him securely into the harness that hung down from the gantry that spanned the ceiling. Ivery took the controls and ran himself out over the pool and down into the heated waters. One button turned on the hydro jets and another controlled the music that surged out from the underwater speakers in the pool walls. Ivery closed his eyes and was washed away.

Two hours would pass before he came back to himself and rose up and swung back over his chair, lowered himself down into it, and wheeled into his bedroom. The drug and the pulsing water had taken away his pain, and he manoeuvred himself into his bed and slept like a baby. He would awake refreshed and ready for another busy day.

Chapter 29

The weather had turned miserable, and the two men in the little inflatable with the electric motor clamped to the transom were having a hard time of it. The night sky had been clouded over with poor visibility when they’d set out, but at least the water had been calm. Minutes later a sudden squall had come through right on the nose and the seas had instantly kicked up into a small chop. The men swore and took up their paddles to assist the little engine. The electric motor was quiet and you probably couldn’t hear it from a hundred feet off and that was a good thing, the downside being it was damn near useless in anything other than flat water. But they figured they only had a little ways to go now until they entered the commercial basin, and they lowered their heads and worked and sweated and cursed until they finally passed between the red and green beacons that marked the entrance and moved into the sheltered water just beyond. One of the men reached back and switched off the motor, and they sat there for a few minutes catching their breath.

They’d looked at a chart of the marina in Rainbow’s warm and cozy cabin just before they left and everything seemed pretty straightforward, but that was one thing. It was another thing entirely when you were down at sea level, cold, wet, and facing into a near horizontal, driving rain. The dock lights were practically useless in these conditions, and they couldn’t read the letters on the end pilings, but they didn’t want to chance a flashlight. Nobody in their right mind would be out in a dinghy, and they didn’t want to have to answer any questions. They weren’t worried about the elderly watchman, they’d been told his main job was keeping track of the foot traffic entering the marina through the gate alongside his office. The odds of him being out and about on a night like this were somewhere between slim and none, but why take the chance.

“It’s the fourth one along. D dock,” one of the men said.

“Yeah. Two over, I figure.”

They paddled across and into the gap between the fourth and fifth docks. Once they were up close they could make out the sign on the piling with the LED light under it.

“This is the one. Should be the seventh finger in from the end.”

They paddled silently along until they reached the big sailboat. The wind was down inside the marina, but the rain was pelting them even harder now, hitting their faces and stinging their eyes.

“Good thing it’s wood,” one man said.

“I mixed a quart of oil in with the gas, it will burn all right,” the second man said. “Like a Christmas tree in January.”

They set the jerry cans onto the end of the dock beside the sailboat and climbed carefully out of the dinghy. An old troller a few boats down had a cabin light showing faintly through the rain; apart from that, darkness. The men shivered, the heat worked up during their hard paddle now turned to a cold sweat by wind and nerves.

“I’ll spread these two cans up near the front, you spill yours at the back end there. We’ll light her up from the dock.”

They dumped the fuel, jumped back down onto the dock, lit the gas-soaked rags, and threw them onto the boat. The blaze flashed up instantly, lighting the area for a hundred feet in all directions. They stood there stupidly blinking against the glare for a few seconds.

“Get rid of the cans. We gotta go. Now.”

They threw the gas cans onto the foredeck of the sailboat and heard a loud clang.

Huh, the lead man thought as they jumped into their dinghy and began paddling furiously. With the wind at their backs, they were soon beyond the tumult and shouting, and the light from the blaze slowly faded