“Shh. I’m coming. Be quiet.” The metallic sounds inside the caisson hadn’t ceased, but she couldn’t take a chance Fiske might hear her.
Mary found the stairs cut into the wall of the dry dock, angling toward the middle of the hull, and she made her way down.
The granite wall rose high on one side, the steel hull on the other. Almost no light penetrated the abyss.
Her breath ratcheted its way deep into her lungs. What if Mr. Fiske opened the pipes now, when she and Mr. Winslow were down here?
Mary climbed through the maze of vertical and horizontal beams supporting the hull, scraping her legs. Something jabbed the sole of her foot, and she bit back a cry. Silence was as vital as speed.
Her leg bumped into something soft and warm, and she gasped. A body? Mr. Bauer?
Mary fell to her knees. A man’s body lay facedown, and she rolled him over. “Mr. Bauer?” she whispered.
No response. No movement. She pressed her fingers under his chin—a slow steady pulse met her fingertips. “Thank you, Lord.”
But how could she drag an unconscious man up the stairs?
Mr. Winslow would have to help. “Lord, please send the FBI, the Marines, or both.”
Leaving Mr. Bauer, Mary worked her way down to Mr. Winslow.
“Miss Stirling? What are you doing here?”
“Shh. Keep your voice down. How can I help?”
The man pushed himself up to sitting and leaned back against the caisson. “My feet. He tangled them up in electrical wire. I can’t get free. That’s the story he plans to tell, that I tangled my feet in the wire and plunged to my death. After I sabotaged the gate and made it look like Bauer did it.”
Mary found his feet and felt around. A mess of wires wound around both feet, but she couldn’t see worth beans. “Come on, we have to hurry. You have to help.”
He hunched over. “I—I can’t. After he knocked me out, he broke my hand, my right hand. I can’t move it, and it hurts like—like the dickens.” The pain in his voice confirmed his words.
Mary slipped her fingers into a loop of wire and tried to loosen it. She stared up at the caisson hovering over her. The sounds inside continued. Perhaps Fiske hadn’t heard them.
“Why are you here?” Mr. Winslow asked.
She didn’t have time. “Never mind that for now. I know why you came—I talked to your wife—but what happened after you arrived?”
“Fiske was in my office. He said he’d found my ... my ...”
“Your codeine?”
A heavy sigh. “He said he found it here in the pump house with an odd assortment of tools. He wanted to show me before he called the FBI. Like a fool, I agreed. As soon as we stepped inside, he put a gun to my head.”
Mary’s fingers stilled. He had a gun. “He forced you to call Mr. Bauer.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I’ll tell you later.” She worked one loop over his foot and felt for another one. “What happened next?”
“He—he had a script for me to read to Bauer. He told me to say anything necessary to convince the man to come here. If I failed, he’d shoot me. Well, I succeeded, so instead of shooting me, he brought me into the bowels of this dry dock and knocked me out cold.”
That loop didn’t loosen at all, so she tried another. “Mr. Bauer’s down here too. Unconscious but alive.”
“Oh no. He drugged him with my codeine. That’s how he’s framing me. He ground up about a dozen tablets in a mug and filled it with coffee. After all, how else could a weakling like me overpower such a man?” He sounded as bitter as codeine-laced coffee.
Mary murmured her sympathy and pried a loop over his foot.
“He’s framing me.” Pain and anger frayed his voice. “He forced me to apply my fingerprints to the medication vial, the coffee mug, the tools he’s using—and his gun.”
