The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,26

boat lying on its side and a stack of rotting wooden dinghies marked with the wet footprints of enormous gray gulls.

“I’ve got them.” Nick pointed. “They’re toward the back.”

“Why is Craft’s mail coming here? Don’t tell me he owns this boatyard,” I said.

“No, but whoever does seems like a gifted entrepreneur. You’ll see what I mean. Come on.”

I followed. Amid the dead and dying repossessed boats lying in the gravel and mud or propped up on wooden frames, signs of life were present. A bag of garbage lay outside the carcass of a partially burned houseboat. A T-shirt hung from the porthole of a tugboat to dry in the morning sunshine. People were living in the carcasses of the old vessels, probably paying someone cash for the privilege. It wasn’t a bad business model—the boats were useless scraps left over from a tourist and fishing trade on the downward slope. The residents here were most likely junkies and criminals who cut the landlord in on whatever mischief they cooked up to survive.

I stepped over electrical cables running between Craft’s boat and two others, all of them sharing power leached from God knows where. We climbed a wooden ladder to the deck of the old dry-docked crab boat, startling a seagull that had been wandering among the rusted cages picking at sundried pieces of bait.

The wheelhouse was full of bags of rotting garbage and discarded clothes; pigeons nested on the sprawling control board before the windows. We were drawn forward by the sound of rhythmic moaning. I followed Nick down the narrow stairs into a small room that smelled of the sleeping bodies there. Two men I recognized from the Greenfish were lying on their sides on narrow couches. Beer bottles were everywhere; my boot crunched a syringe on the rough carpet. The moaning was coming from a television screen bolted to the ceiling with wires hanging down to a DVD player balanced on a pile of old magazines. A porn film had been playing and was now stuck on the menu, the moaning a looped clip of a woman using a candle in a manner contrary to its intended purpose.

A woman was lying on her side under a small table. Rick Craft, apparently asleep, was sitting on the floor with his back against a wall, a blanket around his shoulders like a big, stained coat.

“The children,” I whispered to Nick. “The ones who died. They weren’t living here, were they?” He shrugged. I looked at the woman on the floor. Her greasy hair fell across her brow, and as I bent to get a better look, I noticed white foam at the corner of her mouth. I put two fingers on the side of her neck. Her pulse was faint.

“Hey, asshole.” Nick put a boot into Craft’s side. “Rise and shine.”

Craft opened his eyes and looked at Nick, then scratched at the sores on his badly shaved neck. Nick dragged the waking man to his feet and then slammed him against a wall as if he were banging an old television set to get the picture to clear.

“What—what the fuck do you want?” Rick seized Nick’s arms, his eyes wide now. “I ain’t seen the guy! He was never here!”

“You don’t even know who I’m looking for,” Nick snapped. I went to the table by the sleeping men and found exactly what I’d expected—two colored capsules. One was the yellow smiley identical to the one I had confiscated from Winley Minnow; the other was bright red, the face frowning.

“Where are these coming from?” I showed Craft the capsules. He took a moment to focus, then tried to pry Nick’s hands off him.

“You’re those fucks who were at the bar with Mayburn,” Craft snarled.

“We weren’t with Mayburn,” I said. “We just find you as repulsive as he does.”

“The man asked you a question.” Nick gave Craft a shake so hard that his oversize head jiggled on his scrawny neck. “You the one who’s been handing those pills out to schoolkids?”

“Fuck off!” Craft yelled. I glanced at the men on the couches, but they were down for the count. “You’re not cops. I’m not giving you shit. Get out of my house! Get your hands off me! Get—”

I took Craft from Nick and pushed him down the narrow hall out of the sailors’ mess. I knew what I was looking for, having sensed its presence by the faint reek in the room. The toilet was at the head of the boat, beyond