by Linda Bond
But Zack did. At the time, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had been actively investigating Jackson’s death at Zack’s request. When the FDLE shifted their attention toward Flint’s death, Zack had been taken off the X-Force investigation all together. Too personally involved, they had told him. Well, tough shit. Here he was anyway. And Fitzgerald’s, Jackson’s, and Flint’s cases were still open, unproven, and unresolved.
The person captured on the video could have been Flint, but he could also have been any one of the vacationers diving that day.
He blew out air he’d been holding in. “Go ahead and push play.”
Proof. He needed proof. Or at least a good clue.
The diver and his dive buddy came upon the familiar sign with the Grim Reaper. The first diver with the camera surged ahead. That was exactly what Jackson would have done. He’d always wanted to be in the lead. At least his uncle, if it was him, was following a guideline that had already been laid down. By now, visibility under the water was severely limited, so all they could see on the screen was what the diver’s headlight revealed.
Further down the narrow tunnel, the main diver checked his wrist depth monitor. He held out the box-shaped device on his right wrist as if he wanted the camera to pick it up. Zack lurched forward. He drew in a sharp breath. “Pause.”
“What? What do you see?” Samantha’s voice cracked as Rita froze the picture.
“Look right above the computer console on the diver’s wrist. See the initials J.H.? Jackson’s initials are on the depth gage. I know that’s his. I was with him the day he bought it. The diver is my uncle.” Fingers of both relief and fear entwined deep in his gut.
“So, this is a clue.” Samantha’s eyes lit up.
“Where did his dive buddy go?” George scooted closer, too. “Your uncle is a hundred feet deep. Why doesn’t he look backward to check for his backup?”
Zack had no answer.
“Maybe he didn’t want to go past that awful sign,” Samantha suggested with a grimace.
Rita handed Zack the remote control. He pressed forward. A couple of times it looked as though his uncle did turn to check out what was behind him, but by now there was no sign of the other diver. He pressed play again. The readout on his uncle’s wrist now said a hundred-thirty feet deep.
“Shouldn’t he be switching to his primary tank now?” George asked.
“Is that important?” Samantha asked.
“Divers must breathe different mixtures of gas at different depths,” Zack explained. “You start breathing mostly oxygen, but at this depth you have to switch to a tank that contains a blend of oxygen, nitrogen, and helium. The combination allows you to breathe under the pressure of the water.” He didn’t really think she wanted such a detailed explanation, but frankly, he wanted to hear his own voice right now rather than the sound of his uncle’s laboring regulator. A slow horror was creeping up inside him, as if he were down in that cave, struggling to breathe right beside his uncle.
As if on cue, his uncle reached behind his head and maneuvered the switch that changed the mixture. He continued to swim inside the dark tunnel. Occasionally, he’d glance back. Zack rubbed his eyes, but knew nothing would change the outcome ahead.
Jackson had almost reached the area where George had freaked out.
The mechanical air sounds were getting more intense. Why was his uncle breathing so hard? Jackson had been in good shape for his age, and he didn’t look like he was overexerting himself. He’d just switched to his other tank. His heavy breathing didn’t make sense.
A sudden dread sank deep into Zack’s bones. “Something’s wrong with the other tank. He isn’t getting enough oxygen.”
“How can you tell?” Samantha’s voice sounded far away, even though she was still sitting right next to him.
“Listen to the way he’s struggling to breathe.”
The eerie sound of air bubbles being released into the water filled the room, followed by an electronic noise that sounded like it came from a robot, not a man.
“Elp.”
Zack turned his ear toward the TV. Had he heard right?
“It sounded like he said help!” George exclaimed.
“Maybe the sound came from his equipment?” Samantha said cautiously.
“Elp!”
Zack dropped his head into his hands, his elbows resting against his knees. The weight of that one simple word pulled down his shoulders. His heart felt like it was tearing in two. “Jackson obviously knew something was wrong.”
He probably also knew help wasn’t coming.
“What could it be?” Samantha whispered.
Zack could feel her leaning closer to him.
“The mixture of air in his tanks,” George said. “If Zack’s uncle wasn’t getting enough oxygen, he would pass out or have a seizure. Why didn’t he turn around and head back up? Where the hell did his dive partner go?”
All good questions. Ones Zack would never be able to answer. A lack of oxygen to the brain did cause divers to do crazy things deep underwater. He forced himself to keep his focus on the TV.
“But… If your uncle was able to make a sound like help, he couldn’t be suffocating, right?” Just as Samantha finished making that logical statement, little gasps rippled through the speakers.
Zack’s stomach plummeted. He couldn’t watch this. But he had to. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, though he wanted to shut them tight.
His uncle had stopped moving. He rested on the cave floor, his breathing shallow. With the limited light from his uncle’s gear, Zack found it difficult to see what Jackson was doing. But…he appeared to be moving his hands, struggling with something at his side.
Jackson turned his head and gazed down. That directed the headlamp toward a guideline hooked into a rock.
Zack shot to his feet.
“What? What?” Samantha asked.
He opened his mouth, but the response balled up in his throat.
“Jackson is tangled in a guideline.” George frowned. “Many times there’s more than one. When you can’t see very well, your gear can get hooked or tangled on someone else’s line.”
Jackson’s body twisted and turned in a frantic dance of desperation. The light on his helmet cam moved across the gray rocks like an out of control strobe in some liquid ’80s disco.
“He’s panicking,” Samantha whispered.
Zack desperately needed to hold her hand again. Instead of reaching for it, he collapsed onto the couch and watched the man he had loved like a father thrash around in the near darkness. His heart ached in a way it never had before. The pain choked him. Jackson tugged at the lines for dear life. The exertion no doubt made him suck in even more of the faulty mixture from the tank. Maybe his death really had been an accident.
Come on, Jackson, give me something. Anything. He prayed for his uncle to show him something that could lead to an answer, like what had happened to his tank.
As silt danced around the dying man, a sandy veil cloaked him, but Jackson’s hands came up before the camera, and he gestured in a flurry of finger and hand movements. Sign language! Then the cloud of debris erased his hands from the camera’s view.
“That’s it!” He couldn’t stop the rush of excited adrenaline dumping into his system. He started to shake.
“That’s what?” Samantha asked.
“The end?” Rita whispered.
“The clue.” His mind anguished over the way Jackson had fought his death, but a new sense of purpose washed over him. The rush of excitement made him a bit nauseous and dizzy. He ran up to the TV and popped out the DVD. “I know what happened.”
Chapter Eleven
Zack ran to the front door of the mobile home, ripped it open, and flew out without so much as a good-bye.
“He’s leaving?” Hot rage burned through Sam. Oh, hell, no. He wasn’t going to abandon them again. She jumped off the couch and raced to the door as it swung shut. She managed to stop it seconds before it crushed her
fingers. “What did you find out? Where are you going?”
“Meet me back at the motel.” He yelled as he ran toward his car. “I’ve got to do something.”
She stumbled down the steps after him, catching her stiletto in a crack in one of the wooden stairs. “I’m coming with—” She fell forward, using her arms to steady herself.
The car engine fired up.
“Tell me what you saw in the DVD. Zack!” His car peeled out of the dirt driveway, kicking up dust in her face. Furious, she stomped her foot and her expensive heel sunk into the damp earth. She almost toppled over. Damn it!
George loped down the steps behind her. “Well, I guess you’re riding back to the motel with me.” He threw an arm around her shoulders.
She glared at him.
He was grinning. Of course. Just like him to think this was funny.
Just as she was conjuring up a good smart-ass reply, her cell phone buzzed. She ripped the phone from her purse. “This is Sam.” She knew her voice sounded testy. If it was Zack, she wanted him to know she was pissed off.
“Sis?”
Oh no. Instantly, she shifted gears. Panic assaulted her.
Her sister never, ever called unless something was wrong. Or she needed money.
“Sam? Are you there?”
“Yes.” She could barely breathe, her chest heaving from alarm, and the effort of running after Zack.
“I have bad news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?”
…
Sam sprawled in a lounge chair by the motel pool, watching the amber fingers of dawn reach out across the horizon through slitted eyes.
She sucked down her second Diet Coke and prayed the caffeine would make her mild headache melt away. Unfortunately, the stimulant also sped up her heart.
God, what was she going to do?
She still couldn’t believe the nursing home intended to kick her mom out. Her invalid, comatose, fragile, incapacitated mother was going to be dumped on the sidewalk in days if Sam didn’t find a way to pay the overdue bill. Her stomach clenched. Money. It came down to that. It always did.
She’d been paying a discounted rate, thanks to Maxwell who failed to make provisions for this in the event of his death. Great men think they’ll never die. Of course, the home wanted her mother’s bed for someone who could pay the full amount. Now.
The metallic fizz of the soda surged up into her throat. She spit on the ground, and fell back again onto the lounge chair while squeezing her eyes shut. She’d been waiting for Zack to “meet her at the motel” for hours.
She fingered the stack of papers on her lap. Thanks to Stuart, her detective friend, the Pasco County Medical Examiner’s office had emailed the report on Maxwell Wentworth’s cause of death to her late yesterday. At least one mystery had been solved. She could go back to Tampa now that the ME had ruled Maxwell’s death accidental.
“My father used to beat me.”
At the sound of Zack’s voice, she twisted in her lounge chair. Even in the dark of early morning, she recognized the silhouette of those long, lean legs and well-built shoulders. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been waiting for hours.”
“Did you hear what I said?” He ran a hand over his short hair.
She struggled to control her chaotic emotions. “I—” Something about his father? “I’m tired and hurting, Zack. I barely slept.”
The red and orange rays of sunrise gave her enough light to see that his clothes were wrinkled, his face drawn, and his posture slumped as if he’d spent the night wrestling with demons, too. What a pair they made.
“I said my father used to beat me.”
She heard him this time. Her heart skipped a beat. “Oh.” Crap. “I’m sorry. That—”
“I’ve never told anyone other than my uncle.”
She stared at him, speechless, jumbled thoughts speed-racing through her mind.
He finally broke the silence. “I promised you if you gave me an hour, I would tell you everything. Including about my uncle. To understand how much I loved Jackson Hunter, you have to first understand how much I hated my father.” His voice cracked.
She couldn’t even speak. The headache and the lack of sleep had exhausted her, and the emotional impact of Zack’s words left her depleted. This was not what she’d expected. She needed to leave and head for home, but she couldn’t force a single muscle in her body to move.
He walked over to the closest lounge chair and dragged it next to hers. The iron legs scraped the pool deck, but she didn’t flinch. He sat down and stretched his long legs until his feet rested under her chair.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. He smelled musky, like he hadn’t showered. His troubled, bloodshot eyes bore into hers, and she couldn’t look away.
“I remember the sound of my father’s footsteps at night, coming down the hallway to my room. His expensive dress shoes would make a brittle sound against our hardwood floors. I could tell by the dragging sound of his shoes when he’d been drinking.” Zack snorted. “He drank almost every night.”
“Oh, Zack.”
“I always wondered how a man could be so smart and successful by day but so fucked up at night.” His gaze dropped to his hands. They clenched and unclenched repeatedly. “My father would walk into my room, stop at the doorway, and stare. I used to hold my breath, pretending to be asleep, praying he’d just leave. Even without looking, I could feel his energy. I knew when the alcohol had made him angry and when it had made him sad. On the good nights, he’d stay awhile and then go to bed without touching me. On the bad nights—” His whole body stiffened.
His hurt washed over her like an incoming tide, leaving her mind spinning.
His head fell into his hands and a wounded sound erupted from him.
She got up, dropped the ME’s report on a table, and sat next to him, rubbing his back, tentatively at first.
He didn’t acknowledge her. Nor did he push her away.
What had happened after he ran out of Rita’s mobile home last night that brought him back to her this morning pouring emotion like water from a broken levee? Whatever it was, she wouldn’t ask, because she was finally getting to know the real Zack Hunter, and she didn’t want prying questions to shut him down again.
His head still in his hands, his voice sounded muffled. “My uncle found the bruises I tried to cover up.”
She leaned closer. “From your father’s beatings?”
He nodded, his head bobbing in his hands. “Jackson rescued me from that hell. He used every excuse in the book to pry me away from my parents. Eventually I went to live with him. I was ten at the time.” His back was military rigid.
She moved back. “Didn’t your mother help?”
He ran a hand slowly over his chin. “Let’s just say, neither my father or my mother missed me very much.”
She swallowed, understanding all too well how a parent’s rejection wounded you. Her father had never even made the effort to meet her. Not one phone call, not one card, not one single inquiry her entire life. She totally connected to Zack’s desire to veil the pain. Sometimes hiding the hurt was the only way to bury the shame and make it through another day.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
He waved his hand as if dismissing the horror of his last statement. “Jackson took me into his home and taught me about living. He taught me and my cousin Josh, to scuba dive, to skydive, to golf. He made it okay to laugh and have fun. He taught me to let go and live. He rewarded my good grades, and paid attention to me when I offered an opinion. He rescued me.”
And yesterday, he’d watched that beloved uncle die.
“I lived with him, my aunt, and Josh, on and off for about five years.” His features hardened. He stared off at some distance place. “I finally returned home a man. My father couldn’t hit me anymore, so he started in with the verbal abuse. He was relentless, which was probably how he built such a thriving business empire. He never cared who he hurt.”
Sh
e reached out to hold his hand, but she couldn’t pry his clenched fist apart.
He pulled away. “No, let me finish. I need to get this all out.” He shook his head. “Despite hating me, I guess my father always expected me to take over the family business someday. To spite him, I joined the Army the day after I graduated from that fancy, expensive private school he made me attend. I became a grunt. A nobody. My father never told his friends. The thought of an enlisted man in the family embarrassed the hell out of him.” He stretched his arms above his head, a satisfied smile moving across his face. “I loved every minute of it. I thrived in boot camp, probably because I was so used to being beaten down. I excelled in training.”
“If you enlisted, how did you become an Army Ranger?”
“My uncle rescued me once again, this time using his influence to get me into Special Forces training at Fort Bragg. I took college courses online.”
A perfect fit, she thought. A young man with his issues could jump out of airplanes, run survival drills, and learn how to murder the enemy, working the anger and hatred out of his system in a productive way.
His face clouded over. “While I was fulfilling my obligations to the military and transitioning into law enforcement, the family feud had become legendary in New York. Finally, Jackson orchestrated a hostile takeover of my father’s company. You know the rest—you looked it up.”
“Sounds like your father and uncle literally wanted to kill each other.”
Their eyes locked. After a heartbeat, Zack dropped his gaze.
She swallowed. “You don’t think your father would really have paid someone to kill your uncle, do you?” Who was she kidding? Domestic situations ended in murder all the time, in trailer parks and in mansions. She reported the awful truth every night on the news.
He ignored her question, but this time it didn’t appear to be intentional. He was staring at the pool as if mesmerized. “Jackson was always an adventurer at heart. He decided to take a break from the chaos and go on an X-Force Adventure Vacation. He asked me to go with him. I said no. I had just lost a partner on a dive at work and I was right in the middle of dealing with that accident, both personally and professionally.” He shook his head. “Truth be told, I just didn’t want to get in the middle of another family battle.”
