Blacke and Blue

by Fiona Blackthorne

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Ian replied, raising his voice to make his voice heard and grabbing her and tucking her into his side as he led them carefully down the snow-slicked gravel incline toward the shore. “This what they pay you fancy FBI-types the big bucks for?”

  “Yeah,” she yelled back over the howling wind. “That and seducing big bad local law enforcement officers.”

  “I seduced you!”

  “No way. You wanted in my pants from the get-go!”

  “Ha! You were thinking about mauling me on the conference room table all along!”

  “You’re the one who invited me to dinner!”

  “That was Ger.”

  That name sobered Trisha up, and she flung her thoughts and heart out into the great white storm, hoping her lover, her Ger, was okay.

  Ian and Trisha got to the bottom of the hill where a tall man in fluorescent full-body rain gear and thigh-high rubber wading boots was waiting next to a bright orange rubber dinghy.

  “Oy!” the man called out them, waving them over. “Fucking big chop out there, McDade. Surprise swells. You sure you’re up for it?”

  “No choice, Cole,” Ian said, shaking the man’s hand briefly.

  Trisha looked up at the man in the rain gear and was stunned to see yet another drop-dead gorgeous specimen of Blue Moon manhood. It was hard to tell colors in the dark, even with the weak light of the boatyard lights shining full force through the snow, but she did see a tall man with big shoulders, a square jaw, straight nose, and wind-hardened eyes.

  “You got weather gear?” Cole asked them.

  “No,” Ian replied. “No time. Come on, Blacke, off we go.”

  Trisha turned from Cole to the dinghy. It was big enough for two people. The only place to sit was on the bottom, and the only thing to hold onto was a white rope that ringed the rounded rubber sides.

  “Here, take these,” Cole said, shoving two neon yellow life vests at them. “I’ll get another boat ready and follow you out as soon as I can, in case you flip.”

  Trisha pulled off her gloves and held them with her teeth as she zipped up the vest and pulled the belting tight and clicked the clips together. Her hands almost instantly grew thick and clumsy with cold. She looked out at the black, churning water with taunting little white peaks of foam popping up in the dim light of the shore.

  Yet, she couldn’t say anything. She was the one who was insisting on going out there. She had to man up. Keep her mouth shut. Stay calm. Not think about the fact that her average chance of death on any given day had just gone from two percent to, oh, 85. Above all, she couldn’t let herself listen to the instructions Cole was giving Ian as they carried the boat to the water’s edge.

  “If you flip,” Cole said to Ian. “You have seven minutes before unconsciousness. Agent Blacke has probably five or less. Get on top of the raft. I put a flare in each of the vests. It’s twelve to fifteen minutes over to the island in these conditions. You’re gonna get fucking soaked even if you stay up. I’d say you have another ten minutes once you land to get into the warm. Also, you’ve got a small nav system in the boat because you’re not gonna see shit out there.”

  “Got it,” Ian replied as they set the dinghy down with the front of it already in the water. “In you go, Blacke. Sit in the middle, facing front, and hold onto the ropes on either side.”

  “Okay,” she gasped out, her teeth chattering with equal measures of terror and cold. She grasped Ian’s hand and felt Cole take her elbow to steady her as she stepped into the boat.

  “Oh my God,” she muttered, locking her jaw to keep from whimpering.

  Now that she was so close to the water, she could actually see the waves crashing against the rocks further along the shore. She could feel the movement of the water, hear it splashing against the rubber, and all that was between her and it was a couple inches of plastic?

  Not going to die. Not going to die. Not going to die. The mantra went round and round in her head. She barely heard Ian give final directions to Cole. Something about a doctor and some other people. Twelve minutes to the island. Five minutes in the water. No. Not going to die. Twelve minutes to the island. Ten minutes to get inside.

  How far was Perk’s house from the shore? What was she even doing here? She was so far off her protocol, she hadn’t just jumped the rule book, she had fucking jumped the shark. Would her gun work if it got submerged? Yes, it would. It had to. It fucking had to. Oh God, she was so scared. This wasn’t a movie. This was real life. Life that could be over. Five minutes in the water. No. Not going to die.

  The snow fell in the bottom of the dinghy and began to powder her with a nasty, cold crust. She cried out and grabbed the ropes as the boat bobbed and lurched.

  “Relax, Trisha,” Ian said. “Just me getting in. Okay, Cole. Good to launch.”

  She looked back, tensing up her body to keep from shaking with cold. Cole lifted up the rear of the dinghy, keeping the delicate metal of the propellers off the gravel and crushed shells, and he pushed them into the water.

  Cole leaned forward, using his weight and bulk to balance himself and push them forward, wading into the powerful, turbulent water.

  “Fucking low tide,” he grunted, steadying himself and pushing them out further until he was in the water up to his waist. Cole’s wading boots were useless now, Trisha realized. Water would be pouring into them and soaking upwards to his legs. The waves were now crashing against him and the boat, threatening to throw both off balance, even so close to the shore.

  Finally, Cole was able to set the boat down. Immediately, Trisha felt the loss of his anchoring hold.

  “Good to go!” he yelled out. “I’ll be behind you as fast as I can!”

  “Starting engine!” Ian replied, yelling over the waves that were fast separating them and pulling the boat into nature’s sick idea of a roller coaster ride.

  Ian threw his body into pulling the engine starter, but it took him several tries to get it going, each attempt frustrated by waves crashing over the sides and dousing the engine spark like putting out a match.

  “Fucking piece of shit!” he snarled at the engine and pulled one more time, just as a huge swell lifted them up over a five-foot hump and made them airborne for a moment before dropping with a bone-jarring crash onto what felt like black granite. In that second, the engine caught, and Ian pulled them around and turned on the navigation system.

  “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. “This is one hell of a current!”

  “What does that mean?” Trisha asked, repeated dousings of ice water making it hard to breathe.

  “We’ve already been pulled way off course! Hang on, I’ve gotta head into the wind to get us back.”

  Not real. Not real. Going to wake up. It’s a dream. Not really happening. She chanted over and over in her head, feeling the numbness of shock start to calm her. Words soon stopped coming in any form. All that was left was the lift and fall of the boat as it was caught up in swells and slammed back down. Every joint in her body was screaming in pain from the repeated impacts.

  Holding on became harder to do and harder to want to do as she got colder and wetter. The swirling, swelling, black silk-satin surface of the water with its syncopated foam caps was mesmerizing. She couldn’t stop watching them, and she began to feel dizzy, almost part of them. Waves crashed over them, but she couldn’t let go to wipe the water out of her face, and she couldn’t look away from the never-ending motion of the angry ocean.

  “Trisha!”

  It took a moment for her mind to register the sound as her name and then to turn around.

  The engine swung wildly from side to side.

  Nobody was holding it.

  Ian was gone.

  Chapter 22

  What had happened? Oh God.

  Cold. Pain.

  Pain.

  Trisha flailed and struggled to relax her muscles enough to inhale. There had been the moment of finding Ian gone, then…there had been the crash, cold, spin, toss, slam, hit,
underwater, water in the nose, fighting upward, lifting, thrown, bobbing, splashed, coughing. Air.

  All in a few seconds.

  Shit.

  She was in the water. Cold water. Five minutes? Where was Ian? She had to find Ian. Find the dinghy. Get on top of the dinghy. Breathe.

  Breathing was a challenge with the constant crash of waves over her. It was more like opportunistic gasping. Any movement was agonizingly painful because of the cold that had now seized control of her body, constricting her blood vessels, seeming to freeze her into a rictus of sharp torture.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of orange. The dinghy! There was a chance! She was not going to die. This wasn’t real. She was cold but she wasn’t. She just had to move slowly toward the dinghy.

  At first, she felt like she wasn’t making any progress. Every stroke of her arms seemed to just keep her in place.

  “God!” she gasped in waterlogged prayer. “Help me! Get me to the dinghy. Save Ian. Please, God! Please!”

  A small, remote, cynical voice in her fast-freezing mind asked if she hadn’t seen enough of evil to know that God didn’t exist.

  “Not going to die!” she spluttered frantically, thrashing toward the boat. Were her legs floating with her or had she lost sensation? She was thinking they were kicking, her brain sending the command down, but there was no answer.

  Crash. Under the water again. Up! Up. Up. Up.

  She was sucked down, pushed down again.

  No air. Her lungs were exploding. Were her eyes bulging? How unattractive, she thought irrelevantly.

  Air! Cold, icy, blessed air! Down again.

  Under the water. Black. Black but clear. So cold. So stupidly cold. Stupid idea…just stay there…be stupid…cold…

  She bumped against something, and it didn’t feel like another wall of water hitting her. She broke the surface of the water, wordlessly stunned to find herself alive and bumping against the raft.

  “Thank you, God!” she gasped, unable to tell if the salt she was tasting was tears or seawater or an ocean of sobs.

  “Fuck!” she screamed as she realized that pulling herself onto the raft was going to be almost impossible. Her hands were too cold now to close her fingers around the ropes. All she could do was fling her arms over the rubber siding and hold on. There was no strength left to pull herself up. Ian could help her.

  Oh God, Ian!

  She felt like she was starting to convulse, her body not knowing whether to shake with sobs for her loss, cold, or an abject terror of death.

  What was it going to be like, not knowing that she couldn’t know anything? Dark, black, nothing?

  No! She wasn’t ready to go. She had work to do! Ian! She had to save Ian. She had to save the girl on the island…the killer…she had to catch the killer…she had purpose still!

  She watched in horror as her arms numbly slipped from the dinghy. She had a last glimpse of orange against black, and then she was under again.

  It was so cold, but it was stiller at least under the water.

  It was restful.

  Her lungs burned for air, but she couldn’t move.

  She hung there, suspended in the water, drifting from blackness to blackness.

  * * * *

  “Blacke!”

  Ian screamed her name when he saw the figure in the yellow vest slip away from the dinghy and disappear under the water.

  How could his heart have stopped and be hammering so hard at the same time? Damnit! He had to move! Trisha’s life depended on him. Without her, he would sink into the darkness, in or out of the water. Without her, nothing mattered.

  He swam like Frankenstein would, he thought irrelevantly, as he threw arm over arm in an effort to swim to the dinghy and Trisha. He could feel his legs kicking, but his feet were numb.

  Trisha. He had to get to Trisha.

  No life without her.

  The cold slashed at him with every movement, slicing blood vessels and veins and muscle open and pushing in deep with icy hot needles. Closer. He was getting closer.

  Orange in the water! Not the dinghy! It was her hair!

  The LED light on her life vest reflected off the fiery strands drifting just below the surface of the water. Gasping and groaning, he thrashed his way forward until he reached her. He sucked in a lungful of air and dove down to grab Trisha. The light was diffused and strange in the endless darkness of the water.

  Absolute terror gripped his brain when the light revealed Trisha’s eyes closed and face calm and soft as her body drifted limply.

  There were no more thoughts. Movement. Grab her. Up. Kick up. Breaking the surface. Get the dinghy. Kick, tread, push up. Biceps and back muscles strained to lift her top half into the boat. Breathe. Grab her legs. Inhale, exhale, push, toss her in. In. He had to get in. There was no memory of the moment from water to inside the boat. It simply was one moment to the next.

  Trisha! Adrenaline and instinct fueled Ian now, giving him a divinely ecstatic second wind. He got to his knees and rolled her over onto her stomach, pounding, rubbing, and pushing her lungs to get her to expel whatever water she must have swallowed.

  “Come on,” he grunted, bracing them both as the raft rode up another swell and fell straight down the other side, slamming onto the surface of the water. “Come on, Trisha, don’t give up. Breathe. Come on, breathe. Breathe, goddamnit! You can’t do this! You have to breathe. You have to be alive! Breathe!”

  A huge wave loomed up tall and black over them, and he grabbed her around the waist and with his other arm reached for the rope on the side of the dinghy. He squeezed her as tightly to him as he could as the wave crashed down on top of them, dousing them in black, cold, salt, and pain once more.

  Fuck! Could he not get a break here? They were in the water again. The only upside this time was that he had wrapped the rope around his wrist, and he was now tethered to the boat, which was now upside down.

  “Fucking hell!” Ian screamed in frustration, fighting to tread water, keep hold of the boat, and flip it at the same time, all the while not losing his grip on Trisha.

  He got the boat righted once more and threw them both into it. This time, though, there was no second wind. There was no rush of frantic energy. It was just him and the woman he loved in his arms floating on the bottom of the waterlogged raft while wind and snow and storm sang them a brutal final lullaby.

  He looked down at Trisha’s peaceful face and felt his eyes burn. His beautiful girl, his Trisha was gone. It wouldn’t be so hard to go now, too. He felt bad for Ger, and somewhere, he remembered that there was a killer out there they had been trying to catch. He felt bad that they hadn’t caught him, but Trisha was gone. Nothing mattered now. It was cold, and he was tired. Sleep meant death, but that was okay…

  A fist crashed into his face, an elbow in his ribs, and something head-butted him. His eyes flew open to see Trisha thrashing and convulsing, spewing up water.

  The last of his strength summoned him back from the darkness, and he struggled to get her onto her knees and cradle her while she cried and coughed and shook. The realization that Trisha was still alive was only slowly sinking in, as if his heart and mind were too frozen to be penetrated even by the truth.

  She was alive. She was…alive. She was alive!

  They were in the boat.

  There was still a chance.

  “Fuck!” Trisha sobbed between coughs.

  Ian grinned, suddenly feeling like the luckiest damn man on the planet. She was alive!

  “Stay on all fours,” he ordered her, kissing her ear after giving the command. “It’ll help you breathe. I’ll get us to shore.”

  “Fuck,” she gasped, shaking. “It fucking burns to breathe.”

  “I love you, too, Trisha Blacke,” he called out with a crazy laugh of relief as he got the motor back in the water and fought to start it. Finally, the engine caught, and he could dimly see the outline of a shoreline. Whether it was the mainland or the Isle of Graves, it was land,
and it was closer than he expected, and he was going hell-bent for leather for it.

  The snow, water currents, and wind began to swirl as they got closer to the shore, the land mass disrupting the line of the wind, and Ian had to muscle the boat back into position to make a landing. It was agony to jump into the water again to pull the boat onto the shore, but he had to do it. Trisha was curled up in a ball on the bottom of the raft and barely moving. He had to get them to shelter if they were going to survive.

  “Come on, Blacke,” he said, stepping into the now-beached boat and wrapping his arms around her waist to help hoist her to her feet. “Can you stand up?”

  “Fuck,” she moaned, and he had to smile as she tried to stand up. She felt so small yet waterlogged and wobbly, like a newborn horse. He held her carefully, trying to test out how she was on her feet.

  “Where are we?” she demanded, her voice hoarse and pained.

  “We made it to the island,” he replied, glancing back over his shoulder where he could faintly make out the lights of Blue Moon across the water.

  “Fucking really?” she asked, laughing then choking which turned into a sob.

  “Hey, hey, steady, Blacke. We have to get indoors. We’ll cut across to the Casa de Pais.”

  “What about Perk?”

  “Perk? We’re going to freeze to death if we don’t get to shelter.”

  “Someone else might die or be dying if we don’t go to Perk’s!”

  “It’s further to his place from here, and I’m not losing you again!”

  “Lose me? When did you lose me?”

  “You almost died out there, Trisha! Do you know what that felt like, to see you like that? To think I had lost you? No, we’re going to the Casa de Pais, no, wait, where are you going? Wait a second, Blacke, you come back here. We’re not going to Perk’s and that’s final!”

  “This is some graveyard,” Trisha remarked through clenched teeth as she clamped her jaw shut to keep herself from chattering audibly. “There must be hundreds of graves here! And, Perk’s is just on the other side?”

  “It’s the house at the end of the graveyard, by the fence over there,” Ian replied through equally clenched teeth. “I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this!”