Bill spoke directly to me. “You mean you can read people’s minds and shit? Like, you know what I’m thinking right now?”
You’re thinking you’d get another rum and cranberry juice if Kurt weren’t watching you like a hawk, I thought. “Not like that. I just . . . get messages . . . from things, not everyone or everything. Just those closest to me, when there’s trouble. Not you.”
Bill stared at Collin and me. He switched his gaze over to Kurt. “Kurt? You believe in all this?”
“Yup. Seen it with my own eyes, even. So, Monito it is,” Kurt said.
After five hours’ bonding in the middle of the night, Kurt had brainwashed Bill. He may have thought we were all smoking from the same wacky weed, but Bill took the leap on Kurt’s say so.
“Well, Kurt, good thing we figured this out now. The cut over to Monito is right there.” Bill pointed at the next buoy. “Want to trade places?”
“No, I’m good. I piloted for thirty-five years. I like a sense of control.” He didn’t look at Bill, but he added, “As long as you’re OK with that.”
Nicely done, Kurt. I suspected I had just seen the last of Bill in the captain’s chair for this trip.
“Be my guest. I’ll get the binoculars, and we’ll start searching for Nick,” Bill said.
He disappeared below for two minutes and returned with a box of petite binoculars.
“My boss bought enough so that if the boat was full he would have a set for every person on board. Must be nice to have that much coin. Rocks for us, today.”
We each took a pair. Top of the line, of course, Robin Leach’s imaginary voice informed me.
Bill said, as if he were asking us if we knew the sun would come up tomorrow, “You guys know that we can’t get Kate all the way up to Monito, right?”
No, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know squat about Monito until two minutes ago. Not good news, but I decided a comment along these lines would not be productive.
“Does the mini Whaler work?” Collin asked, referring to the smaller boat strapped to the back of Kate.
“Yep, she does. The reef and rocks are impenetrable in places, though, even for the little Whaler. But we have a two-seater kayak and an inflatable raft, too. Again, my boss bought everything he could think of, plus a few.”
Collin grinned, but in a stern all-business way. I’d seen this many times before. It often involved cars squealing around corners on two wheels and guns firing, but luckily we were on an unarmed cruiser. Officer Connell was about to take charge of the mission, just as Captain Kovacs had taken over the helm. How many alpha males does it take to screw in a light bulb? I wasn’t sure, but I knew it only took one of me to find my husband.
“Bill, that satellite phone you told me your boss keeps charged under the bar? We have to keep it fully accessible, starting now. Time to check in with the federal powers that be. We need those flyovers your Coast Guard friend promised us, Kurt.”
Kurt held out his hand. “I’m all over it.” He took the phone. His tone was confident.
When he hung up, he said, “They’re already on their way from San Juan. We should see whirlybirds in an hour or so.”
An hour was an eternity. I stared back at the sky in the direction from which we’d come and wished the helicopters godspeed.
Chapter Twenty-five
Kate weaved through the rocks, reefs, and sandbars for the next hour. I kept my binoculars to my eyes, working my way back and forth like a slow-motion metronome over the surface of the water. The notes of “Für Elise” echoed in my brain in time to the beat-keeper, a memory from piano lessons long ago. I felt myself bobbing my head to the music in my search-dance. I was definitely near delirium.
My eyes ached from too little sleep and straining in the sun. I was scared even to blink for fear of missing Nick. So far, though, I had seen only three sea turtles and a lonely porpoise. We inched ever nearer to Monito Island, my Little Mona Lisa, scant more than a rock cliff face with green-tufted hair. Gazing at it, I felt so lightheaded that I could swear I saw a Fourth of July sparkler right in front of my nose. How could Nick even get up there? And how would we get him down if he did? Bill’s boss carried every small sea craft imaginable, but I doubted he stocked rock climbing and rappelling gear.
“We need to circle the island, right? Didn’t we decide that Nick most likely approached from the west?” I asked.
“Yup,” Kurt said. “Can you mark the map for me, Bill?”
Bill set down his binoculars on the table and prepped the map for Kurt. While he was at work, the sound of a helicopter filled my ears, a hopeful sound. Thwack thwack thwack, the blades beat the air, pounding, capable. I knew that if anyone could find Nick, it would be the helicopter crew. I did a mental fist pump.
Kate’s radio crackled. “Coast Guard Nikita for Wild Irish Kate. Do you read?”
Kurt had arranged for radio contact between the helo and us through his friend, who apparently had the stroke to make things happen, and then some.
Kurt hit the mike button. “Wild Irish Kate, copy that, Nikita. What do you see from up there?”
“We see a flat-top island with scrubby bushes, and that’s it. Monito proper devoid of humans. Repeat, no sign of subject on Monito.”
No. I refused to accept that. They were wrong.
“They’re wrong,” I said. “They are wrong!”
Kurt didn’t look at me, but he clicked to speak. “What about the cliffs and water around the island?”
“Hard to say, but we saw nothing on the first pass. There’s not even an iguana on top of the island. Really desolate. We’re going to check out Mona and Desecheo, and then we’ll come back and do some low hovers around the sides of Monito.”
But he’s on Monito! Why are they leaving Monito?
“Where’s Desecheo?” I asked.
Bill said, “It’s a tiny island much closer to Puerto Rico.”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “It’s highly unlikely Nick would have kept paddling against the current that far to the east. Mona, maybe, but not Desecheo. Kurt, tell them. Make them stop!”
“They said they’ll come back for the low passes,” Collin said. “If we argue with them, we’ll lose their cooperative spirit. Let’s just get in as close as we can and circle until they come back. Look alive, everyone.”
No one could argue with that. But I wanted to. I was furious. I shouted at the sky, coloring the air with curses and beating it with my fist. Damn them. Already the sound of the helo was receding in the distance.
But Collin was right, we couldn’t risk alienating the pilots. And hadn’t Nick said only I could find him? I hadn’t thought he meant literally. Getting to this one tiny island in the whole gigantic world was finding him, as far as I was concerned. But I would, by God, be the one or die trying. I grabbed my binoculars and hat and leaned over the railing, putting my eyes as close to the island as I could get them.
Collin and Bill had retrained their binocs on Monito, too. No one but Kate made a sound as we trolled around the island clockwise.
I focused on the vertical surfaces, since the Coast Guard had ruled out the horizontal. The water broke against the foot of the cliffs, and even under them in the places where the sea had cut away the base of the rocks. I wondered if the water could have sucked Nick under the cliffs.
Don’t think like that.
Some spots seemed friendlier than that, though, almost gentle. And we were in the Caribbean, not the North Sea, so even the rough spots weren’t brutal.
Bill read my mind. Without taking his glasses from his eyes, he said, “It looks worse than it is. I won’t lie—I’ve heard those rocks are wicked sharp, but there are plenty of protected areas.”
His words salved my nerves some. And I knew that with the warm sun, Nick wouldn’t die of hypothermia. The greater threats were dehydration and sunstroke.
Think positive, Katie.
I made a list of points in Nick’s favor: no poisonous snakes, no great white sharks,
no hurricanes this week. My emotions rollercoastered, but I anchored myself at that rail and never took the binocs away from my eyes.
When a picture of crazy Tim carrying Taylor away from Annalise snuck into my mind, I heard Nick’s voice: Annalise said to tell you she’ll protect the kids.
Ugh.
Could I trust my dreams? Could I believe what Nick said? We would know soon. I pushed Annalise and the kids out of my head and focused.
I kept sweeping, looking, searching forward, then back again. In one direction, a kaleidoscope of water and rock. In the other, a kaleidoscope of rock and water. Forward again. Back, but not quite as far. Farther forward. Lesser back. And again. And again. Everything looked crushingly the same. Water. Reef. Rock. Waves. Spray.
I didn’t know what to look for so I looked for anything that broke the pattern. Nick’s arm waving. A piece of wing with blue paint, a magnifying glass over a dead fish’s eye. Nick’s dark hair. Anything. But for hours now, all I had seen was nothing. I hadn’t even taken a break for water and my mouth was parched.
I commented for the hundredth time to Collin, “Everything looks the same. It’s so damn hard to see.”
“Treat it like one of those optical puzzles. Relax your mind and let your eyes and instinct work together. It makes things pop out of the picture,” Collin said.
Yeah, right.
And then, as I swept forward yet again, relaxing my mind as Collin suggested, something I saw tugged at me deep inside.
Turn around, Katie.
I wasn’t sure if it was my own voice or if someone else said the words to me. But I listened. I turned around and pointed my binoculars back, way past my normal sweep, backwards in the direction we had come.
Nothing.
No, wait. Something?
What was that? A rock nook and something lumpy on the horizontal plane?
Binoculars still to my face, I gripped the handrail blindly and stumbled toward the stern along the starboard walkway while Kate continued around Monito. I reached the back of the boat, straining to get a better view of the variation in pattern I saw at the base of the island. The anomaly called me to the rocks like a Siren.
“Stop,” I screamed, straining my throat. I dropped my binoculars for a split second and aimed my words at Bill, who had stationed himself halfway up the stairs to the flying bridge. “Stop, stop, stop!”
“Full stop,” Bill relayed up to Kurt, his voice penetrating the sound of Kate’s engine.
Kate lurched slightly then sagged into the water as Kurt throttled all the way back. I grabbed the handrail and trained my binoculars on the rocks again.
I heard Collin clambering toward the back of the boat.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. There—see the break in the rock with that piece jutting out toward the water that makes a sort of vertically protected face?” I pointed. “We couldn’t see it coming around. You have to be facing this way to see it.”
Collin pointed his binocs in the direction I indicated. “Yeah, I got it,” Collin said.
“Go up, tight in the back of the crease, about ten feet above the water.”
“OK.”
“See how the rock slants down to the water from there, like a ramp? Go up the ramp. Until you get to a rock shelf under an overhang. Do you see anything there? I think I see something with soft edges instead of hard corners. It could be a person lying down.”
Collin repeated my instructions in a whisper as he searched the rock. “Oh my God. I see it. You’re right, Katie. Good job—amazing eyes. Keep watching. I’ll get Kurt to move us back as near to it as we can get, then we can take one of the smaller boats in closer to get a better look.” Collin ran down the walkway as the boat gently pitched in the waves.
You bet I’ll keep watching. Nick, if that’s you, honey, we’re here. It would help if you would sit up or move around. Wave a white flag on a stick. Blow me a kiss. Something, baby. Anything.
As Kate started a slow pivot, I fought the powerful urge to dive over the rail and swim to Monito. Kurt lined us up in the opposite direction and cruised at double our previous speed to the edge of the next section of the reef.
“Bill, can you come up here and help me get closer?” Kurt yelled. He pulled the throttles back until Kate idled.
Bill didn’t answer; he just ran up the stairs. Seconds later, Kate started moving again in a cautious waddle. To me, it looked like Kurt was planting her atop the reefs. Our forward progress seemed minimal, just precious seconds wasted. Then I heard Bill coming back down the stairs. Kurt stopped the engines again.
“Anchor away,” Bill called out.
I took advantage of Kate’s stillness to search the rocks again. I had a much better view now, but I couldn’t tell if what I saw was my husband or not. Kate started swaying and my stomach heaved, but I clamped my teeth and swallowed down the bile.
Whir. Splash. Whirr-rrr-rr-rrr-rrr. I listened to the anchor as it sank to the ocean floor, looking for a sandy patch to claw.
Bill grunted. “Got it. Anchor secure.”
Now my ears picked out Kurt’s heavy tread on the stairs. Bill, then Kurt, joined Collin and me at the bow. We all stared at my find.
“What do you think?” I asked, praying one of them would tell me what I wanted to hear. “Is it Nick?”
“I can’t tell. It’s too big to be a bird or gecko, and it’s not just rock,” Bill said.
“Yup,” Kurt said.
“We have to get a closer look,” I said.
My eyes hurt from focusing on the rock shelf. I dropped them to the surface of the water for a quick rest and caught a disturbing new sight.
“Guys, look, there, twenty yards in front of us,” I shouted, pointing and waving my arm up and down. “There’s something stuck on the reef under the water, right below the surface.”
Three sets of binocs lowered to point at the water.
Kurt spoke first. “Something’s caught underwater. Something non-organic.” He dropped the binocs.
“Could it be the raft?” I asked.
Collin had already started moving back toward the stern. “I definitely think it’s the life raft.”
At first, this crushed my spirit. Then I realized that if what I saw on the rocks was Nick, he didn’t need the raft. It had already done its job getting him here. In fact, if this was his raft, that raised the odds considerably that what I saw on the rocks could actually be Nick. My mind romped with this information in a joyous circle.
Collin started to take charge. “Let’s get the Whaler in.”
Bill said, “We can’t get the Whaler all the way to the rocks. But we can get it halfway or a little better. I think we should put the kayak in, too.”
Collin continued to assert his authority. “All right. Two of us should go in the Whaler, then, and one of us needs to paddle the kayak while one of us stays with Kate.”
We all headed for the back of the boat. The diesel fumes filled my nose and I fought nausea again. Bill walked over to lower the Whaler and I opened a floor bin to haul out life jackets, paddles, and an inflatable raft. I was desperate for something to do, anything to get my mind off that lump on the rocks.
“Do you want to carry the inflatable in the Whaler?” I asked.
Bill replied, “Yeah, why not. Make sure to bungee-cord it on tight.”
Kurt and I began loading the Whaler.
“Collin, can you man the kayak?” I asked. He was the strongest of us all.
“Absolutely.” Collin unstrapped the kayak from its storage spot on the rear of the boat. He lowered it into the water by its line and started to climb in after it.
Kurt stopped him. “Wear this, take this,” he said. He handed Collin two life jackets.
“Yeah, good idea.” Collin put one on and disappeared over the side of the ladder, carrying the other life preserver and the long paddle under his arm.
“Which of you guys are staying with the boat?” I asked.
Kurt and B
ill looked at each other. “You’re younger and have more experience with small boats in these waters. You go, I’ll stay,” Kurt said to him.
“Good. Then I’ll go with Bill,” I said.
“Yup. Just bring back my boy,” Kurt said.
I looked through the supplies on the Whaler. Something was missing. I scrambled into the cabin and grabbed two red Gatorades.
“Bill, is there a first aid kit on the Whaler?” I called out.
“I don’t think so. Grab the one under the galley sink.”
I knocked over half the cleaning supplies in the cabinet before I found the waterproof pouch. I tucked it under one arm and held the Gatorades under the other and ran the few steps back to Bill and the Whaler. Bill had it ready to go, and I tossed my last few items in. He pushed the button to lower it into the water. I donned a life jacket and stuck my arm through the straps of one more, just in case.
Then I looked toward Monito. Collin was already halfway there. Go, Collin. Bring me back my husband. I followed Bill down the ladder and into the Whaler.
“Hang on,” he said as the low craft wobbled with our weight.
Kurt peered over the side, ready to bring our cables back up when we were free. Bill started the engine, unhooked the lines, and gunned the motor. She was ready.
Bill perched on his knees to get a better view of the reef. The Whaler growled and then roared as he urged it slowly forward. I braced myself as he cut the wheel from side to side, weaving through the obstacle course between us and Monito.
As we neared Collin, Bill eased off the throttle.
“Can you pull me up alongside Collin? I want to hand him a Gatorade. It’s likely he’ll be the first person to get to Nick.”
If it’s Nick.
It had to be, because I’d already seen the life raft from my dream, and if the life raft was here, he was here.
Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) Page 19
