“Which way?” I hollered, hoping the boy would have a better sense of direction than I did. He lifted a hand from my midsection and pointed straight ahead.
The front tires threw mud and water all over us. My jeans and sweatshirt were soaked through, and my hands felt like they were encased in ice. The swamp seemed to continue on and on forever. Finally the trees started to thin and the ground changed from water to pure mud. Spatter off the front tires hit me right under the chin. My eyes burned.
And then we were out, and the same old canal was now off to our left. I had to assume that we hadn’t crossed over Snake Road, that we were still on the east side, so I headed in the direction I assumed would be west—if that was indeed the L-28 canal. We’d traveled about a mile on the dirt road, taking it fairly slow so the wind wasn’t too bad, when a man stepped out into the road just yards ahead of me. He was walking into the road and, in profile, I saw the ponytail.
I swerved and started to crank the throttle when I recognized the face. It was B. J.
I overshot by about fifty feet, circled around, and pulled up next to him. I turned the key to switch off the steaming engine. Past his shoulders, I saw where he had parked Lightnin’ away from the canal bank road.
“Did you see them?” I asked him.
“See who, Seychelle?” His voice sounded tight.
“The guys, back at Gramma Josie’s. We saw them. There were these two guys with ski masks and guns ...”
“Ski masks and guns?”
“Yeah!” I swung my leg over the front of the bike and climbed off. I pointed to the boy still sitting on the back of the bike. His glasses were completely caked with mud. It was only when I saw him that I realized how mud-covered we both were. “He can tell you. We saw two men creeping around the house, ready to break in.”
“Sey, I ran out as soon as I heard the ATV start up. There wasn’t anybody out there.”
“And there was this truck that they were in. Surely you heard that? You heard their truck start up?”
“After you guys took off like bats out of hell, I went back into the house, got your keys out of your purse, got into your Jeep, and started looking for you.”
He must have been in the house when the truck started up. He wouldn’t have heard it from inside. They’d obviously parked it some distance from the house.
“There were two guys, B. J. They had a truck.”
“I was driving along the canal here looking for you when I noticed something running dark ahead of me on the canal road. No headlights. Then I saw brake lights. I thought it was you and I tried to catch up to see what the heck you were doing joyriding in the middle of the night on an ATV.”
“Joyriding? Dammit, B. J.” I stomped around in several circles trying to work off the anger. And to generate a little warmth. I stopped in front of him. “That was you?”
He nodded.
“We went into that friggin’ swamp running from you?” He smiled and ran his finger through the mud on my cheek. “It is a rather fetching look, though. Very earthy.”
B. J. Moana might never know how close he came to getting decked then and there. I was cold, I was in serious pain, and I grew up with two older brothers. The only thing that prevented me from taking a swing at him at that moment was the fact that I knew he was something like a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
“You want to go back to Gramma Josie’s and try to change?” B. J. asked.
“No,” I said. “I just want to get Zale the hell out of here.”
The boy spoke up for the first time. “We could probably leave the ATV at Sadie’s store by the bridge.”
I looked at him, trying to remember a store in the settlement.
“That place called Big Cypress Arts and Crafts,” he said.
I nodded.
B. J. and Zale led the way in the Jeep, and I followed them down the couple of miles of dirt road until we arrived back at Snake Road. I insisted on writing a note on a fast-food napkin wedged under the Jeep’s seat—“This ATV is the property of Josie Tigertail”—and I stuck it under a strap on the vinyl seat.
Jeep Wranglers with zippered windows are not best known for their airtight qualities, but the canvas on Lightnin’ was especially stretched out and ill fitting. Wet and cold as we were, I knew that the ride on 1-75 back across the Everglades was going to be brutal. I scrounged up an old green army blanket that I kept in the car for spur-of-the-moment beach excursions, and Zale and I crawled into the backseat and huddled under it, hoping to find some protection from the wind.
Somehow, Zale slept. I guess that comes under the heading of “the resilience of youth.” Me, I was awake for every freezing minute of that hour and a half it took us to get home. I thought about the fact that I was about to turn thirty and the youth thing didn’t really apply to me anymore, and then that made me think about the alternative.
Death. Nick Pontus—that guy who I had seen on the beach and thought was so cute, that guy my dearest friend had married, that guy who had fathered the boy sleeping here in the backseat with me—was dead. Up until that moment I had been so self-involved, only thinking about how Nick’s death had impacted me and forced me to reconnect with Molly, I hadn’t really thought about Nick. He had been so full of energy and arrogant and determined to change the world and slap the Pontus mark on it. I’d probably stopped liking him that very first afternoon we met when he acted like every other boy I knew and chose Molly over me. The only reason I disliked him so much was because I had liked him in the first place. He’d been so full of life with his broad shoulders, olive skin, and thick brown hair. I found myself smiling at those days long ago, and while I rode through the night with my lover at the wheel, the first and only tears I would ever shed for Nick washed a tiny bit of the mud off my face.
XXIII
I asked B. J. not to bother coming in with us. I insisted that we were fine, that all we wanted to do was get clean and dry and go to sleep. He had pulled Lightnin’ into the Larsens’ driveway and parked next to his El Camino, so he just stepped out of one vehicle and into the other.
Zale and I said little as we took turns in the shower. I sent him in first while I made myself a hot cup of tea, and it was nearly midnight by the time I came out in the living room dressed in black jeans and a navy turtleneck. Zale was lacing up his shoes, and he looked up at me.
“You sure you want to do this tonight?” I asked him.
“Yeah. If it’ll help my mom, the sooner the better. Besides, now that I slept in the car, I’m wide awake.”
“Okay, then let’s go.”
We decided to take the Whaler because the boatyard gate would be locked this late, and I didn’t feel up to trying to talk our way in or climbing over the gate and getting busted by the night watchman. We’d had enough excitement for one night. As Nick’s heir and son, Zale basically owned the Mykonos, so it wasn’t like we were doing anything illegal by going aboard. The kid said he had a key to the boat on his key ring, so we might as well go look. Once we knew what was in the safe, we’d be able to sleep. Or so I hoped.
I didn’t have running lights on my dink like Mike did, so I had Zale sit up in the bow with a flashlight to keep us legal. We took it slow. Even though it was after midnight, it was a Saturday night and the restaurants downtown were crowded with couples. Every other home was still well-lit within, and we felt a little like voyeurs as we admired their furniture, watched people moving inside, and checked out what they were watching on their big-screen TVs.
I’d listened to the weather on my handheld VHF before leaving it behind on the dining table, and the Coast Guard robot voice had told us that another cold front was headed our way overnight. After being so cold out there in the Everglades we’d both overdone it a bit, and we were wearing layers on top of our layers.
When we arrived off River Bend and I made my turn, I looked down the row of boats propped up on the hard ground on the right side of the basin. The hulls looked like fat bugs, the prop stands supporting them like s
pidery legs. I didn’t see the Mykonos. Zale was the one who pointed out that I’d missed her, that she was tied up on the end tie, afloat.
“Well I’ll be damned,” I said, turning the Whaler around. “I guess the name Pontus really gets the boatyard boys hopping. I’d never have guessed she’d be back in the water this soon.”
I tied the Whaler up in almost exactly the same spot I’d left Gorda on Monday. The boatyard was shaped like a U around the small marina basin, with the two little peninsulas of land covered with boats high and dry on the hard ground. At that time of night it was quiet, and very few boats had lights on inside. The handful of live-aboards were already tucked tight in their beds. Out by the main gate there was probably a night watchman, but likely as not he was asleep, too, at this hour.
We crossed the wood dock and jumped down into the Mykonos's cockpit aft. Zale’s key opened the sliding door and we entered and turned on the lights. The galley and the salon couches were off to starboard while a small dinette was to port. White shag carpet and black leather combined with some kind of purplish modern art gave me the sense that if this was Janet’s redecorating taste, I would hate to see their house. All that was missing was a black-velvet painting of Elvis. White curtains were drawn across all the windows, a trick often used by workmen when they wanted to take a break on the salon couch beyond the prying eyes of the yard foreman.
Zale stood in the center of the main cabin, and I saw his shoulders lift with a brief shudder. “What?” he said.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked.
“I thought I heard something,” he said.
Zale passed through the main cabin and down a couple of steps forward to a companionway. I followed him. The master stateroom was to port. The black-and-white motif translated here into a comforter with the wildest geometric pattern and black satin covers on the pillows. When Zale lifted the mattress on the queen-sized berth, I saw a plywood hatch. Under it was a large built-in safe.
“I assume you know the combination.”
“I think so.”
“You think so? We came all the way over here at this time of night on an ‘I think so’?”
“I know it as long as he didn’t change it. It’s a variation on my birthday,” he said as he dialed, then pulled the lever. To my amazement, he lifted the door open.
Only one item was inside: a silver case. While Zale held the door, I reached past him and pulled it out.
It was one of those aluminum photographer’s cases, like a little suitcase, about a foot and a half long and maybe five inches thick. I handed it to Zale and he carried it up into the main salon. When he tried to open the two latches, they wouldn’t budge. Each latch had a keyhole, and the thing was clearly locked.
“I don’t suppose you have the key to that thing on your ring, do you?” I asked.
“Nope. Dad never said anything about what was in the safe.” He peered at me through those glasses of his. He looked like such a little boy. “Why put a locked box in a safe?”
“A lot of people on boats use those boxes for their important documents. There’s a rubber gasket inside so they’re waterproof, and well, you know—on a boat, there’s always that chance. I guess safes are safe, but they’re not waterproof.”
“Do you think we can break the lock?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we can. I’ve got stuff back at the house. Why don’t you close up that safe and make the bunk look like nobody’s been here?”
“Okay.” He tucked the case under his arm and went down the stairs into the forward stateroom. I could see he didn’t want to entrust that case to anyone. It was a part of his father, and he was going to hang on to it.
Zale had just disappeared into that forward cabin when I felt the boat lurch. There is a distinctive feel to a boat when someone steps aboard and the deck tips slightly with the added outboard weight. I turned to look at the sliding door aft leading to the cockpit, and before I could react, two black-clad figures rushed into the salon and knocked me to the ground.
No one said a thing. I heard Zale let out a little cry, but then he was quiet. A hand on the back of my head smashed my face into the white shag carpet while they yanked my arms behind my back and bound my wrists with heavy, rough rope. Then some sort of cloth hood was slipped over my head just before they yanked me to a standing position.
Part of me felt like I should be yelling and struggling, but we’d been caught by surprise and were so clearly outmanned that I figured if I did scream, I’d just get hurt. And I was hurting enough as it was. Even a big, strong woman like me is no match for a couple of men. Especially when my hands are bound behind my back, my ribs are bruised, and I can’t even see my assailants. Someone lifted my hands and propelled me forward. I nearly stumbled when I got to the stairs, but whoever was holding my hands prevented me from falling by grabbing the shoulder of my sweatshirt. He shoved me into the guest stateroom on the starboard side. I was barely through the door before my knees collided with the lower berth and I started to fall. I tried to duck, knowing that there must be an upper berth, too, but I still caught the top of my head on the underside of it. Knocks on the head hurt like hell, and I cried out for the first time, but I had little time to feel sorry for myself. Seconds later another body landed on top of me with a grunt, and I knew Zale had arrived. The door closed with a soft click, then a clack. They’d locked the stateroom door.
I rolled out from under him and shifted around so I was lying on my side, and so my bruised ribs and arms didn’t hurt quite so much. There was nothing to be done about my head. I was probably headed for goose egg number two. “You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him.
I moved my head so that my cheek slid against the fabric of my hood. It was soft, silky, and I figured they had just thrown a couple of Nick’s pillowcases over our heads.
“Did you get a look at them?” I asked him.
“Uhn-uhn,” he said.
“Me neither. It happened too quick.”
I heard him sniffling then. After I heard a couple of sharp breaths and felt his body shudder, I wished like hell my hands weren’t bound so that I could wrap my arms around him.
The hull around us began to vibrate as the big boat’s twin diesels started up and reverberated throughout the boat. They didn’t wait around long enough for the engines to warm up. I could tell from the change in RPMs that we were pulling away from the dock, leaving River Bend.
“Hey, kid. I know it seems pretty bad right now, but we need to hold it together.”
“It’s them,” he said.
“Yeah, but I don’t know who the hell ‘them’ is, what they want, or where they’re taking us.”
“They’re gonna kill us, aren’t they?”
“Not if I can help it,” I said, trying to sound surer than I felt.
We eventually squirmed around enough so that we were able to pull the hoods off each other’s heads by using our teeth. It didn’t make a whole lot of difference since there were no lights on in the stateroom, and there was no porthole to see outside. And I didn’t need to see outside to know we were headed down the river. It was too noisy down there in the hull to hear the chimes as the bridge tenders lowered the traffic gates, but I could feel the engines idle down as we waited for each of the bridges to open for the Hatteras’s high hardtop. I stood up and tried to feel my way around the cabin with my bound hands, looking for a sharp edge that might cut through the rope. I found a bunk light, but after doing a contortionist’s trick to try to turn it on, it didn’t even work. Zale lay on the bunk as I explored, and by the time I was through, he had fallen asleep on his side with his face to the hull. I thought that I would go to work on the ropes that bound him with my teeth, but I lay down next to him to rest up for the effort. Never in a million years did I believe that in those conditions, I would fall asleep.
I awoke to the clattering noise of the anchor chain rattling out. In that forward cabin, it sounded like the chain locker was r
ight over our heads. I was painfully aware of our whereabouts from the moment I opened my eyes. The pain in my hands, wrists, ribs, and shoulders did not allow a gradual rise from the depths of sleep. The bindings around my wrists had loosened a little as I slept, but the rope had embedded itself in my flesh, and now as I moved, it felt as though it was tearing off a layer of skin. And as I was lying on top of one of my arms, the hand on that side had fallen asleep. I struggled to sit up, and when the blood started to flow back into that arm, the prickling pain intensified.
I sat on the edge of the bunk, waiting, assuming that now that we had anchored, they would come for us and something would happen. But no one appeared. For several minutes I heard the sound of their footsteps moving about on deck over our heads. When the footsteps stopped, they were followed by muffled voices outside the door to our cabin. There was a little snick as the master stateroom door closed, and then all went quiet.
I hadn’t even been able to make out what language they were speaking. Creek? Russian? English?
“You awake?” I whispered.
There was no answer. I could hear Zale’s rhythmic breathing.
Sleep was a great way to try to escape our predicament, but the problem was, now that I had slept, I was wide awake. I envied the boy his ability to sleep through this. It was his way of handing the reins over to me, saying, “Okay, you’re the grown-up, you figure out how to get us out of this.” And, yeah, I was supposed to be the adult here, but the problem was, I didn’t feel like being the one in charge. Hell, look at my track record. Ever since I was eleven years old, it seemed all I had been doing was screwing up and losing people. I’d managed to save a few strangers through the years, both as a lifeguard and as a salver, but the important ones, the ones I loved, were all lost. My mother, my father, Neal. And Elysia, the one I came so close to saving.
Bitter End (Seychelle Sullivan #3) Page 23
