by David Berens
He raised the tub up to show her the proof that he had indeed been the delivery person and not just a creeper staring at her nude form. Finally, she leaned down and took her towel from the lounge chair. Carefully, she wrapped it around her body, covering herself.
“There you go,” she said. “Is that better?”
“Yes.” Troy felt himself relax. “Thanks.”
Her infectious laugh bubbled out of her mouth again.
“Anyway,” she pointed to the door of the pool house, “just carry it in here and I’ll get it in the buffet pans to keep it warm. We’ve got a meeting later to discuss the future of our protest group. Decide where we’re going next and all that. You want to hang out and listen in?”
“As much as I’d like to watch a bunch of nekid people discuss savin’ the whales while chowin’ down on this crab gumbo, I think I’ll pass. Don’t really wanna kill yer vibe.”
“We’re really not all that bad, ya know?” she followed him through the door and led him to the kitchen. “As long as it’s responsibly caught crab, I’m not against it. I’m not a vegetarian or anything like that.”
Troy considered this as he sat the tub of soup on the kitchen island. “Don’t really seem like you’re much like any of those other people you were um…protestin’ with.”
She sighed heavily and Troy thought that even her disappointed looks were pretty.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m starting to feel that way, too. But I do have interest in some of their causes, so I hang around to see if I can do some good.”
Troy wasn’t sure what to say next so he found himself looking around at the gourmet style kitchen in wonder. And then something struck him.
“What’s the deal with this place? I mean, not to sound rude, but protester types don’t usually live in mansions. What are you doing here?”
She looked around. “It’s crazy isn’t it? It’s an Airbnb place. Cheaper than a hotel actually.”
“I have no idea what that means, but yep, it’s nice.”
“Are you sure you won’t stay?”
“Nah, I gotta check in on—”
Troy felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw a message from Meira.
-Need you. Trouble.
“Dangit,” Troy muttered.
“Something wrong?” Clarice asked.
Troy tapped out a reply.
-Where are you? What trouble?
He sent it and looked up at the young protester.
“Not sure yet, but I gotta go. Good luck to you.”
He didn’t wait for her to say anything as he jogged back toward the gate in the hedge.
Meira was ecstatic when the message came through from Troy. She tapped out a couple of quick rapid-fire messages back.
-On a boat with Riley.
-Kidnapper is Barry and his dad.
-Somebody called Jack.
She touched the button to send them, and the familiar spinning wheel of a text trying to but not going through taunted her. Sure enough, the bars of cell service had disappeared. Apparently they were moving farther away from shore and her phone was too far away to transmit a text.
She pushed the button over and over in a desperate attempt to get the failed message to send. And like the elevator, it ignored her and continued to stay unsent. She turned the screen brightness all the way down and put the settings into power-saving mode to conserve as much of her battery as she could. Tucking the phone into her pocket, she looked in the direction of her daughter. The feeling that this would all end badly would not go away, but she did her best to hide that from Riley.
“We’re going to get out of this, you know.”
Riley said nothing, but Meira did hear a slight whimper come from her teenaged daughter. It was clear from her response that she did not believe her mother. She vowed in that moment not to let her daughter down. Even if it meant giving her own life, she would protect her baby.
“I need something…a weapon…” Meira muttered to herself and began to feel around in the room.
After a few seconds, she could hear that Riley had gotten up and was sloshing around the room as well. Meira smiled, knowing her daughter couldn’t see her. She fought the jerking rocking motion of the boat jumping over waves and slamming back down. It was much harder to stay balanced without being able to see. She considered turning her phone flashlight on, but before she could, a harsh bounce threw her down into the ankle deep water.
“Ow, shit,” she blurted out.
“Mom? Are you okay?” Riley’s voice called to her.
She rubbed her right elbow gently, the one that had slammed into the hard floor of the boat. Assessing the damage, she realized that something was broken just below the joint. Maybe her radius or her ulna, she could never remember which was which. Pain shot up her arm when she tried to move it. Making a snap decision, she chose to keep the fact that she had just broken her dominant arm from Riley.
“I’m good,” she grunted. “Just fell with that last bump.”
“Mom?” Riley asked again. “You feel that? We’ve stopped.”
Meira realized that the boat had slowed and was bobbing up and down gently with no engine roaring around them. They were drifting. She tried hard to avoid thinking that the two kidnappers had found their dumpsite and would soon be opening the hatch to kill them. A soft bang in Riley’s direction was followed by a gasp.
“Hey,” her daughter said. “I’ve got something.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a pipe or something. I just stubbed the shit out of my big toe on it.”
Meira decided the fact that her daughter had just cursed in front of her was something she would deal with later if they survived this.
“A pipe? That’s good. I can do a lot of damage with a pipe!”
“Yeah, but…” Riley’s voice trailed off in a groan, “it’s stuck. I think it might still be attached to something.”
Meira held out her left arm and eased toward Riley. She almost let out a sob when her palm touched her daughter’s shoulder. She knelt down beside her and fished around with her hand in the black water. Sure enough, a pipe or railing or something was lying there. It was about three inches off the floor and best she could tell, attached at one end.
She got a tight hold on it with her left hand and tugged. It bent slightly upward, but wouldn’t budge.
“Here,” she said to Riley. “Help me.”
She felt her daughter’s hands feel along her arm down to the pipe and grab hold.
“Got it,” Riley said.
“Okay. On three. One. Two. Three.”
They both pulled as hard as they could on the metal rod in the water. Meira felt the muscles in her arm tighten and strain. It bent upward and a loud squeal sounded. The pipe hadn’t moved much, but it didn’t snap back into position like it had before. They were making some headway.
“It moved!” Riley exclaimed.
“I know. I know. Let’s go again.”
They repeated the process and the pipe squeaked some more and rose farther out of the water. Meira felt sweat beading on her forehead and the pain throbbed in her broken right arm. She wondered if the pipe would do any good in her left hand even if they did get it to break loose.
The third time the pulled on the pipe, it jerked upright at an almost ninety degree angle to the floor. Oddly, it didn’t let go, though. Meira was about to suggest they pull it again, when Riley stopped her.
“Wait. Hang on a sec.”
“What? What is it?”
Riley was quiet, but Meira could hear the sound of her sloshing through the water around the pipe.
“It’s broken almost all the way through at the bottom,” she finally said. “If we go back and forth a few times, it should give way.”
“Clever girl,” Meira’s smile came back.
They worked the pipe back and forth and Meira felt the warmth of the warping metal rising up through her hands. Suddenly, it snapped free and Meira was tossed backwards with the release. Sh
e fell again and her instincts made her put her hands out to catch herself. Bad mistake. Her right hand crumpled under her when she hit the deck and knifing, lava hot pain shot up her arm. If the break had been simple, she’d just made it worse. She screamed and clutched her arm with her left hand. She felt a shock wave surge through her brain threatening to make her faint. She fought it off and propped herself up on the sidewall of the boat. After a few seconds, she was able to stave off the inevitable collapse and assess the situation.
Oh, dear God, she thought when her fingers rubbed over what must be her bone punched through the skin. Bad. This is bad.
“Mom! What’s wrong? Oh, my God,” Riley yelled. “What’s wrong??”
“Riley,” Meira wheezed through the pain. “Calm down. I think I’ve broken my arm.”
She thought that was all the information Riley needed at this point. Whatever she’d been planning to do with the pipe was now a lost cause.
“Oh no,” Riley sobbed. “This is all my fault. We’re gonna die out here and it’s all my fault.”
“Riley, stop,” Meira struggled to do it, but she called forth the voice that all children know as the “mom voice.”
She could hear her daughter sniffling. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. Time to take control of this situation.
“Riley, listen to me,” Meira continued in a slightly softer voice. “This is bad. We both know that. But we still have the element of surprise. They won’t know we have a weapon.”
“But your arm...”
“Yes, it’s broken,” Meira said. “But yours is not.”
She waited and let that sink in. Their only hope now was to get Riley to snap out of it and defend them. When she heard Riley calm down, she started again.
“Sweetie,” she said. “I don’t pretend to understand what it is you and your friends do in that stupid video game, but it might be time to practice some of that skill in real life.”
“But Mom, that’s all fake. I’m not a—”
“You are a strong young woman,” Meira interrupted her. “I’ve always known that, and now it’s time for you to believe it.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Riley almost whispered. “It’s just a game.”
Meira scooted on her butt toward her daughter’s voice. When she finally bumped up against her, she raised her left arm and stroked Riley’s shoulder.
“Remember when you told me about the gourd stone you found in that secret chamber? The one that gave you all those extra points or something like that?”
In the dark, Meira could feel her daughter moving, nodding her head.
“Life gems,” Riley said and sniffed.
“You told me that you had to club the stones hard enough to smash them and get the gems inside, right?”
“Uh huh.”
“And that you were the only one in the game who got them all. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“I was,” Riley agreed.
“Well,” Meira inhaled deeply. “I think it’s time to go gourd smashing again.”
She felt the pipe rolling around next to her leg and grabbed it. She pressed it into Riley’s hand.
“It’s worth two life gems, mine and yours, if you can smash the gourd on those two jackass’s shoulders.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I believe in you princess.”
And that’s when the hatch slammed open and light poured into the dark hold.
Troy was running. Pain surged through his bad knee, but still he ran. The dang taxi driver had left him there and he had hurled more than a few curses at the man and vowed to find him when this was all over and teach him a thing or two about manners. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was headed, but he ran. He’d dialed Meira’s number more than ten times, but it went straight to voicemail. She was either out of range, or her phone was off. Either way, Troy felt panic begin to creep into his mind. By the time he’d gone five miles, his leg gave out. The old wound in his knee just wouldn’t let him go any farther. He knelt down on the gravelly side of the road. He pulled his hat off and ran his hand through his hair. For the first time in more than twenty years, he felt tears sting his eyes. And then his phone pinged.
He jerked it out of his pocket and saw the new messages from Meira.
-On a boat with Riley.
-Kidnapper is Barry and his dad.
-Somebody called Jack.
Troy immediately dialed her number. Voicemail. Somehow the texts had finally come through, but the signal was lost again. There was no telling how long ago she’d sent the texts. It might be too late. Jack…Jamaica Jack Barron. He was Barry’s dad? And Barry was the killer? Puzzle pieces clicked into place, but Troy didn’t know what the full picture was. He did know that he needed to find them as fast as possible…but where were they?
He looked at the texts again. On a boat. Jack was taking them somewhere, but where? He wracked his brain for a good three minutes and then remembered their fishing trip a few days ago. Sharkin’ grounds…that’s where Jack would take them, and he knew Jack’s favorite spot.
He stood up and his knee buckled. With one good leg, he wobbled over to a nearby stop sign. He tapped out of the messages Meira had sent and dialed.
“Hello?” a confused voice answered the call.
“Duffy, is that you?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Duffy, it’s Troy. No time for B.S. Look, Meira’s in trouble. I know who the killer is and he’s kidnapped her and her daughter.”
“Huh? What?”
“I’ll explain when you get here. I need a ride.”
“I’m on my way. Where are you?”
He looked up at the street sign above him.
“Linda and Curfew,” he said. “And don’t waste time. The girls are in trouble and I’m not sure how much time there is to save ‘em.”
“Got it.”
Before Duffy hung up, Troy heard the sound of his siren fire up in the background. Five minutes later, he was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his patrol car. He explained the situation to Officer Duffy and told him he needed to get to his boat as quickly as possible.
Duffy nearly ran over a dog and two old ladies screaming down the highway towards the pier. The patrol car skidded into the sandy parking space and Duffy jumped out.
“No!” Troy shouted as he limped down the beach toward his rowboat. “Get on the horn. Get the Guard out. We’re either gonna find a couple of kidnappers or a couple of murderers. Gonna need the cavalry on this one.”
Duffy nodded and ducked back into his car. Troy groaned with the simple effort of pushing his dingy into the water. He fell into the boat and grabbed the trolling motor. No time for rowing now.
As it cranked up, Troy cursed himself for not upgrading to a motor that would travel faster than ten miles an hour. He crept through the water at a frustratingly slow rate and finally reached his 1998 Island Packet 40 foot cutter. He leapt out of the smaller boat, not taking the time to tie it off. Climbing the rope onto the cutter was painful, but not nearly as painful as his knee hitting the solid deck. He limped his way to the anchor, pulled a knife from his belt and cut the rope, letting it sink into the water. He’d buy a new one later. By the time he reached the wheel, his leg was pounding from the pain. He slumped back in the chair and fired up the motor. This boat wasn’t built for speed, but he slammed the throttle down and steered out toward Jamaica Jack’s favorite sharking ground. As he got under way, he grabbed a bottle of aspirin from under the dash and tossed several into his mouth. He crunched them back and swallowed.
For the second time in as many days, a peal of thunder announced a coming storm from the south.
“Dangit,” Troy muttered and slammed his hand down on the wheel.
Part III
Avast Ye Land Lubbers
“There is, one knows not what, sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”
-Herman Melville
2
0
Tug-Tuggin’ Along
Troy felt the first sputter of the engine when he was five miles out from the shore. That was when he felt the first stinging raindrops too. What is it with the dang ocean and storms? Like a long lost lover you just can’t shake, thought Troy. He ignored the sputtering, but eased the throttle back just a bit. The old girl was holding up pretty well for a twenty-year-old boat, but she had her moments.
“She’ll hold together,” he said out loud to no one.
As if in reply, a louder, deeper bang erupted from below him.
“Baby, baby, hold together,” he muttered and rubbed his hand on the dash.
As the rain began to pelt in sheets, he steered farther north than he’d planned, trying his best to stay ahead of the roughest waters. Waves began to swell higher and higher and his boat rose and fell on them, sending a churn into his belly. He’d been a seaman for a long time, but even now, rolling waves sent him into fits of nausea.
He pulled his phone out and saw nothing new from Meira. Probably too late, he thought. Jack’s probably turned ‘em over to his boy, Barry, and God only knows what that boy is capable of…
The ocean became a mix of spray and sheeting rain. Dark clouds began to rumble overhead with lightning that threatened to strike at any second. He shuddered at the thought and suddenly, out of nowhere, a strange memory came to him.
Drinks. Drinks with umbrellas in them. Kim and Dana laughing. The haze that had clouded that night began to fall away. It was a strange feeling to have a dark curtain pulled back from a memory like that. Details that were gone flooded back into his mind as sure as the water flooded over onto his deck.
He could see the bar at Fish Heads clearly now. He could see Dana and Kim, the two servers from the Austin Seafood Company. They were both drunk…so drunk they’d begun comparing tattoos and it was getting a bit too risqué for the bartender. He’d come over to quiet them down, but one look at the Celtic cross on Kim’s lower back and he’d poured them all a new round of shots.
