We cross the locks, and then the parking lot. We start up Seaview Avenue. Jonah Castle tells me about the park, how it started, how a group of neighborhood people got together and made it happen. That’s what he believes in, he says. A group of people with a common bond get together and things happen. It’s how he built his company, he says. Just a bunch of friends fooling around in a garage with some software. Just to see what would happen.
I guess it’s kind of cool, talking to a major cyberpioneer, a legend. I’m thinking that the Maryland friends I’m not so in touch with anymore deserve an e-mail about this.
We get to the marina. The sunlight scampers on the water. We walk down toward the docks. There are people here, sitting on their boats. They wave at us and smile.
We walk down a dock all the way to the end. He stops in front of a big cabin cruiser, about forty feet long. “I think this is it. Let me check it out.” He jumps aboard while I wait on the dock. I look behind me, but I don’t see Diego.
He disappears inside the cabin. Then he pokes his head out. “Marcus isn’t here. But…”
“What?” I ask. Jonah looks worried.
“It looks like the boat has been broken into or something,” he says. “There’s stuff all over the floor, and—”
He stops.
“What?”
“You’d just better stay there. I’ll call Marcus. No, I’ll call 911.” He takes out his cell phone, then slaps the side of the canvas flap in frustration. “No service. Let’s walk back to…”
I’m not waiting for the police. I have to get aboard. I have to feel the space, touch it. The police can find clues. But they can’t find what I can feel.
I spring onto the boat.
“Don’t,” he warns, taking a step toward me. “They won’t want anyone else aboard.”
But I evade him. I have to look. He doesn’t want to tell me what he saw, but I have to see it. I know that a thief didn’t break in. I know that Jonah has seen signs of a struggle. Something happened on this boat.
I had seen the fists pounding.
I had felt her panic like it was my own.
It’s as if I’m in a dream, a dream that someone else has dreamed. I can see the white deck, the bright snapping blue flag. And Emily is saying, keep going. Help me, help me.
I bend forward to look into the cabin. The surprise that it is neat, nothing out of place, is still registering dully in my head when I feel his hands on my back, when the push sends me down the stairs.
I land on my hands and knees, but I bite my lip hard.
I hear the thunk of the door.
My face is in the carpet. I am stunned. My lip is bleeding. I touch my tongue to the blood.
No.
Under my cheek, I feel the engines start up.
No.
I run to the window. I can’t open it.
I smell gasoline and see churning foam.
I pound on the window with my palms, slap them against the window. Then I use my fists.
“Help me, help me, help me!” I scream the words, over and over.
No one can hear.
My vision swims into focus. The girl on the bench, waiting.
I had been right all along about the danger.
Now I see it clearly.
The girl I had seen on the bench wasn’t Dora at all.
The girl I had seen on the bench was me.