The night seemed unusually dark when I pulled my car up to the shore. For the first time in weeks, the sky was cloudy enough to mask the stars; a hazy ring around the moon promised rain for tomorrow, or sooner. A sudden wind bit into me as I got out of the car, and I felt chilled in my shorts and T-shirt. By staring into the darkness, I could just make out the black shape of the Amy Denise.
I picked my way through the rocks and sand to the dinghy, which I had dragged up on land and tied to a tree that morning. When I reached it, I removed my shoes and tossed them into the boat, following them with my purse, suitcase and a small bag of groceries. Then I untied the dinghy and pushed her into the high and lapping tide. Dripping water from the knees down, I climbed in. I reached into the bottom of the boat for an oar to push off with, but my hand grabbed pure air.
“What the . . . ?” Somebody had stolen both oars. I fumbled under the seats only to discover the life jackets were gone, as well.
I was too tired to cuss or care. I merely let out a disgusted sigh, then jerked the engine to life. The loss could have been worse, I consoled myself: the thief could have taken the entire boat.
The dinghy puttered faithfully against the choppy tide, I might not break any speed records on my way back to the Amy Denise, but at least I’d get there.
I had my hand firmly on the throttle when a heavy swell rocked the little boat violently. I felt the little engine give a jerk under my hand. I grasped the throttle more firmly, just as the entire engine slid off the stern into the ocean, with me still firmly attached to it. Wildly, I grabbed for the edge of the boat just as we were hit broadside by the first of the larger waves that foretold storms at sea that were coming our way.
Suddenly I was in the water, gagging, flailing, but finally having released the throttle. The faithful little engine sank to the bottom of the cove.
“What the hell?” I spat.
I was too surprised to be frightened. How could this have happened to the world’s most reliable boat? One moment I had been securely riding along toward the Amy Denise and supper and bed, and the next minute I was swallowing saltwater and treading high swells. I couldn’t believe it.
What I had to believe was that somebody had loosened the bolts on the outboard just enough to cause the engine to come loose in rough water. The thief who made off with the oars and life jackets must have wanted the engine, too. Had he changed his mind in mid-theft? Or, had I returned too soon, surprising him in the act and forcing him to flee with his job half done?
The water was very cold and getting rougher.
I treaded water and considered my options. I could ride the tide back to shore, except that the shore was no longer visible to me and I wasn’t crazy about the idea of passively allowing the ocean to carry me God knew where.
I craned my neck, trying to keep my face out of the water long enough to find the Amy Denise again. She was only a dim shape in the night, but I was a strong swimmer and she looked close enough to reach. And if I couldn’t reach her, I could still hope to ride the tide back into shore. I only hoped it wasn’t a far distant shore.
Determinedly, I struck out against the tide, and with the first overhand stroke, I knew my effort was doomed. Swimming against the tide is the act of a fool. But I was a fool without any less frightening alternative, and any action seemed better than giving my fate up to the whims of the sea.
And I was frightened, finally.
But too stubborn to admit it.
The swimming was agonizingly difficult. Every forward movement seemed to drag all the breath from my lungs and all the energy from the muscles of my legs and arms and back. But I didn’t dare to stop and tread water again, since then I would lose any forward momentum I might have gained. Through stinging eyes, I looked again for the Amy Denise.
Her running lights had been switched on. She was moving. Out of the cove. Away from me.
“Dad!” I screamed, and took in a horrible mouthful of saltwater. Silently, my brain continued to scream, “Dad! Don’t do this to me!”
My father had chosen this of all nights to haul anchor and go for a spin. My arms and legs continued their frantic, forward movements, but my heart had come to a dead stop.
I caught another glimpse of the departing boat, its graceful shape outlined by its lights in the night.
It wasn’t the Amy Denise.
It was another boat entirely. There was no other boat in the cove, no other boat in sight. Where was my father?
I did not know how far I had come from the shore, or even if I was still in the cove or now further out in the wider sea. My eyes stung horribly from the salt and were as good as blinded by the pain, the darkness and incessant waves. The horizon had long since disappeared into that blackness where the sea and the land become one. I didn’t know when the tide would turn. I didn’t want to know.
I tried to look toward the sky, only to be smacked full in the face with a wave that gagged me. When I could open my swollen eyes again, I was dizzy, confused, completely disoriented. There were no lights anywhere, not on the shores of the cove I had purposely selected for its seclusion, not even a moon to guide me.
I concluded I was going to die.
Geof would never know what had happened to me. He would think I’d run away to escape my troubles. Would I be declared dead, like Lobster McGee, with my sister lining up for her share of the spoils?
Like Lobster McGee . . .
The phrase ran through my mind, poking me back to consciousness as the water and my own exhaustion carried me limply along.
Like Lobster McGee . . .
Engines don’t just fall off boats, I suddenly thought. Oars and life jackets don’t just disappear. Somebody had not wanted me to return safely to the Amy Denise. Somebody had not wanted me to keep on living and asking questions. Somebody had sabotaged the dinghy, and they . . .
My father, absentminded as he was, would never have left the cove if he thought I’d be returning to it. He was, after all, my father.
So where was he?
The chill and fear squeezed my heart. Whoever had tried to kill me might be with my father now, and I couldn’t save him.
I was so cold I could no longer feel my body.
I was floating in the Atlantic Ocean, alone, at night. I was being murdered . . .
Like Lobster McGee . . .
Leave me alone! I begged my brain. Just let me die in peace!
Lobster McGee! it said to me again.
And suddenly I had it. Suddenly I knew who killed Ansen Reich and Atheneum McGee. And who was killing me. And I would not live to tell Geof about it, and the killer would go free.
With a last burst of desperate fury, I plunged my arms up. Down. Up. Down. One after the other, in a grotesque parody of swimming. Again. Again. Again. I would not be anybody’s victim. I would not be killed. I would not. I would not. Not. Not. I struggled until the searing agony in my back and hips and shoulders went away and I felt nothing at all. Maybe my arms continued to move through the waves, maybe my legs continued a spasm of kicking. I couldn’t know because I couldn’t feel them. Eventually I didn’t feel anything.
For a very long time, it seemed, I didn’t feel anything.
And then my left palm came down violently and painfully on a rock.
The Good Ship Jennifer Cain had landed.