Gone

TWENTY-THREE

WHAT I NEEDED FOR JAKE’S CUSTOMIZED PISTOL WAS A holster, I decided. A book case was a waste on such a fine weapon, and I wouldn’t have to wedge the thing into my jeans to free my hands like I was doing now.

It was because of the rough country I was in: a tangle of mangroves, the cruiser visible through a cavern of mosquitoes and black leaves. The boat was only yards away, but getting to it required gymnastics. The use of tree limbs, grabbing one, then another, to monkey myself over roots to the water was the only way unless I had brought a machete.

So that’s what I did, after securing the pistol between the small of my back and my belt. Got both hands around a limb, swung my feet over a hooped blockade of mangrove roots, then repeated the process several times. By the time I got to the water’s edge, my shirt was soaked from the sulfuric heat that settles into a swamp at night. My jeans were torn, my shoes were ruined, and mosquitoes tickled my face, my hands, the canals of my ears, despite the spray I’d used.

No wonder Meeks had chosen the easier route. But there was no chance he had beaten me here. Even if he had sprinted around the island’s edge-impossible for any man, healthy or wounded-I still had a big chunk of time to use safely. Twenty minutes… half an hour. Plenty. Question was, would Olivia come with me?

A light was on in the cabin, but weak as a candle behind drawn curtains. The air conditioner was running, too, the generator a mild hum compared to the screaming hush of mangroves. Cicadas, frogs, growling cormorants… the baritone Oomph-Oomph of an alligator, too-or a crocodile. Could be. There were saltwater crocs in the Ten Thousand Islands, although the only croc I’d ever seen was on Sanibel.

Just thinking the name Sanibel made me want to be gone from this dark place where, only a light beam away if I’d chosen to look, was a fetal mound of bones and human flesh-if any flesh remained.

No… I hadn’t looked and wouldn’t. So far, I had used the flashlight sparingly. Didn’t want to risk being seen.

Private investigators behave professionally. Panic, and Ricky wins.

I kept reminding myself of that. Stay strong, be bold-the combination had worked so far, and I wasn’t stopping now that I was almost close enough to touch the cruiser’s hull.

I grabbed another limb, swung my legs, then lowered myself until I was standing in water that flooded my jeans to the waist. The bottom was shell here, at least, not muck. After three strides, I was out of the water again and leaning my weight against the bow of the boat. I’d made it! Now all I had to do was convince Olivia to trust me.

Meeks had nosed the cruiser into the mangroves, then used heavy lines to secure it. Before I could scale the railing, though, I needed to create room by pushing the hull back from the awning of tree limbs. As I did it, someone inside noticed the movement. I could feel the thump of footsteps through the fiberglass. Soon, I heard the cabin door open and a voice call, “Is that you? I was worried… sugar.”

I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. Not because I associated the word with Ricky, but because it was Olivia Seasons speaking. Her voice had the parroting eagerness of a girl who was desperate to please after being beaten into submission.

“Down here, Olivia!” I responded, not loud but in a way I hoped sounded harmless, friendly. “Don’t be afraid. I’m coming aboard, okay?”

After a shocked silence, I heard: “Who are you-don’t come near me!”

“Please listen! Just give me a chance. I’ve got a boat on the other side of the island. It’s safe now, I can take you home.” Fearing she would slam the cabin door and lock it, I spoke fast while positioning myself under the bowsprit. “Olivia, I’m coming aboard. Don’t be scared.”

With fingers wrapped around the railing, I used my legs to spring high enough to get a foot hooked over the bowsprit. I hung there for several seconds, wrestling with the anchor windlass and a rotted tree limb that finally splashed into the water below. Then I scooted across mooring chocks so fast that my bottom plopped into a doughnut of anchor line as if it were a bucket. As I sat there resting, I heard the hush of bare feet moving along the safety rail, so I looked up. It was Olivia: long skinny legs in a white robe, facial features indistinguishable in the darkness, her hands squeezing the robe tight around her neck, a girl too scared to come any closer.

Mentioning Lawrence Seasons, I had already decided, might cause trouble, so I got to my feet, telling her, “My name’s Hannah Smith. If you want out of here, I’ll help-and he won’t bother you again.”

Olivia was shaking her head. “I can’t talk to you! To anyone-not unless he says it’s okay. So you have to leave. Leave right now!” She was speaking for Ricky’s benefit, I realized, in case he was with me or hiding somewhere nearby. No other reason for her to talk so loud.

So I shocked her by replying, “I shot him. I shot Ricky Meeks, and that’s how I know he won’t stop us.”

“What?”

I said it again, adding, “That was the gunshot you heard.”

“You can’t be telling the truth.”

My hands were checking my pockets to confirm I hadn’t lost the flashlights while climbing over the railing… then patted the small of my back where the pistol should have been. Damn! The pistol was gone.

“Is it true?” Olivia whispered. “Someone our age-a woman couldn’t do that. Is he really dead?”

My heart was pounding. I felt a first tremor that signaled my body was starting to shake. My hands were checking and rechecking my jeans, refusing to accept the fact I had lost the pistol. Then, trying not to be obvious, I checked the deck near my feet, then stepped over the anchor line to check the bowsprit. The pistol wasn’t there. I took a deep breath to control myself before turning. If the girl sensed what I was feeling, she would never trust me enough to leave.

“I hit him below the ribs,” I told her. “He’s wounded, bleeding bad, but we have to hurry. Get your things! You need to wear pants. Boots and a heavy shirt if you have them.” My mind was working on the safest way to proceed now that I’d lost the gun.

“We’ve got five, maybe ten minutes,” I added, which was half the time I believed we had, but I wanted to get the girl moving.

“You’re not a policeman-you’re lying.”

“You heard the shot. He’s hurt too bad to cut through the island, but he’s still hobbling. That’s why we’ve got to leave now.” I reached for Olivia’s shoulder, but she backed a step.

“You’ve got to be sure! He’ll kill you… maybe kill me, too! This morning, he”-the girl looked at the wall of mangroves behind me where the corpse lay-“Today, he did something… really awful. Is that why you’re here?”

Some distant part of my brain was aware that Olivia had yet to say Ricky’s name-as if no other man in the world existed. In a way, that was more troubling than her reluctance.

“If I wasn’t sure I shot the man,” I told her, “I’d be headed home alone, not helping you. Can I come in the cabin? Mosquitoes are eating me alive.”

The best hope I could come up with was use the cruiser’s VHF to call an emergency Mayday, then run for my skiff. A vessel this size would have a powerful radio-why Olivia hadn’t used it already to call for help, I didn’t want to understand. Not now, I didn’t. Then I would spend a little time, not much, searching beneath the bowsprit for the pistol. I’d heard a couple of limbs hit the water, but maybe I’d actually heard the pistol fall.

A minute later, we were in the cabin, which was a sewer of odors and pornographic photos tacked everywhere. Even in the galley, which consisted of a propane stove and a small fridge, there were pictures so graphic, they belonged in a textbook, not a space designed for eating. It didn’t matter. I was finally alone with a woman whose face, whose thoughts and fears, I had been living with for what seemed like weeks, not days.

Olivia’s appearance, though, bore little resemblance to recent photos I had seen. Ricky had done more than just bruise the girl’s busted lips, her jaundiced left eye. The skin on her parchment arms was poxed with bruises from the man’s fingers. The intelligent brown eyes I remembered from her childhood photos had the glaze of an elderly woman who, exhausted from suffering, had already abandoned her body. No wonder she had hung a towel over the only mirror in the cabin. My guess was, she had done the same in the sleeping quarters, which appeared as a black opening forward of the bulkhead.

I expected these symptoms and signs of abuse but not the sudden emotion that rolled through me. What I was feeling only got worse when, after I’d rushed to the boat’s VHF, Olivia told me, “Don’t bother. He disables it somehow when he leaves. I checked the wiring, the fuses. Once he was gone three days, I still couldn’t get it working. Same with the engine, after he thought I’d found a key. The air-conditioning, too-usually.”

I nodded, struggling to control myself, thinking, The antenna. Meeks had probably disconnected the VHF coupling at the flybridge-not many would think of that.

“You don’t want to be here,” I said without turning. “If he’s hurt you, you should leave.”

There was a shrug in the girl’s voice. “It’s too late for me. And why should you care, anyway?”

“Not yet, it isn’t,” I started to say, but Olivia interrupted by telling me something else I didn’t expect.

“I married him. Last week… ten days ago. Everything’s a blur. I know he only did it for money-money I don’t even have yet. If he caught us and doesn’t kill me, that’s the only reason. But I said yes, so I’ve got no one to blame but myself.”

I shook my head to refute Olivia’s words while thinking, No wonder she won’t sign the papers, then of the postmistress in Caxambas. “Ricky would’ve had to apply for the license more than a month ago,” I argued, remembering Florida law and all the paperwork I’d done because Delbert Fowler was not a man for details. “I don’t believe it was legal, Olivia. Besides, no court would hold you to such a marriage.”

“But I said yes-and you don’t know him! He’ll never stop looking until he gets his husband’s share. I’m talking about more money than you’d believe-that’s what you don’t understand. Or what he’ll do if I run. He’s never wrong when it comes to promises like that. If anything, he’ll hurt me worse.”

I glanced at the girl’s face, then looked away. Her misshapen lips, the swollen eye, gave me a choking sensation, and I had to clear my throat while she said, “I do such stupid things sometimes. I bring it on myself. So he has no choice-from his point of view, I mean. Only a… an insane woman would beg to go with a man and then whine. That’s something I’ve heard every day since-”

I couldn’t listen to any more. “Stop that right now! I know more about you than you think, Olivia Seasons. You’re not crazy. And that’s not a fair way to speak of yourself… or let yourself be treated…” My voice faltered, then I lost the words, even after clearing my throat again.

Olivia was sitting at the galley settee, where a notebook lay open next to a pocket Bible, the sketch of what might have been an osprey recently started. I heard the girl stand, then felt a hand on my shoulder. “Are you crying?”

“I am not!” I snapped. Then as an excuse to clear my eyes, I scratched my forehead and pulled my hair back. “You made me mad, being so stubborn. That’s all.”

Olivia was trying to put it together but too scared to think clearly. “Did he hurt you, too? That’s why you shot him. I still can’t believe you did it. How did you find the nerve?”

“For one thing, he knocked a chunk of Gel Coat off my new skiff,” I replied. “That’s reason enough. I just wish I was a better shot.”

I felt a tug at my shoulder, trying to get me to turn. “Did he hurt you? You can tell me the truth. He hurts women-brags about it. Someone like him has had a lot of girlfriends. I won’t be jealous if you tell me the truth.”

Jealous? Her suspicion was so misguided it proved Meeks had branded yet another scar on Olivia’s brain. I had been near tears, feeling so sorry for the girl and fearful for both of us, that it was exactly the jolt I needed to get my mind back on what had to be done.

I spun around and took the girl gently by the arms, just as my Uncle Jake had done to me sometimes when I was confused. “Get your clothes changed. If you’ve got any mosquito spray, soak yourself. I’m going to fix the radio, but we’re not waiting on the Coast Guard. Then I want you to help me do something.”

I meant hold a flashlight while I searched for the pistol. Instead of questioning me, though, Olivia said in an odd way, “You’re… you’re the one my family sent. I just realized-Hannah, right? He was talking about you.”

Meaning Ricky, of course. I had already told Olivia my name, but a change in her expression hinted that she might be awakening from this nightmare. Still in a daze, though, which I knew when she started to ramble.

“Yesterday, he went crazy. Drinking before sunrise, then the security guard left a message about you searching my studio. That you found something in the trash, so he had to drive all the way to Naples to check. Now you’re actually here-it’s hard to believe.”

It was a relief to know the guard was responsible for blabbing about the diary pages, not Martha Calder-Shaun, but I realized that talking was Olivia’s way of not making a decision. Even so, I ignored the urge to shake some sense into her. That gentleness paid off when she finally returned to the subject of Meeks, saying, “He and the security guard, they like cigars-that’s how they met. Plus… he probably paid the guy to watch the house. With my money.”

In my most reasonable voice I said, “Olivia, listen. Don’t you see he’s feeding on you? Pretty soon, there won’t be enough left of yourself to fight back-that’s why we have to go now.”

The girl wanted to leave, no doubt about that. I watched her eyes move around the cabin, the prison that had become her world, then spoke to the ceiling as if arguing with herself. “This morning when he got back from my studio, he swore he’d kill you. Shoot you in the head. Something cruel like that. But it didn’t happen. He’s never made a threat that didn’t happen. That’s what’s so hard to believe.”

I said, “He has a gun?” There wasn’t one in Meeks’s dinghy, I’d checked.

Olivia ignored me by continuing, “Instead, you shot him. For the first time since I met that… that pig, he was wrong. I guess it should prove not everything he says comes true. And I did hear the gunshot.” The girl faced me. “Sorry I’m having trouble, it’s just that he takes up so much space in my head, thinking isn’t easy. Or to convince myself that someone like you could shoot a man who’s so… vicious”-a tentative smile appeared, eyes on my Navaho shirt-“even though you’re dressed for the part. Does any of this make sense?”

Maybe-but not in the Barbara Stanwyck way she meant, although I hoped I was wrong.

“Olivia,” I said, taking her by the arms again. “Does Ricky keep a gun in his jon boat-a little aluminum boat with a motor. Usually green.”

“A shotgun, of course,” she said as if everyone did. “That’s what he used on the man this morning. The one who came asking questions. But he said you already knew that he’d killed-”

In a rush, I asked, “Where’s the jon boat? The man he shot had to come by boat, too. Where did he hide them?”

I was frightening the girl, but it couldn’t be helped. Then it was me who was scared when Olivia explained there was a fisherman who had a camp just across the cut on the next island, about half a mile away. In exchange for borrowing the fisherman’s truck, when needed, Ricky left his boat there sometimes because it was faster than a net boat.

“Eugene Schneider,” I said.

Olivia nodded, then looked at her feet in a shamed way that told me the jon boat wasn’t the only thing Eugene used sometimes. “I don’t know his last name. He stays here and watches me when my… when the owner’s away. This morning, before I heard the gunshots, the man you mentioned, he didn’t have his own boat. He paid Eugene to bring him out to find…”

“Ricky,” I prompted. “No reason to be afraid to say his name.”

“Yes. He brought Ricky back from the mainland a little while ago. Then left, saying he’d come back later because we’re leaving for Key Largo tonight. And both of them wanted to have some fun with… with…”

“With me,” I said. The two planned to rape me before dumping another body in the mangroves, that was plain.

Now it was Olivia who couldn’t make eye contact. “That’s where the shotgun would be. In the boat with Eugene.” She paused, still embarrassed. “Hannah, I am… I’m so sorry this is happening to you. It’s my fault. All because of…”

The girl’s body shuddered, so I held her for a moment before saying, “We can stand here and cry, or we can prove we’re not fools. Personally, I’m tired of apologizing for things I can’t change.” The pocket Bible had caught my eye, so I pointed to it, adding, “Don’t let being scared make the decision for you. The Ninety-first Psalm is a good one for that.”

“You read the Bible?” she asked, the question important to her.

Not very often, but I attended church, which, under the circumstances, made it okay for me to reply, “Yes I do.” Then I left her to deal with it while I hurried to the cruiser’s starboard wall, slid open a window, and put an ear to the screen to listen. I heard insects… waves slapping the hull… but no whine of a distant outboard motor coming our way.

Or was there?