Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Air had never tasted so sweet. The FBI cutter was parked next to Perez's boat. Two men wearing wet suits and scuba equipment were on deck, preparing to take the plunge.

“Over here,” I yelled to them.

They jumped into the water and swam over to me.

“Where's the guy who threw the girl into the water?” one of the divers asked.

“Dead,” I said.

“How about the girl?”

“Follow me. I'll show you.”

I took them down to the coral ledge and pointed at the spot where I'd last seen Melinda. The divers glided effortlessly past me. I stopped at the ledge and waited. The pressure was intense, and my head began to throb. After what seemed like an eternity, the divers swam past, holding Melinda between their arms. With her flowing blond hair she looked just like a mermaid. I said a silent prayer as she passed.

One of the divers spotted me. With his head, he indicated the ocean floor. It was a simple gesture, one I didn't understand.

I started to follow him up. The diver stopped and repeated the gesture. I looked through his mask at his eyes and saw pain.

I swam back to the ledge and looked straight down. The first thing that caught my eye was the school of lemon sharks swimming below, the next the hull of a boat covered in a fine brown silt. As the silt moved with the current, other shapes appeared. Then my throat constricted, and I saw what the diver had seen: the decomposed bodies of Chantel, Maggie, Carmen, Jen, Krista, Brie, and Lola, each with lead weights ties around her ankles and wrists. They were lying so close together they could have formed a circle had they still been alive. Perez had dumped their bodies there in an effort to frame me, and I thought back to all the times I'd swum here in the past six months. Once a day, sometimes more. Perhaps Rose was right. Perhaps their spirits were clinging to me, so strong was their desire for vindication. Perhaps this was why I couldn't let go.

A minute later, I was standing on the cutter's deck with the crew, watching a pair of medics try to revive Melinda with a noisy machine called AutoPulse that mechanically pumped air into her watery lungs. Her face was a ghostly blue, and she looked more a part of the next world than of this one.

Perez's boat drifted nearby. Perez had tumbled out of it, and the crew seemed confident that the sharks had finished him off. I wasn't going to be happy until Perez's body was found, and I talked the divers into going down and searching for him.

“Do you know her?” one of the medics asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, start talking to her. She needs all the help she can get.”

I got on my knees and put my lips to Melinda's ear. It was hard talking to someone who looked dead, but I tried. I told her that if she didn't start breathing, I wasn't going to speak to her again. I told her to fight. I told her anything that came to mind.

“Keep it up,” the medic said encouragingly.

I kept talking and talking. Dime-sized spots of pink appeared on her cheeks.

“Here she comes,” the medic said.

We all leaned in. Like a baby chick hatching from an egg, she popped back to life. Her first breath was a violent hacking sound. Then she started breathing normally. She looked all around as if seeing the world for the first time. The crew began to applaud.

I saw motion in the water and glanced over the side. The two divers had reappeared. Seeing me, they both shook their heads.

“Jack, is that you?” Melinda said.

I turned and looked at her.

“Hey,” I said.

“Is this real?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did I die, or is this real?”

“You're alive,” I said. “This is real.”

“Are they gone?”

“Yes.”

She lowered her voice. “Am I safe?”

I glanced at Perez's empty boat. I did not have the heart to tell her that his body was unaccounted for. Better for her to be happy, even if it was just for a little while.

“Yes, Melinda, you're safe,” I said.