The tip of Melanie’s kayak knocked against her husband’s.
“Hey, now, bumper kayaks is not my idea of a good time,” he complained, using his paddle to nudge her kayak away as he drifted toward the other husband in the group.
“Look at that,” Crystal murmured, pointing to a heart-shaped cliff above them.
Wes tilted his head up.
“Wow,” he breathed. “Can we jump off of that one?” Wes called to Dan, who had paddled over to Kristy, a fifty-something homemaker who hadn’t been away from her three children since they were born. Her husband was yapping away to his colleague about insurance claims, oblivious that his wife was dangerously close to flipping.
“Ha, I’d lose my license for that. Some of those cliffs are two-hundred-feet high,” Dan responded. “This is an adventure tour, not a suicide mission,” he told them. “Kristy, I need you to you stay in the center of the kayak. Okay, doll? No rocking with the boat. Understand?”
The woman pursed her lips and nodded, holding still as she attempted to paddle further between the rocky outcroppings.
Her husband continued chattering on, and Wes shot Crystal an amused look.
“Come on,” he told her, nodding toward an opening in the bottom of a cliff.
They kayaked over, Dan still trying to keep Kristy from tipping.
As they slid into the dark cavern, Crystal studied the slick rock walls.
Weston paddled ahead of her.
She glanced at the water. It had gone from green to black in the darkness.
Without warning, a fist seemed to grab hold of Crystal’s heart and squeeze. She gasped, dropping her paddle, her hands flying to her constricted chest.
Weston hadn’t realized she’d stopped. He was paddling on, moving deeper into the darkness.
Crystal was sure the moment had arrived: the point of her young and untimely death. She had thought there was still time. Time to leave notes, to tidy up the loose ends of her short life.
Her kayak thumped against the slimy black rock, and she struggled to pull air into her choked lungs.
A voice sounded behind her. Dan’s voice calling out to them.
A shadow pushed from the darkness in the cave. A pale hand reached out, and she shrieked, pushing it away. The tumult rocked her kayak too far, and her head smacked the rock as she plunged sideways into the water.
The cold of the water shocked her and stole the meager breath she’d sucked in before going under.
It was black beneath the surface, the sun blocked by the yards of impossibly heavy rock overhead.
She thrashed her arms and legs trying to swim for the light, but she couldn’t tell up from down. Her fingers scraped against rock.
Something grabbed her from behind, hard fingers snaked into her hair and pulled. She fought away from the grip and kicked back, her foot connecting with something soft like a stomach.
She swam forward, she saw the first glimmer of light and then a figure in front of her.
Dan.
He was blurry but recognizable. Her lungs screamed for air as he grabbed her arm and hauled her to the surface. She burst from the water, gasping and coughing.
Dan wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Where’s Weston?” he shouted.
Crystal’s eyes shot wide open. She’d forgotten about Wes.
“He’s… He’s…” She struggled to get the words out. Her throat burned when she spoke.
A head exploded through the water behind them.
“Wes!” she croaked.
He gasped and swam to Dan and Crystal.
“My God, are you okay? What happened?” he demanded. “I heard you flip. I tried to help you, but…”
Dan didn’t wait for Wes’s story.
“Throw us those life vests,” he yelled to Kristie, whose kayak bobbed by Dan’s.
She grabbed three life preservers and flung them across the water.
“Here,” Dan thrust one to Wes.
He made sure Crystal had a life jacket clutched in her hands before he released her, and then he slid his arms into one, buckling the front as he floated on his back.
He helped Crystal fasten the buckle on hers and checked Weston’s.
“You’ll never get back in your kayaks in this deep water. Best if we just swim into shore,” he told them.
Dan tied their kayaks to those of the other members in their group, and they began the slow swim to shore.
“What happened, Crystal? I heard you scream, but by the time I got there, you were flipping.” Weston spoke in huffs as he did a wide breaststroke in the cold water.
Crystal closed her eyes and thought again of the pale hand coming from the darkness.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Wes. The darkness and the small space. I guess I panicked.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. She didn’t know what had happened. For those long, frightening seconds in the cave, she thought death had arrived to take her.
23
Now
Bette sat on Garrett’s couch sipping her glass of wine and watching the tiny metal balls in his Newton’s Cradle clink back and forth. She’d set it moving a moment earlier. It stood next to a large coffee-table book filled with glossy photographs by Ansel Adams.
Garret returned with a black date book.
“This is my bible. I’d forget to tie my shoes without this thing.”
He sat next to Bette on the couch and flipped open to the week Crystal disappeared.
“So, two days before I last saw Crystal, I worked from nine to three, left early to get my teeth whitened. Hmm…” He mumbled a few things. “Oh, yeah, yes. I went bowling with my friend Jack. I invited Crystal, but when she opened her door, I saw Wes stretched out on her floor, a towel wrapped around his waist. I’m sure you can imagine what they were up to.”
A knock sounded on the door and Bette jumped, managing not to spill her wine, which would have sent Garrett scrambling for a rag and carpet cleaner.
“Garret?” a voice called through the door.
Weston’s voice.
Bette held a finger to her lips and pointed at Garret’s bedroom door.
“Answer it. I want to hear what he says.”
Garret cringed and shook his head, but Bette grabbed his arm and dug her fingers into his wrist.
“Yes,” she hissed.
Bette slipped into Garret’s bedroom, where she had a clear view of the couch and could easily listen to their conversation.
Garret opened the door.
“Hi Wes,” Garret said, and Bette grimaced at the forced politeness in his tone. “Come on in.”
Wes followed him into the apartment.
Garret glanced at Bette and quickly plastered on a smile when Wes faced him.
Bette eyed Wes, who looked haggard under the bright apartment lights. Dark grooves marred his forehead, and his cheeks were sunken and hollowed.
“How are you holding up, Wes?” Garret asked. “You look… tired.”
Wes closed his eyes and teetered on his feet for a moment.
Garret grabbed his arm to steady him.
“Are you drunk?” Garret asked.
Wes shook his head. “I haven’t slept in days, and I’ve been getting sick a lot. I’m having nightmares. My world is just… it’s falling apart and Crystal…”
Garret directed a horrified expression at Bette as he guided Wes to the couch.
Bette wished she could feed him the hundred questions circling in her mind.
“Can I get you something? A cup of coffee or—?”
“Have anything hard?” Wes interrupted. “Vodka?”
Garret nodded. “Yeah, sure, vodka cranberry?”
“Just ice,” Wes murmured.