“Amanda!”
He desperately wanted her to know that he would not let her down this time.
Wisely, he lowered himself into the vessel as it went churning through the narrow defiles. After several minutes of scrambling through rapids, he felt something strike the craft. These sensations were followed by barely audible sounds above the din of the water. A few more of these sensations followed. He felt splintering chips of wood strike his face.
As he recognized what was happening, he noticed the water appeared to pool to his front, perhaps slowing as the banks widened. Jagged mountains on either side of the river reached into the black night with sharp triangular peaks still capped with snow.
He came to his knees as the boat slowed. Though it was too late, his mind was screaming at him to hide below the upper rim of the canoe. His tactician’s mind had reengaged and realized that the slow water and the high cliffs were the perfect ambush location.
The fusillade of machine-gun fire tearing through the night air, popping above his head and into the swirling water, came from both sides. The sounds were now more audible as he emerged from the rapids.
He dove into the water to his left and held his breath for almost a minute. He counted the seconds as he used to do as a child so that he would know how far he could go without breathing. Ninety seconds had been his record.
Approaching that number he realized that his right arm was stinging with pain, feeling for the moment much worse than the broken leg.
Ninety seconds passed, and he knew that he was going to have to surface. He prayed he was far enough away from the canoe to avoid detection while still being able to get back to it if necessary.
He floated toward the surface, pressing his face against the meniscus of the water. As his mouth and nose protruded, he could see the stars, bright pinpricks in the black curtain of night. He noticed some of the towering peaks on either side of the river as if through a thin layer of film.
Another gulp of air, and he was back under. As he allowed his body to drift with the flow of the water downstream, he wondered why the ambush had been established at that location. Further, he wondered why they would randomly shoot at him.
The U.S. forces operated under the notion of positive identification, meaning before shooting at someone the soldier had to determine hostile intent and make sure that collateral damage would be minimized if not eliminated.
Clearly, the enemy operated under no such limitation.
Strangely, he had drifted back to the boat as he came up for a second breath of air and nearly impaled his face on the stern. He reached up with his left arm and held onto the rim and then floated.
His world began to fade as weakness overcame him. He was cold. His mind spiraled, registering that there were several places on his body that hurt worse than his broken leg.
CHAPTER 58
Amanda awoke with the single-minded purpose of talking to the one man she felt she could trust aside from Jake. While talking to Riley Dwyer had been helpful, she needed an objective, neutral opinion. After all, Riley was an advocate of her father. And Jake’s parents had kindly asked her to refrain from talking to him until the legal matters were resolved. So that left Mr. Dagus. She decided to approach him. At school, though, she was informed that he had taken the day off.
Instead, she spent the day cleaning out her locker and school supplies. She accepted a few sympathy greetings from friends and then went home. She was thankful, too, that she had not seen Rugsdale today. He was beginning to creep her out. Coming and going, she had not seen his car in the parking lot.
The day seemed to pass quickly as she loaded her things into her car. As she looked at the growing pile in her backseat, she wondered how the heck all of that had fit into the skinny wall locker. There were five sets of swim goggles she had forgotten about.
As she arrived back home, she caught her mother in the driveway returning from work. She was dressed in a taupe pantsuit with a silk white blouse. Not her best color, but Amanda remembered her saying something about seeing a “conservative” client today.
“Hey, Mom.” She saw her mother wait for her to park. She was growing anxious and wished to avoid a conversation with her mother. At the same time, she didn’t want to alarm her either.
“How was school? Getting wrapped up?”
“Good. You know, just cleaning things out. I wanted to talk to Mr. Dagus today, but he wasn’t in.” They walked onto the porch together.
“About what?”
“You know, stuff. Sometimes it just helps me to talk to him.”
“Well, just give him a call, why don’t you? Or maybe talk to Gus, if you’re looking for a man’s opinion.”
Amanda looked at her mother. Why was she suddenly being reasonable? “Okay. I might do that.”
“They’re both pretty level-headed about things.”
She was right about that.
“By the way, have you seen him today?” her mother asked.
“Gus? Not my day to keep up with him. Why?”
“We were supposed to have lunch. I called his office at the magazine, and they said he wasn’t in. Strange.”
“Ain’t seen him.”
As the day wore on, Amanda became more anxious. A feeling of intense loneliness encapsulated her. She was emotionally isolated. While she was deciding what to do, she ate a quick dinner of frozen pizza and diet Coke and then spent an hour in her room. She made a couple of phone calls to Dagus, but to no avail. She thought about calling Jake, but decided to respect his parents’ request. She liked them and didn’t want to lose their trust.
Finally, growing impatient, she jumped into her car and drove toward the town of Alpharetta. She had been to Dagus’s house twice before for journalism class parties, which he held annually. Her nerves were overwhelming her. They were moving into a million-dollar house. Her life as she knew it was a charade. Finally, loneliness gave way to fear.
She called his home phone twice more, but both times got the answering machine. Undeterred, she pressed on, taking all the shortcuts she knew. She whipped through residential neighborhoods, rolled through stop signs and generally broke every driving law in the code.
She found a parking spot about four houses down from Dagus’s townhouse, which was an end unit. She walked through the mild night air toward the home with a brick veneer Victorian elevation. It was a bit too Norman Bates-ish for her; nonetheless, she remembered from the journalism parties that it was a spacious home. She pressed the dimly lit button and listened to the chime.
She rang it again.
She crossed her arms as if to hug herself, wondering if Norman was peering down on her from the third-floor dormer. But then she found herself ignoring that notion and nearly praying that she would hear the telltale sound of footsteps moving in the house.
One more ring.
Nothing.
Please, please, I need to talk to you.
Chewing on her fingernail, she remembered that his backyard was easily accessible from the street. He had a screened porch where she might be able to wait.
She opened the back gate by reaching over the picket fence and lifting the latch. As if she lived there, she continued with purpose toward the porch. This time, luck was on her side. It was unlocked. She went inside and walked deliberately past the hunter-green patio furniture and a few sprawling palms toward the back door to the house. She knocked several times, each time calling out, “Mr. Dagus?”