Did he hear a splash over the lapping tide?
Yes?
No?
God, where was she?
Confused, convinced he’d find her hanging from the railing, he grit his teeth and hurried to the rail to the very spot where she’d climbed over. Below the shifting water was dark as ink, no swimmer or body visible.
No Jennifer.
He yelled. Called her name.
He had nothing but a penlight. Still, he had to look. Moving gingerly, Bentz climbed over the rail and planted his feet on the thin ledge. The fingers of his left hand gripped the rail as he shined the small beam downward, but it did little to pierce the damned fog or illuminate much of the black water.
“Jennifer! Jesus, God! Jennifer!” he screamed at the dark swirling tide.
“Hey you!” some guy shouted frantically.
But Bentz didn’t look up, his eyes on the black churning waters below. Was she there? Hiding? Caught under water?
Or had it all been a vision of his willing mind? Had there even been a woman on the pier at all?
He didn’t know, but he couldn’t let her drown, whoever she was.
“Son of a bitch!”
He let go. The sea air rushing up at him, swift and furious.
He hit the water hard, the jolt of landing rattling his aching body. The cold began to seep through his skin as he sank fast, downward into the stark black depths.
Down, down, down. Into the night-black sea. Salt water closed around him as he kicked off his shoes and jacket, his eyes open and burning as he tried to penetrate the infinite darkness of the vast Pacific.
Nothing!
He searched the inky water, holding his breath, knowing she had to be here, somewhere. Close. Where are you? For the love of God, Jennifer!
His lungs were near bursting as he kicked, propelling himself upward, letting out a stream of air as he broke the surface. He gulped in air and cursed as he hunted for her.
Where the hell had she gone?
Where, damn it?
He shook his hair from his eyes, willing her to appear.
Come on. Come on!
Give it up, Bentz, his mind taunted. She doesn’t exist. You know it. You’re chasing a damned figment of your imagination.
Fear, cold as the ocean, slid through him. He was cracking up. That was it. Oh, sweet Jesus…
Don’t give up! You saw her!
Treading water, he scoured the surroundings with his gaze-under the pier, along the pilings, near the shore, and beneath the shifty surface of the murky depths.
There was no sign of a woman in a red dress.
Or anyone at all. He spun around in the water, his bad leg dragging, his lungs tight as he eyed the undulating sea to no avail. Where was she? Where had she gone?
As people shouted above, he let the tide push him under the pier and through the supports. He swam, head above water, looking for any sign of her, any clue to where she’d been. He scanned the entire area. The beach was empty here. No one clung to the pier overhead, and he didn’t see anything bobbing in the water.
“Jennifer!” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, his voice echoing crazily over the water and rush of the tide. He held fast to a barnacle-laden piling, searching again and again, breathing hard, willing her to appear. Come on, come on! Where are you?
“Jennifer!” he shouted again, spitting salt water. The smell of brine stung his nostrils as waves slapped over him, his wet clothes moving with the tide. He didn’t see anything or hear a response other than voices high overhead, feet pounding on the boardwalk. Still he tried to find her, or any evidence that she’d been here. He kept searching, releasing the piling and treading water as he squinted through the fog, straining to see any sign of movement along the long stretch of darkness beneath the pier.
Nothing but darkness…the play of shifting shadows beneath the pier, but further out, beyond the overhang, streetlights cast an ethereal glow. The thin light was caught in the shifting fog while the neon glow of the amusement park rose like a blazing specter in the mist.
All unworldly.
All surreal.
Jennifer, or whoever she really was, had disappeared. He searched around each support post, eyeing the shadows and feeling as if cold death were lurking nearby. He held fast to one of the supports and called her name again and again, but it came back to him, his own voice, echoing hollowly over the rumble of the sea.
Shivering, he felt a fish glide past as he released the piling and swam toward the shore.
His heart thudded at the prospect of finding her, dead from the leap into the water, dead because she’d been running from him.
After luring you onto the pier…this is all part of her plan. Don’t go into the blame game; not yet.
And she’s not here. You’re alone.
The voices overhead were louder now, more of them, though, from down here they seemed disembodied, muted by fog and tide.
She’s not here. She was never here. You imagined her again. The red dress…it’s symbolic. Jennifer casting herself into the vast darkness of the water punctuated by the skeletal pier…
Dear God, what had happened to her?
Now the shouts on the boardwalk overhead were audible.
“I saw him, I tell you. Some guy jumped into the water.”
“You saw him? In this fog?”
“Yes! Damn it, some lunatic did a swan dive off the railing.”
“So now it’s a dive. Barney, you’ve been drinkin’ bad tequila again.”
“For the love of Christ, I’m tellin’ ya, a guy in a suit jumped off the goddamned pier!”
“There’s nothin’ down there.”
“How can ya tell? It’s so hard to see with the fog,” Barney insisted. “I called 9-1-1. The police should be here any minute.”
Good, Bentz thought. He could use a little help. He swam from under the pier, toward the shore, rolling with incoming waves. He was relieved to see the flickering lights of emergency vehicles on the ridge above the beach. As he clambered through the shallow surf a flashlight beam caught him from above.
“There he is!”
“I told ya!” Barney again, and other voices joined in as a crowd gathered overhead on the pier. Over it all, the sound of a siren screamed through the night, getting closer. Bentz dragged himself out of the water and up the beach. Cold to the bone, he slogged his way up the wet sand and turned back toward the water.
The lights of the city were blazing, the Ferris wheel casting an eerie reflection on the shimmering waters. He wondered about Jennifer in that cold dark bay. Was she hiding in the shadows, laughing at him, pleased that she’d goaded him into leaping from the railing? Or was she caught beneath the surface, entangled in seaweed, staring sightlessly upward as the red shroud of her dress billowed against her deathly white skin?
For the love of God, get a grip! He swiped a shaking hand over his face as several people ran up to greet him.
The couple he’d seen on the pier was the first to arrive.
“Hey, dude, are you okay?” The guy was in his twenties, his stocking cap pulled low over curls that sprang from the edges. He seemed genuinely concerned and called over his shoulder, “Hey, anyone got a blanket or something?”
“I’m fine.” Just cold, tired, and afraid I’m going out of my friggin’ mind! Bentz coughed. He couldn’t stop shaking. “There was a woman on the pier-she jumped into the water and I went in after her.”
The blond girlfriend shook her head. “I didn’t see a woman.”
“She was there at the end of the dock.”
“Is that why you were running?” Girlfriend asked. “I saw you throw away your cane.”
Bentz nodded as the sirens screamed closer.
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know, but we need a search.”
Bentz’s teeth began to chatter and he was shivering. The police cruiser, lights flashing, screeched to a halt at the end of the beach and two officers climbed out.
“He’s going into shock,” the older man who’d been smoking his cigar said.