A wave slapped my face and drove salt water up my nostrils. The pain seemed to explode white hot and searing in my brain. No, dammit. Swim, stroke, go, go. I’m better than this, I can do it. In an all-out frenzy of flailing limbs and thrashing water I covered the last hundred feet straight up into the current.
The bell was clanging, deafening. Red flash, one-two-three, red flash. I reached up and grabbed one of the bars that supported the fight and the battery pack. The buoy was rocking and rolling in the swell. On each rise, my body was lifted out of the water to the waist, and my injured hand nearly let go. It was several minutes before I had the strength to pull myself out of the water. I was dimly aware that my forearms and belly were getting sliced up by the barnacles as I dragged my body out of the water. The wind numbed my face as I curled my body into a tight ball on the narrow platform beneath the flashing red light and clanging bell. I wrapped my arms around the bars so as not to fall off as the buoy rocked in the swells and closed my eyes. I was still alive.
Far, far off in the distance, as though down at the end of a long tunnel, I heard an outboard running at a good pace and then idling down. I had no idea how long I had been curled up on the buoy, shivering in the wind, trying to conserve body heat. I knew I should open my eyes, but I felt like the little kid who closes his eyes and thinks he is hiding. If it was Esposito, I didn’t want to know about it. There was no place I could go to escape, and back in the water meant hypothermia, death for sure.
Even with my eyes closed, the whole world suddenly seemed to turn red as a spotlight lit up the buoy and shone through my eyelids. I lifted my head and squinted toward the light.
“Hey!” a voice called. A deep voice, a male voice. “Hey, lady, are you okay?”
Stupid as it may sound, I started to laugh. What was I supposed to say? No, go on, I’m fine, thank you?
“Hey, lady?” he called again. “Jason,” he said more softly, “move in a little closer okay?”
“Dad, are you sure we oughta? She looks kinda scary. Like, do you think she might be crazy or something?”
I lifted up my head and tried to shield my eyes with my forearm. “The light,” I called out, waving my arms and pointed at their spot. The bell drowned out what I said, but apparently they understood the pantomime. The spotlight went out, leaving the world dark, but my eyes were still blinded by bright red spots.
I followed the sound of their idling engine as they drew closer. Then I heard the crunch of crushed barnacles as their boat eased alongside. Out of the darkness, a hand touched my arm and pulled me to the edge of the buoy. I went willingly, still blind.
“Thanks,” I said as someone wrapped a thick, warm beach towel around my shoulders. I began to be able to make out their faces. I didn’t think I’d ever stop shivering.
“Jason, we’d better head back in with her.” The driver turned the boat around, and we headed for the inlet. My vision was clearing rapidly now. The man who handed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee had gray hair and a beard and looked about fifty years old.
“Are you gonna be okay?”
Nodding, I answered, “Yeah, now I am. Thanks to you. I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted out there.”
“What happened to you?” he asked.
Even with only half my wits about me, I knew better than to try to explain the whole story. This guy’s son would really think I was crazy if I tried that.
“I fell overboard,” I said.
“Where’s your boat?”
I pointed out to sea. “I think she went down. She was taking on water, and when I went up forward to get an extra pump, I fell overboard. I guess I kinda panicked.”
“Well, you’re mighty lucky we came along.”
“I sure am.” I smiled at him. I meant it.
Then we were approaching the Top Ten, and I craned my neck to see over his shoulder. The interior lights were all on, and I saw several uniformed police officers in the main salon.
“That sure is a pretty vessel, isn’t it?” the man said, turning to look at what was distracting me.
On the swim step I saw a black shadow against the glistening white hull.
“Hold up,” I said. “Could you swing by there so I could pick up that bag?”
The kid driving looked where I was pointing, then to his dad for permission. The man nodded.
“Sure,” the kid said, and spun the wheel.
The father reached down and picked up my back
pack. “Oof, this thing is heavy. Better not be cocaine or some damn thing in here.”
I smiled at him and unzipped the top of the pack, revealing the contents. “No, just my roller skates.”
Father and son exchanged a look that seemed to say, Son, you’re right—she is nuts.
XVII
Commuter traffic was thick on Federal Highway. Driving with my sore shoulder and wrist was difficult, but I was relieved to see that I was starting to get some mobility back in both—that apparently nothing was broken or permanently damaged.
By the time I got back to the Paradise Hotel, the sun was well up. Checkout time wasn’t until eleven, though, so I closed the drapes and slept for three hours.
When I woke up, even blinking hurt. Every muscle and tissue in my body screamed for me to stop when I tried to roll off the bed. Getting up into a sitting position felt like a major accomplishment.
I looked up and saw my reflection in the mirror over the dresser. God, what a sight. No wonder that fisherman and his son thought I was a crazy lady. Most of my hair had come loose from the rubber band, and it stood out around my head in sticky, salty clumps. There was a nice purple bruise around the hairline on the right side of my face where that fire extinguisher had managed a glancing blow on my head, and my T-shirt was now stiff with salt and blood. My forearms were laced with bloody scratches, and the dark circles under my eyes may have been from the bang on the head or just pure exhaustion, I wasn’t sure which. One thing I knew: I needed a nice long clean shower. The hell with it all. I was going home.
I didn’t see any suspicious dark-windowed cars parked along the road anywhere in my Rio Vista neighborhood. Nobody was following me, either. I drove around the block a few more times just to be sure. It felt a little odd driving barefoot, but I’d left my sneakers somewhere on the bottom of the Port Everglades inlet.
Abaco was beside herself when I came through the gate. She jumped and whirled and yelped. I sat down on the grass and held her scratching her ears while she moaned and rolled her eyes back in pure canine bliss.
I kept the dog inside the cottage with me when I got into the shower. It’s bad enough feeling like somebody’s out there gunning for you, but to have to climb into the shower after growing up watching Psycho on the late show was really nerve-wracking.
Even the lousy pressure in my shower hurt as the jets of water hit my aching body. The barnacle scratches on my arms and belly stung as the salt washed off, and I could barely lift my left arm to lather my hair.
I was wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around my head, and had just finished drying off my legs, when I remembered the book with the drawings in my backpack. I went out in the front room, pulled the stuff out of my slightly soggy backpack, and set the papers and photos out to dry on the bar. I was studying the photo of Neal and me in the Tortugas when I heard the knock at the front door. In an instant, my heart rate doubled. Abaco barked once, and then started whining. My great protector.