"I'm okay! I'm okay!" Bobby's voice was ragged as the car sank, the headlights glowing eerily, a greenish yellow, in the murky water.
"Attaboy," Steve said, forcing himself to stay calm. "We're going for a swim."
The car headed downward, nose first. The headlights flickered and went out. The Caddy hit the bottom with a muted thud. Steve's chest smacked the steering wheel and his head banged into a metal strut in the canvas top. Pain shot across his skull. He heard the rush of water. His feet and legs were wet. Everything was black, except for the sparks that ricocheted in his brain.
"Bobby?"
He groped across the seat. The boy was gone.
"Bobby!"
Water poured through a gash in the canvas top. Colder than he had expected.
"Bobby! Where are you? Bobby!"
Steve fumbled with the release of his harness and felt it give way. He floated toward the torn roof where water rushed in.
"Bobby!"
Taking a breath, he dived into the backseat, his hands feeling for the boy.
Nothing.
Stay calm. Think it through. Okay, Bobby is out. That's good. Now, how the hell did he get out? Because if one person can do it…
Steve floated into the front seat, sucked in another breath, went under again, and tried to open the door. It weighed a ton.
He came up and kicked at the closed window, but in the rising water, he had no purchase.
He groped at the top. The tear in the canvas had to be there somewhere. One hand broke through. The opening wasn't large enough for him. But Bobby, all skin and bones, must have gotten out. Was he hurt? What about the current? Would it take him toward land or out to sea? With both hands, Steve tried tearing at the canvas, but it wouldn't give. Fear gripped him. He had to find Bobby, get him to shore.
As water rushed in, the air pocket shrank. No choice now. Steve sucked in a breath and rammed his head through the hole in the canvas.
His shoulders stuck.
He tried wriggling through but could not.
He corkscrewed his body, twisting violently. He was jammed tight. He might as well have been in a straitjacket.
His lungs on fire, he thought again of Bobby. He was ready to make a deal.
Okay, God, take me down. Save the boy.
He thought of his father. So many regrets.
Dad, I should have been a better son.
He thought of Victoria and how much he adored her.
Vic, from that first day, I. .
His lungs gave out and he sucked in a mouthful of water. He choked and gagged. Then as his chest bucked and his throat spasmed, another thought hit. If he had Junior Griffin's lung capacity, he could live another couple minutes. It pissed him off, dying like that, thinking of the son-of-a-bitch who would comfort the woman he loved.
Bobby's question came back to him. When was the last time he'd told Victoria he loved her?
I am such a fool.
Now, there's a dying thought for you.
Why hadn't he told Victoria how much he loved her? Why hadn't he told her every damn day?
Twenty-four
Victoria stood on the balcony of her suite at the Pier House, sipping a vodka gimlet. Just like you-knowwho. The Queen drank gimlets. In fact, she was quite particular about them.
"Always squeeze fresh limes, dear. Get your vitamin C with your vodka."
Must have worked. Her mother never came down with scurvy.
It was nearly midnight. The TV trucks were gone from the parking lot, but they would be back. A cooling breeze fluttered from the Gulf, and Victoria was drinking alone. She wondered where her mother had gone. Uncle Grif, too. She hadn't seen either one since they stomped out of the suite, seconds after she accused them of being David and Bathsheba and causing her father's death.
In the hours since, Victoria hadn't left the room, except to stand at the balcony rail, watching a ribbon of clouds dance across the face of the moon. She'd called Junior and told him her suspicions. He seemed shocked and hurt, and in their mutual sorrow, she felt closer to him than ever before. Junior vowed he would talk to his father and demand to know the truth.
Was there some irony at work here? If her father hadn't committed suicide, she would most likely have become Mrs. Victoria Griffin. It's what all four parents had wanted. It's what she herself wanted, at least as an adolescent. So, if her mother's affair led to her father's suicide, which led to the shame and guilt that sent Uncle Grif globe-trotting. . well, weren't the illicit lovers to blame for laying waste to her fated marriage, too? The domino effect of fate.
It was all too much to contemplate, and definitely called for another gimlet.
Seconds passed. Or minutes. Or an eternity.
If I'm dead, Steve thought, would I feel the passage of time?
It was dark and wet and cold.
Something tugged at Steve, and then he was moving.
Or was he still and everything around him was moving? He couldn't tell.
There was the slushing sound of gushing water. Something click-clacked and tapped him in the chest. Or maybe not.
He tasted salt water and choked and coughed. A thin beam of light cut through the darkness, a slice of an eerily beautiful moon.
Where the hell am I?
Then darkness again.
Victoria went back inside, but left the balcony door open to feel the breeze and catch the pale moonbeams.
Earlier, she had scanned the room service menu, decided she wasn't hungry, then raided the mini-bar for the third time. Two little bags of pretzels, a bottle of Rose's sweetened lime juice-Sorry, Mother-and a bunch of miniature Belvedere vodkas. Now the bottles were lined up like Lilliputian bowling pins on the conference table where the State v. Griffin files were stacked. The bottles were empty, the files unopened and unread.
"What kind of a lawyer are you?"
Steve's question echoed in her brain. A lousy lawyer. Maybe a lousy daughter, too. She could be wrong about her mother and Uncle Grif. She wasn't thinking clearly. Her lips were vodka numb and the moon in the night sky kept disappearing. Either clouds were scudding by, or she was woozy. Or both.
She wondered if Steve, driving down the Overseas Highway, was looking at the same moon. Then she giggled.
He can't be looking at a different moon.
She hoped he wasn't consuming alcohol at the rate she'd been.
At the poolside bar, below her balcony, a band was playing Jimmy Buffett. Something about a big pile of work and the boss is a jerk. If Steve were here, he'd want to go down to the bar and sing along. She wondered if he'd been telling the truth about fishing with Jimmy Buffett. With Steve, you never knew.
She thought back to the day Uncle Grif's boat crashed onto the beach. The day she'd told Steve she wanted to fly solo. Meaning professionally. At least, that's what she had said.
Who's kidding who? Or whom? Or whatever?
The realization hit her along with the ocean breeze. She'd lied to Steve and to herself. She'd been cowardly. What she really wanted was to break up the relationship. Dump Steve. That had to be it, right?
Yes, dammit. I should have followed my gut instincts from the start. And I should have listened to The Queen.
Hadn't her mother-Bathsheba Lord-been right about Steve, even if she'd put it rather badly?
"Leave it to you, dear, to find a Jewish man who's not a good provider."