“Why are we still here?” she asked, hearing the numbness of her own voice but unable to do anything about it.
Plausky set the plate on a little table in a corner opposite the cot, never taking his eyes off her. The FBI body language spoke clearly — he wore his gun in an armpit holster like a cop in some eighties movie, and was aware both of the weapon and of the crying woman in his custody. He would not turn his back on her, give her a chance to try for the gun. Angie figured it must just be training, because the idea that she might attempt such a thing felt absurd.
“Ms. Tyree, this is a major FBI investigation. The operation is not going to be over any time soon. When my superiors feel like they’re done with you, and if opportunity arises, I’ll do my best to have you transported either back to St. Croix or to Miami. You’ll remain in federal custody until someone decides to let you go.”
The words fell upon her like icy rain. Angie shivered, shaking her head.
“You don’t get it. You don’t get it,” she said, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth. She glanced at the window and turned quickly away, afraid of what might appear there, despite the sunshine. “I can’t stay here. None of us can stay here.”
Plausky sighed and dragged the chair over from the small table. He perched on the edge of the chair, maybe trying to make her feel comfortable by moving down to her level, but still not letting his guard down.
“Ms. Tyree — Angie — trust me when I say you’re not in any danger now.”
She laughed, but the laugh became a sob and she broke down, bowing her head. “Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding?”
Again, Plausky sighed. “Look, I’m trying to be polite here, but you’ve got to get it together. A real conversation wouldn’t be a bad place to start. If you want to help yourself, you could start by talking about the Rio brothers and Viscaya, and what you know about the guns.”
Angie shuddered, closed her eyes, and heard gunfire that made her flinch. But it wasn’t happening now, only in her memory.
“The guns are gone.” She opened her eyes and fixed him with a stare, breathing evenly, and managed to stop crying. Sniffling, she wiped at her nose. “You people are fucking crazy. The guns are gone.”
“But you saw them?” Plausky asked, obviously interested now that she was talking about his precious investigation.
Angie took a long breath, steadying herself. “Yes. I saw them.”
Plausky tried to keep a straight face so she wouldn’t know how pleased he was with this. When he had tried to question her before, Angie had been unable to stop crying, had barely been able to speak. It had all been a blur to her, but she thought she had been screaming as well.
“Can you describe what you saw?” Plausky asked. “What type of guns, and how many?”
Angie hugged herself and glanced at the window. Forcing herself to stand, jaw tight with fear, she climbed off the bed and went to peer out through the glass. In the distance she could see the island. Closer — much closer — the Antoinette loomed in the water, dark and menacing. It looked abandoned, but she knew that was not the case.
“Not enough,” she whispered.
“What’s that?”
Heat rushing to her face, she rounded on him. “Not enough!” she screamed, fists clenched at her sides. “We didn’t have enough guns, you stupid fucking Fed. These things were endless, like cockroaches. Bring all the guns you want; it won’t make a difference!”
Plausky got up from his chair, backing away so quickly that he tipped it over. She saw the alarm in his eyes, saw his hand twitch toward his weapon and the way he tensed, and she started to fall apart all over again.
“Please,” she said, slumping back against the wall. The images forced themselves into her head again, and now she did not even have to close her eyes. Dwyer’s screams lingered in the air around her, following her, haunting her. “You’ve got to get me out of here. I don’t care where you send me, but please don’t make me stay. I’ll say whatever you want, but please …”
Her body shook and she crawled back onto the bed, pushed herself into the corner, and watched the windows and the door and the shadowed corners, despair crushing her.
“Angela, listen,” Plausky ventured. “You’re totally safe here. I swear.”
She turned from him, covered her face, and curled into a fetal ball. Words had failed her. All she could do now was wonder how many hours remained before nightfall. How many minutes were left for her to live.
64
Tori had a great many reasons to scream, but one overwhelming reason not to — her head ached fiercely, like someone had clamped a vise on the back of her skull. The Coast Guard ship — the Kodiak—had a doctor on board, and the man seemed to have stepped out of an old movie. Fiftyish, with a Jack Lemmon sort of everyman quality, Dr. Paul Dolan had a gentle smile and kind blue eyes, and made her feel like maybe her head hadn’t actually cracked open. In the time he had spent with her, Dr. Dolan had also made her feel like she was not a prisoner.
But when Dr. Dolan left, the FBI agent in the hall had glanced in at her and then nodded to the two Coast Guard officers, who had shut the door and locked it behind them, leaving her alone with her splitting headache, her blood-matted hair, stitches in her scalp, and a couple of lovely Percocets.
The painkillers had allowed her to sleep for a while, but they had worn off too quickly, and now the sunlight streaming through the window made her cringe. The doctor had told her she had a minor concussion, but it did not feel minor. There were scratches and bruises all over her body, but none of that hurt her. The pain in her skull overrode any other stimuli.
But she had other reasons to scream. Memories, to begin with. Kevonne, Bone, Pang, Pucillo, and so many others were dead. As much as she had come to despise Dwyer and Miguel, no one deserved to die like that. Despite how close she had come to death — or perhaps because of it — the images in Tori’s head were jumbled. She remembered white flesh and black eyes and the way the creatures stuck to the sides of the derelict ships and slithered up onto the Antoinette. She remembered blood and thrashing and shrieks of agony. Yet somehow she could not form a real picture of one of the sirens in her mind. If she had a pencil and paper, she could not have drawn one.
Perhaps that was a mercy.
Yet even with her head splitting and the horrors fresh in her mind, her number-one reason to scream actually put a smile on her face. For as Tori stood at the window, squinting against the daylight, and stared out at the Antoinette and the island beyond it, she felt a sublime sense of bliss, a mad elation that soothed her even better than Percocet.
I’m alive, she thought. The FBI guy, Turcotte — the one so obviously in charge — had called her a survivor, and her heart had soared. Damn straight, she had survived. What the FBI did not know was that death had come for Tori twice in her life, and both times she had managed to elude its grasp by moments.
This morning, despite the splintering pain in her skull, she had found a new clarity of thought, epiphanies exploding like fireworks in her head. The first time she had narrowly avoided death, she had been so startled at her good fortune that she had been content to simply survive. Ted had presumed her dead and she wanted to stay that way, hidden, almost lurking on the periphery of her own life, afraid to really live just in case somebody noticed. Now, though, Tori felt as if she had woken from some kind of trance. She would have smiled, but she had found that it made her head hurt even more.