At least he could take comfort in the hope that if it wasn’t Sophie with him now, maybe the real Sophie was okay after all. Perhaps she’d found her mother and all was well and it was just Jim who was in a mess.
I could go back , he thought. Tell them I’m sorry, I made a mistake.
But he couldn’t get past the fact that Sophie had gone into Corpus’s arms and hadn’t returned. And if Sophie was all right, she would have let him know. It followed, then, that she wasn’t and that the island really was hostile and the whole situation needed to be taken to the authorities.
Jim had never been friendly with the police—quite the opposite, actually. He didn’t mean to cause trouble, but it seemed to follow him like a stray dog. He’d never committed any terrible crimes, but he’d spent a few nights in police custody for things like loitering, vandalism, trespassing, and general stupidity. He considered what story he could tell them to convince them to help, something that wouldn’t come across as crying wolf just for kicks—something he knew they’d suspect. I mean, honestly—an island of mad doctors locking up innocent girls? I wouldn’t believe it if someone told it to me.
“They wouldn’t come out here, anyway,” he said aloud. “They’d say it’s out of their jurisdiction. I don’t even know who properly owns this island. Corpus, I guess. But I’ve got to try.”
That only brought him to another obstacle—reaching the plane. The tide wasn’t going out any time soon, and if Mary was going to make good on her promise, he didn’t have time to wait.
“Okay.” He stopped walking and pressed his hands together and then touched his fingertips to his chin, staring at the girl, whose name even she didn’t seem to know. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll swim the channel and see if I can break through the current. Don’t know how but don’t know what else to do. In the unlikely event that I don’t drown, I’ll get to my plane, taxi it over here, and pick you up.” He couldn’t just leave her. He knew it would be easier to do so, and that it wouldn’t make sense for any of the islanders to hurt her, but still. She was pitiful and helpless, could barely take care of herself. And she seemed to be under a strange compulsion to do whatever anyone told her. He couldn’t leave her in that condition, however convenient it would be.
“And then . . .” His voice trailed off. And then we fly by the seat of our pants. “Stay here,” he told her. “Don’t wander off. I’ll be back for you. Maybe. If I don’t drown first.”
He tugged off his shoes and his shirt and left them on the sand. Then he stood in the surf and inhaled slowly, trying to psych himself up for the swim. The water rushed at him and threw itself against him in taunting waves. He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, and then dove underwater.
For a bit, all seemed to be going well. His hopes even rose; perhaps by some lucky chance he’d picked a time or day when the current was weaker than it looked. He stroked along, clawing his way through the water at a steady pace. Salt stung his eyes and lips, but he was used to that. He’d grown up on the beaches of Guam, and the sea was as familiar to him as the sky. Sea and sky and sand; they were his school, his home, his world. I can do this, he told himself. This is my turf as much as it is theirs.
His mother had loved to swim, but she’d hated flying. She’d hated it when he flew. His dad had begun teaching him how to pilot when he was just ten years old, and some of his bitterest memories were of his parents arguing over his flying. It was in those arguments that the differences between his parents were most obvious. His mother liked order. Her life was a series of annotated planners and drawers of neatly sorted silverware. Nothing put her out of sorts quite like spontaneity. She couldn’t handle it. Either she shut down and retreated to her work as a professor at the University of Guam, or she lashed out at Jim’s father. Steve Julien was the yang to Elaina’s yin, but instead of coming together in a cohesive whole, they clashed like fire and water. Steve was laid back, hated schedules, and acted entirely on whim. He lived on impulse, and Jim was very much like him. Father and son rolled like water, always changing and following the tide; his mother was an immovable island whose edges they slowly eroded. And eventually, they wore her too thin, and she flew off to the mainland with a naval officer named Lance.
The current caught Jim completely by surprise, slamming into him like a wall of rock, sweeping him eastward into open sea. He was as powerless as a leaf on the wind. The water sucked him under and he fought against it until his lifeguard training took over, and he remembered that it was better to go with a current than fight it. So he relaxed and let it take him, and he resurfaced long enough to gasp for air and take stock of his position. He’d been swept wide of both islands and was quickly being borne even further out to sea. He could see not-Sophie on the beach watching him but not moving. He couldn’t expect aid from her, nor did he want it. She’d already proven she couldn’t swim.
He knew he had to do something quickly or he’d be carried so far out that he’d never make it back, but he had to wait until the current weakened. It was a rip current; it couldn’t go on forever. But fighting it would only wear him out and he’d drown for sure.
Eventually he started to slow down, and that was his sign that it was time to get out. He started to swim north, toward the airstrip, but when he glanced back, his blood turned cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the water.
Mary and her two friends were walking out of the woods, and they’d spotted the Sophie look-alike. She sat with her gaze still fixed on Jim, unaware of their approach behind her.
He hesitated, and the current, though weak, dragged him ever outward. He had to make a decision fast. Once he was out of the current, he wouldn’t be able to swim across it again.
Gritting his teeth together, Jim thrust his arms through the water with all his strength. It wasn’t easy; the current was still strong and for a moment it seemed he was standing still. But then he broke out of the stream as quickly as he’d entered it, and then he began churning water as fast as he could. He timed his strokes with the onrushing waves in an attempt to speed himself along. But they’d already reached her, and Mary gripped the girl’s hair and was pulling. He was a good distance away, but he could still hear her scream in pain.
“Stop!” he yelled, expending precious energy. Either they didn’t hear him or they didn’t care. They watched him swim in with impatient expressions, as if they couldn’t wait to pounce on him. When he was close enough, the two boys charged into the surf and grabbed his arms, dragging him onto the sand. He was entirely spent, helpless in their hands. His body trembled with exhaustion and he felt sick. He coughed up saltwater and that made him fall into a fit of retching. Then, abdomen aching, he collapsed and let them drag him onto the dry sand where Mary was waiting, her hands still entwined in not-Sophie’s hair.
“Tsk,” she clucked when they dumped him at her feet. Her brown curls snapped in the wind. “Naughty little pilot, stealing our precious Lux away from us.”
He was gasping and choking still, but managed to croak, “So she does have a name.”
“What are you doing on our island?”
“Hunting for pirate treasure.”
Her eyes flashed at the boy on his left—Jay—and Jay delivered a kick to Jim’s side that sent him cringing into a fetal position.
“Where’s Sophie?” he gasped. “What happened to her?”
“I’m the one asking questions. Not that I particularly care why you’re here. I don’t.”
He groaned and pushed himself onto his knees. Trying in vain to ignore the pain in his side, he cracked her a crooked smile. “You’re cute when you’re mad. Want to go out sometime?”