Between Here and the Horizon(43)

“Okay. We will do something. Come inside.”

Connor followed after me, helping me, leaning his body weight against the French door when I tried to close it. “Go to the cupboard in the hallway. Get all of the blankets you can find and take them downstairs to the front door. Can you do that, Connor?”

He nodded, waited for a second, blinked, and then ran out of the room. I collected Amie, along with the duvet off my bed, and I raced down the hallway after him. A second later, I’d collected a warm sweater for Connor from the chest of drawers in his room, and I was barreling down the stairs after him. “Here, put this on. Find your shoes. Bring Amie’s too.”

“Okay.”

He charged off again to locate his shoes, and I ran to the kitchen, still holding onto Amie for dear life.

Flashlight.

First aid kit from the cabinet above the stove.

Cereal bars.

A bottle of whiskey.

I stowed all of these items into a bag and slung it over my shoulder, then went and found Connor. Moments later, we were speeding out of the driveway in the Land Rover, Amie catatonic in the back seat, Connor with his binoculars pressed against the window up front. The sweater I’d found for him was far too big, like the person who’d bought it for him had accidentally purchased it three sizes too big. The cuffs were hanging down over his hands, and the hem was around his knees.

“Can you see the coast guard?” I asked him.

“No. The light’s gone out now.”

That wasn’t a good sign. If the ship had indeed been on fire, the fire wouldn’t just have gone out of its own accord. It would only have gone out if the ship had sunk, which was the worst possible thing that could happen. There was drag to consider. Depending on the size of the boat, and how far the people had managed to swim away from it before it went down, it would pull whatever was floating on the surface down with it.

The clock on the Land Rover’s dash read 2:48. Nearly three o’clock in the morning. The island should have been sleeping, but as I tore down the narrow, winding roads and raced toward the dock, lights were flickering on in the houses we passed one by one. Word was spreading. At the dock, a small crowd of people were already gathered, dressing gowns and slippers in some cases, while others had taken time to dress in jeans, shirts and coats before they dashed out of the door.

An ambulance that looked like it had seen better days was parked out on the pier, sirens probing out red and blue into the night, and a guy I hadn’t seen before was pacing up and down beside it, head down against the wind, talking into a cell phone that was pressed against his ear. “Stay here for a second, please,” I told Connor.

“But, Ophelia!” He looked dismayed.

“I mean it. Stay in the car and make sure Amie doesn’t wake up. Can you do that for me, please? Can you look after your sister?”

He was silent for a moment, mouth hanging open, but then he nodded slowly. “Will you come back right away?”

He wasn’t upset about missing out on the action. He just didn’t want me to leave him on his own. “I will. I promise. I won’t be gone for more than five minutes, okay? You see the clock here? It says two fifty-eight? I’ll be back before it says three oh-three, I swear.”

“All right, then.”

I got out of the car and slammed the door shut, hitting the lock button behind me. Scanning the crowd, I saw Michael, the guy I’d met at Rose’s party, talking to another guy who looked like he could be his brother. When Michael saw me, he waved, gesturing me over.

“It’s the Sea King,” he shouted. “Been floundering for the past hour. Storm rolled in from nowhere. A bunch of ships have been smashed against the coastline. Another ship further up the coast, a tanker, was crippled. Guard’s out there with them now, trying to prevent a spill.”

“But what about these guys?”

“They’re gonna get to ’em, they said. But pretty sure it’ll be too late by then.”

I shook my head, trying to understand what he was saying. “So the tanker takes precedence? How many people are on the other ship?”

Michael shrugged. The other man, about a foot taller than Michael with a gray speckled beard, pulled his jacket tighter around his body. “Usually tankers aren’t manned that heavily these days. Everything’s automated. Computers run the whole thing. Twenty. Maybe thirty max.”

“And the Sea King?”

“Even less. It’s just a fishing vessel. Fifteen guys?”

“So the coast guard is dealing with the ship with more souls on board.” It made sense. And the fact that the tanker’s hold was likely full of oil, worth an unimaginable amount of money and liable to cause a natural disaster if not contained, made it a no brainer. Still, it was criminal that the men off shore from the Causeway were being left to drown. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing we can do from here. Jerry’s boat’s not built for weather like this. The only other boats on the island are even smaller than his. Tiny three-man fishing craft.”

Michael was clenching a bunch of keys in his right hand; it looked like the teeth of the metal was cutting into his fingers. “Fuck.” He turned around, eyes roving over the faces of the other worried people out on the dock. “This is crazy. We know those men out there. There has to be a way we can get out there to them.” No solution seemed to come to him, or to his friend, though.