One Way or Another(14)

Back then, though, he had slept rough, grown a beard by necessity, carried his few belongings in a canvas knapsack, taken a job here, a job there, anything he could get where they paid him in cash, enough for the next meal, the next bus ticket to the next place. Wherever that might be.

A year passed. Thirteen, fourteen months, before the memory of his sister faded, just enough that she was not the first thing in his mind the moment he woke. She was nine years old when it happened. He was sixteen, old enough to be left in charge, his father had said. There was no mother, had not been since the sister, whose name was Elinor, always shortened to Ellie, was born. “Mom went to a better place,” Ellie would inform people solemnly. “She left me for my father and my brother to take care of.”

Marco could remember her voice as clearly as if she were speaking now. He remembered her running through the spiky sea grass that nicked your legs in little smarting cuts, berry-brown from a summer at the beach, long dark hair swinging in a ponytail, slipping and sliding, jumping over the rocks, shrieking as the waves rolled in at her. And then she was out of sight.

He had gone after her in minutes, seconds maybe. Seconds too late.

Ellie disappeared from that beach in those moments he’d taken his eyes off her. He could still hear her now though, laughing as she jumped, shrieking when she slid into a rock pool, making him smile. “Hope a clam bites your toe,” he remembered yelling after her as he scanned the horizon to see if the whales were spouting that day. She never answered.

When she did not return he went to look for her but the bit of beach where she had been was empty. Holding a hand to his eyes he’d looked around; he checked the rocks, then with a lurch of his heart ran to the water’s edge, stood scanning the ocean hurling itself almost gently that day onto the pebbles, then slurping back, only to rush in again in a froth of white foam.

Ellie was not in the water. She was no longer on the beach. In the space of minutes she had been taken. A sexual predator, the police told him. He was known to be in the area. A repeat offender.

“No way,” Marco remembered himself saying as the horror of what might have happened to Ellie took hold of him. “I’ll kill him if he’s hurt her!” he’d yelled. He’d even, later, found out where and how to buy a gun. It was tucked in his belt when the police called his father to say they had found Ellie’s body, and Marco immediately went in search of the man.

The cops got there first, shot the predator before Marco even knew where he was. But never in his life would he forget the primitive urge for revenge; an eye for an eye, a life for a life. And he would never forget Ellie, whose childish sweet voice he could still hear in his head, even though he was sitting under the old olive tree in Costas’s bar, smelling the sweetness of jasmine and the aroma of roasting meat and the salt lick of the sea, viewing its blueness that was so unlike the gray Atlantic where her abused body had been found.

It was the reason, he supposed now, that he was so concerned about the red-haired girl in the blue dress. What had happened to her was not so far from what had happened to his sister. It made it that much more urgent to find out.

From his seat in the bar, he saw a boat approaching. It was the Zeus. He’d heard a rumor that its captain had rescued a half-drowned girl. He was in the Jeep in a flash.

The tires screeched as Marco swung to a stop on the jetty. He was out and running toward the black gulet, Em yapping alongside him, casting a wary eye at the water. As the boat edged to the mooring Marco saw the man in a gold-braided captain’s hat throwing a fender over the side. A young T-shirted man was at the helm.

He hailed the captain, said he needed to speak with him. “About a young woman,” he called as the gangplank was lowered, “a half-drowned woman you rescued.”

Zacharias rolled his eyes; he’d known she would be trouble. He surely was not letting this guy on board, spying around, asking questions. “What is she to you?” he demanded.

“I saw her. I saw someone strike her, hit her head so hard it sent her reeling, bleeding…”

“This was not on my boat,” Zacharias said. “No woman got killed on my boat.”

Marco eyed him from the foot of the gangplank. The captain stood at the top, barring the way.

“Then she is dead,” Marco said quietly.

Zacharias’s expression turned to shock. “She is not dead,” he said, deciding quickly he had better tell what happened. “Only almost. I think not much longer and she will be. She drowned,” he added, to further clarify the position. “My crew found her, got her out of the water. She must have fallen off some tourist boat, smashed her head open. It was not good,” he added with a deep sigh because he saw no way out of this with the authorities.

“Then if she’s not on your boat, where is she?”

“On another boat. Big. Expensive. They came to pick her up.”

“The name of the boat?” Marco demanded, impatiently.

Zacharias shrugged. He had not taken notice, in fact he did not remember even seeing a name, he’d been too involved with getting rid of the girl.

Marco knew he had to get to the girl first if there was any chance at all of her being able to speak. If she was even, please God, still alive. He was witness to what was probably going to turn into murder, not simply a violent attack. Somebody had to protect this young woman’s rights. Somebody had to help her and it looked like he was the only one who could do it. But first he had to find that boat.