The Water Keeper(103)
Summer was last. She stood beautiful against the evening sun, the wind tugging at her dress. Her legs tanned and firm. She lifted her sunglasses off her face, held my face in her hands, and kissed me. Once. Twice. Then a third time. Her lips were soft. Tender. Inviting. And gone was the tremble. She pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Dancing is better when two people do it.”
“I’m not much of a dancer.”
A sly smile. “I am.”
I laughed.
She climbed a few steps, twirled once, then again, and disappeared into the plane. When she did, I felt a part of me go with her.
The pilot appeared from the cockpit. Bones. He stood in the doorway, broad chested, chiseled. Smiling like the Cheshire cat behind mirrored aviators. He loved this stuff. Now in his late fifties, he was fitter than most CrossFit fanatics. His face was tanned from too much skiing at Vail and Beaver Creek. He and I needed to have a conversation, but this was not the time nor the place. The look on his face acknowledged this. He gave me a thumbs-up, followed by rapid and practiced finger motions. When finished, they’d said, “91–11.”
He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.
The plane taxied, the jets roared, and within seconds they were little more than a speck.
I turned to Gunner, who was sitting next to me. Wagging his tail. “You ready, boy?”
He stood, ears trained on the disappearing plane, tail moving at six hundred rpm’s.
We walked from the airport across the street to the water where Gone Fiction was tied up at a dock. Standing on the dock, wearing an enormous hat and sunglasses, stood a familiar face. She’d made her yearly trek to Key West. She was holding a drink in one hand and the printed pages of a manuscript in the other. I lifted Gunner, placed him on the beanbag, and wrapped him in a blanket. She stared down at me and gestured with the pages. “You sure?”
I shrugged. “One half of me says yes. The other half says no.”
“Doesn’t have to end this way.”
I took a look inside. “My well is pretty dry. I don’t know if I can . . .”
She nodded. “You want me to speak to you as your editor or your friend?”
My mind wandered to the six hundred miles ahead of me. “Think I need a friend right now.”
“Write it out.”
I stared out across the water, finally letting my eyes come to rest on the battered orange Pelican case strapped to the bow. The one that held Marie’s ashes. My editor sipped from her drink and then pointed at the box. “I can hold the press.” She weighed her head side to side. “Expensive but . . . you’re worth it.”
I cranked the engine. The water stretched out like glass before me. The breeze cooled my skin. Snook darted beneath the hull. Behind me, I heard Marie’s echo, Walk me home. I nodded. “Maybe you should hold it.”
She smiled, lifted her drink in a toast, and disappeared up the dock toward the next watering hole.
Gunner and I reversed out of the slip. I throttled into drive, and we idled up the south side of Key West, where the sun shone on that orange box. Six hundred miles stared us in the face.
And that was good.
Chapter 52
Bones released the videos of the men captured on the Sea Tenderly and Fire and Rain. Authorities began making arrests up and down the coast of Florida. Over fifty men. Famous people too. Most lawyered up and tried both to buy their way out and to silence the media circus, but it’s tough to argue with video. Especially when little girls are involved.
Despite their attempts, the media couldn’t sniff me out. All they could uncover was a mystery man who had rescued some twenty-six girls over the course of a week and driven a stake through the heart of a mafia-run sex-trafficking racket that spanned the East Coast. Several of the girls required medical attention, but each had been returned to their lives and their parents. A few were unable to be contacted as their numbers had been disconnected. Theory was they’d been relocated to parts unknown. Each was a bit wiser. The captain of the demon boat had been offered a deal if he talked. Reduced sentence. “Softer” prison. He was singing like a canary.
The ride home took a week. We idled much of the way. Nothing about me was in a hurry. Most nights I slept in my hammock, cradling the jar that held Marie.
The island had survived much as I’d left it. Over two hundred citrus trees fared well given that they’re individually watered with automatic sprinklers. The weeds had returned with a vengeance, so I spent a few days beating them back—spraying or uprooting them. When I finally garnered the gumption to return to the chapel, my note still hung on the door. I thought about taking it down but couldn’t bring myself to do it.
So I left it.
Gunner was hands down the peeing-est dog I’d ever seen. Marked every tree on the island. To speed his therapy, I got him out swimming. At first, I held him while he paddled gently in my arms, getting his strength back. Slowly, I let him go and he swam on his own. I knew when he started swimming against the current he’d be okay. A good sign.
I lifted Gone Fiction out of the water and spent several days giving her a deep cleaning. She’d earned it. I even pulled off the wrap, restoring her to her original color.
Sunset found me staring over a cup of coffee out across the shallow water where Marie and I had met as kids. Somewhere in the next few days, I grabbed my laptop and opened a white page. For the next month, I wrote the me I wanted us to be. I wrote the story I wanted to read rather than the story I’d lived. Proving once again that writing is an amazing transaction, and that the most powerful thing ever is a word.