The Water Keeper(6)
His guests roamed the sandbar and set up a volleyball net. The two guys were not remarkable. Tattooed. Muscled. Chains and earrings. Like every other wannabe. But the girls were. As were the sizes of their bikinis. With the beer and umbrella drinks flowing and sundown approaching, the sandbar soon became a topless dance competition.
I’d seen it all before.
With the noise of their party over my shoulder, I waded through the waist-deep water several hundred yards away, pulled the crab trap, lifted out the angry blue crab, placed it on a medium-size circle hook, and cast a Carolina rig out into the deeper channel. Twenty minutes later, my drag started singing. A keeper redfish, or red drum as they are technically known, bronzed from the tannins in the St. Johns and St. Mary’s Rivers. Hooked well.
Redfish is good eating. Dinner served.
Fingers’ watertight, bright-orange, beat-up Pelican case had probably circled the globe a half dozen times. One more trip wouldn’t hurt. I figured he’d like that. Besides, if the boat took on water, the case could serve as a flotation device and save my life—something Fingers was good at. The trip south would take me several hundred miles through temperamental and sometimes unforgiving waters, so I was planning like the airlines do—“In the event of a loss of cabin pressure.” Unlikely but possible. I secured Fingers’ box on the bow because I knew he’d like the wind in his face.
I had intended to spend the afternoon readying the Whaler for my trip down the coast, but more often than not I found myself staring at that box. Thinking about the number of times I’d seen Fingers do what Fingers did—make everything better. Years ago, I’d named the Whaler Gone Fiction for reasons that mattered only to me. Fingers told me it was a stupid name. I told him to get his own boat because I wasn’t changing the name. He knew why, so he didn’t fight me on it.
I changed the oil. Swapped out the prop for something with a little more pitch, which would bring down the rpm’s at higher speeds over long distances. Conserving fuel while bringing my top speed to fifty-five-plus if I trimmed it out.
I cleared the bills off my desk and then did the one thing I’d been dreading. I composed the email I did not want to write. Then another. How do you tell a person that someone they love has died? I’m not sure I can answer that. When finished, I sat staring at my screen. For an hour. A phone call would have been better—they deserved that—but I didn’t have the bandwidth. I would not be able to control my emotions. So I clicked Send, turned off my computer and my phone, and was in the process of turning out all the lights when I heard a knock. It echoed off the massive doors, crossed the lawn through the rain, and bounced into the second-story open window of my loft inside the barn. Given that I am surrounded by water, visitors are rare. I waited, and there it was again, this time accompanied by a muted female voice.
A girl’s voice.
I pulled on a shirt, climbed down, crossed the yard in the rain, and crept barefooted through the darkness, staring at her back. Even from behind, she was beautiful.
“Hello,” I said.
She jumped a foot in the air, fell into a squatting position, and screamed. Following that with relieved yet uncertain laughter as I stepped around her and into the light.
She stood and pointed at me, but her aim was slightly off and most of her words ran together. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people. Now I really have to pee. You open?”
I unlocked the latch and swung open the massive oaken doors. Our movement turned on the motion lights, which gave me a better look at her. She was a beautiful young woman. Fashion magazine face. Runway legs. Pilates figure. Bare feet, muddy at the edges. She was holding a rain jacket above her head to ward off the drizzle. She laughed uncomfortably. “You scared the sh—” Suddenly aware of her surroundings, she covered her mouth and said, “I mean . . . I wasn’t expecting you. That’s all. Sorry.”
I recognized her from the sandbar.
Chapter 2
She shook off the rain, tracking mud. She was dressed provocatively. Daisy Dukes. Bikini top. Several piercings—nose, ears, and belly button. Black eyeliner. Maybe the eyelashes were not hers. She smelled of smoke but not cigarettes. Possibly a cigar but I doubted it. Her fingers nervously turned the bikini strap behind her neck. She stepped inside and twirled like a dancer. Something she did both to take in her surroundings and because it was natural. Like she’d danced as a child. Her jet-black hair was not her real color. A recent change. As was the tattoo at the small of her back. The red edges looked slightly irritated.
Her rain jacket belonged to a man and was several sizes too large. I pointed. “May I?”
She folded it over her arms. “I’m good.” I wondered if her present distrust of me was fueled by whoever gave her that rain jacket.
She was fifteen. Maybe sixteen, but I doubted it. The world before her. Something ugly behind her. Her glassy eyes betrayed a stormy and medicated mixture of excitement and fear. Going up or coming down, there was more in her blood than just blood.
Silence followed. I folded my hands behind my back. “Can I help you?”
Her words grew more slurred. “You have a baaaa-throom?”
I pointed at the door, and she went in. Walking provocatively. After a few minutes, her phone rang and I could hear her in there talking more to someone than with. Her raised voice suggested the conversation did not go well. When she returned, she’d settled the jacket loosely around her shoulders.