The Water Keeper(99)

The first time the reply was muffled and difficult to make out. The second time it was not and I heard exactly what she said. “Daddy!”

Daddy.

There it was again. The word circled inside my head, taking laps around my brain, finally coming to rest in my heart. The meaning registered, and it finally struck me that Ellie was calling to me.

She called me Daddy.

He was less than a block from his apartment garage and his Porsche. If he got her in the car, I’d never see either one again. A table crashed, a bottle broke, and more screams erupted from a waterside bar. Seeing my last chance, I slipped behind an office building, through a garden, around two people in a Jacuzzi, through a carport, and finally across the street and into the shadows at the entrance of his garage.

I watched helplessly as he shoved Ellie inside the Porsche and then fell into the driver’s side. I closed the distance. He slammed the door shut, reversed, and shifted into first—which was when I punched through the driver’s side glass and grabbed him by both his hair and his leg. Gunner had turned the back of his hamstring into hamburger, so when I squeezed it, he gave out a yelp.

I pulled harder and extracted him from the Porsche, where we spilled onto the asphalt in the garage. He kicked into my leg, sending me to my knees. I stood, and we traded blows. Behind him stood his freedom. Behind me stood my daughter. When I caught him in the jaw, he caught me in the throat, temporarily stunning me. I shook it off but he was on me. Trying to remove my head from my shoulders. I just could not do anything to best this guy. With one final burst of energy, I stood to my feet, jumped for all I was worth, and arched my back. We pivoted in the air and came crashing down. Me on top of him on top of a cement parking stop. He grunted, let go of my neck, rolled, and was on his feet before I could climb to my knees.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

He turned to Ellie. “Every day, whenever you turn around, I’ll be standing over your shoulder.” He swung, caught me in the chin, and nearly turned out my lights. I spun and watched him limp through the alleyway that led back onto the boardwalk along Sunset Point. As he receded into the darkness, I knew I’d have to spend the rest of my life keeping Ellie safe. Watching over her. My singular mission would be making sure she never lived a single day in fear of that man.

I’d protect her.

As the light of the lampposts showered down on him and his freedom, he turned a corner and disappeared. He was gone. I knew the focus of my life had changed.

As that thought was making its way into my brain, a shadow appeared where the man had disappeared. A taller shadow. The shadow swung, and the flesh-broker reappeared just as quickly as he’d left. Only this time he was airborne. Flying backward, head leading his feet. His head rocked unnaturally on his shoulders and his feet wrapped up with each other like a pretzel. He flew through the air in a perfect arc, coming to rest on his head and shoulders while the rest of his body piled up on top of him like noodles. Above him stood a man. A man with an angry face etched with a road map of wrinkles and scars written by a lifetime of pain. That man was sweating, and blood had stained his white hair and white beard.

Clay.

I pulled myself to the sidewalk, where a crowd had gathered. Clay stood over the man like Ali. I stared in dumbstruck amazement. I’ll never know how, given his condition, not to mention his age, he managed to get from Ellie’s hotel room to there.

I stared at him. He glanced down at the unconscious man at his feet. Then smiled at me. His teeth were red. Wobbling slightly, he shuffled to a park bench, sat down, crossed his legs, and folded his hands across his lap. He assessed his fingernails like a man getting a manicure, then eyed the split skin above his middle knuckle as if he were glancing at his watch to determine the time. Finally, he looked up at me again and nodded.

I looked at the man and knew I could kill him. Maybe I should. I also knew prison was not kind to men who dealt in flesh. In prison, your sins have a way of returning on you, and his would return with interest. When he woke, mine was the first face he saw. I flipped him, drove my knee into his kidney, drove my other knee into the hamburger that was once his thigh, and torqued his shoulder far enough upward to tear his rotator cuff and dislocate it from its socket.

He yielded.

An hour later, the paramedics had cut off my shirt and turned my pants into shorts in an effort to plug my holes and sew me up. Again. I was in pretty bad shape, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

But as the paramedics were lifting me onto a stretcher to transport me to the hospital, Sister June appeared. She reached for my hand. Her face was taut. “Sister Marie.” She pointed to an older Cadillac in the street. I limped to the car as the first rays of sunlight began breaking across the skyline and fell into the front seat. Ellie climbed quietly into the back.





Chapter 50


The ride across town was short. And quiet. Sister June spoke not a word.

We parked at the gate and wound through the trees, but there were no peacocks this time. Just silence. Sister June climbed the steps to Marie’s cottage and held the door for me. Marie lay in bed. A single light shone down on her. My last book on her chest. The rest were stacked neatly on the bookshelf next to her bed. Each one dog-eared, cover tattered, pages worn. I was tired and couldn’t differentiate between delirium and euphoria. When I knelt, she smiled. I slid my hand beneath hers.

She tapped the book. “I like this one.” She was pale. Struggling. These were the last words of a dying woman. “My favorite.”