Firefly Beach (41 page)

Joe counted his men. He looked for Sam and felt relieved not to see him. The kid listened, Joe gave him that. Sam had always tagged along, followed Joe like a big puppy, but when Joe told him to back off, he did.
I do that too much,
Joe thought, yanking on the cable to test it. Tell Sam to back off. Tell
everyone
to back off. He thought of Caroline waiting on deck, and he moved faster. He gave the signal to start pulling.

The cable tightened. It scraped against the metal guides and supports. Joe’s heart pounded, and he felt himself wanting to breathe too fast. He was glad Sam was outside the wreck, safe and free. This was the riskiest part of treasure hunting: getting the gold out of the unstable wreck. This was the part where people could get hurt.

The chest shifted. The wire stretched. The girded chest bumped along the sea bottom. Divers surrounded it, easing the encased old box over broken spars. Dan watched the cable, gauging its tension against the metal guides. He gave Joe a thumbs-up. Joe swam behind the chest, noticing a trail of coins spilling from a crack between the protective straps.

His main concern was getting the gold to the water’s surface. It was easier going now; the chest was off the sea bottom, being guided through the dark wreck. Bones lay strewn around, the remains of the
Cambria
’s crew. Clarissa’s mother was among them, but Joe didn’t let himself think of her. He was a pirate now, not a scientist, and he had to get the treasure.

As he swam out of the wreck, the water seemed bright. Joe felt relief. He searched for Sam, saw him waiting a safe distance away. The worst part was over. One by one his men were coming out, following the chest of gold. It hovered in the water, suspended in the hole in the
Cambria
’s hull. Half in and half out, it wasn’t moving.

The cable was snagged.

Right away Joe saw the problem wasn’t serious. The wire had eased between the metal arch and a ship’s timber. Dan called for some slack, and the winch man let off some tension, unhooking the strap from a broken spar. The cable drooped. Joe swam over. He had just reached up to free the wire, when he saw the shark.

It was coming fast. Sleek as a jet, black on top with a white underbelly, the shark was headed straight for Sam. The creature twisted, opened its mouth to expose jagged teeth, slashed past Sam. Joe saw the startled look on Sam’s face. Sam’s eyes widened behind his mask. He opened his mouth, and a balloon of air bubbles escaped.

Joe grabbed a broken spar from the sea bottom. He didn’t have a plan, he didn’t even think. All he wanted was to protect his brother. He lunged toward the shark, trying to scare it away with his useless wooden club.

Joe’s air hose caught on the metal guide. The cable had tightened up again, tugging the chest. Yanked back, Joe felt his air stop. All he had to do was slip out of his harness, leave his tank hanging where it was caught. But he was distracted by the shark and Sam. He saw Sam holding still, turning in place, watching the shark circle around. The shark flicked its tail and dodged away. Joe followed it with his eyes.

Fumbling with the harness, Joe smiled at Sam. The kid was a mess, freaked out over the shark and unaccustomed to seeing his older brother agitated. Sam swam forward, taking his regulator out of his mouth, ready to share his air with Joe.

Joe motioned him back. He had taken a big breath of air; he had plenty to take him to the water’s surface. But Sam kept coming. He knew the buddy system, how you shared your air with a fellow diver in distress. Sam’s eyes were focused on Joe, his mouthpiece held out like a gift.

Just then the chest swung free. It flew past Joe, on its way up. Snapping loose, the cable shook the wreck. The
Cambria
trembled, and the shock waves felt like an underwater earthquake. Joe steadied himself. He reached out, trying to push Sam away.

The wreck came down as if the ground had shifted. It tumbled in on itself, sending timbers everywhere. Divers scattered like baitfish. The school of blues exploded away, the shark had disappeared. Joe felt a timber strike his shoulder with a glancing blow. But Sam got hit hard. Joe saw the cable whip across the back of his head.

Sam’s blood wafted into the murky water.

Joe darted toward his younger brother, but he couldn’t swim. His arm wouldn’t work.

No one had cared when Caroline pointed out the shark. They said they saw sharks all the time out here—it was no big deal, part of the job. Only gullible city people believed
Jaws
. Caroline had laughed, knowing she should believe them. She had lived by the sea her whole life, had never heard of one shark attack in Black Hall waters.
It’s like the hunts,
she told herself:
We saw bears, we saw wolves, but nothing ever ate us.

Caroline watched the chest shimmering beneath the surface. It was the size of a dinghy, blackened with time. Coated with green seaweed and raggedy barnacles, it came out of the sea, dangling on the cable, supported on all sides by strapping. The winch man maneuvered it onto the deck, water pouring from its seams.

Four black heads bobbed into sight. The divers were coming up. She looked for Joe and Sam, thrilled that they would all be able to see the gold together.

The divers were shouting. Climbing onto the swim platform, leaping onto the deck. Someone radioed for the Coast Guard, for a helicopter. Caroline ran to the rail. She stared at the surface, praying to see Joe and Sam.

“The shark?” she asked. She was thinking of hunters and prey, her worst fears.

“The wreck collapsed,” someone told her, running by.

“Where’s Joe?” she asked, her heart racing. “Where are they?”

Less than a minute passed, and they came up. Everyone was clustered around Sam. His face was pure white, streaked with blood. His eyes were half closed, rolled back in his head. Blood pumped out of a four-inch wound behind his ear.

Joe gasped air. He was trying to buoy up Sam, but his left arm was hanging limp at his side. His wetsuit was torn; Caroline saw the gash in his shoulder. Dan swam to his side, held him steady. Caroline held out her arms, tried to help as first Sam and then Joe were hauled onto the deck. People flew to the wheelhouse, then came back with blankets.

“He was trying to save me,” Joe said, looking from Caroline to Sam. “He was just trying to pull me out of the way.”

“He’s hurt bad, man,” Dan said, staring at Sam. “Losing blood fast.”

“Coast Guard’s on the way,” Jeff called. “Sending a helicopter out right now.”

“Sam,” Joe said, his voice cracking. The sight of his exposed wound shocked Caroline. The jagged wood had plowed through his upper arm, slicing it clear to the bone. His own face was pale, his lips blue. Joe was losing a fair amount of blood himself, but he wouldn’t leave Sam’s side.

Someone found a towel, dabbed it against Sam’s head. Sam’s blood began pooling on the deck. The crew seemed paralyzed by their captain’s distress.

“We need a fucking doctor,” Dan said, spitting water. “Out the fuck here at sea, sharks swimming around, and not one of us is a doctor. All these eggheads and not one of them’s a goddamn M.D.”

“Where’s the helicopter?” a young crewmember asked, scanning the sky.

Caroline pushed her way into the tight circle of divers. She knew first aid and she crouched down, touched Sam’s face. It felt ice cold. Her throat tightened. She thought of Redhawk Mountain, of Andrew Lockwood. The memories broke her heart, and she knew she couldn’t afford them right now.

Caroline pulled off her white shirt. She wore a bathing suit underneath, and the breeze chilled her skin. She pressed the shirt to Sam’s head. She held it against the wound as hard as she could, feeling his hot blood soak into the fabric, forcing herself to look at his face so she wouldn’t see Andrew’s.

“Loosen his wetsuit,” she instructed Dan and Jeff. “Cover him with the blanket and bring some more.” She felt the side of his neck for his pulse and couldn’t find it. She knew the cut was bad, that it might have scored an artery.

“Is he going to die?” Joe asked, his eyes red and brimming with tears.

Caroline looked over at him. The effort of will with which Joe held himself up was enormous. His lips were a tight blue line. He had lost every trace of cool, of toughness. That emotional wariness she had observed ever since meeting him had vanished. It took a certain amount of courage to sit on deck surrounded by his men, tears rolling down his face, without wiping them away. He was hurt himself, close to passing out, but he hung on to Sam.

The helicopter was coming. Caroline heard the engine beating, far-off and faint like hundreds of birds.

“Is he going to die?” Joe asked again, never taking his eyes away from Caroline’s face. She had to be careful with her expression. She knew how he felt about the truth. She knew that he wouldn’t want her to lie, but she couldn’t bring herself to say what she had seen once before, what she believed to be true. So she kept her eyes steady, her lips silent.

The tears in Caroline’s periwinkle blue eyes were the only sign, the only giveaway to tell Joe that she had watched a boy losing blood before, that the answer to his question might very well be yes.

Breathing heavily, Augusta mounted the stairs to check on Skye. She would have admitted it to no one, not even to Caroline or Clea, but she felt finally and utterly defeated, a total failure as a mother.

The children had been such happy little girls. She could picture them now, running through the field at twilight, catching fireflies in their cupped hands. They were in constant motion. Augusta could see them perfectly in her mind’s eye. She had sat on the porch steps, so full of love and delight, she thought she would rise like a balloon. Her daughters would dance and leap in arabesques of joy, and Augusta’s eyes would fill with tears for what she had brought to life.

Whoever would have thought that twenty-five years later she would be checking her youngest, her darling Skye, to make sure she hadn’t harmed herself? That she wasn’t drinking straight from a bottle, that she hadn’t taken an X-acto knife to the blue veins in her delicate arms? Over a death that had occurred so many years ago?

Skye, a killer.

Dear God,
Augusta thought. The pain in her own family. She bowed her head, wiped her tears. How could she not have known how better to help? Her three girls, sisters looking after each other. Caroline, the surrogate mother. Thank God for her, that the others hadn’t had to endure it all alone—their real mother too selfish and cowardly to protect them.

At the top of the back stairs, Augusta paused. She leaned against the banister, her arms full of white towels. She felt like a tired old washerwoman.

The door to Skye’s studio was shut tight. Augusta stared at it. This was the moment she feared. When she would fling open her daughter’s door, walk in, and discover Skye drunk.

Augusta straightened her spine. She took a deep breath and put an expression of put-upon ditziness on her face. She’d walk in complaining loudly that the world would never know about the mothers of sculptors, all the extra work they did to make sure their daughters could sculpt freely with clean hands.

She pushed the door open. She stepped inside. And her heart stopped just as Skye screamed.

“My God!” she said, dropping the towels.

There was Skye, blood streaming from her nose, while Simon stood over her, breathing like a bull. He held her from behind, and Augusta could see that he had hurt her. He had his pants undone, his belt trailing to the floor.

“Leave us, Augusta,” Simon said. “This is between me and my wife.”

“Skye?” Augusta asked again, ignoring him. She grabbed one of the clean towels and began walking toward her daughter. Was this a bad fight or something worse? Was he about to
rape
her?

Skye’s nose was crooked. A lump was starting to swell under her left eye. Augusta crouched beside her, examining her eyes, stroking her hair. “Did he hit you?” Tears were leaking from Skye’s eyes. Enraged, Augusta turned to Simon. “Did you hit her? So help me, Simon, if you…”

She glimpsed Simon’s face. How ugly it looked, all contorted and red, the veins on his neck standing out like cords. His teeth were bared like a tiger’s, and Augusta felt the rush of animal instinct herself. The hair on her neck stood up straight. She remembered feeling this way just once before: when James Connor had come into her kitchen and threatened her children.

Augusta put herself between Simon and Skye. She faced him head-on, their eyes met, and she saw the blow coming. She wasn’t sure whether Simon was aiming for her or for Skye, but she held up her hands to protect them both. She heard Skye cry out, and the word “Nooooo!” lingered in the air, the whistle of a locomotive rounding a long curve before entering the tunnel.

It was Augusta he was aiming for, and he connected with a thud and a snarl. Augusta heard it as much as felt it, Simon’s fist connecting with the side of her head, and her other senses were alive as well, she smelled and tasted her own fear, and she saw Skye, her baby daughter, her truest artist and purest spirit, pick up a pair of scissors.