Sunset Bridge (36 page)

One thing was certain: there was no point in worrying now. The unit was in her pocket, and her hands were still tied. Getting to it was as distant a hope as a Coast Guard patrol boat suddenly showing up.

As if her thoughts had somehow spurred the action, Ned edged along the seat and tried to reach the life jacket again. Maggie gave a hard jerk as soon as he turned his back, and this time the rope gave enough that her hand shot free.

Ned, life jacket in hand, sat back. Maggie, heart pounding faster, looked beyond them. Land was no longer visible through the rain. She knew now that Blake had chosen to go out into the Gulf, then around the tip of the key. The closer they got to Palmetto Grove or another port, the better her chances. Her hands were free now, and she could swim. Her chances of survival were remote, but they were better than before. She debated whether to surprise Ned, pushing past him the next time his concentration faltered, and diving over the side. But he was watching carefully, his body squeezed against hers, and the life jacket was now blocking her exit as he fumbled with the straps.

The boat was ferociously slapping the waves, diving as it rode the downside of a wave, climbing as it faced the next. Ned moaned a little, and she drew hope from the sound. If he got sick, he might turn away to toss his Hershey bars. She could use that opportunity to escape.

She didn’t know how far they’d gone. She was disoriented by the motion and the darkness, not sure any longer if they were traveling around the point or out deeper into the Gulf.
Clearly, Blake wasn’t aiming for one of the inland canals. Wherever he was going, he didn’t want to be seen.

Ned moaned intermittently, and once he lifted his hand to his mouth as if he was going to be sick. The boat rocked fiercely beneath them, fiercely enough that now she was being jolted against him, which seemed to make him feel worse. Just as she tensed and readied herself for the inevitable bout of seasickness, Blake cut the engine.

Suddenly they were sliding up and down in the waves, and water was splashing freely into the boat. Blake stood and came toward them.

He was carrying an oar.

“Move,” he told Ned. “We’re going to get this over with.”

Ned moaned again and covered his mouth.

“Move!”

Ned threw himself off the seat and toward the stern, and just in time, because he was already retching as he went. But Maggie wasn’t paying attention to Ned. Blake was moving toward her. She had one chance, and she knew it. He raised the oar to strike her, and as it came down, her hands shot out from behind her and she grabbed the blade.

Blake, thrown off balance, stumbled, but he managed to find his feet. They struggled over the oar while Ned ignored them, too caught up in his own misery to help his partner.

Blake shouted something, and she shoved the oar back toward him, catching him in the stomach. He stumbled backward, gripping the end of the handle to protect himself, and she shoved again, aware her window of opportunity was closing as the retching noises behind her ceased. Blake was at the side now, trying desperately to wrench the oar out of her hands but still off balance. With every bit of strength she had,
she tried to push him overboard, but he wrested the oar from her grasp, threw it to one side and leaped at her.

At the side herself now, she saw her chance. He jumped, and she threw her arms around him in a parody of a lover’s hug. Then she used her own momentum to carry them both overboard.

After spotting Maggie’s car and finding it unlocked with the keys under the seat, Tracy and Wanda had headed back into the wind toward Blake’s beach house. Marsh, who had broken a window off the deck, let them inside. That victory was moot, since a thorough search of the house turned up nothing to indicate Maggie had ever been there. They left the way they had come and drove slowly out to Happiness Key, in case Maggie’s car simply hadn’t started and she had been forced to walk home. But she wasn’t there, nor did they see anyplace along the way where she might have stopped for shelter. Happiness Key itself was deserted, and the beach closest to the houses was already flooded.

When Marsh and the two women finally arrived at the ham radio operator’s house, they found it abandoned. To Tracy’s mind, the house resembled a fortress, thick unpainted concrete-block walls, narrow windows and a steel door guaranteed to discourage everything from mosquitoes to battering rams. A huge antenna sprouted from the chimney side of the house. Despite the man’s absence, Marsh wasn’t convinced his friend had evacuated. The house was certainly locked, but the porch hadn’t been cleared of plants or furniture.

“I hope he wasn’t on his way back here to the key when…you know,” Wanda said.

All of them knew exactly what she meant.

Marsh left a note, asking the old man to radio the police when he returned, and to tell them that Maggie was missing, and her mother and friends were afraid of foul play. The cops were to detain Blake Armstrong for questioning, since her car had been found at his house.

The last part seemed unnecessary, since if Blake showed his face in Palmetto Grove, the bridge collapse would be enough reason for anyone in authority to detain him. But Marsh wanted everyone, particularly Ken, to know that Blake might be involved in Maggie’s disappearance, as well.

Now back at Marsh’s house, they discovered that the power had gone off, and Janya and Vijay were setting the table by the light of a kerosene lantern.

“Let me help,” Wanda told her.

Janya began to protest; then she took a careful look at her friend’s expression.

“I would like that,” she said instead. “And you will know what to do with your chicken.”

Wanda nodded. Tracy could only imagine how she was feeling.

The children chattered as they ate. Vijay, who had, in the past weeks, begun to smile now and then, seemed particularly excited about what Janya referred to as their special camping adventure. He talked about sleeping on a mattress on the floor with Lily beside him, and how Janya had promised they could toast marshmallows over the fire. Tracy was glad someone was talking, since there was nothing the grown-ups could say to each other that any of them wanted to hear.

Outside, the wind was howling with increasing force. Thunder and lightning were intermittent, but when the thunder rolled, the old Cracker house shook with the rumble.
They tried to guess when the storm might pass over, but they had too little information to go on.

Marsh used one lull in the conversation to make an announcement. “I have an emergency radio, the kind that has to be cranked to provide power. I’ll get it out after dinner. It has a shortwave channel.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?” Wanda asked.

“Because the other one was working until the power went off. I doubt we’ll hear anything if we didn’t hear news on that one. But you know how these things go. I think we ought to take turns cranking and listening tonight. Just in case we can catch something. And the shortwave channels aren’t good, but they could be better than nothing.”

Wanda pushed her plate away, her food hardly touched. “I’ll go get it. Where did you say it was?”

The meal ended quickly. Janya took Vijay and Lily to roast marshmallows with Marsh’s help, and Tracy cleaned up, filling the sink with water from their supply and rinsing with careful economy. Tomorrow she would suggest paper plates to conserve water, if conservationist Marsh had any in the house. Or maybe by then rescue personnel would have been dispatched to the key.

Wanda was in the living room, sitting on the sofa cranking the radio, when Tracy finished and went looking for her. “Hear anything?”

Wanda shook her head. “Static. Buzzing. Not worth the fleas on a bluetick hound.”

“You’re still cranking.”

“Have to do something.”

Tracy lowered herself to the sofa beside her friend. “I don’t know what to say, Wanda. It’s still possible Maggie got
off safely or she’s holed up with somebody here on the key. It’s even possible Blake’s not the bad guy we all think he is. Maybe he took her somewhere safe, and they’re waiting out the storm together playing gin rummy.”

“She would have gone back for the cat.”

Tracy couldn’t think of anything to say to that, because of course she would have. “Where
is
Rumba?”

“Curled up with Chase in my room. I took Chase out a little while ago while you were cleaning up. I couldn’t get him off the porch. This is some storm, considering the official hurricane season ends in a day or two.”

“Last gasp I guess.”

Wanda stopped cranking and tried to tune in a station, any station. She jerked her hand as if she’d been burned when a voice began to speak, audible over the crackling and screeching.

“Marsh!” Tracy shouted. “News.”

Marsh came out of the back of the house and joined them. He lifted an eyebrow in question, but Tracy was too focused on the report to answer.

The eye was expected to pass north of Palmetto Grove around midnight. They would not get a direct hit. Relieved, she concentrated on every sound, trying to decipher what she could.

“Bridge,” Wanda mouthed, pointing at the radio.

They all listened intently. Three sections of the bridge had gone into the bay. Emergency personnel were on the scene. “Derek Forbes…”

“Deke,” Wanda said, resting her forehead on her fingertips.

“Shh…” Tracy put her head closer to see if she could catch more.

“Hero. Saved a woman…two…dived…water…”

“I’ll be damned,” Marsh said when the crackling began again and drowned out the announcer.

Tracy looked at him questioningly. “Did they say if he was okay? Could you tell?”

“Darn fool,” Wanda said, but her eyes filled with tears.

“I think they did,” Marsh said. “Talk about publicity for his movie…”

“That’s not why he did it,” Wanda said. “Deke’s a real-life action hero. If he was about to die, that’s the way he’d want to go.”

They listened for another hour, but the signal came and went, and never stayed long enough to give them hard information. The house creaked in the wind, but the roof didn’t leak and the hurricane shutters held.

Janya was the first to go to bed, settling the children on their mattress on the floor, then pulling her own beside them so they could join her and cuddle if they got frightened. Wanda was still trying to get more information on the radio when Tracy and Marsh finally went up to his bedroom.

Tracy used stored water to wash up and flush the toilet; then Marsh went into the bathroom to do the same. By the time he came back she had rifled through his dresser and slipped into one of his Wild Florida T-shirts as a nightgown.

He got into bed beside her and put his hand on her belly. The baby bump was now unmistakable, and an alligator on the T-shirt stretched tightly across it, as if the gator was sunning itself on a hill.

“I don’t even know what to say about this day.” Marsh
made slow, steady circles with his palm, as if giving her and their baby a loving massage. “You’re here. You’re going to sleep with me tonight. I’m still having trouble believing it.”

“Everything’s been so awful, but being here? A miracle, in all kinds of ways.” Tears filled her eyes. “We came so close, Marsh. To losing it all. And Maggie may have done just that.”

“Shh…” He put a finger against her lips. “We’re not going there. We don’t know enough, okay? Let’s just wait and see what we find out.”

She turned so she could see his face. “Tell me, why was it so hard to admit you love me? You so obviously do.”

“It’s not that complicated. You married the wrong guy. I married the wrong woman, encouraged her to have my kid, and look where it got me? Sylvia and I couldn’t have made worse choices. And I didn’t trust myself not to put you and me through the same thing.”

“We’re a pair, toting lots of baggage. Do you think we really have a chance?”

“You just said it.”

“What?”

“We’re a pair.” He squeezed her hand; then he raised her palm to his lips and kissed it. “Let’s stay that way, okay? No more dancing around it. We’re good together. Let’s just trust it. Let’s never have another day like this one.”

She sniffed back the tears trying to fall. “Do I have to go camping in the Everglades every time you have a vacation?”

“Not if I don’t have to join the country club.”

“I actually might like canoe camping, once I’m not pregnant.”

“I will never like the country club. You can live with that, right?”

“Nice restaurants once in a while. Deal?”

“Just as long as the food’s good.”

“I’ll need validation occasionally. Once a year or so, you’ll need to tell me you love me.”

“I’d much rather show you.”

“Tell me now, okay?”

He must have heard the plea in her voice, because he leaned over and stroked her hair back from her forehead. “I love you, Trace. Probably have since our first confrontation. I’m never going to stop.”

She reached down and pulled him close. “Now we’ll do things your way.”

“Do what my way?”

“Now it’s time to show me.”

M
aggie went under twice, the first time struggling to the surface with enormous difficulty, only to let herself slip back under when she realized she couldn’t avoid Blake’s boat, which was inches from her head. If Blake was anywhere nearby, her brief seconds on the surface hadn’t revealed his whereabouts. She descended as deep as she could, using long, sure strokes to take her to what she hoped would be the other side of the boat, but when she tried to surface again, she knocked her head on something solid.

Starting to panic, she managed to swim underwater again. Once more, when she tried to surface, her head grazed something hard. Instinctively she pushed away from it, and this time the mass moved. Encouraged, she swam just beyond it, and when she finally shot out of the water, gasping for air, she realized she had come up beside what looked to be the partially shattered hull of a rowboat.

She grabbed it and held on, riding the waves to their crest, then sliding back down, scrambling to clutch what boards she
could until she discovered an oarlock she could wrap her fingers around. Whatever view she might normally have had was completely obscured by rain. She listened for Blake’s boat, but the storm hid all sound. The Gulf was even rougher than she’d realized. There was no hope of making progress, of making her own way back to land. The best she could do was hang on and hope that what was left of the rowboat would be washed to a safe haven.

After a period of trying to gauge her surroundings, she realized that Blake and Ned were no longer a threat. She thought Blake might have hit his head on the edge of the ladder as they pitched over the side. He had cried out and released her when he crashed against something on the way down, and she had instinctively pushed away from the boat and him, a reflex that had probably saved her from the same fate. If Blake had managed to reboard, she doubted he would be looking for her. He and Ned were undoubtedly long gone, leaving her to her fate.

And what would that be, exactly?

What remained of the rowboat wouldn’t stay together long in a sea this rough. It might well have been intact when it was washed out on a high tide, and now it was little more than a skeleton. She had no hope of climbing on board because there was no on board. She had been fortunate to find the oarlock, but at any moment the boards attached to it could split apart and she would be left in the open water with nothing to cling to.

She was shivering now, her body’s vain attempt to control its temperature. She had swallowed mouthfuls of salt water each time she surfaced, inevitable but dangerous. She was exhausted, her side ached where Blake had kicked her, and the brief spurt of adrenaline that had taken her this far was quickly
draining away. She didn’t know how far from shore she was or what shore, at that. She guessed that Blake hadn’t been willing to head too far out to dump her, since that would have meant traveling farther back to port. He had counted on knocking her unconscious so she would drown quickly. He had probably traveled just far enough that her body wouldn’t wash back too soon, if ever.

That gave her hope. She was past gauging how long they had been in the boat, how fast they had traveled, how much the rough surf had slowed their progress. Now false optimism appealed to her. She preferred believing she still had a chance versus facing a more difficult truth. She would hang on until the rowboat fell apart; then, if she could, she would swim until she found something else to carry her to the beach.

The GPS unit was still in her pocket, the windbreaker still zipped and tight against her body. She was grateful it hadn’t ballooned when she hit the water. She debated trying to unzip the pocket and remove the unit, but the chances she would lose it in the water were so good, she knew she didn’t dare. If she reached a more stable place or situation, then she could try. But she couldn’t chance it now, nor could she hold the device aloft, so that it had a chance of establishing a signal. Unfortunately, in this storm, even if she was standing on a beach with the GPS held above her head, she wasn’t sure she had a prayer of being found.

By now her mother, her father and yes, Felo, would have realized she was missing. She was glad she had called him before going to Blake’s house. At least if she didn’t survive, he knew where she’d been heading before she disappeared. Neither Felo nor her father would stop at anything to bring Blake and Ned, and any other employees who were guilty, to justice. Had Blake not been such a sociopath, he would have
realized he could never get away with another murder, not when the latest victim was the ex-cop who had been trying to pin the first ones on him. With any sense at all, he would have headed for life outside the country and a new identity. But Blake had believed himself beyond reproach, beyond conviction. Lucky to a fault.

Blake had been wrong.

That knowledge gave her a little satisfaction as the rowboat’s carcass soared with the waves and she held on for all she was worth. Her fingers quickly grew so cold she couldn’t feel them, but she was still attached to the wreckage, and that had to be good. She thought she was moving. The tide plus the waves were propelling her somewhere. Of course, “somewhere” could be out to sea, but that was too horrifying to consider.

Felo. She wondered what he had done after she hung up from their phone call. Had he called her father right away? Or had he washed his hands of her, thoroughly and finally disenchanted with the woman who refused to listen to anybody? He had given advice, something Maggie didn’t take well, and once again she had ignored him. Felo wasn’t a controlling man. He had always trusted her to shoulder her own burdens. But even with a long history of respect and understanding between them, she had gone off the deep end the moment he questioned her judgment. She had gone off the deep end the moment he asked her to trust him the way he had always trusted her.

The deep end. And here she was, submerged in it.

Out of pride she had given up everything that meant anything to her. Her job. Felo and the family they might have had together. Life in Little Havana. The friends she had made. She’d sacrificed everything because she had been so sure that
she, and only she, was right. And still Felo had hung in with her, given her the space she needed, even supported her quest to discover who had murdered Harit and Kanira Dutta. He had gone out on a limb, but it hadn’t been enough. When he’d asked her not to go to Blake Armstrong’s house today, but to travel to the safety of Alvaro’s camp where they could figure out what to do together, she had ignored him.

She supposed there was nothing like a passionate affair with the Grim Reaper to clarify everything. But now, for the first time, she could see exactly what she had thrown away. The fact that Felo had been absolutely right was all around her and indisputable. The fact that she had been wrong over and over, and still he had waited for her to come to her senses…?

Equally indisputable.

Felo loved her the way no other man ever had, with the commitment, the unswerving devotion, that every woman claimed to want. She had loved him in return, but not with the same single-mindedness. Her pride, and what was left of her fragile sense of self after those unbearable years in the sheriff’s department, had been most important to her, and both had stood in their way. Not because Felo had assailed either, but simply because, once upon a time, others had. And she, fool that she was, had not understood the difference.

Maggie wished with all her heart that she had told Felo how much she loved him, that she had asked for space to deal with her real problems, then found someone to help her do so. He would have waited. She would have gone back to him, cleansed and ready to try again.

Now the chances were all too good that she could never go back.

She knew better than to cry. She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on just surviving each wave, each bolt
of lightning, each frightening creak of the hull supporting her. She was shuddering harder, and she could no longer feel her feet. She closed her eyes and willed herself to hang on. If nothing else, she could delay the inevitable. Every second counted now. Every wave was one more wave she never had to ride again.

She didn’t know how long she gave herself up to the rise and fall, how long she struggled not to swallow water and to grip the oarlock that now seemed a permanent extension of her body. There were perhaps a hundred roller-coaster waves beyond the boat—perhaps an infinity. Her thoughts were drifting, too formless and too fleeting to hang on to. She still kicked her feet when she could, trying to return circulation, but so much time had passed, and the effort seemed less worthwhile. The waves seemed higher, the lightning closer, and the thunder became an unceasing drumroll. Once, she lost consciousness for seconds, perhaps longer. Her hand slipped, and that jolted her awake, scaring her enough that she gripped harder. For a time she was alert again.

That spurt of awareness wasn’t destined to last. Time continued to blur, no longer a linear progression of minutes but stops and starts, moments when she was perfectly lucid and aware, along with an increasing number of them when a part of her wondered if hanging on was worth the supreme effort it demanded. Her chances of survival were almost zero. What was left of the rowboat would disintegrate before the storm ended—long before, she imagined. She was merely delaying the inevitable, and she was growing so tired. If she simply let go she would quickly drown, and the pain and exhaustion would end. She was beyond debating how much worse that would be. Soon she would be beyond thought at all. Then whether to let go or not would be a moot point.

She hung on anyway. Some part of her found it funny that the same stubbornness that had brought her to this was the only thing keeping her alive. Of course, she would lose her grip at some point and that would be that. But apparently she was unable to give in before she had to.

She kicked her feet halfheartedly, then again, but now the water felt spongy, and the waves seemed to be breaking ahead of her, spraying in all directions. She couldn’t think why. She was incapable of the needed logic.

Suddenly the rowboat splintered so quickly, so thoroughly, that she was left holding the oarlock and nothing else, and in a moment that, too, was gone. The crash shattered her stupor, but she couldn’t summon the strength to respond in any meaningful way. She was too exhausted to swim, and it was too dark to see where she was or what had happened. She managed to tread water, staying just on top of the waves.

And then she was scraping against something. Flailing, she reached for purchase, anything she could hang on to, and her hand brushed something that felt like rock. The waves pulled her away, then threw her back against it. Again she tried to grab hold, but there was nothing to grab. The waves began to draw her back, but this time she knew she was drifting away and thrashed in the water to slow her departure. She managed to make contact again.

The surface was rough, as if it might be covered with barnacles. A pier? A seawall? Desperately she spread her arms, trying to embrace it. Whatever she was touching was jagged, but just as she began to wash away one final time, she grabbed something, a rod or a stiffened rope, perhaps, that was solid enough to cling to. As she held tight, the water threw her against the rough surface, once more scraping her exposed skin. The pain was almost welcome. She was still alive. She
was almost surprised that, as exhausted and chilled as she was, she could still feel.

She couldn’t stay like this. Eventually she would lose her grip and be washed away. She struggled to pull herself up the bar. She was fairly sure now that the object she clung to was metal, and it seemed firmly attached to whatever structure she had encountered. She only had to put one hand above the other and lift herself higher, perhaps even, if she was lucky, out of the water. But did she have the strength? It would have been fairly simple earlier in the day, but now she doubted she could lift her own weight more than an inch.

She tried anyway, summoning every molecule of energy left inside her. One hand, then the other. She made five agonizing attempts to drag herself upward before her feet found purchase. The surface wasn’t vertical. She was climbing at an angle. Half out of the water now, she was still in danger from the waves slapping angrily against her legs. She lost her balance once and nearly let go, but as she hung there, she managed to find her footing once again. She climbed higher, rested, higher. Now the water was only up to her knees, although the waves were still threatening. The rod ended, and she was forced to stop. She twisted so she could hold it with one hand and lower herself to sit on the surface beside it.

She tried to make sense of where she was. No lights shone. She could be in the middle of the Gulf or nearly home. The structure beneath her was the only clue she could muster. She thought she was sitting on concrete. But where and what? She turned to look to each side of her, careful not to turn too far and risk losing her grip. She could see water splashing, but little else. She turned her gaze to the rod that had brought her this far and leaned closer, willing her eyes to focus in the darkness.

Rebar. A reinforcement used when pouring concrete. For a road.

Or a bridge.

She’ll find her way to help faster than our bridge went down.

Blake’s words surfaced as sluggishly as she had, but now they danced in her head. He had been furious when she’d asked what he meant.

Our bridge went down.

The bridge to Palmetto Grove Key, the one she had traveled back and forth every day, the one her mother, father and friends had traveled. The bridge that Cardrake Brothers had repaired. Blake’s own handiwork.

Down?

Could she be sitting on the wreckage even now? If so, how long would her perch remain? And how long before anyone found her here? Under any circumstances but these, the wreckage of a bridge would be swarming with rescue personnel and local officials surveying the damage. Helicopters would be flying overhead, and tugs, even barges, would be moored nearby. But not in a hurricane. Not even one that, by hurricane standards, was mild. The work would only begin after the worst of the storm had passed.