“Stupid,” I whispered to myself. Because now what was I going to do? Duvall was far too big for me to fight and I hadn’t heard the least hint of police sirens.
I could try to run, but unless I got a huge head start, he’d catch up to me before I got off the dock. I could scream, but it was too early in the year for anyone to be around, and the only weapon I had was . . . well, nothing.
I studied the boat lift, thinking to emulate my cat, but I didn’t see how I could climb what Eddie had climbed. Besides, Duvall could just step onto the horizontal bits, reach up, and yank me down. In the end, he might leave Eddie alone.
Then again, I didn’t want to leave Eddie an orphan. Aunt Frances would take him, but Otto already had a cat and the one time we’d tried to encourage their friendship had not gone well. Kristen’s apartment was above the restaurant and she wouldn’t want that much cat hair floating about. Holly had a young dog, and Josh wasn’t a cat guy. I toyed with the idea of Rafe and Eddie, but wasn’t sure Rafe would remember to feed and water him on a regular basis. During the school year, sure, but what about during the summer when Rafe went for three months without a haircut because his secretary wasn’t there to remind him? So Rafe was out, and I didn’t know Ash well enough to say, not yet anyway.
The dock creaked. Duvall was moving closer to me. I cleared my mind of the panic-induced cobweb of thoughts it had drifted into and inched backward.
“What are you doing?” I asked loudly.
“Nothing,” he said. “Not just yet anyway.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” Brave Minnie, facing down her foe with courage and a fierce determination to battle her way free. If only her voice hadn’t sounded so squeaky.
“I’m not going to do anything.”
His voice was calm and pleasant, and now that he was close to me—far too close—I could see that he was smiling. The smile creeped me out more than anything else had yet and I whirled away, starting to run, wanting to run, trying my hardest to run, but not being able to because a huge meaty hand had clamped onto my upper arm, the weight behind it keeping me from going anywhere.
“No,” he said, “I’m not going to do a thing. But you, you’re going to have an accident. It’s going to be very sad. All your little bookmobile and library friends will boo-hoo when they hear.”
I tried to yank free of his grip. “No one will believe it. I’m not accident-prone.”
He snorted. “So what? You’ll be dead. Besides, no one will be able to tell. You’re going to drown, that’s all. Happens every year. Someone falls in the water, doesn’t realize how fast hypothermia works, and blub-blub-blub, down they go.” He chuckled, and that was when I really started to hate him. Killing me was one thing, but he didn’t have to be so jolly about it.
“I can swim, you know.” I gave my arm a quick twist, hoping to break his grip. Though it didn’t work, I kept trying. I thought about trying to hit him, to scratch at him, to kick him, but was wary of the danger that his other hand—his other fist—presented. One good hit and I’d be down and incapacitated.
“Of course you can,” he said, dragging me toward the end of the dock. “You’d have to be an idiot to live on a houseboat and not be able to swim.” He stopped. “Hang on. You know how to swim, so you’re not an idiot, but you have to be pretty stupid, coming out here all on your own. Kind of makes you wonder what the difference is between stupidity and idiocy, doesn’t it?”
He made a huh sort of noise, and we started moving again, me dragging my feet, him with his hand so tight around my upper arm that I knew I’d be bruised up something horrible the next day, assuming there was a next day. Close to despair, I glanced at the lake’s shoreline, but there was no sign of life, no sign of anyone who might help me.
“Anyway,” he was saying, “this lake here? It’s deep and it’s cold. Did you know the last of the ice came off just two weeks ago? No, I didn’t think so. I checked the water temperature tonight and it’s only thirty-nine degrees. Brr!” He shivered. “That means you can be in the water about twenty minutes before you go unconscious. Now, twenty minutes may seem like plenty of time for you to find a way out of the water, but not if I give you a nice whack over the head before you go in.”
He pulled a rock from his pocket and held it high.
With sudden and absolute certainty, I knew that there was only one chance for me to get out of this, and that this was it.
I sagged down, forcing him to adjust his stance. He had to release me, at least a little, to rearrange his grip on my arm, and when he did, I took my chance.
With all my strength and all my weight and all my might, I shoved at him, pushing him toward the water. Though he grunted as he flailed his rock-laden arm, trying to keep his balance, he didn’t release me. But his grip did lessen.
I twisted hard and fast and, at the same time, stomped on his instep. I didn’t know if he let go or if I broke free and I didn’t care. His hand came off my arm and I did the only thing I could.
I dove off the end of the dock.
And the last thing I heard before the shockingly cold water closed over my head was “Mrr!”
Chapter 21
The water was more than cold. And it was more than water, it was a physical presence that wanted to crush me with its power. I couldn’t even think that I was wet, couldn’t remember to swim, could barely remember not to open my mouth.
But I wanted to. I wanted to shriek at the top of my lungs, announcing to anyone and everyone within a mile radius that I was in water that was too cold for human survival. How fish managed to live in this environment, I did not know, and I made a personal vow to brush up on my basic biology when I got back to the library.
If I ever did.
I tried to swim underwater, out and away from Duvall, but the fleece sweatshirt that had been keeping my upper half warm was now saturated and making every move of my arms sluggish. My legs, clad in jeans, weren’t doing much better, and my feet, which I assumed were still at the end of my legs, wore running shoes that weren’t doing anything to help my speed in the water.
I gave one last underwater stroke and let myself rise to the surface, hoping I was out of reach of Duvall and his rock. My head popped up into the air, and although I tried to stay quiet and hidden, my breaths were loud, panting, and full of a kind of pain that I’d never before experienced.
Cold. I was so cold. Twenty seconds ago, I’d been comfortably warm. Now I was so cold it felt as if the top of my head were about to blow off. There was no way this water was thirty-nine degrees. I was surprised it wasn’t still ice. Panting, I let my feet drift down, trying to see if I could touch bottom.
“How’s that water?” Duvall asked cheerfully. “By the way, it’s plenty deep out there. My boat has a deep draft, so the dock is extra long. Off where you just dove, it’s probably six feet deep. You’re what, not even five feet tall?” He chuckled. “Way over your head.”
I was, too, five feet tall. No more, but certainly no less, and I added the error, intentional or not, to Duvall’s growing list of crimes.
“Now, I might not have had time to give you a nice smack on the head with my rock,” Duvall said, “but you know what? All I have to do is wait. You can’t swim any faster than I can walk, so there’s no way you’ll be able to get to shore without me getting there first. And you’d never make it to the other side of the lake. It’s too far. So I can wait. Twenty minutes isn’t all that long.”
I heard a creak and knew he’d sat back down on the bench.
“Probably less than twenty, really,” he said. “You’re so small that the cold will get to you faster.” He laughed. “You shouldn’t have had so much coffee when you were a kid. Stunts your growth, you know.”