Clarisse tried not to think about her mom and dad. It hurt too much. She left knowing that unless Bryan went to jail, she couldn’t risk visiting their graves one last time.
Despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she watched the miles and country flow past the window as the day rolled into evening and the bus drew closer to Columbia, Virginia.
She spent the six-hour layover for the bus to Myrtle Beach counting the number of snack packages in one of the vending machines.
Blessed numbness had settled in. Emotional detachment.
Exhaustion.
At least it marginally overrode her pain.
Then she realized she couldn’t sleep. Every time a car pulled alongside the bus and stayed there for any length of time, she nervously waited to see if Bryan or one of his buddies was driving.
By the time the bus reached Myrtle Beach, Clarisse’s exhaustion had carried her into the realm of jittery, paranoid anxiety. The term
“sleep-deprivation psychosis” swam through her mind as she stood waiting her turn at the ticket counter with her bags at her feet and her mom’s driver’s license in her hand. The black eye and split lip proved an asset at this point. She resembled her mom closely enough that the ticket clerks didn’t question her.
She patted her pocket to ensure the keys were still there.
They were.
That had quickly become a nervous, calming habit. She didn’t dare take them out of her pocket for fear of dropping and losing them.
Stupid to think they’d even work, but it was her only chance.
At least she’d had the sense not to buy her entire trip at once. She didn’t want Bryan waiting for her at her destination. Yes, he could track her if he got that far, but hopefully he’d be running around Rapid City looking for her.
Clarisse had taken the time before she left to use the house phone to call an old high school friend who lived in Rapid City. She’d warned her old buddy that Bryan might come looking for her. Clarisse said she might head out that way, possibly to Spokane where another old friend lived.
Red herring. Isn’t that what they called it?
She closed her eyes and startled awake when the clerk called out to her.
Clarisse shuffled forward. “Tallahassee, please.” One more leg.
She’d checked the boards. Take a bus to Tallahassee or wait five more hours for one to Miami. The bus to Tampa left in three hours, but that was too close to her final destination for her comfort.
How many hours, days, since she left? Time blurred. She didn’t know for sure what day it was, only that she hadn’t slept in the twenty-four hours from when Bryan beat the crap out of her early Monday morning, until she stepped aboard the bus in Columbus early Tuesday. Or more than catnaps since. That meant it had to be at least late Wednesday.
She thought she dozed off on the bus. Either that or her mind had gone. On the last leg of her journey, exhaustion claimed what little fight remained in her.
“Where to?” the Tallahassee ticket clerk asked.
“Do you have anything to Tarpon Springs?” Clarisse swayed on her feet while the girl looked it up.
“I do, a bus going to St. Petersburg stops there on the way. It’s leaving in two hours.”
“Perfect.”
Clarisse hoped Uncle Tad still docked at the same marina. She didn’t dare use the disposable phone yet. She’d bought it on the way to the bus station in Columbus, wanted her calls slower to trace. Now, some time after midnight Thursday morning, Clarisse could barely speak due to exhaustion. The cabby dropped her off at the marina.
Clarisse sobbed with relief when she spotted the Dilly Dally docked in its berth. The fifty-foot fishing trawler was a beautiful sight.
Maybe the most beautiful sight in the whole world.
Oh, thank you God!
She didn’t have a plan B. This was her only plan, and it belatedly hit her she could have called the marina from Ohio.
It didn’t matter now. She was here, and so was the Dilly.
Clarisse slung her duffel bag and purse over her arm, yanked the handle on her large rolling bag, and carefully made her way down the familiar dock. She struggled with her bags, somehow muscled them on board without dropping them into the drink. Her hands trembled as she fished the keys out of her pocket. She studied the wheelhouse door lock.
Please, please, please…
She needed both hands to fit the key in the lock. Then she closed her eyes, and…
It turned.
Clarisse cried. She quickly dragged her bags through the door and into the wheelhouse and closed and locked it behind her. All the while, tears coursed down her cheeks. She pulled her stuff downstairs through the main cabin to the small bow V-berth cabin she used to use. Despite the tight fit, she wrestled her stuff inside and shut the door behind her. Cold inside, but warm compared to Columbus. She didn’t want to risk turning on lights or cranking the generator or engines to start the heater. Clarisse didn’t know if the Dilly was hooked to shore power, and, frankly, she felt too tired to look.
Apparently Uncle Tad had become a better housekeeper than he used to be. Otherwise, not much else had changed.
Clarisse left her jacket and sweatshirt on, fell onto the bunk, then sank into immediate darkness.
Her dreams took her back to high school, when she spent summers and weekends with Uncle Tad and Aunt Karen, learning how to shrimp, fishing, working on the boat, and enjoying herself.
Before she moved to Columbus with her mom and dad.
Before she met Bryan.
Before Aunt Karen and then later her parents died.
She hadn’t heard anything from her uncle in nearly two years. She worried maybe he’d moved or sold the boat. Calling him wasn’t an option because Bryan tightly controlled and monitored the home and cell phone bills. Before leaving Columbus, she’d risked calling Uncle Tad’s old phone number from Raquel’s cell phone. She received a disconnected number message.
She hadn’t told Raquel that, afraid her friend would talk her into not going to Florida on a potential wild-goose chase.
But the Dilly still sat here in her old slip.
At least something had gone right for her, finally. If she’d stayed in Columbus, anywhere within a thousand-mile radius of Bryan, he’d kill her. She believed that with every sore bone in her body.
Clarisse slept throughout the morning and straight through the day. She never even stirred when the boat gently rocked as two men climbed on board a little after five o’clock that afternoon.
Chapter Two
“So, Captain, what’s on the agenda?” Sullivan Nicoletto playfully asked his partner.
Brant MacCaffrey arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re a real ballsy guy for someone who’s stepping into my domain, aren’t you?”
Sully grinned. “You know I enjoy it, Mac.”
“You try to yank my chain, I might find a few new interesting ways for you to spend the weekend on the water.” He grabbed a box of groceries off the dock and handed it over the side to Sully.
“As long as I can pay you back on dry land, we’re copacetic.”
Sully winked, his grey eyes twinkling.
Mac cranked the diesels and let them idle. Fifteen minutes later, with everything stowed in the galley and their familiar routine complete, Mac checked the gauges and set the GPS. “Okay, go ahead and cast off. I want to be at the head marker before low tide hits.”
Sully untied the lines, neatly coiling and stowing them. Then he took his usual position on the gunwale as Mac smoothly steered the boat out of the berth.