Another fifty yards through the oaks, and then Letty was standing on the shore in her strapless bra and panties. Her Chanel had been ripped off completely.
The water looked oil-black.
She could hear Fitch coming.
Wondered how much time she had.
Wanted to do anything but wade out into the sea.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Letty pulled on the mask and stepped into the water. It was cool, just south of seventy-five degrees, and shallow. She took invisible steps, no idea if the next would plunge her in over her head or shred her feet on coral.
By the time she’d gone thirty feet out from the shore, the water came to her knees. At fifty feet, it reached her waist. She stopped, couldn’t force herself to take another step. Hated the feel of it all around her, enclosing her. Reminding her in so many ways of death.
Fitch stumbled out of the oaks and onto the beach. He stood profiled in the moonlight. He was looking all around as Letty jammed the snorkel into her mouth and slowly lowered herself into the sea. Struggling not to make a splash or a ripple.
The water rose above her chest.
Then her neck.
Up the sides of her face.
Daddy, please.
She could breathe, but still she felt as though she were drowning. No sound underwater but her own hyperventilation as she sucked air down the tube at a frantic pace.
Her knees touched the sandy bottom of the ocean floor.
The claustrophobia was unbearable.
Even with her eyes wide open, she couldn’t see a thing.
Lifting her right arm, she fingered the top of the snorkel. It stuck two inches out of the water. She pushed with her knees, rose up slowly until the top half of the mask peeked above the surface.
Fitch still stood on the shore, staring in her direction.
She dipped back under.
It was unbearable.
Nine years old.
The cool and the dark of it.
By herself at night in the singlewide trailer she shares with her father. He comes home from the bars. Drunk and angry and alone. He loves to take hot baths when he’s drunk, but Letty has beaten him to it. He finds her soaking. With their water heater on its last leg, it will take two hours to heat enough for another bath. In a rage, he shatters the fluorescent bulb over the sink and locks her inside. Tells her through the door that if she gets out of that bath before he says she can, he’ll drown her in it.
It’s wintertime. Four hours later the water is cold and the air temperature in the bathroom even colder. Letty sits with her knees drawn into her chest, shivering uncontrollably. She’s crying, calling for her father to let her out. Pleading with him for forgiveness.
Toward dawn, he kicks the door in. From the smell of him, he’s somehow drunker than before.
She says, “Daddy, please.”
It happens so fast. She doesn’t even see him move. One minute she’s shivering and staring up at him. The next, he’s holding her head under the frigid bathwater, telling her what a bad girl she is to make him so angry. He’s beaten her before. He’s come after her with a broken beer bottle. With his belt. With his fists. With other things. But she has never believed she was going to die.
Because there was no warning, she didn’t have a chance to take in a full breath of air. Already, bright spots are blooming behind her eyes, and she’s struggling, kicking. Wasting precious oxygen. But his boot heel presses down hard against her back. Pinning her to the fiberglass. He holds her head down with two hands. Even drunk, he has the strength of an ox. The build of a diesel mechanic. She is no match. Every second passing so slowly. Panic setting in. Thinking, He’s going to kill me. He’s really going to kill me this time.
The fear and the horror meet in a single, desperate need. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. She can’t help it. Can’t resist the pure, burning desire. She takes a desperate breath just as her father jerks her head out of the water by her hair. “Think you learned a lesson?” he growls.
She nods, apologizing as she bawls hysterically out of the only emotion her father has ever caused in her—fear.
There are other nights like this. A handful of them are worse. She will never learn to swim. Will always fear the cold, dark water. Will never understand, despite a thousand sleepless nights, why her own father hated her.
And, like that nine-year-old girl, a part of her still believes it was her fault. Some flaw in her emotional chemistry. And nothing she can do, no amount of logic, no quantity of love from anyone, will ever make her stop believing it.
Letty came up suddenly out of the ocean.
If Fitch saw her and shot her, so be it. But she couldn’t stand another second underwater.
He was gone.
She spit out the snorkel’s mouthpiece. Took several careful steps toward the shore, until the water level had dropped to her thighs. She stared down the north and south beaches. It was too dark to see much of anything.
Backing away again, she settled down into the water until only her head was above the surface.
Waited.
Five minutes slipped by.
Twenty.
It was beyond quiet.
She watched the moon on its arcing path over the island.
So thirsty. Her head pounded from the booze.
After a long time, she heard footsteps.
Letty backed into deeper water and lowered herself once more until only her eyes were exposed.
Fitch trudged up the north beach and arrived at the end of the island. He stopped and waited, listening.
Letty forced herself back under.
When she came up a minute later, Fitch had started down the south side of the island.
Fitch has to report to prison tomorrow. If I can survive until then…
She returned to that comforting thought she’d had in the mangroves. The idea that if she survived until tomorrow, until Fitch was gone, she would be in the clear.
Is this another assumption that’s going to get me killed?
Fitch’s security detail had played a part in this. Exactly how much they knew was uncertain, but they were culpable. Fitch’s life would be over tomorrow, but theirs would carry on. If the old man didn’t close the deal, could she really expect this force of ex-military contractors to leave this loose thread dangling?
Another impulse of fear swept through her.
A new realization setting in.
Hiding all night from Fitch might not be enough to save her life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Letty stood up and walked out of the sea, the taste of salt water on her tongue. When she reached the shore, she pulled off the mask and dropped it and the snorkel in the sand. She gripped the knife. Headed quickly down the south beach. The fear fell away, anger rushing in to fill the void.
She could see Fitch in the distance, his white shirt bright as day in the moonlight. He walked sixty yards ahead, but she was gaining on him. She kept close to the trees that lined the beach in case Fitch suddenly spun around. Her footfalls in the soft white sand were soundless. She picked up her pace, moving now at a full run. The wind blowing her skin dry. The faster she ran, the angrier she got, the less afraid she felt.
Fitch was only twenty yards ahead of her now. Her legs ached from the full-on sprint. Her lungs burned. Tears streamed out of the corners of her eyes.
She knew exactly what had triggered it.