I heard the boat rumble to life about the same time the spotlight clicked on. I was almost to the far bank of the river with Sunny. She still wasn’t breathing, but I saw a sportfisherman with an aft swim step and folding boarding ladder. I had a heck of a time when I tried to pull her up onto the swim step. I stretched her out, cleared the airway, and started mouth-to-mouth. Before long she gagged, puking up river water, and I dragged her to the side deck, out of sight of that damn spotlight. She was groggy and confused, and I hushed her and lay down on the deck next to her exhausted, looking up at the stars, watching the spotlight glide along the riverbank and listening to the music of her breathing.
After several minutes, she coughed a little and started to sit up.
“Shh. Lie down. They’re looking for us,” I whispered.
The spotlight lit up the superstructure of the boat and shone beyond into the bushes and pathways of the homes on the riverbank. Sunny lay quiet as we heard the burbling of Crystal’s boat passing just alongside ours. I could tell from the voices that Cesar was up on the bridge, Zeke down on deck level. Although I couldn’t understand most of the words, I knew they were arguing, shouting at one another.
Suddenly, Cesar shouted, “Look! Over there! In the water!” The boat’s RPMs increased, and we heard the swoosh of the prop wash, followed by the creaking dock lines as our boat pulled against her moorings in the turbulent water. I crawled forward and watched over the bulwark as their white boat tied up to an empty dock and Cesar took off running across a lawn. I assumed it was Lex they’d seen or heard. I hoped she wouldn’t get caught.
I turned around, leaned my back against the inside of the bulwark, and tried to think. Sunny was sitting on the deck, hugging her knees to her chest, shivering, and looking up at me like she thought I knew what we were going to do next. Naked and wet, she looked miserable. How the hell was I supposed to get all the way across downtown Fort Lauderdale with a gorgeous, naked fifteen-year-old girl?
I crawled aft on my hands and knees, keeping my head below the level of the bulwark. There was a big white fiberglass deck box on the afterdeck. Under the dock lines, swim fins, tackle box, and snorkels, I found a man’s shortie wet suit. At least this would keep her afloat.
“Put this on,” I whispered, handing it to her.
I peeked around the edge of the bulwark. Crystal’s boat was still tied up at that house downriver from us, her engines idling. I couldn’t make out who was aboard, but my guess was that both Zeke and Cesar had jumped ashore to search. I couldn’t be sure though.
“We’re going to have to go back in the water,” I told Sunny, and her eyes opened wider in fear. “I was a lifeguard. I won’t let you drown. Besides, this wet suit is made of material that floats. It’ll keep you up—you couldn’t sink in this. Okay?”
She nodded, her mouth set in a tight line. She was showing more guts than I’d expected.
“Come on.” I led her aft, and we slipped back into the river off the swim step. “Keep your face turned away from their boat. The light reflects off your face, and they might spot us. Just float. Take my hand.”
We pushed our way around the stern and into the current. The river was only about fifty yards wide here, so we would be passing fairly close to the boat, even if we stayed to the far bank. The hardest part was not looking in that direction. I wanted to see who was on the boat and if they had Lex with them, but I knew it would be foolish to turn my face in their direction. As we drifted past an empty dock on our side of the river, a dog started barking up in the yard. We could hear him running, claws scratching against a wood deck.
“Shut up, you fucking dog,” Cesar called across the river.
I felt Sunny squeeze my hand tighter. Neither of us breathed for several long seconds as we floated just opposite their boat. The barking dog raced to the end of the dock. He had finally noticed our dark shadows in the water.
“Come on, Cesar, we lost them. Crystal’s gonna be pissed,” Moss said just before the idling engine revved and we heard the thump of dock lines being thrown on deck. The noise of the boat began to move upriver, away from us.
Sunny was shivering, and I could feel the trembling in her hand. I had to get her out of the water. I began scanning the docks and banks of the river for a small boat. Nearly everything we passed was chained up and locked. The river residents knew better than to leave boats loose in this town. We finally came by a little trawler with a punt tied alongside. The punt was no more than eight feet long, and it was so beat-up and ugly, its owners must not have worried about thieves. There were two oars tucked under the center seat. It would do. I held down the bow as Sunny climbed in over the stern, and I soon followed her. After untying the lines and fitting the oars in the locks, we were off, my back and arms straining to pull those oars as hard and fast as I could.
At the Seventh Avenue Bridge, I pulled off to the side and grabbed hold of a piling. The noise of the cars passing on the steel grate overhead sounded like the rumbling of a jackhammer. This was where I had told Lex we would meet up with her. I waited five minutes before moving on.
The city was dead quiet as we passed under the downtown bridges. A few cars passed on streets parallel to the river. Each time I held my breath, terrified that it might be them. But even along Riverwalk, there were only a few solitary couples far too wrapped up in themselves to pay us any mind as our creaky oars pulled us downriver.
Lex would be fine. She was a survivor, I told myself. Then I remembered the last time I had heard that.
XXIV
We didn’t say a word to each other. I didn’t know what Sunny was thinking, but I was wondering what I would find at my place. Nervous as I was about what I would find, my hands were grateful as the Gorda came into view on the river. The red ovals on my palms would surely puff up into nasty blisters soon.
Sunny had nodded off, slumped over in the stern of the dinghy. The wet suit rode up so that the shoulders were at the level of her ears, but the arm holes still gaped at her waist. She’d tucked herself inside, turtlelike, crossing her arms over her breasts. I tapped her on the knee to wake her and lifted my finger to my lips, motioning her not to speak.
After tying the punt’s bowline off to a piling, I climbed on the dock and gestured for Sunny to stay in the boat. I whistled very softly, not wanting to scare Abaco. I heard her get up from her spot in the bushes, a low growl beginning in her throat, but then she saw me and trotted over jumping up on me to be petted. I motioned for Sunny to reach up and let the dog sniff her hand.
Peering through the crack in the gate, I saw the dark shadow of a vehicle parked out in the Larsens’ driveway. I slipped through the gate and, crawling on my hands and knees, made my way to the drive. When I lifted my head to have a look, I saw a black El Camino, B.J. slumped over in the front seat.
I made my way around to the driver’s side of the car. The window was rolled down. I didn’t know if he was asleep or unconscious or worse. I reached in and shook his shoulder.
He started awake, wide-eyed and alert. “Uh... what?”