The Water Keeper

by Charles Martin

  We followed the trail as indicated by my GPS and the coordinates of Angel’s phone. It ended on a dirt road with no name. This area of South Florida forms the northern boundary of the Everglades, and it does so through a series of hundreds of man-made canals that literally drain the state. On a map, it looks like a sheet of graph paper with the lines being the canals. That allows it to drain effectively but makes it tough to navigate if you don’t know which roads cross which canals via bridges and which roads end in cul-de-sacs. It’s like one giant corn maze.

  And I didn’t know the secret.

  Which meant I had wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out.

  I cut the engine and the lights and allowed my eyes and ears to adjust. In the distance, maybe a mile away, I saw lights flickering. I motioned and Summer and I advanced at an idle up the limestone path, making me thankful for the motorcycle. Canals lined both sides, teeming with reptiles of every shape and size. I was careful to keep my light shining downward and not let it venture toward the water’s edge. The moment it lit on the eyes staring back at us—there were probably a hundred pairs watching our approach—I knew I’d be wearing Summer like a backpack. Some things are better left unknown.

  We closed to within a half mile and I heard singing. I killed the engine and the lights, and we continued on foot. Careful to walk the middle line between the two canals. We closed within two hundred yards of the cabin. Given the amount of money these guys were spending, the clientele they catered to, and the proficiency with which they did so, I was pretty sure they’d station armed guards, even in a place like this. Thirty seconds later, my ears told me I was correct.

  Chapter 25

  The moon wasn’t overly bright, but it wasn’t pitch black either. I could see well enough. Summer squatted behind me, one hand clutching my shirt. An alligator bellowed off to our right, only to be answered by one on our left. Her hand tightened and her arm stiffened, but she had yet to stand atop my shoulders.

  Footsteps advanced, crunching limestone and grass. He was quiet. Purposeful. He’d done this before. Chances were good he’d seen the motorcycle. Or at the least the headlamp. I had to assume he was looking for us the same way we were looking for him. He approached within ten feet and I heard someone speak through his earpiece. I couldn’t hear what they said. He responded in a professional whisper, saying no more than was needed as he continued his walk along the perimeter. The only camouflage we had was the grass, of which there was plenty. Chest high, it formed a sea, and we were crouched beneath the level of it. The guy would need night vision or thermals to detect us. I was hoping he had neither.

  When he stopped within five feet, I felt Summer’s hand trembling behind me. He took another step, and I launched from my perch. When I returned some ten seconds later, Summer’s entire body was shaking. I shined the light on myself and held out my hand, and she pressed her fingertips to mine. Then locked her fingers inside mine. In the distance, I heard the crank of an engine and then the signature sound of helicopter blades beginning to whip the air.

  We moved more quickly. I counted ten people dancing around a bonfire a hundred fifty yards in the distance. Summer pointed at a lone figure dancing by herself. Hands in the air. Lit by firelight. She was swaying. Stumbling. I judged the distance. Between us and them stood another man. Looked like another block of granite. He was speaking into a microphone. If he was armed, and I was certain he was, I’d never make it. He spoke again into the mic. This time louder. Given that I was currently wearing the earpiece and carrying the radio, I heard him loud and clear. Not getting the response he wanted, he herded the group into the helicopter.

  A minute later, at 3:00 a.m., one helicopter lifted off the ground, hovered, and then shot up and east toward the coast. Followed closely by a second I had not seen or heard given the noise from the first. We watched in silence, knowing full well that Angel was on one of those birds. And that we’d missed our chance.

  We were late. Again.

  The sound of the helicopters faded, silence returned, and we stood alone in the darkness. I grabbed the bike and returned to the end of the road and the cabin. The bonfire still burned. The power grid doesn’t reach this far, so we circled the cabin on the bike to use its lights. In the Everglades, little islands or rises in the limestone emerge above the surface of the grass. Sometimes a foot. Sometimes two. They rise enough to form dry land given normal water levels. Indians used to call this home, which explained the presence of citrus trees.

  Whoever had built this cabin had done so on a small island. Maybe a hundred yards square. An island in a sea of grass. My kind of place.

  I found the generator, still hot from use. Which meant they’d been here long enough to need it. Fifteen feet away, a water hole shimmered in the moonlight. Summer began walking toward the water when I gently grabbed her arm, clicked on my flashlight, and exposed a ten- to eleven-foot alligator floating inches from the water’s edge. Summer covered her mouth and backed up slowly.

  The cabin wasn’t locked, but it was well-appointed. I wanted a look inside for any sign, any clue. True to form, this cabin had housed a party in much the same fashion as the yachts. Empty bottles. Furniture scattered about. Articles of clothing. Darts thrown at a dartboard. In comparison to others I’d witnessed, this scene was relatively tame. And given that we saw only two helicopters leave, rather than a long line of cars, this party must have involved few in number. More exclusive. Invite only.

  I swore beneath my breath. We had missed her by two, three minutes max.

  Finding nothing, I swung one leg over the bike, Summer did likewise, and I cranked the engine. Taking one last look over my shoulder, I pushed the gearshift down and into first gear. In that momentary pause, I saw it. A small red light coming from a fruit tree nearby. I said nothing, pretended not to see it, and eased off the clutch, circling around and behind the cabin. Then, leaving the bike running, I motioned to Summer to follow and pressed a single finger to my lips. She did, and when I pointed to the item duct-taped to the branch of a lemon tree, the space between her eyes narrowed. Followed by a wrinkle. I again pressed my finger to my lips and shook my head. We backed up quietly, climbed on the bike, and eased down the road that led back to civilization. A mile away, I stopped and turned, and even with the helmet on and face mask down, I could see Summer’s fear.

  She lifted the face mask. Her voice cracked. “Was that an iPhone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was it in the tree?”

  “Someone was watching us. An instant video feed.”

  “Do you think they saw us?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “They wanted to know if she was being followed. And by whom. It’s why they let her make the call. They baited us. I never saw it coming, but I should have.”

  She wrapped her arms tighter around my waist. She whispered, I think because the sound of the words hurt too much: “That’s bad, right?”

  I didn’t sugarcoat it. “It’s not good.”

  By leaving the way we did, we had convinced whoever was watching that we didn’t know about the phone. Given that, they’d probably hung up and chalked up the loss of an iPhone to necessary intel. But I knew we needed that phone. “Wait here.”

  Summer grabbed my hand. “You coming back?”

  I nodded.

  “You promise?”

  I laughed. “Unless . . .” I shined my light out across the water at nearly fifty pairs of eyes staring back at us. “One of them gets hungry.”

  She climbed up on the bike and sat on her haunches.

  I ran back for the phone, circling the tree from a distance. The light was off. Call disconnected. But the owner had still sent me a message. When I cut the duct tape, the vibration buzzed the phone on, waking the home screen. One text waited. I opened it, knowing it had been sent for me. It was direct and to the point. There was a picture of Angel. Taken over her shoulder as she sat lounging on a couch. Drink in hand. Sunglasses. Bikini. Whoever
held the camera also held one end of the strap to her bikini. It draped over his finger, which was resting on her neck. She was laughing. Oblivious. The suggestion was clear. The text read, “Now accepting bids.”

  I powered it off. Removed the SIM card and placed both in my pocket. I didn’t want them tracking me. I’d already been baited once. Didn’t want it to happen again.

  We rode in silence back to the hotel. Over that hour, Summer didn’t say a word. One hand wrapped around my waist, while the other had climbed higher, inside my shirt and lying flat across my heart. Ever since Angel had left my chapel, the clock had been ticking. Now it was ticking much faster.

  At the hotel, I scanned the phone’s contents. No surprise, it was empty. No videos. No pics. No apps. No history. It hadn’t been wiped; it simply hadn’t been used. It was a sacrificial phone. Probably one of many. The only data showed that the phone had called or been called by two numbers. Multiple times. Over the course of a week. Which meant the phone had had a one-week life span. Summer looked over my shoulder. “Any luck?”

  I deliberated. The text and picture would not encourage her. They would worry her. A lot. But this was her daughter and she had a right to know what she was up against. I clicked on the text. The picture opened. Summer read the words, then chewed on her lip. She wanted to ask but didn’t, so I explained. “Somewhere on the black web, Angel has her own page. They’ve taken pictures, maybe movies. And they’ve started an auction.”

  Summer stared at the picture.

  “My guess is that they’ll give it a couple of days, then close the auction and arrange for transfer. Along with several other girls.”

  Summer sat with her knees against her chest, chewing a fingernail.

  I called Colorado and gave him the numbers. He called back five minutes later. Both numbers were no longer in service, telling me these guys were no amateurs. I already knew that. He also told me that the number tied to the SIM card was the same number Angel had last used to call me.

  It was another message. And Angel had not sent it.

  Chapter 26

  My guess was that whoever was moving these girls had found a new yacht and would move them there for the last push down the IC toward Key West and parts south. Or they’d take off east out of Miami and cross forty-four miles of open water to Bimini—the gateway to the Bahamas. I doubted the latter, as the winds were too high. So I was betting on Key West.

  But I also knew I was dealing with a captain who would think things through in the same way I had, and he was probably as savvy as me. Maybe more so. He might venture out into the open water just because he thought I thought he wouldn’t. We’d ventured into mind games here, and I knew it. He probably knew it too.

  I was a batter trying to guess the next pitch. Never easy.

  I stuck with my gut, which said Key West. It gave him more options. And I said none of this to Summer. We were in a bit of a lull before the storm. I knew he had to move his party onto another vessel. Probably a large vessel. Continue to service clients to pay for everything and continue to lure more and new clients through word of mouth. For the uber-wealthy, this entire world was little more than a game. These were not girls with faces and hearts and emotions and the desire to wear a white dress and press the face of their firstborn to their bosom.

  This was flesh. Period. Nothing more.

  This captain would keep his inventory available for sale all the way down the inside of the coast, using the Keys to protect him from the northeast winds. I was betting he would continue to post provocative videos and milk his current system for all it was worth, still taking on girls and monitoring his online auctions on the black web. Once he’d reached Key West, he’d dump his used inventory, sell his unused girls to the highest bidder or bidders, and fly out on a jet sipping champagne before moving his operation to some other coast in some other unsuspecting country.

  The phone in the tree told him, I hoped, that he was dealing with a single individual or two. Not an agency. Which would probably embolden him. I’d seen it before. First sign of guns and badges and radios and tactical vests and night vision, and party’s over. Inventory sold in a flash sale to the highest bidder or dumped in international waters for sharks. But Summer and I had not shown him that. We’d shown him two people curious about a party. We looked small. Insignificant. Naïve even. A couple of overeager parents or private investigators sent to take pictures. My guess was that he wasn’t too worried about us. Which was good. I didn’t want him worried. I wanted him comfortable. I wanted him doing business as usual. I wanted him cocky. I wanted him thinking about quadrupling his money.

  But in order to do anything, we needed a break. Thank God for old men who pretend to be hard of hearing but aren’t.

  Ellie was awake when we walked in. I doubted she’d slept. She was sitting at the table spinning the lockbox key like a top. We asked my mechanic friend to look after the motorcycle, and ten minutes later we were headed southbound in the ditch. Ellie stood beside me and showed me the map on her phone. She pointed. “We’ll pass right by it. They open at nine. Won’t take but a second. Then you can be rid of me.”

  She was right. We would. Since our return to the hospital, I’d not asked for my Rolex back but let her continue to wear it. Figured it gave her a sense of peace that as long as she wore it, chances were good I wouldn’t run out on her.

  I glanced at my watch on her wrist. “What time is it?”

  She checked the time but made no attempt to give me back my watch. “Quarter ’til.”

  I stared at the sun making its way higher. What would twenty minutes hurt? She’d waited her whole life. A tortured creature who—despite her crusty exterior and like the rest of the human race—had been and was continually asking two questions: Who am I? And more importantly, whose am I?

  In my life, in my strange line of work, I’d discovered that we as people can’t answer the first until someone else answers the second. It’s a function of design. Belonging comes before identity. Ownership births purpose. Someone speaks whose we are, and out of that we become who we are. It’s just the way the heart works.

  In Eden, we walked in the cool of the evening with a Father who, by the very nature of the conversations and time spent together, answered our heart’s cry. It was the product of relationship. But out here, somewhere east or west of the Garden, beyond the shadow of the fiery walls, we have trouble hearing what He’s saying. And even when we do, we have trouble believing Him. So we wrestle and search. But regardless of where we search and how we try to answer the question or what we ingest, inject, or swallow to numb the nagging, only the Father gets to tell us who we are. Period. This is why fatherless boys gravitate toward gangs. No, it’s not the only reason, but it plays a big part.

  In the absence of a dad, can the mom answer it? Sure. Happens all the time. I’ve met many a mom who has more gumption and guts than the weasel of a man she married. Truth is, ninety-nine percent of broken homes are caused by dads leaving. Not moms. The problem seldom lies at the feet of the mom. They’re stuck cleaning up the mess. Although there are exceptions. And maybe those exceptions are the most painful of all. But whatever the cause and however it is answered, and regardless of who answers it, we—as broken children—forever ask, “Whose am I?”

  This is the cry of the human heart.

  And as I looked down at Ellie, her eyes were screaming both questions. And I couldn’t answer either one. “Okay.”

  Her feet moved nervously. As if she stood on the precipice of some great discovery. And while it was tough to tell because she wore a practiced poker face, I almost thought she was smiling.

  We returned down the narrow IC, past the North Palm Beach Marina and beyond the Old Port Cove Marina where we’d boarded Fire and Rain the day before. As I’d figured, she was gone. Slip empty.

  A few miles farther south, we tied up at the boardwalk, lining the side of Gone Fiction with bumpers. The security agent at the bank opened the door for us and said, “Welcome.” Ellie
, Summer, and I approached the teller.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  I held out the key. “We’d like to open this box.”

  She eyed the key and nodded. “Follow me, please.”

  We did, winding through a door and down into a basement. The old, damp bowels of the bank. Another security guard unlocked a door that led into a room of what looked like a thousand lockboxes. The teller wound her way through the aisles, reading numbers, leading us to 27. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the one. She inserted her key into one of the two keyholes and asked me to insert mine—or Ellie’s—into the second. I did. She turned both, unlocking them with a clink, swung open the door, and allowed me to slide the box out. She then led us to a room, pointed at the desk, and closed the door behind her, saying, “Take your time.”

  Ellie sat opposite me, staring at the tarnished box. It wasn’t mine, so I spun it clockwise, facing her. Then Summer and I sat waiting.

  For Ellie, all her life and every point on the compass had led to this moment. When she reached for the knob, her hand was shaking. A tear had puddled in one eye. Embarrassed, she palmed away the tear and stuck her hand in her lap. Looking away, she recovered, and her eyes narrowed. For a minute, she sat rubbing one thumb over the top of the other. Finally, she looked from the box to me and back to the box. “You mind?”