Reaching for my radio, I planned to call the Marine Patrol for help. Jude Cardell wasn’t going to get by with this. I fumbled with the radio dials, but before I could turn it on and get it working, I saw Jude’s boat heading for me again. A cloud passed over the sun and this time I saw his shaded face clearly. He made a large semicircle in front of my boat, then he cut toward me again, turning at the last possible instant and heading away. I continued to grip my wheel for support, expecting him to return for another go at me. But no. Not this time.
At last I forced myself to relax, to radio for help. No such luck. The radio refused to come to life. I grabbed the cell phone from my sweatshirt pocket and keyed in the Marine Patrol’s emergency number. The phone rang six times. No answer. I tried the Coast Guard number and a faint voice responded.
“Need help,” I shouted into the phone.
“Where are you?” a voice asked.
I gave my location.
“Sorry, can’t hear you. Repeat location again, please.”
I gave my location again, but that time I received no response. I broke that connection and tried again. No response. Maybe they were too far away. I tried the Marine Patrol number once more. Again, no response. I started to key in Nikko’s number, but the battery went dead. Damn phone! I shoved it back into my pocket, wishing for the spare phone I kept in my desk drawer.
Did I dare return to Key West? Maybe Jude lay hiding in one of these out-of-the-way coves, waiting for me to make a run for help. Maybe he’d strike again in deep water. I didn’t want to take the risk of leaving. It’s hard to know that someone hates you as much as Jude hates me.
It’d be sundown before too long. I disliked boating after dark, but I had running lights and a compass. I knew my way around these waters. I’d have a good chance of sneaking past Jude without him seeing me if I waited. I’d lost the mood for more fishing, and I sat behind the wheel waiting. Waiting. That’s where I was when I saw Jude approaching again. This time his slow approach scared me more than his great speed.
“Scared to go home?” he taunted.
I didn’t reply.
“Maybe you want some company. Maybe I should come aboard and show you a little fun.”
Now I found my voice. “Don’t come near me,” I shouted, but my voice sounded ragged and afraid. Somehow I managed to turn on the boat motor. Maybe I could gun it, swerve to one side of him and then shoot straight ahead. Yet I knew that wouldn’t work. Jude’s speedboat had much more power than my skiff.
His bow nudged mine and he let his motor idle as he moved forward and started to step onto the bow. From there it would be only a short jump from his boat to mine. I threw my boat into reverse and increased the distance between us. Jude pulled forward and tried to board again. Again I reversed, avoiding his approach. It was a cat and mouse game until my last reverse maneuver.
The stern of my boat hit a sandbar. I’d been too scared to look behind me, and I hadn’t realized that danger. Now Jude’d have no problem boarding my boat. I’ll see you dead. His threat screamed through my mind, and in desperation I jerked my boat knife from its sheath. Anger and fear all but choked me as Jude stood on his bow laughing.
“Have fun tonight, you bitch. I’m leaving you here. There’s no way you’re going to pull from that sand during low tide.” He stood there laughing at me. “Oh, one more thing, bitch. Toss me your cell phone.”
“Damn you, no!”
“Then I’ll come aboard and get it.”
Twenty-Three
HOW DO YOU prepare yourself to die on the spur of the moment? Pray? I could only think of now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep and that didn’t seem to fit this situation. My whole life didn’t flash before my eyes as I’ve heard happens to others at times like these. No. I lived totally in the horrifying present, my body like a coiled spring ready to fly into action, yet tense with fear. Only strong determination kept me from begging Jude for mercy. I clamped my jaws shut until my teeth ached, determined that my days of begging Jude for anything were behind me, gone forever.
Jude killed his motor, and using a yellow emergency paddle, he silently poled his boat a few feet forward until its bow nudged the bow of The Vitamin Sea. No use retreating aft. My only hope aft would be to jump from the stern onto the sandbar and then splash to land. On shore, mangrove roots arched above the sand like dark snakes, ready to trip me. I’d be no match for Jude in a foot race on the island.
Clutching my fillet knife so hard my nails bit into my palm, I eased forward. Maybe I could defend myself. Maybe I could throw Jude off guard momentarily by shoving him into the water. Or, more likely, maybe he’d kill me with my own knife. That possibility loomed large in my thinking. Yet would he kill me if he were the one trying to lay a murder rap on my doorstep? He’d want me alive and suffering from righteous anger in a prison cell, wouldn’t he?
With a thud that reverberated through the soles of my shoes, Jude leaped easily to the bow of my boat. Then he jumped to the boat bottom, stiffened his knees, and paused only long enough to regain his balance. Grabbing my radio from the console, he smashed it against the floor, kicked it to the stern, then retrieved it and threw it overboard. When he spoke, his breathing clogged his throat and his voice came in angry spurts. I dodged around the console and leaped onto the bow.
“Where’s your cell?” He stood behind the wheel and began searching, tossing pliers, compass, pens aside. While he searched, I leaped from the bow of my boat onto his, flailing my arms and bending my knees to keep my balance. Now I stood on the operable boat, and Jude’s search for my cell phone intensified. The cell would do him no good with a dead battery, but he didn’t know that and I wasn’t about to tell.
Unfortunately, in my terror I’d left the phone in my sweatshirt pocket. He’d know all too soon that it wouldn’t work, but I’d tucked the sweatshirt under the passenger seat storage bin and Jude stooped, searching in the deep box under the driver’s seat.
Escape! I had to make a fast start out of here! Jude’s boat key dangled from the ignition, but my fear-numbed fingers could barely activate it. There! The key turned, and as I tried to start the motor, Jude heard the grinding.
“Stop that, you bitch! I’ll make you sorry!”
I tried the starter again and again. No luck. The motor refused to catch. Jude could leap aboard his speedboat in a matter of moments ready to make good his threat once he found my phone. Panic rose in my chest like a hot air balloon expanding until it threatened to choke me. In desperation I looked toward the stern. When I saw Jude’s anchor and the coil of line beside it, I saw my only slim chance of evening the score. Quickly, I tied the anchor line to a stern cleat.
“Damn you! Where’s that cell?” Jude’s face flushed and his eyes stabbed me as he shouted. “Tell me or you’re a dead bitch.”
I knew I’d be crazy to try to bargain with him, but I saw bargaining as a small avenue of hope. I eased back to the bow of his boat, hoping to draw his attention away from the anchor.
“If I give you the cell, will you go away and leave me alone?”
“You’ve got it, you slut. Give me that phone and I’ll leave you to rot out here on this devil-forsaken sandbar with the mosquitoes. It’ll serve you right to spend a night here alone. Do you good.”
“The cell’s in my sweatshirt pocket.”
Jude looked at me as if to make sure I wasn’t wearing the sweatshirt. “Okay, bitch, where’s the shirt?”
“Under the passenger seat. Take it and go.”
“You dumb butt!”
His voice became muffled as he bent to open the storage bin, and in moments he held the phone, raising it high in a gesture of triumph before he spit on it and threw it overboard. Would he go? Or had I been a fool to expect him to keep his word? Again, I held my knife at the ready as I leaped back into my own boat.
Jude eyed me, then he eyed the knife, and with a swift and vicious chop to my wrist, he knocked it from my hand. It fell into the boat, clattering against the passenger seat before
it hit the bottom, landing easily within his reach. But he didn’t go for it. For a second we both stared at it lying there. Then our eyes met.
“You’re daring me to kill you, aren’t you, Keely? You rat’s ass? You hate me so much I think you’d actually die to know that I’d live to face the murder rap. Well, it’ll never come down that way. Not tonight. I’m not nearly through toying with you yet. We’ll play games together again another time, Keely, another time and another place. You can depend on it, you turd.”
Before Jude left my skiff, he gave me a flat hand slap to the face that sent me reeling to the bottom of the boat. My ribs hit the gunwale and hot arrows of pain shot throughout my body. Broken ribs? Broken jaw? I lay there vulnerable and unable to move. Jude ground at his starter switch, swearing and making several attempts to engage the motor before it spluttered, caught, and roared.
Unwanted memories flooded in through my pain. On my eighth birthday, I’d been out fishing with my mother. Before sunset she’d hauled in the anchor, untied it, and was preparing to head for home when she paused to consult a chart of the area. Childlike, I got tired of waiting and I entertained myself by tying the anchor line to the stern cleat as it had been when the anchor lay overboard.
When my mother finished studying the chart, she started the motor, put the boat on plane, and made a fast turn toward Key West. I can still see a wave catching that anchor line, jerking it over the gunwale, pulling the anchor after it. I screamed as the anchor slammed into the water then bounced back, hitting my mother’s hand. Blood spurted everywhere, but even at age eight I knew where to find the first-aid kit. In spite of choking sobs, I opened the kit and followed my mother’s directions for holding bandages and cutting tape to help her bind her broken fingers.
Once we reached the hospital emergency room, the doctors examined my mother’s hand and gave us the terrible news. Her two middle fingers had to be amputated immediately. I’d never felt such guilt. I blamed myself for that horror. My mother tried to console me, telling me that accidents happen, that it wasn’t my fault. She said the ricocheting anchor could have landed anywhere, anywhere at all, and of course she was right. The anchor accidentally happened to hit her hand. Gram agreed with everything Mom said. Nobody ever scolded me for what I’d done.
I’ve lived almost twenty years with the guilt of that accident buried deep in my heart. Nobody ever mentioned it to me again. Not my mother. Not Gram. Never again had I tied an anchor line to a stern cleat while a boat was to be in motion—never again until today. Today I acted in self defense. I hoped Jude would make a fast turn. I hoped the anchor would hit the water and ricochet. But it was wishful thinking on my part to dream the anchor would do Jude any real damage. Nobody could pinpoint what target a ricocheting anchor might hit. It could hit the hull, or the wheel, or the console. Or it could drop harmlessly back into the sea. In my heart, I hoped the anchor would target Jude.
The stench of gasoline floated toward me and I wondered if he’d try to ram my skiff just hard enough to jab a hole in the hull that would sink it or at least put it totally out of commission for the rest of this day. Even in the unlikely event that help might arrive, I hoped he’d leave The Vitamin Sea intact. Jude must have thought he’d damage his own boat in trying to sink mine because he shifted into reverse and jerked on the wheel until his bow pointed toward Key West.
Tears streamed down my face, but I forced myself upright and eased onto the passenger seat. To my relief, Jude revved his motor and put his boat on plane. He headed some distance toward Key West before he did what I’d guessed and feared he’d do. He circled, making a broad turn, then with throttle wide open, he sliced the sea as he sped back toward me.
As his motor roared in the late afternoon stillness, egrets roosting in the mangroves took flight like puffs of cotton floating toward the sky. I watched in fascinated horror, unable to move. The sand bank near shore dropped off into deeper water, but did Jude think he could smash my skiff at that speed without damaging his own craft and killing us both?
I sank back onto the bottom, covering my head with both arms in an effort to protect myself from the impending shock. Then at the last moment, I heard Jude pull his old trick, turning his boat seconds before it reached mine and then speeding away into the distance. I couldn’t bear to watch. I lay on the boat bottom in exhaustion and pain. Jude could come back again and again if he decided to. I lay beyond caring.
Staring upward, I watched the sky turn from blue to fiery red, to gray-black. I counted the stars appearing one by one until so many pricked the sky I could no longer keep track. Soon, true night shrouded me, black, quiet, frightening, and eerie night sounds reminded me of what a fool I had been to come here alone. Water lapped my boat hull and the shoreline, making an obscene sucking sound. A heron’s cry wavered into the darkness. While leaves and fallen branches whispered threats, some unknown creature slunk nearby. Raccoon? Maybe. Wild dog? I hoped not.
I lay safe from critters as long as I stayed aboard the boat. When the onshore wind ceased, mosquitoes began zinging around my ears and a do-something-or-perish reality forced me to sit up, to ignore the pain that stabbed from my chest through to my back. How many ribs does a person have? I guessed all of mine were either broken or bruised.
Crawling along the boat bottom I found my sweatshirt, eased my arms into the sleeves, then pulled the soft cotton slowly and painfully over my head. Now moonlight silvered the sea and the incoming tide lifted the bow until it made slapping noises against the water, but the stern still lay deeply embedded in the sand. I started the motor, revved it, and tried to dislodge the boat and move it forward. No such luck. The stench of gasoline left me sickened as I wasted fuel and my own energy. At last I cut the motor and relaxed against the wheel, trying to relieve my pain.
The mosquitoes still came after me and their itchy bites stung my face, the backs of my hands, my ankles. West Nile Virus? I shuddered. Wishing I’d worn socks, I yanked my jeans down to the tops of my boat shoes and pulled the sweatshirt hood around my head until only my nose stuck out. The mosquitoes used my nose for their target and hordes of them swarmed around me like flying teeth.
In great pain, I raised the lid on the bow’s storage bin and pulled out a canvas tarp and a life vest, dragging them to the starboard side of the console. Then I remembered my emergency flares. It meant another trip to the bow, but my pain had eased a little. Maybe the ribs weren’t broken after all. Inch by inch I crawled to the bow and opened the storage bin. My fingers fumbled against life jackets and boat cushions before I touched the emergency kit and found three flares inside the box along with a waterproof canister of matches.
Closing the bin, I sat on the bow to catch my breath before I struck a match and lit the fuse on the first flare, holding it like a Roman candle and pointing it toward Key West. It sizzled for a few seconds and died. Damn! Trying to avoid inhaling the sulphur fumes, I pinched the fuse between my thumb and forefinger to be sure it was out before I lit another match and touched it to the fuse on the second flare. This time the fuse caught and sizzled and the flare exploded, leaving heavy smoke plus a red streak in its wake before it fanned out into a yellow-orange brightness.
I waited a few minutes, slapping at mosquitoes every second, then I released the third flare before I dropped down once more and managed to wrap myself in the tarp and rest my head on the life jacket. It promised to be a long night—a long frightening night, but at least the mosquitoes couldn’t eat me alive now.
A fishy odor clung to the tarp and it, along with my painful ribs, made it impossible to sleep. I wondered if anyone would find me. I’d been crazy not to let Punt or Nikko come along with me. Maybe they’d miss me and come searching. Or maybe they’d call the Marine Patrol or the Coast Guard. Those officials might look for me, but most of their boats were too big to navigate in these shallow waters. My only hope in calling them earlier had been that they might lower a dinghy and rescue me in that. After dark, rescue by dinghy was highly unlikely.
&n
bsp; Twenty-Four
I LAY WRAPPED in the tarp for over an hour before I heard the sound of a boat motor, first in the distance, then coming closer and closer. Jude? Stomach contents threatened to rise into my throat. I tasted bile. Was Jude returning to torment me again? I didn’t dare look. If I didn’t rise up and show myself, maybe he’d think I’d left the boat. Unlikely. Jude would know this sandbar offered nowhere to hide. I strained my ears listening, expecting any moment to hear him revving his motor and speeding toward me. Instead I heard the splash of an anchor and in the next instant I heard Punt shouting my name.
“Keely! Keely, are you there? Are you okay?” Even before he started splashing toward my boat, I ignored my pain, threw the tarp aside, and sat up so he could see me.
“Punt! Oh, Punt! Am I ever glad you’re here.” My voice failed and in the next moment he boarded my boat and pulled me into his arms. I clung to him, forgetting my painful ribs. When his lips found mine, I welcomed their warmth, but after only seconds, hordes of mosquitoes intruded on our embrace and reluctantly I pushed him away. “How did you find me?”
“Tell you later. Right now you need to get into my boat and let me tow your boat in.”
“That’ll take forever, Punt. Let’s take my ignition key and leave The Vitamin Sea here. I can hire Ace Towing to bring it in tomorrow.”
“Guess that’d get us home quicker. Your boat’ll be safe. Nobody’s likely to be poking around back here after dark.”
Nobody but Jude, I thought, but at this point I wanted to believe that even Jude wouldn’t return again tonight.
Punt helped me overboard and the cold water chilled me as it flooded my deck shoes and soaked my jeans. To look at the shallows in the backcountry, one might think boarding a boat from the water would be easy. Not. The sea bottom where we stood was like quicksand. The more we struggled for leverage to hoist our bodies up, over the gunwale, and into Punt’s boat, the deeper the muck sucked us down.
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