“So, you put those bandages on my mom?”
“Yeah. With Jerry’s help.”
Her scrutiny bounced from Alicia to me.
“Are you two doctors or something?”
“I’m a nurse,” Alicia answered. “Jerry was in the military.”
“What, like a medic?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“And even though you had to bandage her up, you thought her car broke down?”
Alicia looked to me for help. She wasn’t a good liar.
“So, where’s the car now?” She turned to her mother. “You never said where this happened.”
“The car’s wrecked,” I answered.
“I didn’t ask you.”
“I know.”
She glared at me. For a kid hooked up to an IV bag in her living room, she had a hell of a spark plug in her.
“We don’t have time to sit and discuss anyway, honey.” Gabriela coiled the spare line hanging from the IV bag. “I need to get us packed.”
“Packed for what?” Flor accepted the coiled line from her mother.
“We’re going to stay with Jerry and Alicia for a little while. On St. Thomas.”
“So, you aren’t from around here.”
“We’re going to help you and your mom get around,” I said.
She glared. I didn’t care.
The important thing was getting on the move. The police were bound to have gone to Markel’s house by now, and they’d probably run Gabriela’s plates. They could come knocking at any time.
Gabriela started toward a hallway across from the front door. She turned left, and I heard a closet door slide open.
“Who are you two, really? Does my mom owe you money? Because we don’t have any.”
“I’m really Jerry. And this is really my wife, Alicia.”
“Whatever.” She swung her legs over the side of her bed. Her pink sweatpants hung loosely around her legs, and her matching hoodie billowed from her shoulders like a jellyfish riding a riptide.
One hand firmly held onto the rail of her bed as Flor got to her feet. Attitude or not, it was hard for me to see a kid in such a bad way. It never got easier.
My wife took my hand. Her mind must’ve been circling the same dread as mine. There were a million scumbags and jerks ahead of Flor on the Big List of People Who Should Have Cancer.
Hell, there were a lot of good people who should’ve been ahead of Flor. I counted myself among them. At least I’d experienced some of my life. I’d been around the world. I’d had time to make my own choices, and wrestle with them in my moments of deepest sleep. I’d discovered who I was. I’d known love. Flor was only a handful of years into dressing herself.
“Alicia?” Gabriela called from the hallway. “Can you come help me a minute?”
My wife turned to me. I nodded.
She walked past Flor and her bed, heading toward the back bedroom. I heard her say something to Gabriela. I’m not sure what.
“Your wife is pretty.”
I decided to play it as a genuine compliment. “Thanks.”
A second later, Gabriela and Alicia came buzzing down the hallway, each pulling a rolling suitcase. Additionally, Gabriela wore a backpack.
“We’re ready,” Gabriela said.
“Four days of clothes?” I asked.
She nodded.
“And all necessary medical supplies?”
She nodded again.
“Including toiletries?”
“Yes,” she said, as she went past me and grabbed the knob on the front door.
“Great. I’ll carry up the kid.”
“Carry who?” Flor tried to walk after her mother, but her legs shook like a newborn fawn’s. Her knees gave out just as I scooped her up in my arms.
She was as light as driftwood. I clenched my jaw, forcing myself not to think too much about it. I had to get past it—I’d seen worse. Afghanistan and Somalia had some tough rescues. None of those places were the US.
I adjusted my left arm to try and support Flor’s head more. As weak as she was, I didn’t want her breaking her neck.
“Can you grab your IV bag off the stand?” I asked her, as I walked around the foot of the bed so she could reach it.
She lifted it off the hook and rested it on her belly.
After we left Gabriela’s apartment, we retraced our steps back to the marina. Wayward was there, waiting for us.
Once aboard, I laid Flor down on the couch in the salon, then took her IV bag and hung it on a towel hook in the wall above her head. While Gabriela stayed at her side, Alicia pulled out some fresh bedding, then the two of them put it down, making sure Flor was comfortable. I went up to the bridge and started the engines, then climbed down, untied all our lines, and pulled in all our fenders.
A moment later, I was back on the bridge and motoring away from the marina.
Following our breadcrumbs on the chart plotter from our trip over, I steered Wayward through relatively calm seas on Puerto Rico’s windward side, going into headwinds. The morning sun was just a few degrees south of our almost due easterly course. Along our route, we passed the governor’s summer home, which DJ had once pointed out to me—a white, domed building in a stand of trees at the top of the ridge leading down into the sea. Wayward continued around the Cabezas de San Juan Nature Preserve, a run of land jutting off the northeastern corner of Puerto Rico.
Catching an eyeful of Puerto Rico’s rocky northern coast as I pulled a shade down to block the sun, I remembered the morning sunlight skipping over valleys hidden by the tanned, dusty peaks of Afghani mountains.
My mind liked to gravitate toward that cluster of images—of smoky villages hewn in mountain sides, a man butchering a goat carcass in front of his shop, smiling hello, a mother and her two young girls hauling rolls of a brightly colored fabric as our convoy rumbled past, a boy, no older and barely stronger than Flor, a dinted Russian AK slung over his back.
I also remembered the countryside. The Hindu Kush Mountains had ancient majesty.
More than once, when I’d finished last watch, or woke before dawn, I caught myself wondering how many times I’d looked directly at a forgotten Kushan or Buddhist tomb buried under centuries of stone and dust, where some ancient governor or general or priest had their body secreted away.
The way light played here, off the coast of Puerto Rico, when the sea was like a glittering balm for all the pains in my head, and the air crisp enough to make me believe I’d never need to sleep, and never have to experience those memories again, made me understand why I was drawn here—why this place became my refuge from a life wrenched apart by things I was afraid to think about, out of fear they’d taint the water and the air and I’d never find the peace I needed.
I turned the wheel until Wayward’s bow pointed east-southeast, heading against the winds coming out of the Caribbean. Then I set the auto-pilot, went down to the cockpit, and stopped. I cupped my hands over my eyes and took one last good look at the water ahead.
I hoped I’d learned from my mistakes in Newport Beach. That I could be strong enough to safeguard everything my eyes saw now, and more. I stepped down off the side deck and through the door to the salon. The girls—my wife, Gabriela, and Flor—had fallen asleep on the settees.
Quietly, I crept into the galley and dug in the cupboards until I found the coffee maker Alicia had stowed away. I didn’t know how long the calm seas would last. There was a way to tell from all the navigational and weather equipment up on the flybridge, I’m sure, but figuring that out would be asking too much of myself. Lucky for me, I hadn’t scraped the hull across any sandbars yet.
Once I got the coffee going, I retraced my steps toward the flybridge. Then I stopped. Gabriela was awake.
“You making coffee?” she asked in a drowsy whisper.
“We wouldn’t get much further if I weren’t,” I answered.
She cracked a smile, then combed her hair out of her face. She stretched, and I motione
d for her to follow me out to the cockpit.
Out back, I took a seat on the settee.
She stopped at the doorway, then rubbed the bandages on her arms.
“Want something to cover up?” I got up, then pulled open a storage compartment beneath me. Knowing Alicia, she’d stashed a coat somewhere. She’d catch a chill in a sauna.
The first compartment I opened contained some extra dock lines, a cooler, and a brand-new tackle box—which I’m guessing was supposed to be a surprise for me. I closed the lid and pretended I hadn’t seen it.
I opened the next compartment to my right and found it empty. The one to the right of that had a pair of sandals, sunscreen, life jackets, and some pool floats.
“Hmm. No luck.” I scratched my head and turned to Gabriela. She was gone.
Inside the salon, she was nowhere to be found. At least not that I could see from the cockpit. Maybe she’d gone back to bed.
Oh, well. So long as I didn’t hear a splash over the side, I knew she was safely on Wayward. I went back up the spiral staircase to the flybridge and sat down in the captain’s chair.
A moment later, I heard bare feet coming up the stairs and turned in my chair to see Gabriela, wearing my extra fleece jacket, and carrying two coffee mugs.
“I helped myself,” she said, as she handed the half-empty mug over to me. “The coffee wasn’t done yet. I hope you don’t mind.”
As soon as I took the mug, I became keenly aware of the cold in my fingers. And, as I relaxed into the helm seat, I realized how damned tired I was. I didn’t need a lot of sleep, but even I had my limits. I must’ve been running on adrenaline for the last four hours.
“So long as you keep bringing me coffee, you can borrow any coat of mine you like.”
She sat down on the port settee. I raised my mug to her, she returned the gesture, and we both took a sip of jet-black coffee.
I usually took my coffee with cream, but we didn’t have any on the boat. I made a mental note to pick up some of that powdered stuff to keep in the cupboard.
“Nice view all the way up here.” Gabriela turned her face to the wind, which swept back her hair. “Nice just about any place you go on this boat.”
“I’d like to say that’s the reason I bought it,” I said. “But I never thought of it at the time.”
“Why did you buy it?”
I took a sip of my coffee. Armstrong had recommended I buy one in case I needed to get lost in a hurry. And Travis Stockwell had helped me pick it out. Something with a lot of hidden storage.
“Scuba,” I said. “And pleasure cruises.”
Gabriela lifted her eyebrows. “Looks real pleasurable. You’ve got a lot of boat here.”
“Fifty-three feet,” I said. “Do you own something?”
She nodded. “Well, I did, anyway. Until I couldn’t afford to keep it in usable condition. I sold it about three months before Maria, thank God. I heard it sank.”
I nodded. Then I noticed something different about Gabriela. It took me a second before it dawned on me that she wasn’t holding Dr. Markel’s laptop.
“Where’s the computer?” I asked.
“Down on your desk.” She unspooled a deep sigh. “The battery was loose, which is why it didn’t start when we tried it. I fixed that problem, but now I’ve got a new one: I don’t have the password for it.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, letting the wind pull the strands apart. Then she blew into her coffee cup before taking a tentative sip.
“All I’ve got now are problems,” she said. “And one has become more immediate than the rest.”
Flor’s treatments? Finding someone to create Dr. Markel’s drug? Something told me she wasn’t talking about either of those. I racked my brain for a moment; then, to my discomfort, the answer shook loose.
“Your car,” I said. “We had to leave it at Dr. Markel’s house last night.”
By the worried look on her face, I knew I was right.
“I have to turn myself in, Jerry,” she said.
As much as I wanted another answer, none existed. She was right.
Wayward’s fuel tanks were three-quarters full, I knew how to operate the water maker, and with our four solar panels and batteries, we’d be good on power for the foreseeable future. But making a run for it wouldn’t help anyone. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, and, more importantly, it wasn’t what Gabriela wanted.
Though it would keep the police from embarking on a manhunt, turning herself in created different problems. Namely, what we’d do with Flor. Luckily, I had control over that one.
“We can take care of Flor,” I said with my eyes on the horizon ahead. “While this whole thing gets sorted.”
Presumptuous of me, and I knew it. What made me think Gabriela trusted me with her daughter? And if she did, why would Alicia go along?
Because our choices were made for us.
No one would ever accuse me of taking the path of least resistance, but wasn’t it kismet that my wife had once been a pediatric nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County? And now, a little girl needed her help.
I couldn’t deny that the second I pulled Gabriela out of that smashed car, I knew what I was getting myself into. Maybe it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind, but as a Pararescueman, I understood the responsibility I was taking on by saving her. That Others May Live was more than a motto on a patch to me. After retiring from the Air Force, I’d made it my life’s goal.
I had to care for Gabriela to the end. Not a little bit, not halfway, and not most of the way. To the end. And in this case, that meant taking care of Flor, too.
When I slid my eyes away from the smooth waters ahead, back to Gabriela, I genuinely wondered if she’d take my offer or not.
Her face was without expression. She hadn’t guarded her emotions back at the house when she’d talked to DJ and me. Maybe she’d been rattled by exhaustion and shock. Or perhaps she was now.
“Gabriela?”
Her eyes focused on me. Her chin quivered, and the coffee cup tumbled from her hands, splashed across the deck, and rolled aft. She gasped while I got up, pulled the sprayer out of the sink behind me, and hosed the coffee off the floor and off the cockpit Bimini.
“I’m sorry,” Gabriela said, wiping her eyes. She motioned at the coffee cup. “I didn’t mean to mess up your boat.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I picked up the cup and put it on the dinette. “This would be one sad boat if it couldn’t handle a little spilled coffee.”
She pinched her lips together, then fiddled with her hands. “You’re doing so much for me,” she said. “Why?”
Because I needed peace.
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Gabriela halfway leapt from her seat. She stopped when she met me, wrapping her arms around my ribcage, and pulling me close. Her arms and shoulders bounced as she sobbed. Were it not for my jacket, I would’ve felt her breath too, and the warmth of her tears.
She’d been holding onto this sadness at least since we’d met, but likely longer than that. Life couldn’t have been easy, being a single mother with a child as sick as Flor.
I put my arms around her and let her get it all out. We stood on Wayward’s bridge, me patting the back of her head and gently rocking her while she cried, for a couple minutes at least.
Then, when Gabriela seemed to be on the backside of it, I stood her up straight, held her at arms’ length by her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes, the whites shining like polished silver.
“I swear to you that I will get you through this,” I told her. “All you have to do is hold on and keep being strong.”
She nodded at me.
All I had to do now was explain to Detective Collat that I was bringing him an innocent woman and hope that he’d understand.
DJ Martin stood on Reel Fun’s flybridge, his hands twisting on the ship’s stainless-steel helm while he navigated through the dark. The boat was two-and-a-half miles due sou
th of French Bay—the spot where he’d untied and rocketed away from Jerry’s slip in the marina.
His hands still tight on the wheel, DJ pulled into Mouillage Cove on the leeward side of Buck Island. It was a U.S. wildlife refuge, popular with snorkelers, bird watchers, and party cruises for its calm waters and exotic fauna.
Jerry was being a moron. What did he think was going to happen if they took this to the cops? That they’d swoop in, play by the rules, and everybody would go home happy?
Somebody in La Uniformada—of which their trustworthy and upright buddy, Detective Collat, was a member—would lose a bullet casing or smudge a good fingerprint, or just plum forget to file a piece of critical evidence. Or they’d just be too near to retirement to do the job right.
When the inevitably “speedy” trial rolled around, some months or years later, it would be “discovered” that the murderer had mistakenly been released from custody shortly after being arrested, and nobody had the faintest clue where he’d gone.
No thanks. If Jerry Snyder wanted to wrestle that snake, that was on him. DJ wasn’t there to have a turn after Jerry. He was there to get a job done.
To that end, he’d cut the throttle on Reel Fun, then shut off the engines. He dropped anchor in Mouillage Cove, got up from the captain’s chair, and eased himself down the ladder from the fly deck.
In the salon, he took his sat phone from the charging cradle stuck to the galley wall, carried it out to the cockpit, where it would get a signal, and pulled up the number for Armstrong’s S&R division.
Support and Research existed on the back end of Armstrong Research’s operation. Staff members weren’t public facing, and, as such, DJ couldn’t place names to faces. But he knew they were there, and he knew they were damned good. If a boat could be tracked, the folks at Armstrong S&R would find it.
The sat phone rang twice before someone picked up.
“Armstrong Research,” a young man’s high-pitched voice said. DJ pictured some twenty-two-year-old kid with a bad haircut and a thick pair of glasses reflecting a computer screen.
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