Adrift

by Micki Browning

  Gone.

  Mer broke the surface of her dream with another scream dammed in her throat, and thrashed until she escaped the confining bed sheets. Her chest rose and fell in heaves. The fan above the bed chilled her sweat-soaked skin. She pushed herself off the bed and threw open the curtains. Bright sunshine poured through the sliding door, welcoming her back from the dark abyss. Her pulse slowed. The terror of the images faded, leaving behind only a message. A message she understood.

  She had a new hypothesis.

  Chapter 31

  After her dream, Mer returned to bed and slept uninterrupted for six hours. She awoke refreshed and with a newfound sense of purpose.

  A revised hypothesis required a modified plan of attack.

  The afternoon sunshine blazed with potential and lightened the room. She pushed back the covers and relocated to her desk. Data. Scientists lived for data, but to get the right answers one had to formulate the proper questions. And, for the first time since the start of this debacle, Mer knew which questions to pose and whom to ask.

  This morning, in her despair, she’d discounted all the positive things she’d learned in the past few days. Reevaluating her inventory of information, she recognized quite a few bright notes. Opening one of the cavernous walnut desk drawers, she pulled out a sheet of notepaper and nabbed a pen.

  Fact: The ghost sighting that precipitated the rescue on Molasses Reef had been faked.

  Fact: Ishmael was known to Rob by the name Edgar Wimpleton.

  Supposition: Ishmael Styx and Edgar Wimpleton are the same person. If that proved true, Edgar didn’t perish in the fire, as his mother believed, nor was he currently dead.

  No. She reconsidered that assertion. Faulty logic. Surviving the fire did not automatically mean that he’d survived the dive on the Spiegel Grove. It did, however, introduce considerable doubt. After all, if someone had disappeared once, it seemed reasonable to assume that it could happen again.

  Fact: Lindsey was dead. Murdered. Mer wasn’t a suspect.

  A prolonged growl rumbled from the vicinity of her stomach.

  Fact: Starving herself would not aid her efforts to solve the mystery of Ishmael’s disappearance.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. They gave her a sack meal at the jail, but she hadn’t even opened it, afraid it would make a sudden and most undignified reappearance.

  The phone rang. Amber’s number scrawled across the screen. She debated answering it. Talbot hadn’t arrested Amber, but that didn’t mean Mer should trust her, or, for that matter, any of the Spirited Divers. Still, the tarot cards had suggested relying upon her intuitive side.

  She froze. Wow. Had she really just advocated following the advice of a deck of cards? Dropping her pen, Mer answered the call, then walked into the kitchen.

  “Hey, I just wanted to make sure you were going to be at Ishmael’s memorial service tomorrow afternoon,” Amber said.

  Tomorrow. The last couple of days had been so hectic she’d forgotten. “Of course.” She opened the refrigerator with her free hand, already knowing the futility of the gesture. The expired yogurt had finally found its way into the trash, and the only reason the last slice of pizza remained was so that she could honestly state that the refrigerator wasn’t empty if her mother called. “Are you doing okay?”

  “I guess. I tried to get in touch with you yesterday,” Amber said. “But no one seemed to know where you were.”

  She hoped to keep it that way. “What time is the service?”

  Amber gave her the name of the venue and the time. “It helps to keep busy. I finished the documentary. Well, at least the raw-footage part.”

  “Amber, you’ve heard about Lindsey, right?” She didn’t want to be the one to tell Amber, but she needed to know.

  “Yeah. We weren’t exactly best buds the last couple weeks. Or ever, really. I mean, I’m sad and all.”

  “But?”

  “But she wasn’t a supernice person. Rabbit and Echo told her they wouldn’t work for her unless we finished the documentary as a team. She got all huffy. Packed up and left. I kind of helped myself to the equipment and took over the production. That was before, you know.”

  She did. “I thought you wanted to include footage of the memorial.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  A disconcerting possibility slithered through Mer’s mind. Could Amber have discovered Ishmael’s infidelity and tracked down Lindsey?

  “It didn’t seem right after what Detective Talbot accused me of,” Amber continued. “And now this thing with Lindsey. I’m keeping the memorial private. Just the team members, some of the other ghost hunters in town, and the people from the Aquarius shop. I didn’t know who else to invite. Wendy Wheeler called me. I suppose I could have invited her.”

  Her and ten thousand of her closest social-media followers. Mer couldn’t help thinking that the anchorwoman was just fishing for another story.

  “When’s the crew leaving Key Largo?” Mer asked.

  “Right after the service. The storm’s getting closer, and we don’t want to get caught.”

  The biggest difference between people who lived in the Keys and those who visited boiled down to how much they worried about impending storms. Tropical Storm Moby was twirling in the Caribbean and dancing toward the Keys. The weather models speculated that it could reach hurricane strength by Saturday. The locals had begun stocking their liquor cabinets, but not much else. When storms reached Category 3 strength, they’d start to batten down the hatches, decide when the canals would close so they could tether their boats in the center. Few would evacuate; most would party.

  “That’s cutting it close,” Mer said.

  “Rabbit’s the only one flying. He’s returning to New York. Echo and I are driving back to Cali together.”

  Mer had to act fast. She needed to collect new data. Clarify a hunch. “I want to talk to Rabbit before he leaves,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”

  “The guys are down at the dock packing the equipment.”

  Score. Both of them in one place. She’d be able to ask Echo a couple more questions about Ariel.

  Time to find some answers.

  —

  The sun hid behind the horizon, taking with it the light of day but not its heat. She rushed to the shop, hoping she wasn’t too late. Mer found Rabbit and a single black Suburban still in the parking lot. Cases of equipment littered the ground around him, some stacked three high. He stood with his arms crossed, staring into the back of the open SUV as if consulting an oracle.

  “Talk to me about magic,” she said without preamble.

  The question broke his concentration and he looked up, startled. “Magic? Magic is making all this”—he waved his hand over the stack of equipment—“fit inside there.” He cocked his head at the car.

  “No, I mean what you do. Coins. Making things disappear.”

  “Bring over a trash can and I’ll show you how to make about half of this disappear.”

  She held up her hand and wiggled her bent fingers in a poor imitation of him. “Coins.” She worked to keep her voice even. “How do you do it?”

  He returned to his contemplation. “A magician never gives away his secrets.”

  Hunger eroded the last of her patience. Not that she was known to have that particular virtue in spades. She grabbed handfuls of his shirt. “Tell. Me. About. Magic.”

  “All right!” Mer let go, and he rolled his shoulders. “Sheesh. Does it hurt being crazy?” He dug into his shorts and pulled out a quarter. “It takes a lot of practice.”

  “I just need to understand the mechanics,” she said.

  The quarter bumped its way across his knuckles. “You want to assure your audience that you have nothing up your sleeves.”

  He tugged his right sleeve with his left hand, then dropped the quarter in his left hand and pushed up that sleeve with his right hand. “Toss the coin back into your right hand.” He demonstrated. “And squeeze your fis
t slightly, open your hand. Poof. Gone.”

  “Where is it?” she demanded.

  He raised his left hand by her ear. “Right here all the time.” He lowered his hand and showed her the quarter.

  “What’s the trick?”

  A pained expression crossed his face. “Misdirection.” Raising the coin to eye level, he trapped the quarter with his thumb. “You thought I transferred the quarter, but I palmed it. You saw a motion consistent with me doing what you expected. Your brain tricked you.”

  A possibility started to form in her mind. “Is that what happens with bigger items?”

  “You can’t palm everything like a coin, but the principle’s the same. Give your audience something to look at—a distraction.”

  “Misdirection.” The night darkened and the lights in the parking lot came on with an electronic buzz. “So smoke, wands, top hats. They’re all distractions?”

  “Sometimes.” He made a grand gesture with his left hand. “Other times, it’s just showmanship.” He’d once again transferred the coin to his opposite hand without her observing the shift.

  Her dream. The octopuses had all inked at the same time and disappeared in a concealing cloud. Nature’s magicians, masters of misdirection. “Can a person make himself disappear?”

  “Sure, but usually the illusionist has an accomplice to help with something that complicated.”

  “Amber.” Mer crunched a small circle in the gravel as if the movement would help her wrap her mind around the thought.

  “What?”

  “Assistants.” An image of a spangle-covered, fishnet-wearing assistant danced across the stage in her mind. “How important is it to have one?” She paced to the front of the Suburban.

  “Depends. You may not even know there is one.”

  “What?” She brushed a bougainvillea blossom off the side mirror. “I don’t understand.”

  Rabbit lifted one of the larger cases off the ground and slid it into the back of the vehicle. “Sometimes the assistant is a nay-sayer, a heckler in the crowd. Someone who convinces the audience that an illusion can’t be done, when in fact it’s their participation that pulls it off.”

  Amber. It all made sense. The camera flash. Her scream. Misdirection. Mer held herself still while her mind jumped between suppositions and conclusions. Amber had staged a panic attack knowing that it would draw Mer’s attention away from Ishmael, so that Ishmael had time to get away. Classic misdirection.

  She’d been played. Mer felt an unexpected loss. She hadn’t thought a warmhearted woman like Amber could be capable of such deceit.

  But where did Ishmael go? The logical assumption would be inside the wreck. After that was anyone’s guess.

  Her mind kept spitting out possibilities, but one stood out. “Is Ariel somewhere in one of these cases?” she asked.

  The SUV dipped as Rabbit set another case in the back. “The hydrophone?”

  Mer nodded. “Echo took it down with him the night we encountered the ghost.” She’d considered using air quotes around “ghost,” but she’d never used air quotes in her life. This didn’t strike her as the time to start.

  Rabbit poked his finger under his wool cap and scratched his head as he surveyed the pile of equipment that was still on the ground, and then the dwindling space where it needed to fit. “Echo took it back to his room this morning. Said it was too valuable to pack with the rest of the gear.”

  “Where’s Echo now?”

  Rabbit’s lip curled. “I can tell you where he’s not.” He grunted as he lifted a particularly large case. Mer dashed forward to help him. Together they manhandled the plastic trunk between the other cases. “Thanks. Last I heard, he was getting ripped at the bar by the hotel.”

  “One more question.” She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but the scientist in her demanded confirmation. “Who taught you how to make a coin disappear?

  He clapped the coral dust from his hands. “Ishmael.”

  “Thank you.” Mer threw her arms around Rabbit in an exuberant hug. Before he could react, she was halfway to her car.

  Chapter 32

  Even paradise needed a dive bar, and Key Largo’s answer was the Bilge. Mer stood inside the door of the club, scanning the crowd. Despite the fact that it was only eight o’clock, there was an eclectic mix of fishermen, construction workers, dockhands, and pirates present. One guy had even brought his parrot. Mer stretched on her tiptoes, but she didn’t see Echo.

  A man approached her. “You don’t need to look any further, darlin’. I’m right here.” He smelled of fish. It wasn’t the scent that she considered off-putting but, rather, the remains that stained his shirt, as if he had used the cloth to clean his fillet knife.

  “So you are.” The lack of female patrons suddenly registered.

  “Tell you what. I’ll buy you a drink and then let you take me home.” He leered at her.

  “Tempting. But no.”

  “Kinda hoity-toity for this place, aren’t you dollface?” He slithered closer.

  Mer retreated and found herself backed against a table.

  “Dollface is with me.” Echo stepped in from the parking lot and drew Mer under his arm. He swayed slightly.

  “No harm meant. Should have known someone would have dibs on such a fine piece of tail. When you’re through with her, toss her my—”

  Echo’s body weight shifted, and his fist crashed into the other man’s face. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had snapped. Conversations fell silent, one guy hooted, a couple of people clapped, but no one moved to render assistance to the chucklehead on the floor.

  “I never knew you were a lefty,” Mer said. It was all she could think to say. “Thank you,” she added, somewhat belatedly.

  “You should go.” He sidestepped the prostrate form. “He’s right, this isn’t a place for someone like you.” He pushed her toward the door.

  “Someone like me.” Mer had never seen a bar fight before, let alone been its cause. In an odd twist, she found it gratifying on a primal level—a level she didn’t explore too often. “You saved me.” She glanced back at the guy stirring on the floor. “Why?”

  Echo’s dark skin flushed darker. He ignored her and staggered toward the bar, held up a finger. The bartender nodded and popped the top off a Dos Equis beer.

  Mer pushed in next to Echo and hailed the bartender. “Do you have a Pinot Grigio?” The bartender grabbed a second Dos Equis and thunked it down in front of her. Condensation beaded the bottle. “Or a beer. That’d be fine.” She drank several swallows.

  Echo shook his head and tossed a couple bills onto the bar.

  The brew hit her empty stomach with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “Lindsey—”

  He slammed his beer down. Foam flowed like lava over the lip of the bottle and puddled on the varnished wood. He circled his hand around her biceps and dragged her behind him as he pushed a path through the room. Howls of raunchy encouragement followed them out the door. His fury broke like waves over Mer. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t call out.

  Echo yanked her around the building. Into the shadows. His gripped tightened. Bruised. Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.

  Fear turned to anger. She planted her feet and swung her arm. “Unhand me.”

  “Me, me, me. What’s with you?” He released her and she stumbled backward into the building. “I tell you about Lindsey. Now she’s dead. I ain’t telling you shit.”

  Mer rubbed her arm. “I found her. I didn’t kill her. Even though she tried to kill me.” In the half-light, Echo squinted at her, but Mer didn’t know if it was merely to see her or to try to discern the truth of her words. “Echo, listen to me. I’m not the enemy.” She debated how much to tell him. If she guessed wrong, no telling what would happen. In for a penny. “I need to know if you listened to the tape Ariel made the night we saw Ishmael.”

  “Ishmael’s ghost.”

  In for a pound. “I don’t think Ishmael is dead. I’m not sure what we
encountered down there.”

  The air left him in a whoosh. He tilted his face skyward and blinked rapidly. His hands fisted and relaxed as he thought. “There wasn’t a lot.”

  “More engine noise?”

  Echo shifted his gaze from the sky to Mer’s face. “More engine noise. Yeah. Why do you care?”

  “You told me you heard a little engine noise on the tape from the night Ishmael first disappeared, right?”

  He nodded.

  “I thought you were quantifying the amount of engine noise, not the size of the engine. But that’s not what you meant. You didn’t hear a little bit of engine noise; you heard the noise of a small engine. Not the same thing, is it?”

  His shoulders sagged. “It’s completely different.”

  “I would imagine that an underwater scooter has its own sound signature. Maybe a higher pitch because of the propeller rotation? Ariel picked that up the night Ishmael disappeared, didn’t she?” It still seemed odd to assign gender to a hydrophone.

  Another nod.

  “That’s why Ishmael was annoyed when you asked us to take Ariel down. He didn’t want any evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “How he escaped the Spiegel Grove undetected.” Mer pushed away from the wall. “Walk with me.” Without turning to see if he was following, she steered toward the small wooden pier that jutted across the shallows. If he followed, it meant that he either wanted to find out what she knew or, well, it could mean that he just wanted to push her into the ocean. She arrived at the last board and sat on the edge, her feet dangling above the gentle waves.

  The moon had replaced the late-setting sun. It cast a ribbon across the water and tied up the bay like a sparkling gift. At last she felt the small shakes and quivers of a person walking across wooden slats. He paused behind her, and then finally sat.

  “Ishmael isn’t dead, but he wants us to think he is.” She worked a small piece of coral from between the slats. “Lindsey and Rob—the guy from Molasses Reef—cooked up a plan to generate interest in the documentary. Rob used a diver propulsion vehicle to get from the wreck to the reef. Fast-forward to the night Ishmael disappeared. There was only one DPV on the LunaSea that night because Lindsey had left in a huff—before the scooter was unloaded. At first, I thought that meant she had nothing to do with Ishmael’s disappearance.”