I scowl at her. “Finish what you were saying, Jamie.”
“I did hear a plane that night, but that doesn’t mean it had anything to do with Trish. You let me look into it, Luke. These are dangerous people. There’s not much I can do for Trish anymore except keep her brother safe. Promise me you’ll leave this to me.”
“People are best minding their own business,” Reesie announces. I’m not sure which one of us she’s bossing around.
“You make all of the furniture in there?” I ask, deliberately changing the subject.
“Yeah.”
“You could make a bundle back home producing work like that.”
He gives a hint of a smile. “You’re not so different from your sister after all; she was always saying that. But what would I be doing chasing money a thousand miles away when there’s everything a person needs to be happy right here?”
I think about that for a minute. “I guess you must have won that argument.”
“Trish is gone.” Jamie’s grief is suddenly so palpable, I wonder how I could have ever doubted him. “I didn’t win anything.”
I start down the steps but look back when he continues.
“One thing you need to know, Luke. She didn’t choose me instead of you. She talked about you all the time, even talked about bringing you down here.”
I nod.
ME: You weren’t planning to come back, were you?
PAT: If you had the chance to be part of this family, wouldn’t you leave ours in a heartbeat?
ME: It doesn’t work like that, Pat. You don’t get to choose. You make the best of the family you’ve got and love them the best way you know how.
PAT: Is that what Mom was doing when she tried to kill herself? Or what you were doing every time you shut me out with your drugs and booze?
ME:
“I’m sure you’re right,” I say to Jamie.
“You’re welcome here anytime, Luke. I hope you know that.”
“Sure.” I’m striding toward the gate, my chest tight with everything I’m struggling not to feel — hurt, betrayal, anger, guilt. Even when I find my sister, this is something I’ll never change my opinion about. She gave up on us, all of us.
I hear the door shut behind us. I think they’ve both gone back inside so I’m surprised to hear Reesie’s voice as we reach the gate. “You’re planning on going up there, aren’t you?”
I stop and turn. Zach, close on my heels, stops too.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She’s talking about us investigating the drug dealers,” Zach hisses.
I sigh.
Reesie moves forward into the porch light, her hands on her hips. “You heard what Jamie said.”
“Who died and made him ruler of the planet?” says Zach, stepping behind me, so she doesn’t have a clear view of him.
“You know she can tell it’s you who’s talking, right?”
“Shh,” he whispers. “She’ll hear you.”
“So you and the brainchild are gonna go investigating drug runners?”
“We haven’t made any decisions about going up there,” I lie.
“You boys don’t have the first clue about investigating,” she says. “Have you even been to the police yet to ask them what happened?”
“We were going to do that tomorrow,” Zach blusters.
“Good,” says Reesie. “Then I’ll meet you out front of the Shark Center at twelve tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
“Show-off,” says Zach loudly — after Reesie’s gone inside.
“Good comeback, buddy.” I pretend I didn’t notice he’d waited till she was out of hearing range. We high-five and Zach smiles happily, before a frown crosses his face.
“We are going up to the airport tonight, right?”
“You bet.”
CHAPTER 14
It’s around two in the morning by the time we’re squatting in some spindly bushes near the edge of the runway. Though the rain has stopped, the ground is squelchy underfoot and we’re both in flip-flops. I have only a vague notion of how this is going to go down.
First we need to confirm that there really are drug planes using the Utila runway on a regular basis. Then we have to find out if they had anything to do with my sister’s disappearance. I don’t know how I’m going to find that out, short of asking them directly. The drug runners clearly saw her as a threat. But if they did something to Pat, they’re not going to admit it. Our best option is probably to find out if there is drug running going on and then get the police involved. Getting jumped by Bobby’s guys proves that they had it in for her.
Just as I’m reaching this conclusion, there’s the unmistakable drone of a plane circling overhead. My heart starts thumping. The plane does a full circle above and is starting a second when a brilliant spotlight flips on, illuminating the runway. And us.
I hit the dirt, or more accurately mud, while Zach stands up and shades his eyes, peering into the light.
“Zach, get down!” I hiss.
“I’m trying to see who turned on the light.”
“They’ll see you. Get down!”
Zach drops to his knees, but we both realize it’s too late when we hear feet pounding the pavement, coming toward us. We can see the silhouettes of at least five guys, all carrying what look like automatic rifles. Despite my desire to interrogate them about my sister, running is the only sensible response.
“Run!” I shout.
I jump up and take off at top speed, crashing through bushes, covering more than a dozen yards in the other direction before I hit the sanctuary of the tree line. Only then do I realize Zach’s not behind me. I wildly look around for him, until I realize in horror what he’s done. He’s taken my instruction to run, but gone straight at the gunmen. Now he’s struggling with two guys, while two more point rifles at him and another raises his gun preparing to bring it crashing down on Zach’s head. In the chaos, everyone has forgotten the plane, which has already started its descent and is heading directly for them.
I’m frozen in indecision at the horror of Zach’s immediate danger and the shock of a plane about to plow into him. I race back toward Zach. Maybe I can hurl myself at him and knock him out of the hands of the drug runners and the path of the plane at the same time. But seconds after touching down on the tarmac, the pilot must have spotted the people on the ground because the plane veers sharply to one side, careening off the runway. The drug runners drop Zach and turn to watch their own plane hurtling into the bushes. My heart explodes against my ribcage as I realize it’s now heading straight for me. I swerve just in time, only to be knocked over by the force of the wind it stirs up as it barrels past. A screeching clatter signals a wing being sheared off by a nearby tree. Finally, the plane lurches to a stop.
There’s utter silence for the next few seconds. Zach and his attackers stare at the wreckage and I slither on my belly toward the runway, trying to get close enough to signal Zach. I’m dimly aware of a quiet dripping and the strong smell of gasoline. I don’t realize the implications until I hear a whoosh and feel the heat of flames. I look back to see the plane ablaze and shudder to think of the pilot trapped inside. My attention is drawn back to the drug runners, as gunfire rings out from the darkness behind them. They hear it, too, and are thrown into panic, shouting as they race toward their burning plane. I have no choice — I have to run into the line of fire to save Zach. I scramble to my feet and am immediately thrown to the ground again by a deafening explosion, followed by snow falling everywhere.
The snow seems to confuse the drug runners as they halt in their tracks and put out their hands like they’re trying to catch it. Zach does the same thing. Only when he licks his hand do I realize what it is.
“Zach, get out of there!” I scream.
Another shot rings out and the bad guys resume their sprint for the forest, completely ignoring Zach and me. The sound of an engine draws my attention to the far end of the runway, where a truck is just eme
rging into the light. Armed men in military fatigues clamber off the back. All at once, a second beam of light shines down from above. Looking up, I track the source to a helicopter hovering just overhead.
“Put your hands behind your heads and lie down on the ground!” a voice booms.
More gunfire rings out. I hit the dirt and am relieved to see Zach doing the same. “We should have run while we could,” I mutter.
“Are they going to arrest us?” Zach is on the ground next to me. We can barely hear each other over the chaos of shouting, chopper wings and pounding feet.
“No. We didn’t do anything wrong. But let me do the talking.”
Zach nods. I don’t know how I’m going to get us released if we do get arrested. Neither of us has enough cash for a lawyer. Would Dr. Jake bail me out? He’s going to regret ever offering to help me.
Three heavily armed guys are bearing down on us from the copter, and a dozen or so men are making their way over from the truck. Every one of them has a weapon trained on us.
“On your knees,” orders one of the copter guys. He’s close enough now that I can read the logo on his shirt: DEA. I’m not sure if I’m reassured or scared that he’s a fellow American.
“You don’t understand —” I start but he cuts me off.
“Do you boys realize you’ve just destroyed weeks of surveillance? Do you have any idea what the consequences are for impeding an ongoing investigation? If it was up to me, we’d have let the traffickers have you. Did I see one of you actually licking this stuff?”
Zach stares at the ground while I look around at the circle of furious faces.
“S-sorry,” I stammer, not sure what to respond to first. “My sister, Pat —”
“I know all about your sister,” he snaps. “We’ve had a dozen e-mails from her since she picked up on the drug trade passing through here. She even called a few times after we forced down the plane that dumped its cargo in the ocean. Your sister was pretty worked up about that. It wasn’t our fault, of course, but your sister wouldn’t let us hear the end of it.”
“But how do you know who I am?”
The DEA guy nods to the guys who came in on the truck, local police by the looks of them. I follow his gaze and my jaw drops as Reesie steps out from behind the throng.
“I knew you were planning to come up here, so after you left me, I went straight to the police. It took some convincing to get them to call reinforcements, but it was that or spend the night listening to my nattering.”
“I’m surprised they took so long,” I say.
Reesie gives me a small smile, but Zach frowns. “We could have escaped on our own.”
“So did the drug lords have something to do with Pat’s disappearance?” I turn back to the DEA guy.
“We don’t believe so. All I can tell you for certain is, she wasn’t kidnapped and taken off the island. We’ve been monitoring them too closely for that. But I have to say there were a lot of people who would have liked to shut your sister up. Someone on the island could have done something to her.”
“Didn’t you investigate?”
“This is a foreign country, son. Our operations here are limited to monitoring the drugs making their way onto U.S. soil. If we had some proof your sister’s death was drug-related, we could request an investigation, but all the reports we’ve had so far make suicide more likely.”
“You can’t believe my sister committed suicide!”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Personally, I don’t. I’m just telling you that unless we have evidence her disappearance is directly related to our work here, there’s nothing we can do.”
I hang my head in disappointment. I know I should be grateful Pat wasn’t kidnapped by drug traffickers, despite her best efforts to antagonize them, but all it feels like is another dead end and more reckless behavior I can’t make sense of.
“You kids need to go home now,” says the DEA guy, gently but firmly.
I look up to find both Zach and Reesie watching me. Reesie steps forward and takes my arm. Zach grabs the other one, more forcefully than necessary, and with me awkwardly sandwiched between them, we lumber off the airstrip. The local military have mostly dispersed into the bush to look for the druggie ground crew, and the DEA guys are heading over to the remains of the plane. I hope I haven’t really messed up their investigation. I’d like to think some good came from my sister’s relentless pushiness.
“I don’t get it,” I say to no one in particular as we turn onto the road heading back to town.
“What’s that, Luke?” Zach asks.
“Before she came here, Pat was vegan, clean living, hardworking, ambitious. She put my mom to bed when she’d had too much to drink. Made sure we always had some kind of dinner on the table, nagged me about my homework, even got me to bed on time before I was old enough to stand up to her. She was always doing the right thing and pushing everyone else to do right as well, me especially. So I understand why she’d take on drug dealers, particularly if they were endangering the reef. But I don’t get the other stuff. Pete and Tracy said she was slutty, and Zach, you said she drank, and Mini Mike said she was eating meat. And, on top of it all, she was planning to give up her education, everything she’d been working toward her whole life. So why would she let go of some of her standards but hang on to the one that could get her killed?”
“Maybe because she could,” says Reesie.
I give her a questioning look.
“From what you’ve said, your sister took on a lot of responsibility in your family. Maybe because your mom wasn’t looking after you properly, your sister felt like she had to set a good example. It sounds like she was tryin’ real hard to be perfect. But here no one was gonna get hurt if she let go a bit. She only had herself to be responsible for. I’ve told you before, tourist kids go a little crazy down here.”
I nod, trying to fit this idea into everything else I never understood about Pat. “Then why is it that the only thing she didn’t change was being a pushy, meddling, know-it-all?” I demand angrily. “Wouldn’t you think if she were going for a total personality transplant, she could have dispensed with the one quality most likely to get her killed?”
Zach and Reesie are silent for several minutes.
“She didn’t drink that much,” says Zach finally.
“And I don’t think my brother would have been planning to marry a girl with loose morals,” Reesie adds. “Maybe the change wasn’t as big as you think it was. Maybe she just loosened the jib a bit, let the sails out.”
“I didn’t want her to come down here,” I confess, glad for the cover of darkness so I can’t see Reesie’s face. “But I knew she had to get away. Pat and I aren’t like the usual kids you see here who’ve never had anything bad happen to them. I know you’ve both had your troubles, but I think most kids can jump into the ocean and really believe nothing’s going to go wrong. I envy them their naive optimism. I wish I was that way. But the weird thing is, Pat wasn’t naive. She knew as well as I did that the worst-case scenario was the one most likely to happen. Yet no matter how many times our lives came dangerously close to going off the rails, she never faltered. She lived her life in defiance of our reality. I loved that about her. I hated it, too.
“Then some stuff happened with my mom, and for the first time, I could see Pat losing her nerve. It’s not that she didn’t believe in herself anymore, but she didn’t believe in us, or maybe just me. She didn’t think we could survive without her. She started talking about deferring her scholarship and maybe taking a year off.”
“So how’d she end up here?” asks Reesie.
I hesitate. I want to tell her the whole truth, but I’m really starting to like this girl. I don’t want to disappoint her. I’m sick of disappointing people. “She got offered the internship,” I say simply. “It was too good to pass up.” I stop and we walk for several minutes in silence. Once again I’ve taken the coward’s way out and left my sister holding the bag. “She tried to talk it over
with me before she accepted, but I didn’t let her.”
“How’d she feel about that?” asks Reesie, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
“She was pissed. I didn’t even say good-bye.”
“That must have made it easier for her to leave.”
“She never looked back.” My voice is tight, the memory still painful.
“There’s some who see a problem and walk right on by. But others are always gonna look for a way to fix it.”
“I know. That was my sister all over. I was her project for a lot of years. I guess it’s not so surprising she found something else to get worked up about when she came down here.”
“It’s not surprising,” Reesie agrees. “But I wasn’t talking about your sister.”
I stop walking and turn to her. Zach drops my arm and, for a moment, it’s like Reesie and I are the only ones here. The clouds have cleared. Her face glimmers in the moonlight.
“What do you mean?”
“Your sister never could have left if she thought you still needed her. You made sure she knew you didn’t want anything from her anymore.”
“Then it’s my fault she came down here?” I find it ironic that even when I don’t tell Reesie the whole truth, she arrives at the same conclusion.
“You did the right thing, Luke. You had to let her go. Something tells me you spend a lot of time trying to make things right for other people.”
“Ha! You really don’t know me. I hurt everyone around me.”
“Really? The only one I’ve seen you hurting is yourself.”
“Whoa,” exclaims Zach, making us both jump. “This is like ‘Dr. Phil,’ where people have all these secrets and stuff gets revealed, like affairs and children no one knew about, and Dr. Phil has to tell everyone what’s really going on in their own lives because they don’t even know until he tells them. It’s really deep, like magma-deep. You should be a doctor, Reesie. You could go on TV and everything.”
Reesie rolls her eyes, smiling. “We best be getting home,” she says. We continue down the road, turning into her street without even discussing whether we’re walking her home.
The Voice inside My Head Page 14