“You died for my family, Gooney. Do you think I’d do any less for yours?” He drew another breath. “For you.”
Gooney’s head shook, and Grant imagined a half dozen scenarios from dragging a drowned Gooney through the passage and reviving him on the other end, to Gooney going nuts in the narrows and killing them both. Not one of those scenarios featured Grant swimming away and leaving Gooney to die alone. “Look at it this way. Since I reconciled with my grandfather, you’re the only person I’ve got left to hate. You freak out down there, that only gives me more reason.”
Was that a snort of laughter or despair? “Good to know I can still motivate you.” Gooney’s shaking transmitted along his arm, and he finally guided the regulator up to his mouth.
“Short dive here to the passage. Then there’s a chamber where we get a breath. Narrow section a little wider than your shoulders. I’ll go first, grab the tank and pull it through, you follow. You’ll find my hand, got it? Then we both kick hard, we make it to the cave where Lexi’s waiting.”
Regulator in place, Gooney nodded once, though he struggled to maintain even breaths. Grant tread water, acutely aware he was taking both of their lives in his hands. No turning back. He clasped Gooney’s arm just below the elbow, and Gooney gripped him in turn, his fingers digging in. Grant flashed him a grin. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not sure there’s enough air left for you, either.”
Gooney glared as Grant pulled him under.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
* * *
In the cenote, with the feeble light of the rain falling overhead, Lexi swam until she felt stones under her. How long had it taken to reach the well? It felt like forever they were underwater, her lungs were burning, her jaw tight from biting down on the regulator. But, just like her father said, Grant was good, strong, fast. Fast enough? By the time they left the chamber, there had been barely enough space for their heads above water, surely her father couldn’t — he could.
She had to believe that he could. She stumbled up the shore to find Malcolm stirring, rubbing his head, speaking aloud.
She dropped beside him, leaning over him. “You’ll be okay. Grant got us out.”
His lips formed a word, confused. He rubbed his eyes, found blood and shuddered, a reaction that quickly became shivering, but he managed, “Ray.”
She grinned down at him, and stroked the blood back from his face, rubbed his shoulders and arms, trying to warm him up, then pulled back and told him. “You were so brave.”
He freed his hands, shaky, but mobile, and gestured grandly to himself. “I was an idiot. I got no skills. Your dad, now.” A frown. “Where is your dad?”
The first tears fell. She’d been holding them back so long, thinking she wouldn’t ever cry for him after the way he left them, and now, she didn’t know what to do.
Malcolm tried to sit up, struggling to get a hand under him, then winced and slumped again. Instead, he reached toward her, gently wiping her tears. Lexi wondered what Grant would do. The next thing. Which was what? She took Malcolm’s hand, kissed the back of it, and lay it on his chest, then moved to inspect his leg. The swim had washed away most of the blood from his scrapes and cuts, thankfully leaving the makeshift splint intact. Hardly antiseptic — she imagined her mother’s horror at dressing a wound that hadn’t been thoroughly cleansed by professionals — imagined her mother’s horror at any wound at all, really. Then imagined her father, facing all of that and worse. Soldiering on. Tears burned at her eyes, but she refused them. Do the next thing. And the next. And the next, until she knew, one way, or the other. Looked like mid-afternoon outside, and of course, it was still raining, driving the water inside ever higher. Her dad was tall, though, really tall. And he could swim or tread water, or something. She stumbled to her feet, desperate for something to do, and spotted a crumpled tarp under some climbing gear. She hauled it over. “Let’s wrap you in this, to keep warmer.”
He complied as best he could, wincing and letting out cries of pain she read upon his face, and in the changing tension of his body as she helped him into the makeshift blanket. “You, too.” He gripped her own arm, stroking her chilled flesh. Lexi finished tucking the tarp under his arms, shaking her head. Until her father got here, she couldn’t take comfort. Until she knew that he was safe.
She did get close to Malcolm, keeping both of them warmer, not trying to talk. Malcolm suddenly shifted in her arms, pointing. Lexi stumbled to her feet on the uneven ground. The water churned around the far wall, somebody struck the stone, then a tattooed arm, pushing back. Two men, flailing, as if they were fighting under the water.
Her father’s face broke the surface, a regulator in his mouth. He thrashed as if throwing something off then went still. Grant pushed up briefly beside him, gasping for breath, then let himself sink again towing her dad toward safety from below. He wasn’t Ironman now he was Aquaman, pulling off a superhuman rescue. She wanted to cheer — except that he was losing. Struggling to keep her dad above water, struggling to breathe for himself. The only time she had yet seen him do something ungraceful.
Lexi ran down the beach. She floundered into the water, then dove and swam hard for them, grabbing her father’s armpit, adding her strength to Grant’s. His face appeared beside her, desperate for breath.. Grant’s forehead and arm bled from a series of scrapes which he didn’t seem to notice. He had one hand locked to her father’s chin, as if forcing him to keep the regulator.
For an instant their eyes met and his face washed with relief as her effort joined his. The cold of the water and the weight of her father nearly sank her, but she kicked hard, taking a cue from Grant: It didn’t matter if her head remained above water, as long as her father’s did. Lexi reached out, her hands elevating her father’s head, cradling him against the water’s cold and the splashing of their work and his own uncontrolled shaking. Grant shifted his grip, and freed the regulator.
Her father coughed violently, and they held on. Together, they pulled him closer to shore, fumbling with his awkward bulk, even in the water. Her feet stumbled on stones and she backed up, shedding water, shivering all over again, but not as bad as they were. Grant slipped to one knee in the water, his shoulders barely above the surface. Her father stirred, trying to gain control and failing, catching a grip on Grant’s shoulder. Grant winced: a human reaction that startled her.
Her father’s hand fell away or pulled back. She couldn’t tell how much he commanded his own strength. He spoke through chattering teeth, broken syllables, staggered with his violent shivering.
Whatever he said, Grant didn’t answer, still sucking down breaths too eagerly. He remained there, a statue half-sunk in the water, his drenched clothes defining his muscles, tension in every line as if he must rigidly control himself, even now. He stripped off the dive tank and let it fall. His hands scrubbed over his face to push back his hair and explore the damage. Where was the other tank?
Lexi kept her father’s head above water, guiding him up along the slope. Her feet slipped and rocks dug into her soles. He twitched in her grasp, then reached back toward her, his hand stroking along her arm. Her father shuddered from the cold, his lips and skin the wrong color, teeth chattering. With a squeeze, he freed his hands, and his face showed the effort it took to control his words. “I hurt him. It’s bad?”
She glanced toward Grant. He hadn’t moved, but that looked like the effects of the cold and the lack of oxygen more than anything her father had done. She shook her head.
Her father’s voice rallied his friend. Grant finally pushed to his feet. Splashing up beside them, he hooked his arms under her father’s. Grant was speaking, and her father’s hands echoed the words. “I warned him what would happen. He didn’t listen. SOP.” Her father’s lips tweaked toward a smile.
SOP. A phrase her father used to use all the time, but it took a moment to dredge it from memory: standard operating procedure.
Grant moved just far enough to haul her father out of the lapping water an
d dropped to his knees on the rough earth as if it were carpet. He pulled her father into his arms, her father’s back against his chest.
He spoke softly, gently. His head dipped to his friend’s shoulder, his own chest heaving with each breath. How long had he gone without oxygen down there? His skin dimpled to a thousand goosebumps, distorting the tattoos on his arm.
Her father spoke, but the words trembled on his fingers. She wasn’t sure, just now, if his voice would have been any more coherent than his sign. “I’m so damn cold I can’t breathe.”
Lexi looked around, trying to find something to use to keep them warm, but the single tarp had already been wrapped around Malcolm. She turned back to the two men, with a gesture indicating her helplessness.
“It’s like a vice. My chest.” His hands shook so hard the sign crumpled in his fingers.
Grant said something, his face worried, and her father gave a shaky nod.
His arms tightening, Grant answered, a repetitive murmur of reassurance.
She sank down beside them, and gathered her father’s trembling hands. Holding them close to her heart, she climbed carefully onto his lap. Grant nodded, and flashed her one of those rare smiles as she added her warmth to his. Grant’s tattooed arms wrapped her father’s chest and her weight pressed into them both, holding her father’s heartbeat between them. She tucked her head into his shoulder. She was too big for this. It felt stupid, and safe, and right.
He gave a twitch and coughed, then his eyes fluttered open, blinking to find her face so close. His lips moved, and found the ghost of his grin.
At his back, Grant blew out a breath of his own, and settled into himself, some of the tension he’d been carrying easing away. He said something that made her father cough and nearly choke with laughter, but it wasn’t until later that she got him to interpret Grant’s words, and even then, she didn’t understand.
“For the record, Gooney,” he said, “you’re the one who’s always bitching about the desert.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
* * *
Getting everyone back out of the well frayed what remained of Grant’s patience, even with Ramon’s help — the dogs barking and snarling at the two ends of a chain Grant had found attached to the veranda. This time, Lexi came up first, casting a doubtful look at Ramon, then hurrying into the house to find blankets and start a fire in the big fireplace. With Gooney down below to rig a makeshift sling, they hauled Malcolm up, and Grant and Ramon carried him inside to lie by the fire Lexi tended. Gooney insisted on managing his own ascent, reaching the top of the well under Grant’s watchful gaze.
Ramon took two steps back when he saw Gooney’s expression, then it turned from annoyance to amusement. “What are you running, Casey’s Home for Wayward Killers? You can’t be picking up strays from every mission like they’re souvenirs.”
Grant helped him over the rim. “Dunno. It’s worked out alright so far.”
“That’s a gift, y’know.” Gooney peeled off the climbing harness, a little unsteady on his feet, and Grant caught his arm before he stumbled against the stone well. “Gaining trust that fast, knowing who to choose. That’s one of the reasons you were better than me.”
The grumble of engines came up the drive, another beat-up jungle truck, and a bright-white mini-bus with pictures of happy tourists painted on the side.
“Get inside and warm up,” Grant said, taking back his hand as he started to meet the caravan.
“You first.” Gooney followed along. “It’s not like you’ve gained any weight since the desert.”
True enough, but he did have a heavy-duty slicker from the hooks by Eleiua’s door. The hacienda doors swung open and slammed shut, Lexi hurrying over on an intercept course with a thick, brightly-colored blanket in her arms. She held it out to her father as the two vehicles pulled up in front of them. Gooney draped the blanket over his shoulders as if it were the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“Wookie gets a medal,” Grant murmured.
“Shut up.” Gooney snugged the blanket under his chin, looking warmer already — the more so as Lexi slid her arm around his back, embracing him.
Eleiua jumped down from the old truck with one of her cacao farmers in the driver’s seat. Her lips pinched as she spotted Ramon, and Grant side-stepped between them. “I told him you would give him a second chance. Will you?”
A skinny young man, hugging himself, standing alone in the pouring rain. The image resonated, and Grant deliberately squared his shoulders, taking back a little of Zorro.
“I think this could be possible.” She waved Ramon to join her, then started walking deliberately toward her dogs. When Ramon balked, she caught his wrist and towed him along, speaking to him in a low voice about school and the cacao plantation.
From the second vehicle, a uniformed driver emerged, opening the passenger doors, and holding an umbrella as Pam stepped down onto the gravel drive. She strode toward them, the man following after, keeping her dry in spite of the fact she was already soaked through. “An ambulance won’t do much good here, I’m afraid, but I did find this. Plush upholstery, excellent suspension, willing to take up to eight all the way to Guatemala City, with a stop by the nearest hospital, if needed. Is it?”
Gooney freed his hands for interpretation, and Lexi nodded emphatically, signing back.
“Malcolm’s got a bad broken leg. Chief could use a once-over, but he’ll tell you he doesn’t.” Gooney hesitated, then said, “Am I invited this time?”
Stepping up beside him, Grant folded his arms. “What’s it gonna be, Ms. Dionne?”
Lexi’s hands cut the air, her face and figure shouting. A lopsided smile tweaked Gooney’s lips. “Our daughter would like you to know she’s an adult now, and any restraining order you signed on her behalf is no longer valid. Also, that if I’m not allowed, she’d rather be kidnapped again than ride anywhere with you.”
“I got most of that,” Pam snapped. “I’m not completely ignorant of ASL you know.” She tried to stand tall and hold her ground, only to sigh, then form a few signs for Lexi, though her daughter didn’t seem fully appeased. “She’s right. I haven’t been fair. And for that I am sorry. It seems high time that we revisited our child custody agreement. I’m sure Kyle, too, would like the chance to get to know you.” Her face softened. “As would I.”
Gooney’s eyes danced, and Grant cleared his throat. “About that fee, Ms. Dionne.”
She pivoted from her ex to focus on him, something of her polish returning. “I shouldn’t have threatened you, Mr. Casey. I didn’t really understand what you were up against, and for that, too, I am sorry.”
“Donate it to the cacao plantation. And maybe sponsor a dig. The tomb is spectacular — what’s left of it — if there’s other ruins around, that could make a big difference to the community.”
“Hmm.” She tapped her chin. “The Dionne Foundation could certainly expand our investments in the area. Imagine the stories to tell. What an excellent notion.”
“Tell me you’re not gonna do him out of the money, Pam — Lord knows he’s earned it.”
She spread a dazzling smile. “You gentlemen think so little of me. I’ve already made the transfer. Now — can we please get on the bus and get out of this god-awful town?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
* * *
With the help of a few things from Eleiua’s medication stash, Malcolm slept most of the way down from Lanquin, and the ride was gloriously comfortable compared with the last few days. Lexi even dozed off against her father’s shoulder — the bus was blessedly warm, and so was he. When she woke at the hospital, guilt prodded her upright again as he cradled his elbow, and she remembered the bullet that had torn along his arm during the rescue. It must be aching like anything after her leaning on him all the way here. Not to mention the beam that struck his back during the cave-in. Why hadn’t he taken the pain meds, too?
Then she caught his expression, gazing at her with open wonder, and she knew. After seven y
ears apart, just like her, he didn’t want to miss a minute.
Grant was already out the door, walking briskly to the entrance, doing what he always did — coming through with a pair of orderlies and a gurney, then supervising as they brought Malcolm immediately into the surgery. She couldn’t imagine them disobeying that dark and steady gaze. He’d cleaned up a bit, dressed in fresh clothing, and wiped away some of the bruises on his face and her father’s with rubbing alcohol. She laughed at their ingenuity, relishing the image of the two of them painting each other’s faces like little girls playing dress-up, only much, much too serious.
Turning back from the front of the bus, Grant said something and aimed a gesture at her father, an unmistakable military summoning, practically a different form of sign language. “You. The doctor. Let’s go.”
After providing the interpretation, her father aimed the finger right back at his friend. “You, too, Chief.”
Lexi slid out of the way, and her father used the back of the seat in front of him to heave to his feet. He managed to straighten at the front, but before they stepped down, her father paused, and formed another sign. “I love you.”
Lexi’s hands rose and she’d never meant anything more than when she told him, “I love you, too.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
* * *
After enduring an exam, a few stitches to a gash he’d earned while wrestling Gooney out of the passage, and a stern, bilingual talking to about going cave diving during a thunderstorm, Grant paced from the waiting room out to the lobby. He glanced to the bus, still parked outside, but it looked as if Lexi were giving her mother a talking-to, so he stayed inside, watching the in-box on his phone fill with messages thanks to hospital Wi-Fi.
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