Escape from the Everglades

by Tim Shoemaker

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying—that curse is real. And if you feel marked . . .”

  “The only thing I feel,” Parker said, “is that we’ve got to find her.”

  Wilson gave him a long look. “Or die trying.”

  CHAPTER 52

  THE INSTANT ANGELICA SAW PARKER ride off with Wilson she knew what he was going to do. Parker, what are you thinking?

  But he wasn’t thinking. Just like most guys, he was reacting. Going off to play the hero. But Parker didn’t belong in the Everglades. She wasn’t ready to admit there was some kind of curse on him, but how many times could one guy brush with death and not become a statistic? And Clayton was out there searching—and about as stable as a bottle of nitroglycerine. What if Parker met up with Clayton in the middle of nowhere?

  Clayton was scary, even on a good day. But in his state of mind? He was more dangerous than any gator Parker might come up against. Out in the Glades, Clayton could do anything he wanted—and who would know?

  The transfer could come in any time now. Why couldn’t Maria have waited to do this until after Parker moved?

  The moment Jelly’s dad and Uncle Vaughn joined the other rangers to talk strategy or next steps—or whatever rangers talked about in search and rescue mode—she pulled out her phone and texted Parker. No sense beating around the bush. Just hit him directly.

  I know where you’re going. Please don’t.

  She watched the screen. It must have been two whole minutes before he answered. His reply was just as honest.

  I’m so sorry about all this, Jelly. Sorry for how I treated you, too. But I have to try.

  Which she already knew.

  I can’t have you risking your life. You’re not going to find her.

  Nobody was going to find Maria. In her heart, Angelica knew that was true. She’d known it from the moment Maria told her the details of her plan.

  We’ll find her. I promised my dad I’ll be back before dark. I’ll text you.

  She looked around at rangers and locals scurrying around the marina. Loading skiffs. Studying charts. Each person trying desperately to get in the search—or back in it. This is what came from keeping secrets. Pain. Fear. Chaos. Unimaginable grief. And crushing regrets.

  But she had to keep Maria’s secrets. What choice did she have?

  Angelica had to face the facts. The time to tell her dad about Maria’s plans was long past. Snitching now wouldn’t change what had happened to Maria. Her mind replayed the conversation in her bedroom Wednesday. While Parker was messing with Maria’s phone. Looking back, Maria was a rocket on the launchpad at that moment. The countdown had started—and nothing Jelly said could stop it.

  Now it was too late to protect her, and there was no way she could change that fact. But guarding the secrets a little longer could make all the difference in the world for Parker. She could still protect him from Clayton, even if Parker didn’t believe he needed protecting.

  Clayton Kingman would kill Parker if he knew what he’d done. She was absolutely sure of it. He’d kill Wilson, too, if they were together. Fill them both full of buckshot and hide them where they’d never be found. Angelica shuddered, as if her whole body couldn’t agree more.

  Her phone dinged again, reminding her she hadn’t answered Parker.

  She texted back.

  Play it safe. Don’t get yourself hurt.

  She couldn’t bear the thought.

  Thanks. Text me if they find her before we do.

  Parker still didn’t get it. One look at the face of almost any ranger said they didn’t expect Maria to be returning alive and well in one of the rescue boats. Not after finding her phone in the kayak.

  But Angelica didn’t need to look at any ranger’s face to know that. And now Angelica was left with a dark secret that burned a hole in her soul. A secret that—if she dared tell—could change everything. But she had to keep it. It was the one thing that she was sure of. Keeping the secret was the only thing keeping Parker alive.

  No, Maria definitely wouldn’t be riding back on one of the rescue boats. The search efforts were pointless.

  Maria was gone.

  The truth? Maria was gone long before she disappeared in Sunday Bay.

  CHAPTER 53

  THE DAY DRAGGED. Angelica wanted to sleep. Her body was screaming for it. But sleep was out of the question. In a weird way she was punishing herself, and she knew it. She didn’t deserve the luxury of sleep. Her dad and Uncle Vaughn had raced back to the Lopez River in their outboard hours ago. With everyone in search and rescue mode, how could she possibly sleep now?

  Angelica camped out at the docks and waited. Boats came back and fueled up—and went right back out again.

  Couldn’t Angelica have stopped all this from happening? She could have told her dad what Maria had planned, and taken her chances on the fallout from her sister and Clayton. Couldn’t her dad and Uncle Vaughn have protected Parker from Clayton’s payback? Why hadn’t she trusted them to protect Parker? Or trusted God Himself? She’d felt Parker’s safety was up to her, and still did. She’d made a monumental mess of everything. Angelica hid things from her dad, and now he’d been crushed—all because of her.

  She held the key, but even now . . . seeing the agony . . . she couldn’t bring herself to tell what she knew. That secret was the key that could release her dad from the prison he was in—but it would open another door, too. A cage that held a monster. One key. Two doors. To unlock one would open both, and she couldn’t live with that. She’d have to keep that secret until Parker left Everglades City for good.

  There was no way out of this. Angelica just wanted to disappear. To not exist. To escape into some kind of oblivion.

  A single shoe and an orange shirt sleeve were found just after three o’clock. The sleeve, shredded just above the elbow, with dark stains shadowing the frayed edges. Was it mud—or blood? Dad raced back to the marina—and identified both as Maria’s.

  He swept his arms around Angelica and held her tight. “We’ll find your sister, sweetie. I promise.”

  He was stuffing his own despair to be the dad. To be there for Angelica. She buried her face in his cotton shirt. Inhaled the strength of this man who would move heaven and earth for his girls. But this time he was making a promise he couldn’t keep.

  “Dad’s got to stick with this.” He pulled away and held her out at arm’s length. “You going to be okay?”

  She nodded. “You do what you need to do, Dad. Stay safe—and don’t worry about me.” She wasn’t worthy.

  He hugged her again. “That’s my girl. My good, strong girl.”

  But she didn’t feel strong. And she was definitely, positively not at all good. Truth was, she was a horrible girl for holding back the secret that would change everything.

  The news of the phone had been bad, but hearing about Maria’s sleeve hit the searchers like a torpedo at the waterline.

  The search and rescue mission took an unofficial change. It was now a search and recovery mission. It was like rangers had the toe-tag ready for the morgue—and just needed a body to tie it to. Rangers would be looking for scraps of clothing now. Her other shoe.

  Closure.

  Which was something Angelica was pretty sure she’d never get. Not as long as she lived.

  Rangers refueling at the marina inspected the sleeve and shoe before heading back to Sunday Bay. Even Clayton roared back in King of the Glades to see the evidence for himself—and find out exactly where they’d been found. He pulled up to the dock sloppy fast. He shoved the throttle in reverse so hard that the engine screamed, but the Whaler still hit a post hard, leaving a giant scuff on the boat’s rub-rail.

  Before heading back to search he made a point of pulling Angelica aside.

  “Maria told me everything.” He swung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I know what Gator-bait did. And his half-breed friend, Cochise.” His breath was hot on her neck. “She made me swear not to touch them—be
cause of that deal she had with you. So you be strong. Keep your end of the bargain. Or I’m going to find them out there in the Glades one day. That’s a promise, Angel.”

  How much did he know? Obviously enough. She watched Clayton get back in King of the Glades and hightail it toward the mouth of the Lopez River. She stood on the dock in a kind of stunned shock. Maria’s betrayal was even more far-reaching than Angelica had imagined. How could you tell him, Maria?

  “I hate you, Clayton Kingman,” Angelica whispered. Before Clayton, Maria always did what was best for Angelica and her dad. For the family—especially after Mom went AWOL. But Clayton changed all that. He was like black mold. A mind-toxin. He poisoned her. Changed her thinking. Somehow he’d so effectively groomed Maria that even her decision-making process got bent. Twisted.

  Clayton was a predatory monster. A beast. A deceiver. A manipulator. A narcissist with a cruel streak coursing through him as big as the Everglades itself. And he was a master at what he did. Clayton had charmed and bullied Maria in just the right doses to keep her coming back to him—more dependent on him each time. He had turned her into nothing more than a marionette—and he controlled her strings. When faced with a decision, Maria chose what was best for the puppet master every time. Paddling up the Lopez alone was a brainless move, but Maria wasn’t totally to blame. Clayton was. She watched his boat grow smaller. “I absolutely despise you, Clayton Kingman.” With every cell in her body.

  Angelica braced herself against one of the dock posts, the reality of the whole thing sweeping over her again. Her older sister had always been so smart. She was the sensible one, Dad always said. The one who made such good choices.

  Until Clayton.

  And her decisions had spiraled downward ever since. This was where bad choices led. Angelica sat on the edge of the dock and hugged herself. “Maria . . . what were you thinking?”

  But she hadn’t been thinking. She was following her heart—and had rationalized away all the warnings. Ignored the red flags.

  And now Parker was following his heart, too. Yellow flags. Red flags. Nothing was going to slow him down. They were all green flags to him, waving him on . . . and on and on . . . deeper into danger.

  CHAPTER 54

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE SHEER AGONY for Angelica. Worse than anything she had ever known in her entire life. Parker and Wilson searched the Lopez River on Sunday, but they never made it to Sunday Bay. With their late start, they couldn’t make it there and back before sunset. The way she heard it, as much as Parker hated to turn back, he was totally dialed in to following his dad’s guidelines. Of all the guys she’d met . . . in all the places she’d lived . . . she’d never met anyone with half the dedication to doing the right things as Parker had.

  Going to school was another one of those rock-solid rules Parker’s dad laid on him. He’d wanted to go out searching Monday morning early, but Uncle Vaughn insisted that would have to wait until after classes were done for the day.

  There wasn’t enough daylight for the boys to make it all the way to Sunday Bay and back after school, so going out on the river was pointless as far as Angelica was concerned. She was pretty sure Uncle Vaughn knew that too. But Parker and Wilson went out anyway.

  By Tuesday night, even Clayton had given up the search and trailered his boat out of the water. After a nearly sixty-hour search effort—that anyone would call a superhuman feat of endurance—he left the area in a daze.

  “She’s gone,” he’d said to a ranger who’d helped him dock his Whaler. “She’s gone. I’ve got to get out of this place.” Rumors surfaced that he’d headed for the Keys. Angelica hoped he’d keep going. Cuba would be nice. South America even better. The South Pole was probably too much to hope for.

  One other enormous change happened Tuesday. The transfer came in for Parker’s dad. A ranger had been seriously hurt in the Boston area, so they needed a replacement—pronto. With Boston being the very place Parker’s mom had been freelancing, it was a perfect fit. Uncle Vaughn jumped at the chance. A moving truck was going to be at their home Saturday.

  Wednesday, Parker’s mom got back in town. She’d taken a few days off from her freelance project to help pack things up at home for the move. Hopefully she would need Parker’s help—and put an end to his search efforts.

  The speed of the move shocked everyone. Who ever heard of a transfer needing to happen that fast—even with the rangers? It was the one ray of hope in Angelica’s week. All she’d have to do is keep Parker out of the Glades Thursday and Friday. Two more days—and then she could breathe easy, even though the thought of Parker leaving was suffocating in its own way.

  Wednesday Parker told Wilson about the mysterious bundle of money. There was no point to keeping the secret anymore. Wilson absolutely believed that they were putting a hit on Clayton—a theory Angelica had already abandoned.

  Angelica had a new theory what the money was intended for. Boarding school. She had no idea if $7,300 was enough to pay for a semester—or a year—or if it included a fee for somebody to physically take Maria to some school. But her dad had actually floated the idea of Maria finishing her senior year at Black Forest Academy, a private school somewhere in Germany. That was over a month ago, and Maria had absolutely hated the idea. Dad had never brought it up again. Would he have been planning some way to get her there anyway? Angelica wished her dad’s plan had worked, but once Maria paddled away from the beach, none of that mattered anymore.

  Her dad and Uncle Vaughn had stopped searching in the daylight. Now they were only going out at night—and didn’t show up again until after dawn. It made no sense. They had the thing upside-down somehow. But sleep deprivation could mess with anybody’s head, right?

  Did Angelica’s mom know about Maria disappearing? Parker’s mom had written an article about the tragedy. Had Mom read it? If she did, it wasn’t enough to bring her home—wherever she was now. Apparently, when Mom walked out she never looked back. When Maria insisted on doing Watson’s Run, she’d acted a whole lot more like Mom than she’d been willing to admit. That’s how Angelica saw it, anyway.

  After school Wednesday, Angelica finally told the boys about Clayton’s threat Sunday night when he’d pulled her aside at the dock. How he knew about what they’d done—and how he seemed itching for payback. She didn’t say a word about the secret she was keeping. That wasn’t the point. She just had to warn them to be extra careful. “Stay clear of him, okay?” That’s all she asked. Naturally they brushed it off in that stupid way that guys do.

  “He actually called me Cochise?” Wilson looked genuinely happy about that. “Wrong tribe, but an amazing warrior. It’s a compliment. I think it says that deep down Kingman is afraid of me, right?”

  “Kingman isn’t afraid of anyone,” Angelica said.

  Wilson laughed. “Well maybe he should be.”

  The way Angelica saw it, Wilson and Parker were the ones who could use a little more healthy fear. Clayton was far worse than anything they’d find crawling in the Everglades.

  Actually, Parker needed a better grip on reality all around. Even at this point, four full days after Maria disappeared, he still believed she was alive, lost back in the wilds somewhere. Even Wilson thought Parker was delusional.

  “ValuJet Flight 592,” Wilson said. “Eastern Flight 401. Mob kills. Ed Watson. Like I’ve said, the Everglades is a place of death. You need a reality check, Bucky.”

  As much as Angelica hated hearing Wilson’s logic, she kept her mouth shut. Maybe Wilson could get Parker to give up the useless search.

  “That’s what happened to Maria, Bucky. The Glades claimed another life.”

  Parker glared at him. “They find a shoe and you think she’s dead?”

  “You’re forgetting the bloody sleeve. You think that ripped off because she was scratching mosquito bites?”

  “There’s been no body found,” Parker said. “And until we find that, I say she’s still alive. I feel it in my heart.”

  “My Micco
sukee heart—” Wilson thumped his chest—“says it’s the toll.”

  There was no point to searching anymore. Everybody seemed to know that—and Angelica most of all. Nobody could change what had happened to Maria. And they weren’t going to put anything to rest by discovering the “truth” about what really went down after her last Instagram post.

  Angelica was in the boat nearly every time the boys went out now. Not that she was actively searching, but at least she felt like she was doing something to keep the guys safe. It was better than waiting—and wondering—on shore.

  Parker and Wilson turned back early from their run on the Lopez Wednesday. Parker had been quiet. Like, really quiet. When he finally did talk, Parker mentioned he’d come up with a new theory of what happened to Maria. He wouldn’t say what it was, just that maybe they’d been looking at this thing all wrong. He said he needed to process it a little—and it was obvious his wheels were turning. Angelica’s stomach did a couple of rollovers itself just imagining what he might be thinking. She helped the boys pull the Bomb onto the beach after Parker raised the motor.

  “Let’s meet back here after dinner,” Parker said. “If I still think the idea makes sense, I’ll float it past you then.”

  Whatever he was thinking, it must have been a scary thought, with the way his face looked. No matter how hard she tried to get him thinking about the move to Boston, she could see his new theory was gnawing at him inside. That did nothing to make Angelica feel better.

  The thing of it was, Angelica was the only living soul in Everglades City, Chokoloskee, or the entire Everglades National Park who truly knew what happened Saturday night.

  And she still wasn’t going to tell anybody.

  CHAPTER 55

  IT WAS TIME FOR PARKER TO FLOAT his new theory past Wilson and Jelly. They met at the Boy’s Bomb after dinner. The idea was to go for a ride in Chokoloskee Bay before sunset and talk about taking a whole different approach to the search for Maria. Talk them into it was more like it.