Surface Tension - Kling Christine - Страница 57

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I stepped into the hall and held the gum out for Chewy. “Here, boy.” He ambled into the hall and I eased around him, then backed into the doorway.

“Chewy,” I whispered. “Go get Zeke! Where’s Zeke?” The dog’s ears pricked up, and he trotted to the next door. I closed my door dashed into the closet, and hid. I

heard Chewy whining and scratching at the door down the hall, then I heard the door open. “What the fuck? Hey, Cesar come here, quick. We left the dog in there with her.”

The door to my room flew open, and the two of them raced in and went straight to the window. “Shit, son of a bitch! She got out.” They pounded out of the bedroom and back next door.

Soon more footsteps headed down the hall. Crystal was shouting incomprehensibly in a mixture of Spanish and English. The dog was barking, excited by the men’s agitation. I heard the front door open and slam several times, as well as the sound of cars starting up.

I tiptoed to the closet door and peered out. So far so good. The hall was empty. I padded barefoot to the studio room, and as I had hoped, the two girls were there. Sunny was curled up in a fetal position crying, while Lex sat smoking a cigarette. Lex saw me first.

“You’re shittin’ me,” she said.

I held my fingers to my Ups. “Shh.”

The knots in the leather thongs that bound Sunny’s hands were tight, but after several seconds, I had loosened them and set her free. I smiled at her then and jerked my head to indicate they should follow me.

“You coming with us?” I whispered to Lex.

“Yeah,” she said, grinding her cigarette out on the wood nightstand. “They ain’t paying me enough to do Crystal. What a freak.”

Neither of them had a stitch on, but that was the least of our worries. I led them back to the end bedroom, and we climbed out the window. This time we turned toward the river side. The brick patio led around the corner of the house and joined the pool and boat dock area. I turned to the girls.

“We’re going to run for the river and swim for it. I can’t see anybody, but that doesn’t mean they won’t see us. We’re going to be really exposed running across that lawn.”

“You can say that again,” Lex said, and smiled at me.

“Yeah, right. Look, don’t stop for anything. The tide is flowing downriver right now. If somebody sees us, swim to the middle of the river and try to keep your head underwater as long as you can. If we get separated, we’ll meet up again on the far side of the river by the next bridge. Okay?”

Sunny looked so scared.

“You can swim, can’t you?”

They nodded.

“Then let’s do it.”

We took off running across the lawn, jumped onto the wood deck around the pool, and leaped down the three steps to the dock. Right as I passed the Jacuzzi, I heard Crystal’s scream.

“It’s them! Cesar, Zeke, they’re back here!”

I jumped, stretched out, and flew through the air in one of the finest racing dives I have ever executed. I heard and felt the impact of the other two behind me. I was probably a much stronger swimmer than they were, but then, I was weighted down by my clothes. They didn’t have that problem.

The first time I came up for air, I saw Sunny struggling far behind me. She really wasn’t much of a swimmer. She was dog-paddling and looking like she was trying to climb up out of the water.

“Sunny, hold on. I’m coming.”

Back at the dock, I could see three figures on the Hard Bottom, their muffled voices unintelligible across the water except for a few words: “Keys ... assholes ...”

When I was about three strokes away from Sunny, I heard her take one of those desperate inhales, as she sucked water and went down.

I filled my lungs as full as I could and dove. It was so black that there was no point in even trying to open my eyes. She had to be right here. I had lost too many lately, and I wasn’t about to lose this one. She was already deep when my fingers finally brushed through her hair. I twined my fingers in the strands and reached for her as my lungs started to ache. I pulled her to the surface, but mine was the only gasp for air.

I heard the boat rumble to life about the same time the spotlight clicked on. I was almost to the far bank of the river with Sunny. She still wasn’t breathing, but I saw a sportfisherman with an aft swim step and folding boarding ladder. I had a heck of a time when I tried to pull her up onto the swim step. I stretched her out, cleared the airway, and started mouth-to-mouth. Before long she gagged, puking up river water, and I dragged her to the side deck, out of sight of that damn spotlight. She was groggy and confused, and I hushed her and lay down on the deck next to her exhausted, looking up at the stars, watching the spotlight glide along the riverbank and listening to the music of her breathing.

After several minutes, she coughed a little and started to sit up.

“Shh. Lie down. They’re looking for us,” I whispered.

The spotlight lit up the superstructure of the boat and shone beyond into the bushes and pathways of the homes on the riverbank. Sunny lay quiet as we heard the burbling of Crystal’s boat passing just alongside ours. I could tell from the voices that Cesar was up on the bridge, Zeke down on deck level. Although I couldn’t understand most of the words, I knew they were arguing, shouting at one another.

Suddenly, Cesar shouted, “Look! Over there! In the water!” The boat’s RPMs increased, and we heard the swoosh of the prop wash, followed by the creaking dock lines as our boat pulled against her moorings in the turbulent water. I crawled forward and watched over the bulwark as their white boat tied up to an empty dock and Cesar took off running across a lawn. I assumed it was Lex they’d seen or heard. I hoped she wouldn’t get caught.

I turned around, leaned my back against the inside of the bulwark, and tried to think. Sunny was sitting on the deck, hugging her knees to her chest, shivering, and looking up at me like she thought I knew what we were going to do next. Naked and wet, she looked miserable. How the hell was I supposed to get all the way across downtown Fort Lauderdale with a gorgeous, naked fifteen-year-old girl?

I crawled aft on my hands and knees, keeping my head below the level of the bulwark. There was a big white fiberglass deck box on the afterdeck. Under the dock lines, swim fins, tackle box, and snorkels, I found a man’s shortie wet suit. At least this would keep her afloat.

“Put this on,” I whispered, handing it to her.

I peeked around the edge of the bulwark. Crystal’s boat was still tied up at that house downriver from us, her engines idling. I couldn’t make out who was aboard, but my guess was that both Zeke and Cesar had jumped ashore to search. I couldn’t be sure though.

“We’re going to have to go back in the water,” I told Sunny, and her eyes opened wider in fear. “I was a lifeguard. I won’t let you drown. Besides, this wet suit is made of material that floats. It’ll keep you up—you couldn’t sink in this. Okay?”

She nodded, her mouth set in a tight line. She was showing more guts than I’d expected.

“Come on.” I led her aft, and we slipped back into the river off the swim step. “Keep your face turned away from their boat. The light reflects off your face, and they might spot us. Just float. Take my hand.”

We pushed our way around the stern and into the current. The river was only about fifty yards wide here, so we would be passing fairly close to the boat, even if we stayed to the far bank. The hardest part was not looking in that direction. I wanted to see who was on the boat and if they had Lex with them, but I knew it would be foolish to turn my face in their direction. As we drifted past an empty dock on our side of the river, a dog started barking up in the yard. We could hear him running, claws scratching against a wood deck.

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