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  “But they will be,” the crowd kept saying as they spilled out of the church. “They will be.”

  For Peter, it was like a symphony of nails scraping against a blackboard. No wonder he couldn’t wait to get home . . . to Katherine’s apartment.

  The second he did, he made a beeline for the well-stocked liquor cabinet in the den. Bourbon, straight up. Very up.

  Staring at the bottle of Evan Williams as he poured, Peter couldn’t help thinking about the other bottle, the one that had just ruined a perfectly good day. A message in a Coke bottle found in a tuna?

  It didn’t get crazier and more random than that. The coup de grâce? The promise of a million-dollar reward. That was $1 million of what had been this close to being his money!

  Peter downed the bourbon and poured himself another. As he lifted the glass, his hand stopped cold. He heard a noise, something in the apartment.

  Or someone.

  He thought back to the cabin in Vermont. This was a different noise from what he had heard in the woods, or at least what he thought he had heard. He wasn’t sure anymore.

  But of this he was positive: someone else was in the apartment.

  Slowly Peter edged his way to the entrance to the den, listening for the sound again. There it was! It was like a hissing. Or was that whistling?

  Whatever it was, it was coming from his study, off the living room. Of all places for there to be an intruder. That’s where he kept his gun.

  Peter slipped off his wingtips and tiptoed out to the hallway. In the closet off the foyer was the next best weapon available, his golf bag with the Winged Foot logo. Specifically, his five-iron with the titanium shaft. His lucky club. Or would the Odyssey putter be a better choice? Shorter club, heavier head.

  Before grabbing the deadeye putter, he checked the front door. Had he forgotten to lock it behind him when he came in?

  No way.

  The thoughts were coming fast and furious now, like the beating of his heart. The building on Park Avenue was relatively secure, although there had been a burglary two floors down the year before. Was this another one? Maybe.

  But, wait—the front door had been locked. What burglar locks himself in?

  Another thought, and this was plausible. The television. He’d been watching it before leaving for the funeral. Perhaps he had left it on.

  All the same, Peter gripped his club, ready to swing from the heels as he slowly made his way toward the study. A few steps before the entrance, however, he breathed a sigh of relief. Phew!

  It was the television, all right.

  Peter turned the corner into the study to see a rerun of Seinfeld on the wide screen.

  Walking over to his huge mahogany desk by the window, he put aside the golf club. He watched as the color rushed back to his white knuckles. For peace of mind, if anything, Peter removed a key that was taped beneath the desk and unlocked the bottom drawer, where he kept his gun.

  The gun was gone.

  “Looking for this?” came a voice.

  Chapter 80

  DEVOUX SMILED, a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum dangling from his outstretched hand as he stood, calm as could be, in the far corner of the study. “What is it with you urban cowboys, always keeping a big gun locked in the fancy desk? Somebody could get hurt.”

  Peter was miles and miles away from being amused. His eyes burned, staring down Devoux as the word locked seemed to linger between them in the room. The desk, the apartment itself—everything had been locked.

  “How did you get in here?” Peter demanded, turning off the television on the cutesy musical signature that signaled scene changes on Seinfeld.

  Devoux wasn’t about to explain. Instead, “We have business to discuss,” he announced.

  “No shit,” came back Peter.

  Devoux took a seat in the leather club chair nestled near the oversize fireplace. Putting his feet up on the ottoman, he balanced the gun on the armrest and folded his arms lazily across his chest.

  “Make yourself at home,” snapped Peter.

  “What a nice home it is,” replied Devoux. He glanced around, his head bobbing with approval. “I assume it becomes all yours?”

  “I certainly thought so when I woke up this morning.”

  “Yes, it seems you have quite the resilient family.”

  “Would you mind explaining how they’re still alive? You said no one on the boat would survive the blast. You were wrong, weren’t you?”

  “Maybe. Then again, maybe not,” said Devoux.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Perhaps they weren’t on the boat when it exploded. That’s my best guess.”

  Peter rolled his eyes. “You expect me to believe that crap?”

  “Actually, I don’t care what you believe. You don’t get it, do you? The point is not what happened. It’s what happens next.”

  “All I know is that there’s an entire Coast Guard fleet gearing up for a new search,” said Peter. “Call me crazy, but I think they might have a little better luck this time around. What do you think?”

  “It would look that way, wouldn’t it?” said Devoux. He reached for Peter’s .44 Magnum. “Of course, looks are often deceiving.”

  With a flick of his wrist Devoux opened the cylinder, removing all six bullets with a quick shake into his palm. Showing them to Peter, he then returned a lone bullet to a chamber and gave the cylinder a spin. With another practiced flick of his wrist, he snapped the cylinder shut.

  The next thing Peter knew, Devoux was aiming the gun directly at his chest.

  “What’s this look like to you?” Devoux asked.

  Peter’s heart skipped a half-dozen beats as he watched Devoux unveil a particularly deranged grin. This couldn’t be happening, could it?

  But it was.

  Devoux pulled back the hammer with his thumb, his index finger holding steady against the trigger. That’s when the deranged smile completely disappeared.

  It was replaced by a cold, lifeless stare boring straight into Peter’s soul.

  Click!

  The hollow sound of an empty chamber filled the study as Peter stood stunned, horrified, relieved.

  “Son of a bitch, you could’ve killed me!”

  Devoux chuckled. Then he pressed the barrel of the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger five times fast.

  What the —?

  Sure enough, when Devoux opened the cylinder again, there was no bullet in any chamber. It only looked as if he had loaded the gun. As he coolly showed Peter, all six bullets were still in his hand.

  “Here’s the deal,” said Devoux. “Based on the EPIRB and where that tuna was caught, the Coast Guard will start searching islands in the Bahamas that are still too far north of where your family could be. Of course, the farther south you go in that area, the more uninhabited islands you find, so you’re only going to have a day, two tops.”

  “For what?”

  “To find your family first. If they’re alive, of course,” answered Devoux. “You are a pilot, right?”

  Peter nodded, Devoux’s plan beginning to play out in his head. Great minds think alike. So do sick ones.

  To the press and the public, it would look as if the loving husband and father was desperately taking matters into his own hands. Time was everything now. No longer would he rely on the Coast Guard alone. He would become a one-man search party.

  “There’s only one more thing I need to know,” said Devoux, holding up Peter’s gun again.

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you ready to use this thing for real?”

  Part Five

  Finders Keepers

  Chapter 81

  THE DAY’S FIRST RAY OF SUN hits my face, waking me up as it has every morning since we landed on this godforsaken island in the middle of who knows where. Only this time the feeling is different, and I can sum it up in one word.

  Hallelujah!

  I’m not dizzy, and I’m not dry-heaving. I’m not even sweating lik
e a pig in a sauna.

  The fever’s broken. The infection, gone. Or at least on its way out.

  I’ll say it again. Hallelujah!

  I sit up, taking a deep breath. I’m far from a hundred percent—barely even fifty. Still, that’s enough to know that I’m on the mend instead of knocking on death’s door.

  Hell, if my leg weren’t still broken, I’d get up and dance a little jig.

  Instead I settle for a good cry. I can’t help it, I’m so relieved. The three biggest reasons why are lying right next to me.

  They’re still fast asleep, but I don’t care. “Wake up, Dunnes!” I call out. “Wake up! Hey, you lazybones!”

  They all stir, slowly lifting their heads to look around and see what’s going on. When they see me smiling, they jolt up. They’re speechless.

  I’m not.

  “Mark, it looks like you’ll be waiting a little longer on that Maserati,” I joke. “My fever broke.”

  He has no quick comeback, no smart-alecky reply. Instead he does something I haven’t seen him do since his father died. He starts to cry.

  The tears are contagious, and Carrie and Ernie join in. It’s officially a Dunne family meltdown, and we couldn’t be happier about it.

  Only a loud, low-pitched rumble brings us back to reality. Thunder? No.

  “Was that your stomach, Mom?” asks Ernie.

  Any other place or time and we all would’ve been laughing. Not here and not now. My growling stomach is a stark reminder that we’re all still stuck on this island and our rations are running dangerously low. Thanks to a few rain showers we’ve been able to collect some drinking water, but foodwise we’re down to a handful of nuts.

  “Wait,” Mark whispers. “Nobody move.”

  I fix on his eyes staring somewhere over my shoulder. “What is it?” I whisper back.

  “Something a lot better than nuts.”

  We all turn slowly to look. There on the sand, nibbling at a palm leaf, is a brown-and-white rabbit. It’s cute. It’s cuddly.

  It’s dinner!

  Not that we’d wait that long. It would surely be breakfast if we could only figure out how in the world to catch it. I whisper again, “How should we —”

  I don’t even finish the sentence. Like a rocket, Mark jumps up, sprints across the sand, and hurls himself at the rabbit. I’ve never seen him move that fast—he’s a blur.

  Unfortunately, so is the rabbit. An even faster blur. It darts back into the brush, leaving Mark with nothing but a faceful of sand.

  “Shit!” he yells. “We’ll never catch it now.”

  “We don’t have to,” I quickly point out. “At least not that one.”

  “Mom’s right. It’s a rabbit,” says Carrie.

  For once Ernie’s too young to understand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I reach over and give him a gentle pat on the head. “It means there’s plenty more where that one came from. Rabbits like big families, Ernie. Just like us.”

  Chapter 82

  TALK ABOUT A STRANGE NEW FEELING. Back home in New York, practically every minute of every hour of my day was accounted for. Each surgery, all my meetings and rounds, everything I did had a start and finish time. If I fell behind, I simply worked faster. And if I got ahead of schedule and had time on my hands—

  Wait, who am I kidding? I never got ahead of schedule.

  The point being, it’s so strange having nothing but time on my hands. Of course, the only reason that I’m even thinking this is because I’m bored out of my skull. As I sit here with my bum leg, waiting for the kids to return from their rabbit hunt, I literally don’t know what to do with myself.

  Except think, which maybe isn’t such a bad thing.

  Mostly I’m wondering what Peter’s doing, how the poor man is handling our disappearance. Not well, I can only imagine. He must be a wreck. I felt so guilty about leaving him for this trip; we were just beginning our life together. Will we still have the chance?

  Yes.

  We will be found.

  I’ll be with Peter again. I just know it will happen.

  After all, we’re not halfway around the planet in the middle of nowhere. We can be only so far from civilization. Off the beaten track, maybe, but it’s still a track. Eventually a boat, an airplane, someone has to come our way.

  I’m right, right?

  God, I hope so.

  Fittingly, I hear a grumble from my gut again, the sound echoing through the empty, hollowed-out cavern otherwise known as my stomach. C’mon, kids! I’ve got every finger and toe crossed that they’re having luck with that rabbit—any rabbit!

  Finally, after more than an hour, I think I hear them coming. I’m pretty sure . . .

  “Mark?” I call out. “Carrie? Ernie?”

  They don’t answer.

  I call out again. All I hear back is the sound of a slight breeze blowing through the palms. Maybe that’s all it was. Or maybe I’m getting a little delirious from not eating!

  I keep staring at the brush on the edge of the beach, hoping to see the kids at any moment. Instead it’s something else that I see.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. “Oh my God.”

  Chapter 83

  IT’S A SNAKE!

  It’s a snake like the Great Wall of China is a fence.

  It’s lava green and black and slithering through the sea grass onto the beach, and there’s no end to it. This snake is huge.

  And it’s heading right for me. I want to run. Everything inside me is saying “Run!”

  If only I could. I can’t even walk.

  I push off the sand, struggling up to my feet. Maybe the snake hasn’t seen me yet. How good is a snake’s vision? Where is Ernie and his science-class info when I need him?

  I’m about to scream for the kids when I stop short. I don’t want to call any more attention to myself, do I? Should I back away slowly? Should I stand perfectly still?

  No, that’s what you do with bears! At least I think so. I don’t know. I can barely think right now. I’ve never seen a snake this large, not even on National Geographic.

  I try putting a little pressure on my right leg, enough so I can limp away. Damn! It hurts like hell, the pain shooting up my thigh and hip like a fireball with spikes.

  Suddenly the snake stops. For a few seconds it holds itself perfectly still.

  C’mon, go back to the grass where you belong, pal. There’s no food here on the beach!

  Except for me, of course.

  And I’m afraid that’s the idea. Sure enough, the mammoth snake lurches forward, its bowed head rising as if it’s homing in on me. So much for not being seen.

  I don’t have any choice now. I scream for the kids, so loudly that my throat burns. I scream again and again.

  It’s no use. I hear nothing back from them. They must be too far away.

  Pain or no pain, I start limping away from the snake. But the snake is faster.

  Maybe if I could get to the water. Would it still come after me? Would I drown?

  I turn my head, peeking over my shoulder to see how much more sand I need to cover. Thirty feet or so. Maybe I can make it! All I have to do is pick up the pace.

  Frantically I begin to hop. I’ve got one eye watching the snake, the other watching the water.

  I should’ve been watching the sand.

  Before I know it, I’m falling backward, my heel tripped up on a piece of driftwood.

  And slithering right over the wood, the snake’s hideous head.

  Chapter 84

  IT’S GOING TO BITE ME. I know it’s going to strike any second. I feel the panic surge through my bloodstream as I try to stand again. I can’t get up. It’s as if my body and brain aren’t connected anymore.

  The only thing I can manage is thrusting my palms against the sand and pushing away. I’m scooting backward as fast as I can.

  It’s not fast enough.

  The snake is inches from my foot, its head suddenly rising. I’m thinking that any
moment I’ll see its fangs, then feel its fangs.

  But I don’t. The huge snake doesn’t lunge or strike. Instead it crawls slowly, powerfully—oh my God, no!-—over my legs.

  That’s when I realize what’s actually happening.

  This diabolical snake wants to do more than just take a bite out of me. It wants all of me.

  I scream again for the kids as the reptile travels past my thighs and coils around my waist. Even before it completes the loop I can feel the immense pressure, like a fleshy vise slowly closing. The snake wraps itself around my chest as I empty my suffocating lungs for one last scream, which finally comes out as a gasp.

  I thrash, trying to get loose. It’s too powerful. The more I push, the tighter it squeezes. I can’t breathe!

  It’s up to my shoulders, the scales cool and dry against my skin. I catch a glimpse of the snake’s eyes as the head passes in front of me again. The eyes are jet black. They’re lifeless and seem not to see me at all. Oh God, it’s ugly!

  The thought of dying takes over, shooting another wave of panic through my body. This one is off the charts; I’m whipping and writhing what few parts of me can still move. This is not the way to die.

  Chapter 85

  “HOLD ON!” I hear.

  Mark runs out of the brush and scoops up the four-foot hunk of driftwood in front of me.

  “Stay still!” he yells.

  Gripping the driftwood like a sledgehammer, he raises it above his head. Whack! Again he swings, even harder. WHACK!

  He’s aiming for a narrow stretch of the snake above my left kneecap. If he misses I’ve got another broken leg, but I don’t care so much about that. Not right now, anyway.

  Mark doesn’t miss. One brutal swing after another.

  In the corner of my eye I can see Carrie and Ernie, too stunned to do anything except stare. Their brother keeps swinging away, not letting up.

  Neither is the snake, though. The pain it’s causing is excruciating. I feel like I’m about to burst wide open.

  “Hurry, Mark!” I plead.

  Finally the moment he’s waiting for comes. The snake fights back, its head darting toward Mark with a piercing hiss. The beast’s jaws are open, the fangs on full display.