Deeper (6 page)

Diana came
into the room and sat next to the kid.
 
His face lit up when he saw her.
 
"What happened, Jan?"

"I don't
know."
 
He shrugged his thin
shoulders.
 
"I was right behind
Steve, and the next thing I knew, something grabbed my leg and yanked me
down.
 
I kicked it like twelve times and
it finally let go.
 
I didn't hang around
to give it another chance."

"Did you
see what it was?"
 
Her tone was off,
almost excited about him getting into trouble, but I knew better than to think
it was all that was involved.
 
Her
concern was obvious enough and looking at them next to each other without as
much chaos, I had to guess that they were related.

He shook his
head and looked absolutely miserable.
 
"No.
 
Maybe
next time."

"Oh, no!
 
No next
time for you.
 
I knew this was a
mistake!"
 
That clinched it.
 
I have three big sisters and I knew the look
she shot his way well enough.
 
It's a
look that says there-is-no-way-in-hell-that-I'm-risking-my-ass-for-YOU-again!
 
Three parts anger, two parts guilt and just
little protective sibling thrown in for fun.

"Oh, come
on, Diana!
 
That could have happened to
anyone."
 
He wasn't angry; he was
depressed.

The argument
fell apart from there, with both of them trying to talk over each other.
 
I moved away and set the first-aid kit back
where it belonged.

It took me a
minute to realize that something was wrong with what the kid had said.
 
He didn't say he got bitten.
 
He said he got grabbed.
 
And while I wasn't an expert, I'd never heard
of a shark dragging someone lower into the water instead of just biting off a
convenient piece of flesh.

4

We ended the
night's adventures after that little incident.
 
Everyone calmed down and I took my girl back to Golden Cove and docked
for the night.
 
Most of the people on
board left and went to the hotel rooms they'd prearranged.
 
I stayed on board, and so did my crew.
 
I had everything I needed right there, and
felt no need to spend extra cash on a room when I had my own cabin.
 
The rest of the guys took over the smaller
rooms that were set aside for just that reason.

That was the
plan anyway.
 
Instead, I got Charlie
knocking on my door and bringing in a bottle of tequila.
 
Here's the thing about having a guy like
Charlie on board:
 
he already knew my
habits and knew I wasn't likely to be sleeping for a few more hours.

"
Wasn't
a shark, Joe, and you know it."
 
He poured us each a couple of ounces.

"Could have been."
 
I downed my shot hard and fast and waited for the explosion to settle in
my stomach.

"But you
don't think it was, do you?"

Charlie looked
at me long and hard, waiting for an answer.
 
I really didn't want to give him one, but we'd always been honest with
each other, at least to the best of my knowledge.

"No, I
think if a shark had decided to eat that kid, he would have been
eaten."
 
I shrugged and thought
about the scrape wounds again.
 
Really,
in hindsight, he didn't have nearly enough marks to suggest shark's teeth.

Charlie left
for a moment and came back with the kid's dry suit, or rather what was left of
it.
 
He slid his hand and forearm into
the leg cuff of the thing and I could see the five deep slices where something
had cut through the fabric and left the wounds on Jan's calf.
 
The heavy material was sliced open by
something sharp, but that didn't prove it was teeth.

"It could
have been a shark, Charlie.
 
Or it could
have been him getting clumsy and careless with the rocks out there.
 
That shale is some wickedly sharp stuff
sometimes.
 
You've seen what it can do to
the underside of a boat."

"Yeah."
 
He
nodded and poured another shot for each of us just as soon as he'd slammed his
previous one down.
 
"Thing is, I've
never heard of a piece of rock dragging someone down lower into the water."

"What can
I say?
 
Maybe he ran into a shark with a
sense of humor.
 
Maybe he got caught in
an undertow.
 
He looks like he's maybe
fifteen, Charlie.
 
I'm not getting the
idea he has a lot of experience with diving."

"None of
them looked like they had a goddamned clue, Joe."

"Diana is
supposed to be good."

"Okay,
I'll give you that one.
 
But aside from her, not a one of them."

"I don't
dive anymore, and I sure as hell don't dive with the sort of current we have
around here.
 
All I can say is it's a
good thing I made them sign waivers."

"I don't
like it, anyway.
 
I don't like the idea
of dragging these morons to the hospital every day if they screw up
anymore."

"
You volunteering
to lead them on their dives?"
 
It was meant as a joke.

Charlie looked
thoughtful and I realized I'd probably screwed up.

"Maybe I
should."

"Well,
it'll keep you busy..."

We talked for
a few more minutes and he decided he'd make the offer in the morning.
 
I decided not to call him an idiot.
 
I figured if nothing else, it might mean some
extra cash in his pockets by the end of the trip and it might stop him from
worrying about the old rumors of what used to be in the area.

When Charlie
offered another shot, I declined.
 
The
night was young, but not young enough for me to get ripped.
 
There was work to do in the morning.

After a few
more minutes of silence, broken by a need to discuss potential problems with
the yacht's maintenance, Charlie left for his cabin.
 
I leaned back on my bed and looked out the
porthole, staring at the reef off in the distance.

The sea was
calm and the air was cooling down fast.
 
Wisps of condensation were rising from the water, slowly building
themselves
into a proper fog.

I was thinking
about Belle and missing her.
 
I hated
being away from her for any length of time.
 
I was about to call it an early night and maybe even give her a buzz on
my cell phone, but something out of the porthole caught my eye.
 
There was someone in the water, halfway
between the black stones of the reef and the docks.
 
Whoever it was looked to be struggling, maybe
even drowning as he or she swam in our direction.
 
I caught a glimpse of what might have been
long hair and maybe a dress, so I decided it was a woman.
 
I had to look twice to make sure I was seeing
her; the ocean and distance play some mean tricks on the mind.

She was
there.
 
I couldn’t see her face clearly,
but I could see the waves splashing around where she broke the water and I
could make out her pale skin as it reflected back the moonlight.
 
She wasn't using the graceful swimming
patterns of a good swimmer.
 
She was
thrashing about, slapping the ocean instead of smoothly cutting through it.

"Charlie!"
 
I ran for the cabin as I called to him, and
when he approached I pointed at the girl in the water.
 
He nodded his head and started raising the
anchor a few moments later.
 
I turned on
the motors and set the searchlights to look for the girl.
 
She was out there, still struggling to stay
afloat, still floundering and losing her struggle.

We pulled away
from the dock without incident and Charlie guided me toward where the girl was
doing her best not to drown.
 
It isn't
exactly easy to go at high speeds in a sixty-foot yacht, and it's also not
wise.
 
We had to take it fairly slow in
order to get closer to the girl without risking knocking her halfway to the
reef.
 
When we were close enough, Charlie
took off his shoes, grabbed a life preserver and dove into the waters.
 
I know how cold it was going to be and I knew
he'd hate himself for it later, but it was the best way to get to her before it
was too late.

Charlie hit
the water in a perfect dive and vanished into the blackness.
 
He rose up a few seconds later only a few
feet from where she was thrashing in the waves.
 
His hands caught her with ease, and she stopped her struggles, apparently
trusting in him completely to get her to safety or so exhausted that she simply
had no choice in the matter.
 
He held her
around her shoulders and backstroked toward the yacht.
 
I ran out to give him a hand.

The girl
couldn't have been much more than fourteen or fifteen.
 
Her blond hair was plastered to her scalp and
half covered her face, and her skin was too pale by far.
 
Charlie did his best to tread water as he
held her up to me like she was a toddler.
 
I'm not Charlie.
 
He could do that
without too much trouble, but I had to strain hard when I caught her thin
wrists with my hands and hauled her up the ladder with me.
 
She wrapped her arms around my neck and
shivered violently.
 
Her skin was wet and
nearly as cold as ice.
 
I made the climb
back onto the deck.
 
This was twice in
one night that I'd gotten myself soaked pulling someone up to safety and it
wasn't something I wanted to make a habit of.
 
To make matters worse, she was dressed in enough wet layers of clothing
to add a good thirty pounds to her weight.
 
I was surprised she hadn't dropped like a stone under the extra layers
of heavy fabrics.
 
As I set her down on
the deck to catch my breath, I couldn't help but notice that she was wearing
petticoats and old-fashioned leggings under her full length formal dress.

She curled up
in
a
 
nearly
fetal position as I went back to the ladder to give Charlie a hand.
 
He tossed the life preserver to me and I
caught it and tucked it under my left arm before reaching down to offer him a
boost.
 
He took it gratefully and I
pulled as he climbed back on board.

"Jesus
Christ!
 
That water's
cold
."
 
Charlie shook his arms wildly, spraying salt
water all over the deck and me.
 
I was
wet enough that I didn't much care.

"Let me
get a couple of blankets for you and your new friend."
 
I headed for the cabin and grabbed a few thin
blankets from the supplies that I kept close at hand.
 
They could both warm up properly after they'd
gotten out of the wet clothes, but the night was cold and any protection at all
would do in a pinch.

When I stepped
back onto the deck Charlie was looking around almost desperately.

"What's
wrong?"

"Where
did she go, Joe?"

"What?
 
The girl?
 
She's right—
"
 
I
stopped myself.
 
The girl who should have been curled up on
the deck was gone.
 
The only indication
that she had ever been there was the trail of wet spots where she'd dripped as
I carried her, and the larger patch of water where she'd settled after I put
her down.
 
There were no new footprints,
no real signs that she'd suddenly gotten a notion to go exploring, as if she'd
have even been capable.

"What the
hell, Charlie?"
 
I looked at my
first mate and he looked back at me, shaking his head.

"I don't
know.
 
I have no fucking clue, Joe."

"She was
right there."
 
I jabbed my finger at
the water on the deck and Charlie nodded his head in understanding.

"She was
there when I climbed on deck, Joe.
 
And
then I looked where you were going, and when I looked back, she was gone."

We made a
quick check of the deck and then the cabins, but I think we both already knew
we wouldn't find her even before we started searching.
 
I even checked all around the sides of the
Isabella
, just to be safe, but Charlie
would have surely heard a splash if she'd gone overboard.

After a few
minutes we gave up and neither of us said a word.
 
We just looked at each other in silence and
shook our heads.

We didn't want
to speak about it because that would make it real.
 
And neither of us wanted to use the words
‘ghost’ or ‘haunting’ right then.
 
The
air was already cold enough without adding goose bumps to the chill.