B0092XNA2Q EBOK (9 page)

Her hands were cupped in front of her, nervously moving. The mumbling continued. It sounded like she was saying the same thing over and over again. Or parts of the same thing. She stepped up on the edge of the boat, her toes dangling over the water. I listened, catching the last of a sentence. Her voice was breaking. I caught bits
and pieces. “… mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.” Then the moonlight lit the strand of beads in her hands.

The rosary.

Her prayer was growing louder. I knew that if she was hell-bent on killing herself, sooner or later she’d succeed and no power on earth, and certainly not me, would ever be able to stop her. She needed a choice, but she also needed to know what was at stake. Her legs tensed, knees bent. She sucked in a deep breath. Then let it out. All of it.

I said the only thing I could think of. “That won’t stop the pain.”

The sound of my voice was not what she expected. Nor was any sound. She screamed at the top of her lungs and fell backward into the boat—which was better than falling forward. She landed with a thud on the padded seats and began frantically crab-crawling backward into the cabin. Tethered to the bucket, she looked like a dog pulling against its own chain. Covered in darkness and her screaming, I pulled myself out of the water looking like the creature from the black lagoon.

I touched a button on the dash, turning on the interior lights, so she could see me through eyes that were now the size of Oreo cookies. She’d pulled her knees into her chest and sat saying nothing. I pulled out my pocket knife, opened the blade, and was about to cut the rope that led to the bucket, but then thought better of it so I left it alone.

Neither of us said a word for several minutes. Finally, I waved my hand across the bucket and asked the question that was bugging me. “Why this way? Why hanging and drowning? I mean, pick one or the other but not both.”

She didn’t respond.

I shook my head. “This is a horrible way to go. Nobody should go this way.” I shrugged. “And why are you doing this?”

Silence. Another moment passed. Finally, she whispered, “I deserve it.”

“Which part? The death part or the painful death part?”

“Both.”

“Well”—I nudged the rope and eyed the bucket—“you’re signed up to get both.” I sat down. “Look, I don’t know you, don’t pretend to know what you’re going through or anything about your life, but I do know this—I’m finished chasing you around and I’m getting off this boat. If you want to die, then die. Take a swan dive. Peter Pan yourself off the side of this boat and let the fish nibble on your body.”

“You won’t stop me?”

“No. I won’t. I’m not signing up to be your protector. You want to go meet God, then go meet Him.” I turned toward the bucket. “There’s your ticket.”

I stood but her voice followed me. “And if I don’t?”

“Take that rope off your neck, put your clothes on, and stop taking yourself so seriously. It would do you some good to realize that you are not the center of everyone’s universe.”

She was quiet. Frozen.

I pointed at the Pathfinder. “Let me spell it out for you. Through door number one is life. That means you come back with me. Steady is pretty good at helping people douse the fires they start themselves.” I touched the bucket with my toe. “Door number two is a cold, lonely, painful death that won’t fix anything.” I folded my arms. “Either way, it’s a choice.” The boat rocked gently in a slow moving wave. I leaned against the seat, deliberating my next question. Finally, I got around to it. “Can I ask you something?”

She stared at me.

“Do you really want to die or do you just not want to be you anymore?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, you can do one without the other.”

“How?”

I scratched my head. “That’s door number three.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You really want to know?”

A nod.

“Door number three is one-way and you can only walk through it once. There’s no reentry. No do-over. Ever. And you get to take nothing with you. You lose everything you’ve ever known. Name. Identity. Homes. Cars. Money—unless you have a bunch of cash stashed someplace. Every single tie you ever had goes up in smoke.”

“What do you get out of this?”

“Nothing.”

“And let me guess, you don’t want anything, either.”

“Nope.”

She turned away. “Right. And I believe that.”

“You can believe what you want, but that’s the risk you take.”

“What guarantees me that you won’t sell my little secret someday down the road or blackmail me with it?”

“You’re assuming I’d do that.”

“I know men. I’ve believed in and married three of them. Steady is the only man I’ve ever trusted who hasn’t used me, taken from me, and left me with less than I started. Why should you be any different?”

“Miss Quinn, your distrust of me has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. Think about it—I’ve saved your life twice and I don’t even know you.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been ‘rescued’ before. But in the end, every knight I’ve ever known has stormed the castle so he can name and claim his reward. So what will yours be?”

“Think what you want but know this: I don’t want your money, don’t want to know your secrets, and don’t want to profit by whatever pain has got you in this boat and tied to that bucket. Miss Quinn, to be gut-level honest, I don’t want anything to do with you.”

She leaned her head back and stared up. Moonlight lit her tear-streaked face. “That’d make you different.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never met anybody like me, either.”

She wiped her nose with her forearm, stood up, and dressed.
She lifted the rope from around her neck and sat twirling it around her fingers. Moments passed. “I know one thing for certain—” She rested her foot on the rim of the bucket. “A pedestal is the loneliest place in the world.” She shoved with her foot, toppling the bucket and sending it to the ocean floor without her. “And, I don’t want to be me anymore.”

I shrugged. “Then don’t. Be somebody else.”

“You really think it’s that simple?”

“Never said it was simple. I said it was possible.”

She crossed her arms, stared out across the water. She spoke, but I don’t think she was talking to me. It was like she was finishing a conversation she’d started with herself sometime in the past. “I’ve been acting since I was five. I’ve played more roles than I can count. Somewhere along the way, the girl in the dressing room became the girl on stage. No difference. And now, I don’t even know who I’m
not
being.” She shook her head. “I’m tired of pretending.”

I didn’t respond. She turned to me. “How would you do it? I mean, door number three.”

I glanced around us and chose my words carefully. “Well, I’d do it in such a way that left no doubt. That got everybody’s attention and settled it once and for all.”

“What would that be?”

“I’d set this thing on fire.” A long minute passed as her eyes walked up and down the lines of the boat. The pieces fell in place in her mind. She crossed her arms, and was about to say something when I interrupted her. “Remember—it’s a one-way ticket. No return trip.”

She was quiet awhile. Finally, she turned. Arms crossed. Holding herself. “I’d like to go back now. To your boat. Please.”

She followed me. The return trip took a while longer since I was traveling half as fast. Steady was waiting on us. We tied off, and
stood on the back deck. I told her, “Your boat draws some attention. Sticks out. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to hide it in some mangroves.”

She nodded.

I made sure she understood. “It won’t be easily accessible. And you’ll need me to get to it, but I’ll take you anytime you—”

“I understand.”

Steady spoke up. “Katie—” He pulled an iPhone from inside his robe and turned it on. “You left this in your kitchen the other night. Figured you might want it at some point.” He handed it to her. “If you’re going to make an informed decision, then you should know that there are people in this world who desperately don’t want you to leave it.” She nodded as the flood of emails and texts began downloading. For the next thirty seconds it dinged, and clanged and beeped—her own private orchestra of communication. She clutched the phone to her chest, disappeared into my cabin, and shut the door behind her.

I waited on high tide and hid her boat. I pulled it up a small creek where I had to pull back the branches to make room. There was a deep alligator hole in the middle that would float her boat even in low tide. That meant the creek wouldn’t be navigable but the boat would be okay. Given the bright colors, it could be seen from the sky but there was little I could do about that.

Two long days passed in which I watched her, or for her, out of my peripheral vision. Trying to look without looking.

She was thoughtful, deliberate. Whatever decision she made, it would not be rash. Most of the time she looked lost in conversation with herself. I paddled her to Pavilion Key and she spent the day walking across the few short beaches, arms crossed, barefooted, kicking at the sand. She stayed away from the gulf side and out of view of the occasional fishing boat. Her phone was never out of her
hand. Her tether to the outside world. Every few seconds it would beep, she’d read whatever message had just come through, and then press it back against her chest having made no response.

Back on the island, Steady took her a blanket, and talked to her by the fire. I fixed some fish tacos but she just pushed them around her plate. Steady took her a cup of mint tea around midnight, which he returned empty an hour later. They spent a lot of time talking. Mostly in hushed tones. Evidence that cutting free is painful.

The next morning, I woke before everyone, left a note, and took
Jody
up Chatham River to a hole where I thought the reds might be bottled up. They were, but they were all too small. No keepers. Still too early in the season. I returned around noon and found her asleep in my cabin—or at least in there with the door shut—and Steady napping in my hammock.

Late in the afternoon, I did something I never do. I turned on the radio. I’d been thinking about that note she left in her condo and whether her staff had found it.

They had.

It was all over the news. And, from what I could tell, most of the civilized world was in an uproar in a last-ditch effort to “find Katie.” I told Steady about it and he nodded. He already knew. We kept it to ourselves. She had her phone. Chances were good she already knew if she’d spent any time browsing the web. If she wanted to talk, we would, but we thought it’d be best that she make up her own mind based on what she thought, not what she thought others were thinking.

I left again in the Pathfinder but didn’t go too far. Duck Key. Well within radio distance. In the event that Steady needed me. I dropped the power pole, stepped out of the boat and waded, throwing a plastic up under the trees. I found myself thinking about the woman. Katie Quinn. My brief encounter with the radio had been an education. Around the red carpet, they called her “The Queen.” Behind her back, “The Ice Queen.” If I’d ever seen one of her movies, I don’t remember but that’s not unusual in that I haven’t seen a
movie in more than a decade. Between Steady’s story, and what I’d heard on the radio, it was obvious that she was in a league all her own. A former costar on the radio had said, “She doesn’t ‘play’ her character. She becomes her character. Makes you believe.”

Most people would be impressed by all that and I guess on one level I was, but success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and she was right when she talked about a pedestal being a lonely place. It is. But you can’t really know that until you’ve stood on one.