Deep Shadow (19 page)

Because he liked her, though, Will had made eye contact and let her see him smile, but only for a second. “What happened doesn’t bother me a bit,” he said. “I don’t know why people keep asking. It really doesn’t.”

Will was sick of talking about what everyone in the world had seen on TV and in newspapers, all those stories about him being buried in a box by extortionists who had intended to bury the woman instead. It had happened more than a month ago, but the woman still felt indebted. It was the reason he was in a limo with her now, driving south to Disney World—Will already knew he would hate the place—then on to Key Largo and, finally, Sanibel Island.

Mrs. Barbara Hayes, a widow—also a United States senator—had the hots for a man who lived there, a marine biologist named Marion Ford, but everyone called him “Doc.” He was a big, nerdy, friendly-looking guy who didn’t say much and who Will sensed wasn’t as nerdy or as friendly as he appeared.

Will had wondered how he and Doc would get along, not that it mattered much.

Sounding relieved, the senator had said to Will, “I’m so glad to hear you feel like you’re recovering. I wonder sometimes—at night when I’m alone, you know?—how I would have reacted. If they’d done to me what they did to you.”

Will wanted to get back to the images in his head, the scent and feel of rock tunnels below. He said, “Don’t worry about it,” and leaned his face closer to the window. End of conversation—he hoped.

No such luck.

The woman began laughing, sounding girlish, as she told him, “I stayed up past midnight, trying to find information about Florida I thought you’d like. That’s how I know about the caves. I even marked it on a map. Here, look—I have a whole folder of things. Scuba diving, horses—there are a lot of ranches down here, cattle and horses. People don’t realize.”

As Barbara leaned to open her briefcase, Will had sat straighter, suddenly paying attention, but not because of the articles. The lady was old—in her forties—but she was still good looking, with a body that she liked to show off but not in any obvious way, which was usually the way with classy, good-looking women.

Like now, for instance, dressed for their long drive to Sanibel. Barbara was wearing a cashmere business jacket with a lavender blouse stretched tight over her breasts. The way the buttons strained allowed Will to peek at her beige mesh bra where white flesh bulged when she moved just right or, if Will dropped something, then made room so she could retrieve it.

Twice during the hour drive—Jacksonville to I-75, then south—Will had dropped his bottle of water, but the thing was finally empty so this was his first chance in a while to sneak a peek, and he leaned in closer to watch her lean down to flip through papers, separating files.

Barbara had said, “I brought some articles for you to read—but maybe you don’t feel like reading.”

“I do,” Will had answered quickly, wanting the lady to stay right where she was. Then he’d asked, “Are you sure that’s everything?,” when she sat up and squared the papers on her lap.

She had told him, “I even brought an article on post-traumatic stress syndrome. You’re old enough for me to speak frankly about it. Even if you feel fine now, William, it might be helpful to do some reading. It’s important for you to get your feelings out. The therapist at the boarding school that you . . . that you left”—she hesitated, wanting to get the phrasing right—“the therapist says you don’t talk much. Not to her, anyway.”

The woman had faltered because Will hadn’t left the facility, exactly. He had broken a window, jumped the fence and hitchhiked halfway to the home of his former foster grandparents, in Minneapolis, before the cops found him.

Will had replied, “It’s easier talking to you,” giving it just the right touch, a confession that laid his vulnerability out there for the good-looking older woman to act upon if she ever wanted to. Even if Hayes wasn’t naïve enough to believe it, Will knew he could work it to his advantage.

It didn’t take long.

A moment later, the woman freed the top button on her blouse, wanting to give herself space to move, after Will had asked, “Anything else in your briefcase for me to read?”

Will liked Barbara Hayes, but he wasn’t going to tell her what he was feeling. Not really. Telling adults the truth had caused him nothing but trouble. It spooked foster parents. It invited more questions from disbelieving government shrinks, back on the shithole reservation where he lived when agencies weren’t shuttling him from home to home.

Oklahoma Reform School was next in the cards if Will ran away just one more time. His parole officer had told him that before signing papers that allowed him to travel to Florida under Hayes’s supervision.

Mentioning underwater caves was the first interesting thing the woman had said since the limo met him at Jacksonville International, the driver smiling, saying, “Welcome to Florida,” as he placed Will’s backpack in the trunk, then gave a fake salute.

Hayes was a billboard reader, which was irritating. The woman didn’t think he could read for himself? It was a habit that she resumed after discussing the caves, looking out the window and saying, “Lake City, High Springs . . . they’ve got a knife outlet store. Oh! Boiled peanuts—you ever try those?”

Twenty miles down the road, she had said, “Gainesville, next four exits. University of Florida, Santa Fe Junior College. You should think about it. It’s smart to start the application process early.”

Will was thinking,
With my grades and no money?

Five miles later, she caused Will to bury his iPod earbuds deep, saying, “Ocala, Silver Springs. The Cracker Barrel looks busy—but I hear there’s a cold front coming. Frost in Orlando, possibly snow in Gainesville. Don’t worry, we’ll be on Sanibel by then—but I wonder how it will affect this area. Snow, I mean.”

Will had pretended to adjust the volume on his iPod, but it was silence that he wanted. His mind was still probing the road for a dark space beneath them, sensing it was important, the word
cave
having touched a chord that produced colors and odors in his brain, all characteristic of a synesthete who had uncanny instincts for intuiting future events.

On this Tuesday afternoon in February, diving a remote lake in central Florida, Will Chaser got his answer.

Tomlinson’s flashlight was on,
and he was doing something—possibly writing another note on his dive slate—as Will wiggled his body free of the passageway and let the weights in his BC vest pull him face-first onto the floor of what appeared to be a cavern filled with clear water, a room the size of a garage.

Excited by exiting into an open space after twenty yards of darkness, Will hurried to get his feet under him, which was a mistake, because it caused a cloud of silt to explode around him. He took his time putting on his BC, using the Velcro straps to pull it tight around his chest, while reminding himself,
Breathe slow, dipshit. You don’t have enough air to be in a hurry.

As he waited for visibility to improve, Will considered risking a look at his pressure gauge but decided against it. No matter how many times he checked the damn thing, it wasn’t going to change the amount of air he had left.

Tomlinson didn’t agree. When the water was clear enough, the man used his flashlight to look at Will’s gauges before showing him what he’d already written on the dive slate.

That scared Will, so he checked the gauge himself. The needle was midway into the red zone, close to
500 psi.
He wondered what it was like when a tank ran short of air. That was something they hadn’t covered in class. Did it become gradually harder to inhale a breath? Or did the regulator shut down abruptly due to lack of pressure?

The pounding of his heart had slowed since he had exited the passageway, but there was no controlling how his body responded to fear, and Will could now feel his chest thumping, blood pulsing in his temples.

Tomlinson pointed to his own air bottle. Attached to it was a canister about the size of a small fire extinguisher. The canister was yellow with a manufacturer’s name, SPARE AIR, stenciled on the side. A single silicon mouthpiece was already fitted at the top.

Will had a similar reserve system attached to his tank, only the canister was bigger, but he hadn’t paid much attention when Ford had explained how to use the thing because the system appeared self-explanatory. Bite down on the mouthpiece, turn the knob and breathe. Nothing hard about that.

Will remembered Ford saying that Tomlinson’s bottle was only good for a couple of minutes. But how many minutes of air did
his
bottle contain? Ford had gone into detail but Will hadn’t listened.

Will reached to find his own dive slate and began writing out the question
How much air in my . . .
but Tomlinson grabbed his elbow and stopped him. The man was shaking his head, his eyes large and emphatic behind the glass of his face mask, as he grunted, “Ohooo ’ime.”

Tomlinson used his flashlight to rap on his dive slate, reminding Will to
Get reserve bottle ready,
then wiped the slate clean before helping Will free the bottle and position it inside his BC beneath his chin, ready to go when he needed it. Next, Tomlinson surprised him by giving Will his bailout bottle, too. Because he had no choice, Will held still while the man clipped the little tank to his BC.

Tomlinson wrote,
Stop breathing, watch bubbles.

Will shook his head, letting his expression answer.
Huh?

Tomlinson rapped his flashlight on the dive slate, telling Will,
Do it!,
then panned the light along the ceiling of the cavern, maybe ten feet above them, where icicle-looking spears of limestone were hanging down—stalagmites or stalactites, Will could never keep the terminology straight.

He stopped breathing, as he’d been told, and watched Tomlinson use the flashlight to explain. The light threw a circle of white that moved from the ceiling to the floor . . . from the ceiling to the floor . . . then to the ceiling again, but more slowly.

It took Will a moment to understand. Air bubbles, that’s what Tomlinson wanted him to see. Air bubbles were seeping out of the rocks beneath them, ascending until they collided with the top of the cavern. There, the bubbles congregated briefly, but then continued moving, tracing silver tracks toward what might have been a tiny opening in the highest part of the cave.

What did it mean? Was Ford somewhere beneath them? That had to be it. Where else could air be coming from?

As if on cue, Will heard a grinding, clanking noise from outside—faint, but it was the unmistakable sound of the biologist doing something, digging again possibly. Tomlinson held a palm up—
Stop—
and then attempted to signal Ford, but there was no response.

Seconds later, though, Will was startled by a muted roaring, a mechanized sound, like a cross between a leaf blower and heavy rain. It seemed to be coming from above them but far away.

Tomlinson explained the noise by scribbling
Jet dredge
on his slate.

Will nodded.

Less than a minute later, though, the thing stopped, and they heard Ford signaling. The hippie responded, banging his flashlight against his tank in a deliberate three-beat rhythm. An SOS maybe?

Possibly so, or maybe it meant nothing, but Will suspected it did because when the jet dredge started again Tomlinson grabbed his dive slate and wrote,
Got to move now!

Move? There was nowhere to go!

Tomlinson made his case by shining the light on the ceiling, reminding Will about the stalagmites or the stalactites hanging down, their points sharpened by a couple thousand years of dripping water.

If the ceiling collapsed on them, getting crushed was the least of their worries. Those stone stilettos could skewer them both.

Will nodded his head rapidly, saying, “Esss eely ’ucks.”

Yes, it did really suck. The cavern ceiling was covered with stone daggers. Where the hell could they go?

Up, as it turned out. Stay close to the ceiling, the stalactites couldn’t build up speed if they fell. Which was smart, Will had to admit.

Tomlinson was writing again and then held the slate up for him to read.
Do what I do!

Will nodded.

Holding the flashlight in his left hand, Tomlinson let the dive slate swing to his side, then exaggerated his movements as he opened the weight pockets on his BC vest. He removed four rubber-covered chunks of lead and dropped them, one by one, at his feet, then pantomimed how to inflate his vest manually instead of using the valve connected to his tank.

Conserving air.
That made sense, too. And they sure as hell didn’t need a bunch of lead to keep them on the bottom now.