Floodgates (12 page)

Now he was going to have to suck it up and fight back against death. This river wasn’t going to let him go easily, and it probably wasn’t going to let him go at all, but he couldn’t just quit. Not if it meant that Faye was going to die with him.

***

He saw her. Faye could see that Joe saw her.

She saw him give a few strong scissor kicks that brought him slightly nearer to Faye and her stupid little boat. The fact that his kicks were proving effective encouraged her to try something different—something besides just hanging on for dear life. She eased herself back, hanging her legs into the water behind her. Mirroring Joe’s form, she kicked with all she had.

Shifting her body so far back caused an interesting effect when she hit a good-sized eddy. Faye and her improvised boat spun slowly around their combined center of gravity until she found herself floating down the Mississippi backwards. She thought that no good could possibly come of this.

Then she remembered that her legs were remarkably long for a short woman, and they were now pointed in Joe’s direction. It was an odd way to extend her reach, but Faye would take what she could get.

Shaking water out of her eyes, Faye scooched as far off the back of the sign as she dared and found that her legs were just long enough. Joe grabbed her right big toe so hard that she nearly lost her grip on the sign that she hoped would keep them all afloat. She held on, though she feared she might lose that toe.

Joe started climbing her leg and torso hand-over-hand. Under other circumstances, this might have been fun, but not today. When he reached her waist, he grabbed hard, straining to maneuver Nina’s limp body onto the sign.

Faye had lived her entire adult life on the Gulf of Mexico, but she’d never once had so much water driven deep into her sinus cavities. She could hardly breathe. She could hardly see, The out-of-control shaking of her arm muscles signaled imminent failure. Still, Nina and Joe were slightly safer. And she wasn’t dead yet.

A dock was looming, but it was too short. On their current course, they were going to float right past it. Joe was already kicking hard, trying to move their pitiful craft cross-current. It was working, but Faye didn’t have to do calculus in her head to see that their progress was too slow and their speed downriver was too swift. They were going to miss the dock.

Nina was draped across Faye’s sign, unmoving. If Faye’s mouth hadn’t been underwater, she’d have been shouting,
Wake up! Breathe! Do something!

Nina did none of those things except continue taking breaths that were so shallow that Faye didn’t see how they could help Nina at all.

Faye found herself thinking about Joe’s hand-over-hand trick. Without warning him, she let go of the sign and grabbed him around the waist with both hands. Joe knew her so well that he could tell what she wanted him to do, simply by the way she shifted her body in the water. He extended his legs as far as they would go, while still steadying Nina’s unconscious form, then he relaxed and let her maneuver herself into position.

She’d just had time to grasp his feet with both hands and stretch her whole body out into the water, before her own feet struck a metal piling holding up the dock that just might save them. The pain was an electric thing, but she was able to hook a foot under that piling, willing it to hold them all. The current pulled inexorably, and her foot was screaming at her, but she clung to Joe. Now what?

Joe was pulling Nina closer to his chest, sliding her off the wooden sign that had served them so well. Faye swallowed hard. This was either going to work…or it wasn’t. He eased Nina into the water and let the sign go.

Relieved of Nina’s weight, the sign jumped to the surface and headed quickly downstream. Joe jerked his legs and Faye knew he wanted her to let go. It wasn’t easy, but she forced herself.

With Nina under one arm, Joe battled the last few feet toward the dock. With her foot still hooked around the piling, Faye grabbed Joe and drew him to her until he, too, had a grasp of something solid. A few lungs full of air helped Faye’s feelings considerably.

This was the moment when Faye realized that she had a cell phone in her pocket, and that it had been there the whole time. Damn.

Calling 911 wouldn’t have prevented the need for Faye to launch her rescue voyage. Nina and Joe would certainly have drowned by the time help arrived. But if she’d called first, they would be topping the levee’s crest right this minute, like the cavalry in an old B-movie.

Ah, well. It wasn’t that far to the shore. Too bad she and Joe had to get there while dragging an unconscious woman.

It worried Faye that Nina had never opened her eyes. She was still breathing. But she wasn’t doing much else.

***

Joe battled his way toward shore, dragging two women with him, and he wasn’t sure he had what it took to get to dry land. Not any more. Not since he’d gambled that his muscles could take on inexorable, unyielding Mother Nature.

Nina hung limply in one arm, so she was no help.

Faye was conscious. Oh, Faye was more than conscious. She was struggling in his other arm, squawking at him to put her down, blubbering like a baby, and pretending like she wasn’t crying at all. She was a big girl, and they don’t cry. Except she really wasn’t a big girl. She was five feet tall.

He couldn’t put her down. The water came up to his chin, so he could slog slowly toward shore, fighting the current all the way, but Faye couldn’t do that. If she tried to touch bottom, the water would close over her head. He wasn’t sure she had enough strength left to swim. Joe thought he could get the three of them closer to shore, close enough that they could maybe walk the rest of the way. He had that much power left in his muscles, and no more, but it would sure help matters if Faye would quit struggling and let him carry her.

Somehow, he doubted that she was capable of such a thing.

***

Soon enough, Faye found herself lying face-down at the water’s edge, Joe and Nina beside her. Their legs still dangled in the river, all six of them.

If Faye opened one eye, she could see a crushed red-white-and-blue beer can. If she opened the other eye, she could see something unidentifiable and plastic that she hoped wasn’t medical waste. She would have been content to lie there for hours surrounded by the garbage of a continent, but getting Nina out of the river wasn’t the same thing as getting her out of the woods.

Faye managed to raise herself to all-fours and crawl to the levee, tottering to her feet at its top. Pointing herself in the general direction of the visitor’s center, she began to walk. She knew what she looked like—muddy, half-drowned, near-collapse. There was no chance that anyone who saw her coming would fail to dial 911.

She took one long look over her shoulder before she descended the far side of the levee and lost sight of Joe and Nina. Joe was pushing at the ground with both hands, trying to raise himself to a sitting position. Nina wasn’t doing anything.

Catching Joe’s eye, she found that she had only one thing to say to him.

“Christmas. At home. At Joyeuse.”

Faye had always wanted a Christmas wedding.

Chapter Sixteen

Faye didn’t like the intensity of the paramedics’ efforts to revive Nina. She crouched on the ground beside Joe and gave the medical team a sidewise glance now and then. It seemed somehow indecent to intrude into a scene where a human being’s life hung in the balance.

“Did she jump?”

Joe’s gaze was directed inward. If he’d heard her question, he gave no sign.

She reached out and touched him on the forearm.

Her touch seemed to revive him. Faye wished it were so easy for the paramedics. Another sidewise glance told her that the paramedics hadn’t given up on Nina yet.

“Did she jump? Did you see her go over?” She was asking too many questions, but the adrenaline that was still shaking her arms and legs wouldn’t let her stop. “Is that why you went out to the river? Did you see her cross the levee and get worried?”

“No. I was poking around at the end of the canal, trying to see where it went into the river back when Andrew Jackson was around, and I heard something on the other side of the levee.”

The questions kept coming. They were completely out of Faye’s control.

“Did she call out for help? Do you think she tripped and went in?”

“I don’t know. I just heard a splash that didn’t sound right.”

…a splash that didn’t sound right.
If Nina survived, it would be because Joe paid attention. If he could see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or taste it, he paid attention to it.

A drop of water trickled from his hair onto his forehead. He left it there. “She fell off the dock, I know that. But I don’t know whether she jumped or slipped.”

“Or whether she got pushed.”

Faye didn’t like the way those words tasted in her mouth.

“I don’t like to think that way,” Joe said.

“I don’t either. But think…how much time passed between when you heard the splash and when you got over the levee?”

“Not a lot. But it wouldn’t take long for someone to run up the dock and hide in the trees on the far side of the levee down there.”

“Nope. We’re just talking about a few seconds, tops.” Faye tried to picture someone running, imagining how long it would take. The dock wasn’t that long.

“Besides,” Joe said, brushing wet hair out of his face, “I didn’t look downriver toward the dock right away. I checked out the area close to the canal first, then I looked down toward the dock and saw Nina in the water. It didn’t take long—a few seconds, like you say—but there could have been somebody down there that I missed. Still, I don’t like to think that way. I’d rather believe it was an accident.”

“Me, too, but I can’t help wondering what happened. I’ve never seen Nina out on that dock. Did she just go out there for a look at the river, then fall in? That doesn’t usually happen to able-bodied adults who aren’t drunk. Did someone walk out there with her, then give her a push? Was she suicidal? I’d say she was depressed until this week, but since Charles came back she’s been…well, I guess giddy’s the word.” Faye sneaked another look at the paramedics as they tried to revive Nina. “Yeah, giddy. I’d like to presume this was an accident, but facts are facts and I can’t ignore them.”

Jodi, who had walked up behind them while they spoke, said, “I know. That’s why I hired you.”

***

Intensive care waiting rooms are usually full of people who wish they were at their loved one’s bedside. Unfortunately, the patients being visited are, by definition, too sick to enjoy having visitors. There are limited visiting hours, it is true, but they’re more for the benefit of the patient’s frantic loved ones than for the patient.

Friends and family without the magic title of mother, father, children, or spouse gather in the waiting room and try to be helpful. They tell stories of people who have been similarly ill, but are now happy and whole. They hold hands. They ask, “Can I get you anything to eat?”

Nina’s parents were dead, so a female cousin was playing the role of closest kin. Faye remembered Nina saying that she had slept on her cousin’s couch since Katrina demolished her home. Charles sat beside the cousin, with his head bowed, and Faye liked him better because he seemed to really care about her friend Nina.

Matt had followed the ambulance from the battleground to the hospital. He was sitting with Joe, face taut, with his elbows resting on a small table in the corner of the waiting room. Empty candy wrappers and chip bags were piled in front of them, because young men eat when they’re under stress.

Matt seemed to be keeping a constant distance between him and Charles, which Faye found interesting, since she was sure that Matt knew him pretty well. She remembered that he’d dated someone who worked with Shelly. There was no woman in sight, so he was either no longer dating her, or she didn’t feel close enough to Nina to have rushed to the hospital.

Actually, “no woman in sight” wasn’t quite accurate. There
was
a woman in sight, and she worked with Charles, but Faye devoutly hoped young Matt wasn’t dating her. She was thirtyish, just a few years older than Matt, but she seemed so unsuited for the outdoorsy park ranger. The young woman had the impeccably coiffed hair and not-subtle makeup of a Southern belle of the old school. She was not so old-school, however, as to have avoided working for a living.

Charles had introduced her as Leila, his executive assistant, and Faye recognized the light in her eyes that marked her as her boss’ most zealous fan. Leila had a planning calendar open across her lap, a pen in one hand, and a cell phone in the other. Faye couldn’t hear what she was saying, but her body language said that she wanted people to understand that it would take forty phone calls to reschedule all the important meetings that Nina’s unfortunate accident had interrupted.

Jodi sat alone, in a chair that gave her a vantage point for viewing the entire room. Faye remembered that she’d wanted to question Charles’ secretary, and here Leila sat. Nina’s tragedy had probably shoved Jodi’s desire to annoy Charles off the top of the detective’s priority list, but Leila’s day in the hot seat would surely come.

Faye watched Jodi scan each face, one after another, and she wondered whether the detective had serious concerns that Nina’s fall off the dock had not been accidental.

Faye walked over to Jodi, “Any word?’”

“The latest news on Nina has been…okay. She’s alive, so that’s good. She’s conscious and responsive. That’s good, too. But her speech or her cognition or maybe both seem to be affected. No one’s been able to conduct an intelligible conversation with her yet.”

Faye watched Matt as he stood and walked over to Leila, murmuring, “I’m going to get some coffee. You want some?” His touch on her elbow was intimate. So was the angle of her head when she looked up from her work and nodded. So this
was
the girlfriend. Well, nobody ever said love was predictable.

“So we don’t know yet about Nina’s medical condition. How’s she doing from your perspective?” Faye asked Jodi. “Is she recovering from a suicide attempt…or did somebody push her? Why would somebody want to hurt Nina, anyway? It would be like attacking a…field mouse.”

Jodi shook her head. “You underestimate your friend. You saw Nina on TV yesterday. You think she didn’t make a few people mad? Politicians on the levee board, maybe? Engineers working for the Corps who’ve heard just one criticism too many? It’s not like she just started being a community activist yesterday when the television crews pointed their cameras at her. You should read her blog. Nina’s like an avenging field mouse with fangs.”

“Any hard evidence that this wasn’t an accident?”

“Just like a scientist, aren’t you? If you don’t have hard evidence, then something isn’t true. Well, we detectives kinda operate that way, too.” Jodi gave a half-shrug. “Nina’s body shows no signs of a struggle. No strangulation marks around the neck. So this isn’t Shelly all over again. There are no bruises that anyone could say for certain were made with a fist or a weapon. But there’s a humdinger of a wound on her head.”

“Could she have slipped and fell?”

“Yep. But she could also have taken a big wallop upside the head, right before somebody shoved her into the Mississippi. No way to tell. Yet.”

Faye liked the determined glint in the detective’s eye.

***

Joe wondered if his hair was ever going to dry. It had soaked up a prodigious amount of river water. He also wondered if his brain would ever clear.

Faye had said something about a Christmas wedding. That was real nice but, right that moment he wasn’t altogether sure he remembered what month it was, or even what year it was. He wasn’t clear on where he was, either. Nearly drowning tended to mess with a man’s mind.

May. It was May. He remembered that now, because he’d just finished an endless semester at school—a semester made still more interminable by the problem of Faye’s absence.

Christmas was a hell of a long time away, but Joe didn’t seem to have much voice in their wedding date. Faye had announced her decision, then walked away. This was a common state of affairs. Under ordinary circumstances, Faye was going to do what Faye was going to do.

But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. Joe had cheated death in a big way just a year before, and he’d just had another near-miss. He could just as easily have lost Faye in the rushing river. Such things tended to focus the mind.

Joe wanted Faye, he wanted a family, and he wanted her to stop stalling, because he knew she wanted a family with him, too. She was just scared.

Fear was not something that Faye would ever admit, but facts were facts. Her age, too, was a fact. She would be forty soon. Waiting until December to get married and start trying for a baby was only going to make it harder to get that baby. If Faye didn’t want him to know that, then she shouldn’t have made him take biology.

Joe knew that if he let her be a coward for very much longer, there wouldn’t be much chance for children, and Joe wanted kids. They both did.

Telling Faye what to do was generally a bad plan. She didn’t react well at all to being bossed around, so he wouldn’t be doing that. Sooner or later, though, he’d need to find a way to inform her—gently—that she was being irrational. The question of when to get married wasn’t hers alone to answer, and she knew it.

Joe intended to get Faye to budge on this issue, but he had the uneasy feeling that softening her stance was going to take dynamite. He’d rather use a gentler approach. It would sure help if he could figure out why she was so damn scared.