Low Tide (24 page)

“Well, I know some people who might be able to weigh in her favor,” Boudreaux said. “I can’t promise anything, but give me a couple days to try and call in one or two favors.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Maggie paused for a moment.

“Am I going to owe you something for this?”

“Yes, a drink. I’ll call you,” he said and hung up.

Maggie stood there for a second, realizing with some surprise that her hands were shaking just a little. She opened her contacts and called Grace’s phone.

“Hello?” Grace’s voice was expectant and hopeful.

“Grace, it’s Maggie Redmond.”

“I know.”

“Listen, I struck out with the State’s Attorney’s office. It was kind of a long shot, anyway. But I have someone else looking into your kids.”

“Are they a lawyer?”

“No, just a…just a friend, but he knows a lot of important people.”

“Oh. Okay.” Grace sounded deflated.

“It’s going to be okay,” Maggie said. “Don’t lose your faith. Do you want to come here? Or maybe go get some lunch? Are you eating?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m staying right here until my kids come home.”

“Okay, Grace. But call me if you change your mind. Or if you need something. Okay?”

“Okay. I will.”

Maggie hung up and let out a deep breath. Then she went outside to look for something she
could
fix.

Maggie spent the rest of the day occupying her mind, mainly with Wyatt Hamilton. She was at loose ends, and needed to go to work or have her kids home. She’d be able to return to work Wednesday and the kids would be back Thursday night. She focused on staying busy until then.

She accomplished that by mowing the little grass she had in the yard, rescuing Stoopid from an old doghouse that no longer fit Coco, scrubbing the floors and thinking about Wyatt. Mainly, she thought about Wyatt.

When she went to bed, at the early hour of nine because she was so bored, she was still thinking about the way Wyatt smelled, and the way his mouth had felt on hers.

That night was the first one in recent days that was not disturbed by nightmares.

W
ayne Stinnett checked his line, then padded barefoot across the deck of his Chris Craft to grab the Thermos of coffee his wife had made him. He opened it, poured a fresh cupful into his chipped Key West mug, and took an appreciative swallow.

He was an oysterman by trade, but had cut back to working the oyster beds just three days a week. Even so, most of his days off were spent on the bay, and sunrise was his favorite time to come out here to this area. The sea trout had a hankering to congregate near the causeway over to St. George early in the morning, and he had a hankering for sea trout.

He took off his Papa Joe’s cap, and wiped at his mostly bald head with a forearm. It wasn’t even seven yet, and it was already hot. His white beard itched from the humidity that promised the kind of day that would keep most people inside.

Wayne finished his coffee in one big gulp and set his mug down as he saw his rod bend toward the sea. He rushed over, pulled it out from where he’d jammed it behind the bench seat, felt the line, and started reeling. He could see it was a redfish, not a trout, but that was okay. Martha loved redfish, and he loved Martha.

As he parried with his fish, he looked up toward the causeway. He was at the high point in the bridge, where it humped up all of a sudden. It was a good seventy feet at this point, or so he recalled. His boat was a good thirty yards outside the shade line, but something made him look up at the bridge and he saw her.

There was a woman or a girl standing there, and at first he thought she’d pulled over to throw up over the side. But then she slowly climbed up on the wall and stood there for just a second or two.

Wayne had thought he was about to shout up to her, although he didn’t know what. But, when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. And then she just bent over and fell.

Wayne knew they were too far away from each other for it to be true, but just before she started falling, with her little yellow dress whipping around her legs, he could have sworn they’d looked each other in the eye.

Maggie was half-awake and thinking about going back to sleep when her cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Maggie? It’s uh, it’s Dwight.”

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Well, uh, you know Wayne Stinnett?”

Maggie sat up. “Yeah, he’s good friends with my Dad. Is he okay?”

“Well, the thing is, uh…he just called in a few minutes ago, after he called the Coast Guard.”

Maggie jumped out of the bed, her heart pounding. “Dwight. Is it my Dad?”

“Oh no, oh, I’m sorry, Maggie, no,” Dwight hurried. “But a woman jumped off the 300, out there at the hump. And, the thing is, there’s a blue Monte Carlo up there and I ran the plates—”

“I have to go, Dwight,” Maggie said.

“Wyatt’s already on his—”

Maggie tossed the phone down and felt her chest cave in. Then she pulled on her jeans from the day before.

It took Maggie less than fifteen minutes to find the spare keys to her Dad’s little speedboat and get to Scipio Creek Marina. It took another fifteen for her to get out to where a Coast Guard cutter, the department boat, and several fishing or oyster boats were congregated.

Maggie cut the engine and coasted up along Wayne Stinnett’s port side. He was leaning against his starboard rail, watching the activity near the cutter.

“Wayne! Can you tie me off?”

Wayne turned and hurried over to grab her bow line, and tied her off as she hurriedly dumped two bumpers over the side between their boats. Then she grabbed Wayne’s hand, walked up his hull, and climbed over the rail.

“Aw, Maggie. Dammit.”

He rushed back over to the starboard rail and Maggie followed him. Ten feet away, Wyatt stood on the deck of the department boat with a couple of deputies, hands on his hips and cap in his hand.

“Wyatt?” Maggie called.

He turned, pulled his eyebrows together, and took a few steps toward her. “What are you doing here, dammit?”

“Dwight called me. Why didn’t
you
call me?”

Wyatt took a few steps closer, leaned on the rail. “Because knowing is bad enough; you don’t need to see it.”

“We got her!” a man shouted from the Coast Guard cutter, and Wayne ran over to the other rail.

Two men reached over the side of the cutter, and two men in scuba gear were lifting something up. Maggie held her breath and watched.

First she saw pale, thin arms, and then birdlike shoulders and almost brown hair. When the men gently lowered her to the deck, Maggie noticed that there was a clump of seaweed stuck in her long hair.

She had forgotten Wayne was beside her until he spoke, his voice hushed.

“Why, that’s just a little girl.”

Maggie turned her back on the cutter and leaned back against the rail. She blinked a few times as she stared at the deck, then looked over at Wayne. He had taken off his cap and was blinking rapidly, but his eyes were filling anyway.

“Maggie, what could be so bad? Everything gets better eventually,” he said, and his voice broke as tears slipped down his face.

Not everything
, Maggie thought.

Wayne had served in the Marines with her Daddy, and was one of the funniest and toughest men she’d ever known. She’d never seen him cry unless he was laughing. She reached over and they hugged, then they both pulled away. Then she untied her line and jumped over the rail onto the deck of the speedboat.

Wyatt turned as she started the engine, and walked over to the rail of the department boat as she yanked up the bumpers.

“Maggie!” Wyatt called.

Maggie shook her head, eased off away from Wayne’s boat and coasted past the cutter. The Coast Guard had laid Grace on a stretcher. Maggie looked at her as she slowly went past.

Grace. You said you’d stay right there.

Maggie stayed out on her Dad’s boat for the rest of the day, cruising around the bay and sitting for a while, then finally dropping anchor near Little Towhead Island. She spent a couple of hours there, ignoring people who waved as they passed by on their boats, and drinking warm Dr. Peppers that someone had left in the cooler a long time ago.

Just before sunset, she pulled anchor and docked the boat back in Daddy’s slip at Scipio Creek. She got in the Jeep and pulled out onto the street, intending to go home, but the aloneness of that struck her and she went one block and pulled into Up the Creek Raw Bar instead.