Riptide (20 page)

Finally, she set it down in the passenger seat, wrapped the seat belt around it and buckled it in, then stuffed her purse up against it as well. Then she started the truck and drove away.

She pulled into the small grassy area that served as parking for Ten Hole Marina, a handful of boat slips near Battery Park that served as mooring for a handful of small houseboats and sailboats. She got out of the truck and shut the door, then opened it again and reached into the space behind the front seats, pulled out a beach towel, and draped it over the urn. Then she locked the truck and headed down the dock.

David’s houseboat, a 38-foot white Burns Craft of 1970s vintage, was in the last slip. Maggie stepped aboard onto the small bow deck, where there was a pair of captain’s chairs and a small plastic table. A coffee mug with a dried brown ring at the bottom sat on the table. Maggie ignored it and sifted through David’s truck keys, found the one that opened the cabin door, and went inside.

The cabin was small and old, but it was neat and somewhat cozy. Maggie had entered into a cramped galley with just enough room for a booth. A few steps down to the left was the living area, with the stateroom and head beyond. Maggie stood there for a moment, gave herself just a few seconds to dwell on the fact that when David had last left, he had expected to come home. Then she stepped down into the living area.
 

The guitar that she’d bought for David was leaning up against an upholstered chair. Maggie went to it and picked it up gently by the neck. Then she walked over to a small, built in desk. There were two framed pictures on the shelf above the desk. One was of her and David, sitting on the deck in back of Boss Oyster, back when they’d still been married. The other was more recent, a shot of David and the kids from when they’d gone fishing last summer.

Maggie reached out to pick up the picture of her and David, and her hand stopped in mid-air. On the shelf beside it sat David’s silver wedding band. She picked it up and stared at it, felt something pressing on her chest, then took a deep breath and shoved it into the front pocket of her jeans. Then she snatched up both of the pictures and hurried back outside.

M
aggie was halfway home when Wyatt called.
 

“Hey,” she answered.

“Hey, yourself. Where are you?”

“I’m on my way home. Where are you?”

“The office,” he answered. “I have some news that I think you’ll like hearing.”

“What’s going on?”

She heard some paper shuffling at the other end. “I’ve just finished going through David’s bank statements for the last three years,” Wyatt said. “For a little over two years, he’d been making weekly deposits into his savings account.”

Maggie felt a part of her eager to get hopeful and she tried to talk it down. “Okay.”

“No deposit was over a thousand dollars. Most of them were just a few hundred. As of his last deposit, dated June 19, he had $41,290.00. He purchased a cashier’s check on June 27 for $39,500, made out to Gilbert Marine in Mobile, Al.”

Maggie checked behind her for cars, then pulled over onto a small gravel turnaround. “David didn’t steal anything,” she said quietly.

“It doesn’t look like it. Maybe it was for another reason, or maybe it was a mistake,” Wyatt said. “But he saved up for the boat, just like he said.”

Maggie put her head down on the steering wheel. “Thank you,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I will be.” She sat up and blew out a breath. “You have no food in your refrigerator.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment, but Maggie thought she could hear Wyatt smiling when he spoke. “That’s not true. I have two weeks’ worth of leftovers in my refrigerator.”

“I thought maybe you’d want to come over and let me cook you dinner.”

“Well, I’d like to come over. I’ll even eat. But you don’t have to cook. I can bring something.”

“From your fridge?”

“That’s not nice.”

“I’ll cook. It relaxes me.”

“Then I’ll eat your real food,” he said. “What time would you like me to present myself to you?”

“When are you leaving the office?”

“In about an hour. I do need to go home and shower, though.”

Maggie looked at her ancient Timex. It was almost six. “Okay, well, just come over whenever you’re ready.”

They hung up, and Maggie looked over at the urn on the passenger seat, the pictures next to it, and the guitar on the floorboards.
 

He was still gone. But he hadn’t done anything to make that happen. She felt like a piece of him had just been given back to her.

When Maggie parked next to her Jeep in the gravel parking area, Coco had already barreled down the deck stairs and flung herself into the grass in front of the truck. Stoopid ran over her belly, flailed at Maggie with a half-hearted crow, then ran back across the yard, wings akimbo, looking like a failed experimental plane.

Maggie rubbed Coco’s belly, then opened the passenger door and unbuckled the seat belt. Then she grabbed the guitar and the pictures, carefully picked up the urn, and carried everything inside, Coco at her heels.

She slid the urn gently onto the narrow table behind the couch, then set the guitar and pictures down. The thought occurred to her that David had finally come home, and she squashed it quick, lest it ruin her.

After grabbing a drink of water, she pulled some pork chops out of the fridge, seasoned them and set them aside, then went back into the living room. She leaned David’s guitar up against the bookshelves he had built, and stood the pictures on top. Then she remembered David’s wedding band, and pulled it out. She tucked it into her jewelry box in her room, a gift one day for Kyle.

She treated herself to a nice, long shower, put on some clean yoga pants and a tee shirt, and headed out to feed the girls for the night.

“No, Coco, not you,” she said, as she opened the sliding door. “I don’t need you tormenting the girls tonight.”

Coco sat down, and Maggie pulled the door shut, ignoring the look of utter despair thrown her way.

She walked down to the chicken yard, relieved to feel rain in the air at last. It wasn’t there yet, but it would be. She could taste it on her tongue. Chances were good that she and Wyatt would have to eat inside.

She got the cut-down milk jug from the shed, filled it with chicken feed, and walked over to the fence that surrounded the chicken yard. The dozen or so hens, a conglomeration of breeds, all came nattering over to the fence, exclaiming over their neglect and expressing their keen interest in having it rectified.

Stoopid came barreling in from everywhere, flapped a few times, and landed atop the fence next to Maggie.

“Dammit, Stoopid, I hate it when you—”

Something punched her in the front of her shoulder, and she lost her balance. She was halfway to the ground before she heard the shot.
 

She landed on her back. Oddly, she was still holding the feed jug, which landed upright and mostly full. Stunned, she glanced over at the fence, thinking for just a second that Stoopid was the one in danger. But he was gone and no one had come here to shoot her rooster.

Her brain finally started moving again, and she half sat up. Her shoulder screamed at her as she reached back for her weapon, but she realized that she’d never put her holster back on after her shower. Her .45 was still in her bedroom.
 

She was starting to get dizzy, and she could hear Coco going completely nuts inside the house. She looked up, and saw Coco jumping at the sliding glass door, saw the short, thin man in jeans and a Florida Marlins jersey walking across the yard to her.

She tried to focus on his face, but she knew she didn’t know him anyway. She blinked a few times, virtually willed the fog away from her vision and her mind, as the man came to stop just a few feet away. He held a .22 down by his side.

“I’m tired of cleaning up Boudreaux’s messes,” he said quietly, and started to raise the gun.

Maggie swung the jug up toward his face and let it go, and she was up off of the ground before the seeds, pellets and a surprising amount of dust flew into his face. He was between her and the house, with nothing but a clear shot at her if she tried to get across the yard. She ran for the woods, just a few feet behind the chicken yard.

She could hear Coco losing her mind, her barking muffled and distant, but sounding so much more vicious than people gave her credit for. She could also hear the man swearing behind her, and another shot rang out. Maggie heard it whistle past to her right, as she veered to the left.

She knew she was at a serious disadvantage. She could no longer feel her right arm, and she was losing blood. But she knew these woods, all five, overgrown acres of them, like she knew the face of her firstborn child. If she could circle around to the left and come up on the far side of the house, she’d have some cover, and maybe enough time, to run up the deck stairs, get her damn gun, and blow this skinny trespasser out of his damn shoes.

She slowed her breathing, forcing herself to breathe only with her mouth closed so she wouldn’t make too much noise, then soft-stepped around a clump of dead cypress trees that had been destroyed during a hurricane back in the 80s. She paused on the other side, listening. The crickets and cicadas were both at it, making it difficult to hear small noises, but she couldn’t hear any footfalls or snapping twigs.
 

Although most of the woods offered good cover from overgrown thickets, she had ten feet of mostly open ground between her and the next good-sized bunch of trees, if she wanted to go the most direct route to the back of the house. She didn’t, but her vision was blurring and she felt cold and nauseated. She needed to get into the house.

She had just stepped away from the old cypress, and was getting ready to run, when a hand reached out and grabbed the back of her shirt. She was pulled off balance before she could correct it, and when she turned and tried to raise her arm to fight back, her arm never materialized.
 

She raised a leg instead, and managed to kick at his hand. While she did manage to make him lose his grip on his gun, she didn’t kick it very far. Her kick was too weak and his arm too high for her wonky balance. She suddenly realized that Coco’s barking had gotten much louder and clearer, and was actually moving closer, and she had just enough time to wonder how Coco had gotten out, and to worry for her safety, before a fist snapped out and dropped her to the ground.
 

She fell back hard against the cypress, a wood as hard as stone, and felt her head smash against it as she did. Bright lights exploded inside her skull, and as she fell, she heard a crunching in the leaves, Coco’s insane growl, and the gunshot.

M
aggie blinked a few times, her head coming apart each time, then felt Coco’s tongue on her face. She reached up with her good arm, eyes unfocused, and grabbed Coco’s collar. “Coco, go!” she said, and shoved her away. The tongue was back instantly, and Maggie heard heavy footsteps on the ground, heard them stop just behind her head.

He crouched down and his face entered her line of vision. His eyebrows were knitted together underneath his ball cap. “The security code is four-zero-nine-eight,” Wyatt said tiredly. “Next time, use it.”