The Voice inside My Head (26 page)

Jamie and Zach have the boat untied and the motor going by the time I’m clambering into it.

“If Gudrun had sent the message, she would have said she was calling from the
Ol’ Tom
; that’s the name of their boat. She wouldn’t have said she was calling from Poppies,” Zach explains, as Jamie focuses on hot-rodding out of the harbor without crashing into anyone.

I’m still confused. “Maybe Dr. Jake was talking about where she worked, not where she was calling from.”

“People here don’t make that kind of mistake,” Zach replies. “A lot of places on and around this island have no telephone reception. The radio is the only way to communicate. If there’s a crisis — an earthquake, an accident, a swamped ship — the radio is the only thing standing between them and death. They get on it; they identify their location. It’s the first thing they do. Always.”

“So you’re saying Gudrun didn’t send that message?”

“Exactamundo,” Zach says.

I
t’s an excruciating fifteen minutes to Jack Neil Beach, halfway back in the direction of town. Jamie takes the waves as quickly as we can. Several times I think we’re going to capsize, but finally we round the last headland. Zach leaps to his feet and excitedly points out Jack Neil dock. I am so relieved to see Reesie lying on the end, but my heart thumps when she struggles to sit up, only to flop back down, raising her arm in a feeble wave. As we get closer, we can see the blood oozing from the side of her head.

I’m up and off the boat before Jamie’s even cut the motor.

I run to Reesie and kneel down, pull off my T-shirt in a fluid motion and press it to the wound.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “Tracy —”

“Not now, Reesie,” I cut her off. “You need to lie still.”

She struggles to sit up, pushing away my restraining hand.

Jamie’s right behind me and drops to his knees, picking up the T-shirt Reesie has cast off and struggling to hold her down while I press it against the wound again.

“Calm yourself, girl,” he commands.

“Tracy’s getting away!” she gasps urgently. “She stole the dinghy. She was hiding. We’ve got to —”

“For once in your life, you are not the one giving orders here,” snaps Jamie. “Zach, go down the beach to Mr. Wolfe. It’s the round gray house. Get on to Dr. Jake and tell him we need a fast boat to town.”

Zach hurtles down the dock before Jamie finishes his instructions.

“She’s heading for Ceiba,” Reesie moans. “She’s trying to leave the country. You have to listen to me.”

“Luke,” Jamie says. “It’s up to you. I’ve got to stay with Reesie. Take my boat; it’s a damn sight faster than the dinghy. You might be able to catch her.”

I look at him in horror and glance over at his boat. I’ve never driven a boat before. But I can’t let my sister’s murderer just get away. I search the shoreline, wondering how long it will be before Zach returns. I can’t even see him. He disappeared into the trees the second he left the dock. He may not have gotten that far, but am I really prepared to wait? Every second could mean the difference between catching up with Tracy and letting her escape. I realize I don’t have a choice.

“The key’s still in the motor,” says Jamie. “Just keep your sights on Pico Bonito and head straight for it.” He nods at the distant shore, where the silhouette of a steep, conical mountain disappears into the clouds.

I nod briskly but don’t speak. I know my voice will betray my fear. My entire body quivering, I force myself to stride steadily over to the boat. I climb in and turn the key. The motor jumps to life. Just like driving a car. I turn the throttle
and the boat starts to move. Unfortunately, the dock starts to move with it.

“The ropes,” Jamie yells, scuttling over to untie the one closest to him. I turn off the motor and scramble across the bow to untie the other one.

“Just practicing,” I say sheepishly.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” says Reesie, moaning as she tries to sit up. “This is a bad plan, Jamie.”

Jamie returns to her side and I repeat the steps of turning on the engine. This time when I give it juice, it rockets away from the dock like it might go airborne.

“Don’t be giving it too much throttle,” Jamie calls after me, but I can barely hear him over the roar of the engine as I hurtle toward the wide-open sea.

In a twelve-foot boat.

With no radio.

And a useless cell phone that can’t get reception.

In at least one hundred feet of water.

Now five hundred.

One thousand.

Sharks can attack in less than two feet of water.

Is that supposed to be reassuring?

This was a mistake.

But I have to catch Tracy.

Focus on the mountain.

How big is that wave?

Holy crap.

——

Water sluices over me, drenching my clothes and filling the boat. I scrabble at my feet with one hand, keeping the other on the throttle. There’s some kind of plastic jug beneath my seat. I yank it out and am relieved to see it’s an empty milk jug with the top sliced off, perfect for bailing. I fling water out of the boat as fast as I can, but it’s a losing battle as an onslaught of waves, three in a row, crash over the bow, sending torrents of water back in my face. My eyes sting from the salt; I can hardly keep them open. I squint at Pico Bonito for brief seconds in between squeezing my eyes shut, hoping my own tears will clear the salt. I continue hurtling forward, but the mountain never gets any closer. Only the land behind me recedes. I can no longer make out the dock or distinguish trees from the hazy green outline of the little island I’ve left. Still I keep going until Utila disappears completely. The mainland remains an indistinct smudge on the horizon.

In one of my peeks through burning eyes, I think I see something moving just ahead.

Another quick look confirms it.

A fin? I saw a dorsal.

My heart pounds so hard, I think it’s going to burst through my rib cage.

I force my eyes wide open, though they’re streaming so badly I’m nearly blind. I look around and there they are, three dorsals off the starboard bow.

And then I see more.

At least a dozen.

Double that.

Triple.

There are hundreds of them. I’m surrounded. One of the creatures leaps out of the water, spins twice and crashes back into the sea. This starts a craze and they all start doing it, leaping and spinning, in unison and alone. The sea churns with their riotous dance.

Not sharks.

Dolphins.

They know I’m here, I’m certain of it. It’s not only that some pop up and look at me, leap so close I fear they’ll tumble into the boat; it’s more than that. They’re doing this for my benefit, showing off like rowdy street urchins, proving how completely they own this expanse of ocean. As I watch them, I forget my stinging eyes, my cold goose-pimpled body, and wish more than anything that I could join them.

The dolphins are moving off, still twirling, taunting me to follow, share in their exuberance of life and each other. I lean dangerously over the side of the boat, my entire being craning toward them, but I let them go, too.

Once again, I’m alone.

Ocean surrounds me, stretching out in every direction, slate gray, reflecting the sky and my mood.

At first, there’s just a speck on the horizon, bobbing in and out of sight as it climbs the waves and disappears behind them. But as I close the distance, I can make out the outline of another boat, a small one with a single passenger. Time
slows down as the image becomes clearer, blond hair whipping out behind narrow, hunched shoulders. She leans into the wind, her back to me, but her compact, wiry frame, the calm sureness of her movements, are etched into me like a tattoo. I would know her anywhere — my sister’s killer.

She hears me at the last minute, over the wind and her preoccupation with her own single-minded flight. Turning, she reaches for something on the seat beside her.

A speargun.

She points it at me, cutting her motor at the same time, so she can use both hands to steady it.

“Not very sporting of you, Tracy,” I shout, pulling up on her left side, but keeping some distance between us. “I thought fish-huggers didn’t go in for equipment like that.”

“It’s only for emergencies,” she calls back. “I’d say this qualifies.”

“You only have one spear. What if you miss?”

“I won’t miss.”

“I can’t let you get away. You’ll have to kill me.”

“If that’s what you want.”

She leans into the gun, closing one eye as she aims. I give the engine full throttle in the same instant the arrow takes flight. It grazes my shoulder, taking my breath away before continuing its trajectory across the stern and into the water beyond. I put my hand up to my wound. It feels deep and hurts like hell. I’m just glad it’s my left arm as I give the throttle a hard jerk to the right and charge straight for the dinghy. The impact throws Tracy into the water and would do the same for me if I wasn’t hunkered down ready for it. She disappears for a moment, and I wonder if she’s gone under my
boat. Her own is bobbing upside down on the waves, but from the size of the hole in its side, it isn’t going to be there long. My engine died on impact. I hope I can get it started again.

Tracy breaks the surface a few feet from her boat, spitting water. “Are you nuts?” she shrieks. “You could have killed us both!”

“And that would be worse than you killing me?”

She strokes over to my boat and reaches one hand up, grasping the gunwale. “Pull me in, asshole.”

I prime the motor, advance the throttle and pull the handle, relieved when the engine turns over almost immediately. I’m not planning to leave her here, but I’m not in any hurry to help her either.

She reaches her other hand up and starts pulling and shimmying her way up the side. The boat sits high in the water, and she falls back a couple of times in frustration while I continue to watch. She keeps at it until she’s swung one leg up and over; the girl’s got good upper body strength. I’m tempted to push her back down, but I can’t do it. She was the only one with Pat at the end and I need answers.

She flops on the deck of the boat, gasping, while I scramble over her to grab Jamie’s carpenter’s belt. I noticed it earlier, stowed in the bow, and I don’t want her coming at me with a hammer. I just want to get my business done with her so I can get her out of my sight. The sooner I turn her over to the police, the better.

Finally, she hauls herself up onto one of the seats and glares at me. “Why couldn’t you have followed your dick like a normal guy?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know — when I came on to you. If we’d slept together, it wouldn’t have occurred to you to suspect me.”

“I think you overestimate the power of your sexual attraction.”

She rolls her eyes. “Guys are all the same. I had Pete believing I loved him and was actually trying to help him, when all the time I was setting him up.”

“It was you planting the dolls, wasn’t it?”

“Of course.” She smirks, but it turns into a grimace. “A fat lot of good it did me. That should have had you going after Jamie.”

“Where did you get voodoo dolls?”

She snickers. “They weren’t voodoo dolls, just cloth dolls. They sell them at the Guatemalan store at the edge of town. I thought for sure someone would catch on to that.”

I take a deep breath, steeling myself to ask the only question I really care about.

“Why did you kill her?”

Tracy shrugs and pulls off her shirt. For a minute I think this is another attempt at seduction, but she just wrings it out and lays it over the bench between us to dry. The wind has dropped, and the sun emerges from behind the clouds. She slides down to the deck, stretches her legs toward me, leans back against the middle bench and closes her eyes for several minutes. I’m beginning to think she’s fallen asleep, so it startles me when she answers my question.

“It’s not like I planned it,” she murmurs. “Pete was my boyfriend, but like I told you, that was over the minute he met your sister. The night she died, we were all at the bar. Your sister was upset about something, drinking more than
she normally did. Pete was doing his best to take advantage of that, but she still wasn’t interested. When she started talking about going back to the room, I took off first. I wanted to spy on them, see how she’d behave if she thought they were alone. I figured maybe Pete was right and she was playing hard to get. Without me around, maybe she’d give in to him and that would have suited me fine. She could have Pete. I liked Jamie better anyway. I was already planning how I’d break the news to him about his slutty girlfriend. I watched them go down to the dock. Your sister said she wanted to be alone, but she had to know Pete wouldn’t go for that. She was leading him on, if you ask me, but when he tried to kiss her, she put up a fight. Then she fell, just like he said.”