Surface Tension - Kling Christine (хорошие книги бесплатные полностью .txt) 📗

I hoped he would think it had been the bird that had snapped the branch. More carefully now, I reached out for another branch, gently pulling on it to test the strength of the wood before I put any strain on it. I continued to pull myself deeper into the swamp, following the snaking turns of the narrow open space, just fitting through whatever holes in the vegetation I could find.

My eyes had grown quite accustomed to the darkness, and I began to see freshwater shrimp and other fish moving in the dark water breaking the surface with fins and feelers. In the branches of a dead cypress, high over the pond apple trees, I saw a raccoon rouse himself from his sleeping position and climb down the dark trunk. Big fronds of ferns and palmetto directly over my head made dark silhouettes against the starlit sky. There was a Jurassic feel to the place, as though a T. rex could come charging through the brush at any moment. My mother used to tell us a story about venturing into the Pond Apple Slough with friends back in the fifties. She insisted there was still a hunting shack back in the swamp, a place built by the Rivers brothers, trappers of local legend. She and her friends would canoe back in there and get drunk on weekends, or so Red told me later. If that shack still existed, I’d love to find it now.

When the Whaler’s outboard started up again, I was surprised by the faintness and the direction of the sound. Already I’d become disoriented in the dark swamp, with no landmarks. The outboard noise grew fainter until finally it vanished. I tried to get my bearings, but it was difficult to be certain, the way noises surrounded you in there.

I had to climb off and step down into the muck to turn the water bike around. My bare feet are pretty tough, but the rocks and roots protruding from the mud hurt like hell. Not only that, I could have sworn things were moving in the water, brushing against my calves and ankles. The opening in the brush had narrowed so that I had to push the bike into the vegetation in order to horse it around, and the handlebars kept getting caught on a creeper hanging down from a dead cypress tree.

“Shit!” A branch I hadn’t seen ripped a gash across the back of my hand. The blood oozing out appeared black against my pale-looking skin. Drops were falling in the water and I wasn’t quite sure what they might attract. I licked the blood off and held my hand straight up in the air to try to stop the bleeding.

Damned deadwood. The swamp was choked with it. I’d heard that saltwater intrusion was killing off Pond Apple Slough. I just didn’t want the swamp killing me.

After about a minute, the bleeding had pretty well let up, and I climbed on the bike, happy to get my bare legs out of that water. The entire insect population of the swamp seemed to zero in on my ankles at that point, but I was less worried about their bites than those of whatever might live in that water.

The bike hadn’t gone five yards when I came to a fork in the watery trail. Of course, I couldn’t remember which one I’d come through on, probably hadn’t even been aware there was a fork at the time.

When I heard the low rumble of an engine, I was sure it was Neal, coming back to finish me. I strained my ears trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, swiveling my head around, using my ears like radar antennae, when I suddenly realized the noise was coming from overhead. The red, green, and white lights of a small plane twinkled almost directly above me. The wind was out of the east, and he was surely going to land on the east-west runway at Fort Lauderdale Airport. Therefore he was headed due east. I took the right fork.

By the time I got back out into the New River I wasn’t worried about gators or murderous ex-boyfriends. I’d been hit, scratched, bitten, and attacked quite enough for one night. I fired up the Jet Ski and headed home at full throttle, my jaw set so tight my teeth ground hard with every bounce of the water bike. I didn’t wave to any bridge tenders, I didn’t worry about Crystal’s boat, and I didn’t even see the buildings of downtown. I just wanted to get home.

An empty dock was all I saw when I came around the bend upriver of the Larsen place. I didn’t notice anything else about that stretch of the New River except for that long stretch of gray, vacant seawall. Gorda was gone.

XXVII

I turned the throttle way down and circled around so I could pull into the dock against the current. As I turned, I noticed my Boston Whaler downriver, lodged between a big Hatteras and the seawall. Neal hadn’t even bothered to tie it up. The bastard had just set it adrift.

“Sey!” Sunny appeared out of the bushes, running toward the empty dock. She was wearing a man’s T-shirt, and it looked like a billowing white dress on her. Her legs and feet were bare, and with her tousled blond hair, she looked like a little girl. Heck, she really was a little girl. “Come on! Quick!” she said, waving her arms, signaling me to hurry. Her voice was like a loud stage whisper, and it was difficult to hear her over the idling water bike. I cut the engine.

“You’ve got to help him!” she said.

I grabbed a spare dock line and tied up the Jet Ski. “Who? What are you talking about?”

“It’s B.J. He’s hurt!”

I brushed her aside and ran up the walkway leading to the back door of the Larsens’ house. Sunny ran behind me, panting and trying to spit out the story.

“When I woke up, I heard voices. I started to get up, but I could hear them fighting. I hid. I was too scared to come out.”

I ran into the living room and saw B.J. on the floor. There was blood in his hair just above his temple, blood staining the rug under him.

“Oh, man ...” I dropped to my knees and slid one hand beneath his head while the other caressed his cheek. His skin felt warm.

Sunny was still talking. “The other man, the one with the gun, ran away. He got a bunch of stuff from upstairs and left on that boat that was out there. I tried to call nine-one-one, but the phones don’t work. I wanted to help your friend, really, but I went to the front door and those men were out there in their car parked right in front of the house, and I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. Is he dead?”

My fingers probed his neck under the jawbone and felt an even, rhythmic pulse. Thank God. I leaned down and pressed my lips to his forehead. He moaned softly. “B.J. Are you okay?”

His eyes flicked open, then shut, then open again, swimming in their sockets. He reached up to touch his head and winced in pain.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. Sunny said ...”

“Neal,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. He did this?”

“I’m gonna ...” He went to heave himself into a sitting position, but collapsed back onto the floor. “Oh, man. What the ...”

“He shot you. I think it’s just a flesh wound, but you’ve lost a fair amount of blood. Here, let’s get you onto the couch.”

With Sunny’s help I got him onto the same deep sofa we’d used for lovemaking only a few short hours ago. I told Sunny where to find the key to my cottage and what to tell the police dispatcher.

“Be careful. Those guys are still cruising this neighborhood. I doubt they’ve come into the yard or Abaco would have alerted us. All the same, go slow, stay hidden, and try not to make any noise.”

“I’ll be okay.” She smiled at me and took off to go call 911.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked B.J.