Summer by summer, p.21
Summer by Summer, page 21
My mouth opened, but the whole thing was so surreal, I couldn’t quite muster what to say.
Then, her eyes narrowed, head tilting a millimeter. She sucked a breath, eyes widening with understanding. “You’re him.”
“I . . .” She spoke English, but there was a Belizean accent to her words.
Her feet carried her closer. “You’re one of the American kids who went missing in the storm.”
Hearing those words — about me — made my knees buckle. I leaned forward, feeling like the air couldn’t reach my lungs. For stability, I planted my hands firmly on my thighs, trying to shore them up.
She came closer and placed a flat hand on my back. “You and someone else. A girl.”
The mention of Summer cleared my thoughts. “Can you help me?” But that’s when I realized I recognized this girl. She’d been with the boat men.
Her gaze shot off toward the north end of the island. She shook her head.
“Please.”
She took a step back. “I’m not in charge. They’d kill you.”
I knew as much. My eyes scanned the area and dropped onto my pile of stuff across the lake. “Can you come with me?”
She hesitated, but after a fleeting moment of empathy entered her eyes, she dipped her chin in a nod.
Once we made it to my stash, I turned to face her. “What are you doing here by the lake?”
“Don’t worry. None of the others will come this far in. There was a croc. I just wondered if he’d found a home.”
“He did. Unfortunately, it was the only fresh water supply. I had to kill him.”
This seemed to disturb her. She looked sad. “I see.”
“Why was he here?”
She chewed her lip. “Authorities followed us from Belize. The guy that has the boat dropped her here in case they caught up to us and wanted to board.”
“Are you going back to Belize?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. “Yes.”
I grabbed the brochure from the ground and pressed it into her hand. “Please. Tell them I’m here.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You and the girl?”
I knew what she was doing. She’d spoken of us in plural tense. I spoke in singular. She knew I didn’t want anyone to know Summer was with me. I could either trust her or not. And maybe my decision right now would determine if she did or didn’t help. “Yes,” I answered, and prayed I hadn’t just signed our death sentences. “The girl is with me.”
She seemed to absorb this. “I can’t go to the authorities.”
“I know. I understand. But could you just drop this off at my parents’ house?”
She stared into the tree line as if waiting for the boat men to pounce.
I took the time to kneel down and place the brochure against a rock. I usually carried a pencil in my pocket for Summer to use in her hair, but didn’t have one, so I used my dive knife to scratch the address onto the paper. “Can you read it?”
She nodded, repeated the address twice, and then used my rock to scratch out the letters. “I can’t make any promises.”
Hope drained from me, my shoulders curled forward.
“But . . .” She folded the brochure and tucked it into her white shorts. “I’ll do what I can.”
I reached for her hand, took it in both of mine. “Thank you.”
“What else have you seen here?” It was a very direct question and I knew I needed to be careful with the answer. “There was another man with us, last trip.”
“Yes,” I said. “His name was Jamison Cavanaugh.”
Her face lit with understanding. I’d either given her exactly what she needed to help us or I’d given her what they needed to kill us.
“We’ll be in Belize in the morning.” The woman turned and started walking away.
Before she could get far, I said, “My name is Bray Garrison.”
She half turned, chuckled. “Yeah. I know. You’ve been all over the news. After the cruise ship went down —”
I ran the few steps to her to close the distance. “What?”
“In the storm. A cruise ship hit the coral reef and sank trying to come into Belize. Huge mess. Three days to get all the people out of the water.”
So that was why we didn’t see or hear any rescue boats or planes for the first few days. They’d probably all been diverted to the cruise ship.
“I can’t believe you drifted this far from the mainland. They were searching for you north.” Her brown eyes looked troubled as she seemed to try to make sense of our location.
“Why?”
“The current.”
“Are they still searching?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” Hearing those words brought a hopelessness into my heart. Had our families given up on us?
“Please help. I don’t know how much longer we can do this.”
Her gaze dropped to the ground. I didn’t know what she would or wouldn’t do. I didn’t know if I’d helped or hindered our situation. After I watched her disappear, I ran back to the hut, pausing only long enough to grab my stuff. The trees stayed where I’d dropped them. Tonight we weren’t going to be smoking anything.
After returning to the lagoon, I doused the fire — which was little more than a few glowing coals. Still, there was no need to draw attention. “The boat men are here.”
Summer’s eyes widened as she came down the hut steps and stopped at my feet.
“I met one of them, a woman who was with them when they killed Cavanaugh.”
She sucked a breath and her fingers flew to her face.
My hand captured them and raised them to my lips. “Don’t worry. I think she’s going to help us.”
But her eyes were saying everything her mouth couldn’t.
“She was at the lake. Actually worried about the croc. She recognized me, Summer. Said she’d seen our pictures on the news.”
Her green eyes blinked, mind taking in and processing the information. “Bray, what if she tells the boat men?” Summer sank into me.
“I don’t think she will, but tonight we need to keep everything put away and dark. No fire.”
She nodded, face tucked against my chest. Then she popped up to look at me eye-to-eye. “We may actually be going home to our families, Bray. By now, they must believe we’re dead.”
“I can’t wait to see Joshie. Mom and Dad. This has to have been so hard on them.”
“I know, my parents too. We may actually be going home.”
“Yes, future Mrs. Garrison. We can plan that wedding.”
Her fingers closed around my face and she kissed me. “Yes we can. I think I see a ship on the horizon.”
I held her close, shards of that strange feeling I’d experienced earlier in the day rolling back toward me. I forced it away. “I told you I’d keep you safe.”
“At the risk of sounding like a cliché, Bray, you’re my hero.”
I kissed both her cheeks, the tip of her nose, then her mouth. “No, Summer. You’re mine.”
CHAPTER 16
Bray
We’d cleaned up and stashed everything the night before, so when the sun rose, I walked to the north end of the island to make sure the boat men were gone. I was almost back when I heard the deep rumble above and knew either a helicopter or plane was nearby. My heart kicked up. She’d done it. The woman I met yesterday had done it. I ran back to the hut, screaming Summer’s name and running through the trees like a wild man.
The sound muffled slightly, and I knew they must have landed. When I ran the last little bit, I could see the edge of the float plane in front of the hut.
My eyes darted around for Summer as I entered the clearing. She was immobile. Standing with her hands up and fear filling her features. When I made it all the way around the hut, I saw why. A man stood on the leg of the float plane, a handgun trained on her. I ran, shouted her name, and dove toward her as the shot rang out. Something ripped my side. I landed on a soft carpet and could hear the scream tear from Summer’s throat. More shots. Bang, bang, bang. Like fireworks on the Fourth of July. I realized I couldn’t see. Maybe my eyes were closed.
Shuffling. Whimpering. My soft carpet was moving beneath me. Beyond us there was commotion. Someone yelling instructions. I forced my eyes open. Sand had caked them and my eyeballs burned, but I blinked around the bits of sand and tears until I could see giant wings on the beach. Men in black jackets with white letters left the helicopter and moved onto the beach, weapons trained on the float plane. Others headed straight toward us. Words flew around me.
“Get the kids.”
“All clear.”
“Is Maria in the plane?”
“Yes, sir. She’s been shot.”
Someone touched me. Soft hands. Then, stronger ones. Lifting me from my spongy bed on the ground. I tried to form her name on my lips but couldn’t. How had it become so cold? A giant bird hovered over my head, its pounding wings startling me, waking me from my forced slumber and slicing the bright sunlight. But it wasn’t a bird, it was a helicopter. Summer, where are you?
She didn’t answer. I was too weak to keep my eyes open any longer. Darkness closed over me, blotting out the light, the cold, everything.
CHAPTER 17
Summer
I woke in a hospital room.
To my right, the sun poured rays of heat through the window, but I couldn’t feel its warmth. I reached toward the pane, only to have my arm tingle with goose flesh from the air-conditioned chill. My long hair was matted, a tattered splash against my shoulders, ends frayed from too many hours in the unforgiving sun.
I closed my eyes and imagined him. Like me, his skin was sundarkened against the sterile bed. I saw him standing at a campfire, reaching down to take my hand. He had so much more right to live than I.
Yet I was saved. My throat closed, and the smallest of sounds escaped my lips because I’d felt this pain before.
Can a person survive losing both boys she loves? If so, I didn’t see how. I squeezed my eyes tight and wished for the one thing I never believed possible.
I wished I was back on the island.
But I was in a sterile room. “Please,” I begged as a nurse entered from the left. The door was held open by an armed man in a black uniform. My gaze closed on his weapon, and everything else disappeared. I remembered the feeling of stepping off the porch of the hut and seeing the plane. The man, stepping out onto the leg. Raising the gun to my face. My body frozen as I waited to die.
Bray ran around the hut screaming. He jumped at me at the same time the man fired. Bray landed on top of me, protecting me with his body, covering me with his blood. Flat on my back, I saw the helicopter. It rounded the edge of the lagoon, and someone inside opened fire on the float plane. The man who shot Bray bucked, tried to lift the gun, bucked again and again, and then toppled backward into the water.
I pressed my hands on Bray’s gushing wound, but its force was unstoppable.
Bray was dying.
They pulled him from me, and I was whisked away with a blanket thrown around my shoulders and rough hands closing on me, dragging me to the helicopter and out of the pool of Bray’s blood. Within minutes, we were lifted from the island. I watched as it grew smaller and smaller. I held Bray’s hand while they worked, four men hovering over him, stripping things from packages and speaking words I didn’t understand. He was on a gurney. We were off the island.
And I watched as blood from the man I loved pooled in the bottom of the rescue helicopter.
The nurse paused at my bed. This was the third time she’d come in. “Please,” I said through a raspy throat. “Is Bray okay?”
“I’m not authorized to release any information.” Her English was broken, but understandable. She patted my hand. “I’m sure someone will be in very soon.”
I gripped her hand. The force must have surprised her. Her eyes widened, and her gaze dropped to our clenched hands. “Please. Just tell me he’s alive.”
She swallowed, stared at the door a few seconds, and leaned closer. “He’s in surgery.”
Bray was alive. My heart nearly erupted through my ribs. He was alive and we were back on mainland Belize. I released her hand, and she clutched it to her chest. I’d hurt her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how hard I grabbed you.”
Her brows rose. “You’re strong.”
Yeah. Thanks to the island. That’s when I noticed my rope ring was gone. “My ring!”
“The rope? It’s in your side table drawer. I scrubbed it for you.”
Oh. It would have been covered in blood. I didn’t remember them taking it off of me, but the whole morning was a blur. I reached to the drawer. “Please, can I have it back?”
She drew it out and handed it to me, then said, “Don’t you dare tell them I told you about Bray.”
I cast a glance to the door and nodded.
“Sleep if you can. Someone will be in soon.”
The door swung open, causing us both to start. A man, round-faced and with a belly that pushed hard against the bulging buttons of his shirt, stepped inside. “Can she talk?”
I answered for myself. “Yes.”
The nurse shot me a glance, and I knew this man had the answers to what happened. I leaned up on the pillow. “Is Bray okay?”
He cleared his throat, stepped closer, and looked at me from head to toe, as if gauging something.
“Sir, please.”
He sniffed, causing his shoulders to rise and his shirt to groan under the pressure. I’d noticed he also spoke perfect English and looked as American as Bray and I. His eyes cut to the nurse. She hurried to finish and left the room.
“My name is Orlin MacAbee. What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room.”
I nodded.
“Maria Sosa is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife undercover agent. I’m a colleague of hers. Maria met Bray at the lake on Sovereign Island.”
The woman with the boat men was an undercover agent?
“Three years of hard work have gone into bringing down the trafficking ring the two of you encountered. She took a great risk letting us know you were there and alive.”
I remembered back to when the shots rang out. “Someone yelled the name Maria. She’d been shot.”
Orlin pulled a breath, and scrubbed at the scruff beneath his chin. “Yes.”
“She was there when they came to kill us this morning?” My mind tried to wrap around it. “She was with them?”
“Held at gunpoint. Your uh . . . incident blew her cover. She’d snuck off their boat and made a call to me. I contacted Bray’s family. After torturing her, then drugging her, they made her give up your location.”
It was getting hard to breathe. I splayed my hands flat on the sheet, fingers spread and trying to feel the solid surface beneath me. “How . . . how did we get here?”
“The helicopter. We swarmed the island just as Raul opened fire on you. We brought you straight to the hospital here.”
I hadn’t been shot. “Brought in the helicopter?” Why were the details so blurry? The frown on my face deepened.
“Yes in the helicopter. You were in shock. On another note, you two killed a croc on the island?”
I nodded, a little surprised by the change of conversation.
“With the croc dead, Maria’d lost her chance to meet the head of the organization. It was to be a gift for him. Three years down the drain.”
Okay, so was Orlin MacAbee just here to tell me how badly we’d messed things up? “Look, it was the croc or us. We didn’t have a real choice. Is Maria okay?”
“She’ll live.” He stared down at me like this whole thing was my fault.
“I’m sorry about what happened to her. About your investigation.”
I focused tightly on his small round eyes and watched them change. Disapproval turned to empathy. Mechanical equipment hummed around us, hospital machines whirred — I’d never noticed them before.
Orlin reached out and patted my hand. “No, I should apologize. You were just trying to survive. Glad you two made it.”
“Who shot Bray?”
“A man named Raul. He also shot Maria. I expect them both to make a good recovery.”
I let out some of the tension that had settled in my lungs, my heart. Eyes closed, I focused on those words. A good recovery. But with my eyes squeezed shut, all I could see was Bray, the horror on his face, him diving on top of me. The feeling that he was gone, dying, bleeding out as I tried to hold him together.
He’s alive. I said the words over and over in my head, praying they would take root, but each time I tried, there he was, bleeding, dying.
“I’ll leave you to get some rest. No word of any of this, okay Summer?”
They’d hooked me up to an IV, though I wasn’t injured. Fluid drained into my system. I toyed with the tube. “Yes sir.”
“We’ll be in touch. Until then, no one except the Garrisons will be allowed in. If you leave the room, you don’t go alone.”
A tremor ran the length of my spine. Was I still in danger? Then I remembered the armed guard just outside my door.
MacAbee left, but I couldn’t sleep. Not with this living nightmare running through my head and not until I knew Bray was out of surgery. But my eyes grew heavy, and I wondered if they’d slipped some medication into the IV. The room grayed around me, sounds muffled and grew farther and farther away.
I woke to commotion.
Markus and Sandra stood at the foot of my bed and little Joshie ran to me from the door, arms out and a smile as big as Texas on his face. “Joshie!” I gasped and pulled him to me in a bear hug.
Sandra pitched forward. “Oh, Josh, don’t hurt her. She’s been through a lot.”
“I’m fine,” I said and held him so close. I closed my eyes and tucked my head into his hair, breathing in the life and light that was Joshie. He smelled like strawberry shampoo and little boy sweat, and it was such an amazing scent that all I could do was hold him.
With tears in her eyes, Sandra came around the bed and dropped beside me. She pulled me into a hug, and before I knew what was happening, all four of us were tangled up there on the bed, crying tears of joy and laughing between the sobs.
