Baja Florida Read Free Page A

dying?”
    â€œCan’t tell you that. All I know is that the last time Mickey heard from her—about a month ago—she said she was planning to visit him and would be there within a couple of weeks. She had been living in Charleston, going to college, and had just bought a sailboat. She and some friends planned to head south, do some island-hopping, their big post-graduation adventure before finding jobs and making their ways in the real world.”
    â€œPutting off the inevitable.”
    â€œWhich, ultimately and in the very broadest sense, is the lifework of us all.”
    â€œWhoa,” Barbara said. “You getting philosophical on me, Chasteen?”
    â€œFatherhood has brought out the profundity in me.”
    We worked on our food. It was easy work. I thought about another beer. I thought maybe I’d forgo the beer in favor of an after-dinner rum. Another example of me, the deep thinker.
    â€œHere’s what I don’t get,” Barbara said. “Why would he ask you to track down his daughter? I mean, there are people who do that sort of thing for a living. Professionals.”
    â€œI told him that. He did everything he could to find her. But he didn’t really have a lot to go on. The only phone number he had for her was a landline and it has been disconnected. Didn’t know the names of Jen’s friends, the ones who were going with her. Didn’t even know the name of her boat or where she was keeping it in Charleston. He tried to go through Bahamian authorities, just to see if she had passed through customs and immigration. Got nowhere on that front. Just before he went into the hospital, he hired a private detective in Miami. Sent him a ten-thousand-dollar retainer. Hasn’t heard a word since.”
    â€œAnd time is running out for him.”
    â€œYeah, I’m afraid it is.”
    â€œSo, Chasteen to the rescue.”
    â€œAppears that way.”
    â€œYou find the girl, get the yacht, and grant Mickey Ryser his dying wish.”
    â€œSimple as that,” I said.

 
    She came out of it in stages. Sleeping, waking. Sleeping, waking. Not certain where one ended and the other began.
    Her mouth was dry, crusty around the corners of her lips. Like when she was sixteen and had knee surgery after her cleats caught on the lacrosse field. Torn ACL. The anesthesiologist stuck a needle in her arm and told her to count backward from hundred. She’d made it to ninety-four.
    And when she’d woken up it was like this. Woozy, nothing making sense. She half expected to see her mother standing at her bedside. She had always been there for her. Always.
    She strained to see. Everything was black.
    She tried to put thoughts together, hold on to something.
    She hurt all over. Especially along the top of her back, the left side, by the shoulder blade. She remembered: A storm. Running to the foredeck, falling. And blood. Lots of blood.
    And who was it? Will. Yes, Will. Dr. Will. Helping her down below, cleaning the wound, making her drink Absolut straight from the bottle as he stitched her up. And Pete, always the joker, saying, “Just like the cowboys would have done it. Here, pardner, take a belt of cranberry vodka.”
    But that had been on the crossing, not long after they left Charleston. And other days had followed that.
    And what? Then what?
    The last thing she recalled: On the boat. Night. All of them sitting in the cockpit, having a good time. And then…and then things fell apart.
    What she thought was: Something happened, something bad, and now I’m at the hospital.
    Only…
    She couldn’t see. Something was wrapped around her eyes.
    A bandanna? What? Duct tape…
    Must pull it off.
    But she couldn’t. Her hands, tied behind her. Her feet, they were tied, too.
    That’s when she screamed.

4
    The deal that Barbara and I have going is that I do the grocery shopping and the cooking, and she does the cleaning up afterward.