Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (34 page)

“Just like the others,” Marquez said grimly. They had spent the night racing from one far-flung islet to the next. The more J.T. thought about it, the more plausible places he’d come up with where Seth and Summer might have gone. They had covered miles of black water under a starry sky. Miles without sleep and with less hope.

“Let’s call the Coast Guard again,” Marquez said. “Maybe they’ve found something.”

“Go ahead,” J.T. said.

Marquez keyed the radio handset and called the now-familiar signal for the Coast Guard station on Key West. “Hi, it’s me again,” she said without preliminary. They knew her by now.

The answer came, scratchy and metallic. “Ma’am, I do now have some data. We just got a message from the cutter. They’ve found a boat answering the description you gave.”

Marquez’s heart leapt. J.T. came running back to her. “They did?” Marquez asked shakily.

“Yes, ma’am. It was capsized out in the channel, about nine miles southeast of Geiger Key. It looks like it may have been struck by a passing ship.”

“Oh, my God,” Marquez said.

“We’re conducting an air and sea search in that area, looking for survivors.”

“Oh, no,” Marquez whispered. She handed the handset to J.T., who thanked the Coast Guardsman and signed off. Marquez collapsed on the vinyl-padded bench.

“It doesn’t mean they’re dead,” J.T. said. “They could still be alive.”

“Can you—” she pleaded. “Can you feel anything? I mean, do you have a sense that, one way or the other…?”

J.T. looked sad. “Marquez, I told you. I don’t really think I have some kind of psychic connection with Summer. Maybe she
is
my sister. But I can’t do what you think I can.” He sat beside her, miserable. “I wish I could.”

Marquez patted his leg. “I don’t even believe in stuff like that. Superstition and all.”

He put his arm around her.

“This is bad,” Marquez said.

“Yeah. This is bad,” he agreed.

“You know, I don’t like getting into other people’s messes,” she said.

“I may have known that about you,” J.T. said ironically.

Marquez managed a slight smile. “Yes, I guess you did know that about me. And now, look. It’s me who’s dragged you into this mess. I could have kept my mouth shut. You’d have been sad, I mean, you knew Summer from work. But now it’s like, you kind of find this sister, and then—”

“Don’t give up yet,” J.T. said.

“No, I won’t give—Wait a second. Did you see that?”

“What?”

Marquez frowned and shook her head. No, she was just sleepy. Sleepy and seeing things that weren’t there.

Summer climbed the rope. She was lighter than Seth, and smaller. She was more likely to fit through the tiny hole.

She used the gloves from her wet suit to help her grip with her hands. The hard part was gripping the slippery rope with her bare legs. The climb was difficult—nearly twenty feet straight up, though Seth was able to help lift her the first few feet.

Her arms were burning by the time she reached the top. The patch of blue grew larger, closer. Soon she would reach it, and then—

The spear bent in two. The rope collapsed. Summer fell, screaming in surprise and anger.

Seth caught most of her weight, and both of them fell to the floor of the cave. The bent spear clattered down and fell beside them. The coil of rope looped over them.

“Oh, God, can’t anything work out?” Summer cried. She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing.

Seth seemed crushed. He said nothing, just hung his head.

A long time passed with no sound but Summer’s soft sobbing and the plop of curious fish in the water.

“There’s still hope…” Seth began to say, but then he seemed unable to carry the thought any further.

“Hey. Anyone down there?”

For a moment Summer did not believe she’d heard it.

She looked up. The patch of blue was dark.

“Hey! Yes! We’re down here!” Summer yelled.

“Is that you, Summer?”

“Marquez?” Summer said incredulously. “Marquez? Is that you?”

“Like I’m going to leave you here and end up having to work all your shifts? What the hell are you guys doing down there?”

“Eating sushi,” Summer yelled back, convulsing with relieved laughter. Seth swept her up in his arms and spun her around again and again.

“
Eating sushi?
Is that supposed to mean something?” Marquez asked J.T.

It took only twenty minutes for the Coast Guard helicopter to arrive. The Guardsmen used picks and shovels to widen the hole in the top of the cave. Then they lowered a harness on the end of a winch.

The light in the real world was blinding after the cave. Summer could not open her eyes at all for several minutes while Marquez hugged her and J.T. hugged her and various unknown Coast Guard guys hugged her.

Finally she scrunched open one eye and saw Marquez, looking ratty but beautiful. J.T. was standing there, looking unusually shy.

“How are you guys?” Marquez asked.

“Great,” Seth said. “Excellent fun. We’ll really have to do this again someday, like when hell freezes over. By the way, did you guys see the boat?”

“No. The boat got loose. I hope it’s insured,” J.T. explained. “I guess it got in the way of a tanker.”

“So how did you find us? I mean, how did you even know we were here?” Seth asked.

“Marquez saw something come flying up out of the ground, right here,” J.T. said. “She said it looked like an arrow with a yellow snake attached. We were just getting ready to give up.”

“As for how we picked this island…” Marquez said. She looked at J.T. He nodded, giving her his permission.

“What?” Summer asked.

“I thought maybe J.T. might have some instinct about the right place,” Marquez said.

“Actually, it turned out I didn’t,” J.T. said, grinning crookedly.

“But…” Marquez took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know if this is the right time to lay this on you, Summer, but I have an idea that…I mean, there’s all these reasons to think that…” She looked to J.T. again.

J.T. looked down at the ground. “Summer, I think it’s possible that I am…your brother. I think I may be Jonathan.”

Diana whistled as she poured herself a cup of coffee in a travel mug.

Her mother came into the kitchen looking early-morning grumpy. “Oh, good, you made coffee.”

“Yes. I did,” Diana said.

Her mother eyed her suspiciously. “You’re awfully cheerful.”

“Am I? Well, I’m anticipating an excellent day.”

“Uh-huh. Not still angry with me?” her mother asked.

Diana smiled coolly and walked away.

“Diana, what
are
you doing?” Mallory demanded, sounding alarmed.

Diane left her behind, still yapping, and went out to her car. She drove through town and onto the highway, heading south to Key West. It really was a stunningly beautiful day, she realized. Just because almost every day was beautiful was no reason not to appreciate this one.

She pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the state police barracks. Senator Merrick might think he owned the local police. He didn’t own the
state
police.

At the front desk a sharply uniformed officer smiled at her, not quite flirting, but definitely friendly. Diana smiled back.

“What can I do for you, miss?”

“Beautiful out, isn’t it?” Diana said.

“Yes, miss, it certainly is. Can I help you?”

“I’m here to report a crime,” Diana said.

“Oh. What crime?”

Diana considered. “I think it’s called attempted rape. Also, hitting. What’s that? Like assault and battery? That, too.”

The trooper’s eyes grew serious. The smile was gone. “You’re charging someone with attempted rape?”

“Not just someone,” Diana corrected. “Ross Merrick.”

“Merrick, as in—”

“Yes.
That
Merrick.” Diana opened her purse and handed the trooper the videocassette. “And the really cool thing is, I have a full confession right here.”

Diver sat in Summer’s empty house, feeling like an intruder. It was odd how much this place seemed to belong to her now. It had been all his for a long time, till she had come.

He’d felt even stranger standing here the other day with all three girls—Summer, Marquez, Diana. He hadn’t felt right ever since. Not since he had seen
her.
She had popped up again and again in his thoughts since then, adding her own subtle influences to the troubled, uneasy feeling he now had over Summer.

He looked around. He had to admit, she’d fixed it up. There were curtains now. The smell of mildew was mostly gone. She’d put up posters and things.

He looked at the picture by her bed. He’d looked at the picture before—Summer’s parents. It was an interesting picture. It showed her life when she was back in her home, what it was like there.

He hoped Summer was okay. It would be terribly sad for the people in the picture if something had happened to her. But though he had been worried all night, troubled by strange, frightening, incomprehensible dreams, he felt better now, as if somehow the light of day had chased away all fear.

The people in the picture seemed all right to him. Like Summer herself. The house in the background looked pleasant, as well. A yard. A badminton net. A barbecue grill. Grass. A nice place to play.

A place where a kid could play ball.

With a red ball.

When Summer woke up, she was in a large helicopter, strapped onto a stretcher, surrounded by a gallery of concerned faces.

“What?” Summer said, frowning.

“I said, you’re awake!” Marquez yelled, making herself heard over the vibrating, thumping roar of the helicopter’s engines.

“I know,” Summer said. “I know when I’m awake. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you passed out,” Marquez said.

“No way.” Summer tried to sit up, couldn’t, and looked down at the red webbing strap that went across her chest like a seat belt. “Oh. What happened?”

“It was very
Gone with the Wind
!” Marquez said, shouting to be heard. “You zoned. You went out.”

“Here,” Seth said. He was holding a canteen to her lips. “Water.”

Summer took it in greedy mouthfuls, not an easy thing to manage since she was lying on her back. When she was done she smiled at Seth. “Excellent. Much better than trying to lick condensation.”

“They have food too,” Seth said, saying the word
food
the way very hungry people say it.

“Can I get unstrapped?” Summer asked the nearest Guardsman.

“Um, sure, I guess,” he said. He unfastened the strap, and she sat up, gazing around the inside of the helicopter. It was very spare, just bare aluminum and big yellow-and-black warning signs advertising various dangerous things.

The door was partly open, letting in damp, superheated air, and through the opening she could look down and see the perfect blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico zipping by a hundred feet down. The sun blazed, as it usually did in these islands beyond the southernmost tip of Florida. It would have been a beautiful sight at any time, but at the moment it was even more moving, and almost as beautiful as the ham and cheese sandwich Seth handed her.

“Don’t scarf it too fast,” Seth advised, putting his lips to her ear so she could hear him. He wanted to be close to her, and she wanted him to be close too.

“Food,” Summer said reverently between bites. “Food. Food is so good. Air and water and food, that’s all that matters. If you have air and water and food, you should just shut up and be happy.”

“They’ll have us back on Crab Claw Key in just a few minutes,” Seth said. He leaned close again and stroked Summer’s blond hair, now matted with dried salt and somewhat less than Herbal Essence clean.

Summer leaned into him, pressed her cheek against his warm, bare chest, and circled him with her free arm. She continued eating. “We made it,” she said.

“Yeah. Thanks to Marquez and J.T. and the Coast Guard,” Seth said, carefully including everyone.

Summer gave him a kiss that was partly flavored with mustard. He looked as if he wanted to continue the kiss, but Summer had her priorities, and priority number one was finishing the sandwich and moving on to the package of Hostess cream-filled cupcakes she’d spotted in the plastic bag the Coast Guard had provided.

And then it came back to her: J.T.

He was sitting a little back from the knot of bodies, leaning forward in a red webbing seat, watching her with an intense, prying, skeptical expression. He was looking past her, in a way, or through her.

Their eyes met. Summer’s eyes were blue. So were J.T.’s. His hair, like hers, was blond. They certainly looked as if they could be brother and sister. But there were a lot of blue-eyed blonds in the world. They weren’t all part of the Smith family of Bloomington, Minnesota.

And if he really was Jonathan…She felt as if she might faint again. Fainting might be easier than coming to grips with reality…if J.T. was Jonathan. If Jonathan was
alive.

If J.T. really
was
Jonathan…The incredible hugeness of the idea hit her with sudden force. No wonder she’d fainted. It would mean so much. To her parents, and to his parents, who now would not really be his parents anymore, who might in fact be kidnappers.

“Mom and Dad,” Summer whispered, lost in her own careening thoughts. How could she tell them? What could she tell them? This was impossible. She stared hard at J.T. Was this some kind of a joke? Was this his idea of funny?

Summer reached for the cupcakes and tore open the plastic. She was still hungry. But she got no pleasure from the food. Monumental, endless, unpredictable repercussions…Some people would come out feeling that their lives had suddenly changed for the better, and others might be destroyed.

J.T. must have been thinking much the same thing. He shrugged and made a worried who-knows face.

Summer met his gaze and tried for a reassuring smile that never formed. Are you my brother? she wondered. Are you Jonathan?

And in J.T.’s eyes, so like her own, she saw the same question: Am I Jonathan? Am I your brother?

“What are we going to do?” Summer asked him.

“I don’t know,” J.T. admitted.

“My parents…” Summer let the thought hang there. J.T. understood.

“Yeah. Mine too. I mean, my folks, my…I think of them as my parents, you know?”

Seth cleared his throat tentatively. “Um, look, this is none of my business, but Summer has had a really bad time here. And so have I. And I think maybe this whole thing should be put on hold for a while. You know, let everyone get some sleep? You don’t have to make any decisions right this minute.”

Summer felt deep relief. Too much relief. She should not
want
to avoid reality. But she saw the same relief reflected in J.T.’s eyes.

“Maybe, yes,” J.T. said, “maybe we’d better chill for a while. See what’s what before we jump to any big conclusions.”

“Yeah,” Summer said. She still felt a little guilty. But the relief outweighed the guilt. There was plenty of time to examine this explosive possibility. Plenty of time.

Seth stroked her hair. Summer smiled at him. For many hours in the dark she had been unable to see his face clearly. It was a wonderful face.

She pulled him close till his ear was next to her lips. “I love you,” she said.

“It wasn’t just the cave?” he asked, serious as usual. “Maybe you just wanted me to die happy.”

Summer started to kiss him. She didn’t care if the Coast Guard guys grinned and Marquez rolled her eyes. But J.T. was still watching her, dissecting her with his eyes. So she gave Seth a brief kiss on his cheek and tried to remind herself that all she needed to be happy was air and water and food.

“Don’t expect great photography,” Diana Olan said self-consciously. “I’m not exactly Steven Spielberg.”

Two Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agents were in the small, stuffy room with her. The one named Reynoso seemed to be in charge. He was a small, dark man with a close-trimmed mustache and hair that had retreated back from most of his forehead. Diana had forgotten the other agent’s name.

“This isn’t film school,” Reynoso said gloomily. “Go ahead and hit it, Pete,” he said to the other detective.

Now the name came back to her—Pete Wallace. Alan Reynoso and Pete Wallace. She should probably try to remember those names.

Wallace aimed a remote control at the television. The TV sat on an industrial-looking steel stand with a VCR underneath. Diana sat at a painted metal table between the two detectives, feeling totally out of place in her wraparound skirt and halter top. The cops were wearing what might have been the only two business suits within fifty miles of Crab Claw Key.

“I’m hoping for an Oscar nomination,” Diana said.

The special agents said nothing. The tape started.

The picture on the TV screen was jerky, making sudden sharp lurches to the left and right. The color was poor, giving the tape a washed-out, faded look, like a colorized black-and-white movie.

“This is the front door of the Merricks’ mansion,” Diana narrated.

On the screen the door opened.

“That’s Ross Merrick,” Diana said, trying not to sound as hostile as she felt.

“I’m familiar with him,” Wallace said dryly. “Most cops in the area are.”

“Turn up the volume,” Reynoso directed.

Wallace pressed a button on the remote, and Ross’s leering tones filled the room. “Why, it’s Diana. What a surprise. Come back to get more of what I started to give you?”

Diana intercepted a glance that went from Reynoso to Wallace. Reynoso cocked an eyebrow.

“This is the main entrance hall at the Merrick estate,” Diana said. “It’s very impressive.”

“I could put my whole house in that hallway,” Wallace said glumly.

The picture followed Ross, swinging back and forth as Diana walked. The camera had been concealed in a shoulder bag. She’d done what she could to keep it stable, but she hadn’t wanted to alert anyone to what she was doing.

The next shot was of an unoccupied desk with bookshelves behind it. At this point the picture grew less jerky, since she’d sat down and the camera was positioned on her knee.

“You could probably fast-forward through this part,” Diana suggested.

Wallace did, stopping at the sudden arrival of another person in the room, a handsome, athletic, dark-haired young man with a very somber expression on his face.

“That’s Adam,” Diana said. “He’s Ross’s younger brother. He…he used to be my boyfriend.”

Senator Merrick walked into the picture. Diana heard both cops shift in their seats. Wallace leaned forward, focusing intently.

“Well, let’s hear it,” the senator said. He glanced at his watch. “What’s this about?”

“This is about rape.” Diana heard the tremor in her own voice. At the time she had felt bold and fearless, but there had been fear in her tone. Maybe it was just distortion from the video camera.

“
Attempted
rape,” Ross said.

Diana saw a slight, predatory smile on Wallace’s face, quickly erased.

The conversation played as she remembered it, as she had seen it already on this same videotape. Ross, furious and contemptuous; Adam, sad and disturbed; the senator, barely containing his fury at his own son and the mess he’d created.

“This is the good part,” Diana announced in a low voice.

On the TV screen Ross lost control and lunged at her. The picture went crazy, jerking wildly, focusing on the ceiling, on the floor, on the arm of the chair.

A crazy, sideways view of the senator came into focus. He swung hard and buried his fist in Ross’s stomach. Ross collapsed on the floor.

Wallace whistled softly. “That had to hurt.”

Even Reynoso seemed mildly impressed. “Huh,” he said.

Diana’s voice came next, a shrieking, enraged cry. “Now do you see? Do you see what he is? Do you see what your son is, Senator?”

The scene calmed somewhat. The picture showed Ross, only partly in the frame, crawling to a chair. It showed Adam comforting his father.

And then the senator delivered his ultimatum—if Diana ever accused Ross of anything, the senator would ruin her. He owned the prosecutor, he said. He controlled the local police. He would find a way to destroy Diana. Or…she could keep quiet and walk away with a large check.

“Oh, man,” Wallace said, awestruck.

Diana realized that he and Reynoso were more stunned by this portion of the tape than by what had gone before.

The tape went on. The senator left. Adam walked her out to the front steps of the Merrick estate.

And then had come the strangest moment of all for Diana.

She’d been carrying a small tape recorder as well as the video camera, wanting some backup, knowing she’d never get a second chance to do this.

Adam had spotted the tape recorder in the waistband of her slacks and had yanked it out. He’d listened to the recording and then, to Diana’s amazement, he’d handed the tape back to her.

The picture on the TV screen went to gray fuzz. Wallace turned it off.

“I guess they aren’t
all
rotten, huh?” Wallace said. “The kid, Adam, he seems all right.”

“That did surprise me,” Diana said softly. “He swore he’d never go against his family.”

“Hell of a piece of work,” Reynoso said, eyeing Diana with open respect.

“Can you…can you arrest Ross?” Diana asked.

Reynoso looked thoughtful. “There’s nothing on there that is a straight confession. He never says, ‘Look, I tried to rape you.’”

Diana felt panicky. “But…but isn’t it obvious?”

“Obvious, yes. But is it evidence? That’s another question. We can arrest Ross Merrick, but can we get to court? Can we convict? That’s the next question. We have the tape, and we have your testimony.”

Diana felt confused. She’d been certain that the tape was more than enough proof.

“Of course, Ross Merrick may choose to work out an arrangement for the sake of his father,” Reynoso said.

Wallace nodded. “Yeah, I guess we’ll see if the family loyalty goes both ways. See whether he’s going to leave his old man hanging out to dry.”

“His old man? What? You mean the senator?” Diana asked. “Why would this involve him?”

Reynoso shook his head in amusement. “Don’t you know what you have with this tape? It isn’t a confession from Ross Merrick, but it
is
stone-cold proof that the senator threatened you and offered you a bribe to keep you from reporting a crime.”