The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (51 page)

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She was trapped beneath the raft, her legs tangled in the rope that was attached to the anchor.

Her mouth was barely above the rushing water.
 
Her breathing was sharp with fright.
 

She held onto the wooden seat above her so she wouldn’t be pulled under by the current or by the weight of the anchor.

Below her, Spocatti and Simpson’s assistant, Alex Stevens, were trying to free her.
 
With each tug on the rope that bound her legs, her hands slipped a little on the slick seat. She held on as tightly as she could, knowing that if she let go, she would have little strength to fight the anchor as it pulled her down.

There was another tug on the rope.
 
And another.
 
Celina closed her eyes and prayed as her hands slipped and she sank a little deeper into the river.

The water level flowed over her mouth, cutting off her breath for an instant until she remembered she could breathe through her nose.
 
She let out a small cry of despair and her mouth filled with water.
 
She choked on it and began to cough.
 
She struggled against what she feared was the inevitable.

There was a sudden flurry of activity in the water.
 
Bubbles burst to the top as Spocatti and Alex surfaced, their dark hair as slick and as shiny as seal skin.
 
While Alex gasped for air, Spocatti swam calmly behind Celina and lifted her up so she could get a more sturdy grip on the wooden bench.

He turned to Alex.
 
“Go to the shore and get something to cut the rope with.
 
If we don’t do something soon, the weight of the anchor and the pressure on her legs will cut off her circulation.”

Alex shook his head.
 
“I’m not allowed to leave.
 
It’s against regulations.”

“Fuck regulations,” Spocatti said.
 
“If we don’t do something soon, this woman will be in serious trouble.”

Alex glanced at Celina and saw that she was having difficulty breathing.
 
A mixture of fear and exhaustion was stamped on her face.
 
He looked at Spocatti.
 
“Why don’t you swim to shore?” he said.
 
“I’ll stay with her.”

“I can’t swim to shore,” Spocatti said. “I’ve hurt my leg.”

“It was fine a moment ago.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, pal.
 
I twisted it when I fell.
 
I just don’t show pain as easily as you do.
 
Now, either move your ass and get something to help this woman, or we’ll see you in court.”

The two men stared at one another.
 
Then Alex made his decision and dived beneath the surface, leaving Spocatti alone with Celina.

He swam in front of her. “Do you have any feeling left in your legs?”

“Some,” she said.
 
“But they’re tingling.
 
And they’re colder than the rest of me.
 
What happened?”

“My guess is that while you were struggling to free yourself from the rope, the anchor shifted off something—probably a ledge—to a deeper part of the river.
 
Until it reaches solid ground, the weight is going to continue to pull you down.”

“How far down.”

He didn’t answer.
 
Instead, he looked up at the rope that was secured to the raft.
 
Although slightly frayed and swollen with water, the rope looked solid enough.
 
“As long as this rope is attached to the raft, you aren’t in danger of sinking too far beneath the surface.
 
Certainly no more than a foot.”

“I can drown in a foot of water,” Celina said.

“That’s true,” Spocatti said.
 
“So if I were you, I wouldn’t let go of the bench.”

He glanced down at the water, then briefly at his watch.
 
Alex had been gone a little over a minute.
 
“Can you move your legs at all?” he asked.

She tried, then shook her head.
 
“The anchor’s too heavy.”

“All right, then,” he said.
 
“I’m going under to see if I can alleviate some of the pressure.
 
Just hold on.”

Celina nodded and watched him dive below the surface.

She waited, her grip becoming weak on the wooden plank, her body shivering.
 
She wondered what Jack was doing and hoped that he was all right and not thinking the worst.
 
She wondered where Alex was and how much longer he would be.
 

She was lifting herself up to get a more secure grip on the bench when a tremendous pull came on her legs, straining all muscles, causing something in her right knee to give.

She gasped.

Her hands scrambled not to lose their grip on the bench and she screamed.
 
There came another pull on her leg.
 
And another.
 
Celina fought each one, her entire body straining, adrenaline surging. It was the fourth and most brutal tug that cracked the wooden plank she was holding onto.

Spocatti surfaced, pocket knife in hand.

Reaching above Celina’s head, he grabbed the rope, severed it with the knife and then followed Celina as she plummeted like a rock to the river’s mucky bottom.

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When the bouncing finally slowed, Jack pulled himself up, released the nylon strap with one hand while holding onto the cord with the other and dropped into the river, where he immediately kicked off his shoes so he could swim.

His head light from the fall, he treaded water, the current pulling him downstream while he tried to make sense of his surroundings.
 
He looked around and saw that he was about ten meters from the raft.
 
He swam as quickly as he could toward it—and saw that the raft was floating downstream.

Jack looked about him.
 
In the distance, moving toward shore, he saw Simpson’s assistant struggling against the current.

There was no sign of Celina or the man who had jumped first.

He lifted his head from the water and shouted after Alex.
 
“Where are they?”

Alex turned.
 
He spotted Jack in the water, surprise crossed his face, then he glimpsed the bungee as it was being lifted to the bridge.
 
“They’re under the raft,” he called—and only then did he notice that the raft was drifting downstream.

He stared after it, the confusion in his eyes gradually giving way to fear.
 
There was no sign of Celina or the man who told him to come to shore.
 
No sign of them at all.

At the same moment Jack disappeared beneath the surface, Alex dived.

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Celina struggled as she sank.

Arms flailing, fists striking blows on Spocatti’s flesh, she struggled, the need to breathe rising, becoming paramount.

Eyes wide open in fear, she was aware of a flurry of bubbles racing past her, the river’s increasing debris as she neared bottom, and Spocatti as he fastened around her legs the rope he just severed from the raft.

The anchor struck bottom with a muffled thud.
 
Celina looked down through the swirling murk, grabbed a handful of Spocatti’s hair and began pulling.
 
She wanted to hurt him, stop him, kill him.
 
She tried to dig at his eyes, but Spocatti twisted wildly to the right and his hair slipped through her weakening grasp.

Celina looked up as he kicked away.

She didn’t understand any of this.
 
She didn’t understand why he wanted her dead.

Her chest ready to explode from lack of oxygen, she bent to release the rope.
 
Her hands and fingers grasped and pulled and tugged.

But it was no use.
  
Spocatti had bound her legs together too tightly.
 
She couldn’t loosen the rope.
 
In one terrible, outraged scream, she jerked upward and released what oxygen was left in her lungs.
 
A furious whirlwind of bubbles hurled forth from her mouth and spun to the surface.

And then she inhaled, reflexively, filling her lungs with a horribly wet coolness.

Celina choked, sucked in more water, and her hands began clawing at her throat as every muscle, as every sense, rejected what she’d just done.
 
I don’t want to die!

But the choking ended. Fading images turned to black, her eyes saw nothing and she started to list in the wavering current.

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As Jack swam down, down toward the muffled scream, he glimpsed to his right a streak of black, a flurry of white and the rapid scissoring of legs.

For an instant, his gaze lingered on the departing figure and the maze of bubbles that spiraled in its wake.
 
Then he continued downward, the need to breathe rising, his concentration focused and intent.

It was Celina’s hair Jack noticed first.

Fanning out in a half-circle, the light blonde was in sharp contrast to the river’s dark, mucky-brown bottom.
 
Reaching out a hand, he grabbed hold of her arm and lifted her to the surface.

Tried to lift her to the surface.

Her body was unusually heavy, unusually still.
 
As hard as he tried, as hard as he kicked, he could only lift her a few feet off the river’s bottom.

He swam down so they were facing each other and he noticed in horror that her mouth and eyes were open.
 
Every part of his body rejected what he saw before him.
 
Celina’s mouth hung slackly.
 
Her eyes were frozen in sightlessness.
 
She was staring at something that wasn’t there.

He needed air.
 
In one last attempt to lift her to the surface, he put his arms around her…and felt the rope that was secured to her legs.

He glanced down, saw the rope, saw the anchor lying on the pebbly muck, and knew.
 
Knew.

His chest was on fire.
 
If he didn’t get air soon, he felt sure his lungs would burst.
 
He bent down and worked on the rope—his hands pulled, pried and searched.

But it was no use.
 
No matter how hard he tried, he could not loosen the rope.
 
He could not free her.
  
He could do nothing for her now and it tore him apart.
 
This was his fault.
 
This had been his idea.