“Dad…” Jax whined.
Jenks stood, tilting the lamp shade to better light the map. “There are fifteen makers of locks in the U.S. You want to know which one you’re picking before you blow yourself and your runner into the ever-after?”
Making a sharp noise with his wings, Jax started writing.
“Make the letters as big as your feet,” Jenks said as he came to see how I was progressing with the phone book. “No one can read your writing unless you do, and that’s the entire point.”
Guilt in his eyes, Jenks sat beside me, and I shifted so I wouldn’t slip into him. From the table by the door came the alphabet song, sounding like a death dirge. “Don’t worry about it, Jenks,” I said, watching Rex follow him up onto the bed to make tiny jumps over the bedspread to him. “He’ll be okay.”
“I know he will,” he said, the worry settling into his eyes. Rex plopped herself into his lap, and he dropped his gaze. “It’s not him I’m worried about,” he said softly. “It’s you.”
“Me?” I looked up from the turning pages.
Jenks wouldn’t bring his gaze from the kitten, a puddle of orange in his lap. “I have only a year to get him up to snuff so you’ll have backup when I’m gone.”
Oh God. “Jenks, you aren’t a carton of milk with an expiration date. You look great—”
“Don’t,” he said softly, eyes on his smooth fingers among Rex’s fur. “I’ve got maybe one more tolerable year. When it goes, it goes fast. It’s all right. I want to make sure you’re okay, and if he’s working for you, he won’t be tempted to do anything stupid with Nick again.”
I swallowed, forcing the lump out of my throat. I had not gotten him back just to lose him. “Damn it, Jenks,” I said as Jax started the alphabet song again. “There’s got to be a spell or a charm…”
“There isn’t.” Finally he met my eyes. They held a deep bitterness, touched with anger. “It’s the way it is, Rache. I don’t want to leave you helpless. Let me do this. He won’t let you down, and I’ll feel better knowing he won’t be working for Nick or the likes of him.”
Miserable, I sat beside him, wanting to give him a hug or cry on his shoulder, but apart from that time in front of Terri at the grocery store, he had always jumped when I touched him. “Thanks, Jenks,” I said, turning to the pages before he could see my eyes swimming. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t make him and me feel worse.
His grip shifted in Rex’s fur, clearly wanting to change the subject. “What do the boat rentals look like?”
Taking a breath, I focused on the time-smeared print. “Okay, but there’s still the problem of noise.” He looked blankly at me, and I added, “It would be stupid to think they don’t watch the water, and it’s not like we can just boat up to the beach and not expect to be seen. Even at night there’s noise. It carries too well over water.”
“We could paddle across,” he suggested, and I gave him a telling look.
“Ah, Jenks? It’s not a lake, it’s a friggin’ freshwater ocean. Did you see the size of the tanker going under the bridge when we came into town? The wake from it could tip us. I’m not canoeing it unless your name is Pocahontas. Besides, the ambient light will give us away, first-quarter moon or not. To expect fog is ridiculous.”
He made a face, glancing at Jax and clearing his throat to get him to start singing again. “You want to fly it? I lost my wings.”
“We’re going to swim it.” I flipped forward a few pages. “Underwater.”
Jenks blinked. “Rache, you gotta stop using that sugar substitute. Under the water? Do you know how cold it is?”
“Just listen.” I found the page, and after taking Rex off his lap, I dropped the book onto it. It was my turn to hold the cat. She wiggled and squirmed, settling as the warmth of my hands covered her. “Look,” I said, charmed when Rex patted at my swinging bracelet. “They have scuba diving off the wrecks, charm enhanced so you don’t freeze to death. The water’s pretty clear here despite the current, and since they’re privately owned, you can take whatever you want off the wrecks. It’s a poor man’s treasure-hunting excursion.”
He snorted. “I’ve never been swimming, and unless you took a class I wasn’t aware of, you don’t know how to dive.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I pointed to the half-page ad. “See? They’re licensed to take you out regardless of experience. I’ve heard of these things. They teach you enough so that you don’t kill yourself, then you go out with a guide. Once you sign that release form, they’re off the hook except for gross negligence.”
Eyebrows high, he looked at me. “Gross negligence? As in losing two divers? Won’t someone notice when we don’t get back on the boat?”My fingers in Rex’s fur moved faster, and she peered up at me with her sweet kitten face. “Well, I wasn’t going to try and slip away from them. I, uh, was going to talk to the owner. Maybe arrange something.”
Jenks glanced at his son literally hovering over his work, then back to me. “You’d trust a human to keep his mouth shut?”
“God, Jenks. You want me to knock them out and steal their stuff?”
“No,” he said, the quickness of his reply telling me he thought I should do just that. Sighing, he frowned. “Let’s just say you talk to the owner and they go along with your little stunt. How do you plan on getting back to the mainland with Nick?”
Yeah, there was that. “Maybe they’ll give us an extra tank and stuff so we can all swim back. If we can’t get to the mainland, we can get to Mackinac Island. Look, you could almost walk underwater to it. From there we can take the ferry to either side of the straits to help confuse our trail.” Pleased, I tucked a curl out of my way.
Jenks rose, setting the book next to me on the bed. “It has a lot of ifs.”
“It’s one big if,” I admitted. “But we don’t have time for a week’s worth of recon, and if we start asking around, they’re going to know we’re here. It’s our best way to get on the island undetected. And I’d rather be out of sight underwater making my escape than on top of the water where they can follow us. We can come up anywhere on shore and disappear.”
Jenks snorted. “How very James Bond of you. What if Nick’s beat up so bad he can’t swim?”
I felt a flush of worry. “Then we steal a boat. It’s an island; they must have boats. That’s not a bad idea in itself. We could boat all the way to Toledo if we have to. If you have a better idea, I’m listening.”
Head down, he shook his head. “It’s your run. Just tell me where to stand.”
My first wash of relief that he would go along with it was short-lived as I started to make a mental list of what we’d have to do for the prep work. “New sleepy-time potions,” I murmured, my fingers soothing Rex into sleep while Jenks went to check on Jax’s progress. “A real map. And we need to do the tourist thing; talk to the local fishermen over coffee and find out what the boat patterns are coming off and going to Bois Blanc. You want to do that? You like to talk.”
“Tink’s panties, you’re starting to sound like Ivy,” Jenks complained lightly, leaning over the table and pointing out a mistake to Jax. I blinked, then turned from the sight of his eighteen-year-old butt in those black tights of his. Married pixy—my new mantra. “And that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he added as he straightened.
I looked at the hotel phone, wanting to find out if they were open yet for the season or we would have to hang around a week, but I remained where I was with Rex. It was probably a human-run establishment and would be closed for the night. “No mistakes, Jenks,” I said, feeling cold but for where Rex lay. “Nick’s life might depend on it.”
Eleven
T he wind was bitter despite the bright morning sun, and I squinted at the horizon, holding onto the side of the boat as we jostled out to the wreck site. Jenks sat beside me in the lee of the cabin, both amazed and appalled that he could see his breath and wasn’t freezing to death. It hadn’t seemed this cold when we were on the dock, but it was frigid out here, with the water still holding the cold of ice, even through the rubber of the wet suit. When in hell were they going to give us our warmth amulets?
“You okay?” Jenks asked, his voice raised against the chortling engine.
I nodded, taking in his cold-reddened hands wrapped about his lidded coffee, trying to eek out some warmth from it as we bounced on the choppy waves the wind had whipped up. He looked nervous, though I didn’t know why. He’d done well at the practice pool yesterday. I patted his knee, and he jumped. Cringing, I turned to watch the other passengers—high school students on a field trip.
We had lucked out yesterday. My call to Marshal’s Mackinaw Wrecks got us an afternoon of practice at the high school pool and a place on today’s boat. I still hadn’t managed to talk to Captain Marshal, and it was down to the wire now. The man, whose day job was as the high school’s swim coach, had been very nice as he treaded water and painstakingly coaxed Jenks in past his knees, but everytime I tried to talk to him about why I wanted to go out on his boat, someone, usually his assistant, interrupted. Before I knew it class was over and Marshal was gone, without my having gotten more than a good look at him in his Speedo and a bad case of the flushing stammers as I tried to gain his attention and his help. The guy probably thought I was a flaky redhead. I knew his assistant, Debbie, did.