Damn...Kincaid.
He had jumped in after him. He could hear him yelling his name.
Frank pulled in a deep breath and dove back down. He swam fast and as far as he could before coming up again for air. Then he drove down again, swimming underwater until he felt as if his chest would explode.
He surfaced, gulping in air, and scanned the water again. Good...he was far away now. If he was lucky, the fast-flowing northbound current would carry him away before they could get help.
His heart was hammering in his chest. He was tired, his legs and arms heavy with fatigue. But he had to keep going. He started to side-stroke to conserve his strength, moving away from the ferry.
Jumping overboard had been a stupid thing to do. He hadn’t planned it. But he knew that he couldn’t go back. He would be tried and probably convicted for killing Shelly Umber...maybe the others, too.
No...he wasn’t going to rot in prison. He had spent the last thirty-five years hiding from his past and he wasn’t about to give up now. But there was no place to hide anymore, no place left to go.
Except...
His eyes stung from the salt water and he was exhausted. He flipped on his back to float for a minute. The sky was brilliant blue above him, cloudless, infinite blue. Beautiful...so pure and beautiful. He felt a sudden catch in his throat, but it was so unfamiliar it took him a moment to realize what it was. Salt, he tasted salt but not from the water, from his tears.
He hadn’t cried in a long time, not since that night Sophie died. Everything had changed that night. She was the only thing that had kept him going, the only thing he felt connected to. When she had died, he had gone adrift.
Diane...he had tried to be a good father to her, but a part of him always thought she blamed him for her mother’s death. Why didn’t you go with her, Daddy? Why did you let her drive in the rain? How did you explain things like death to a seven-year-old girl, things you didn’t even understand yourself?
Frank closed his eyes to the sun, letting the current carry him.
How did things get to this point? How had it spiraled so out of control? He had always known it was wrong to kill them. Until now, he had been able to distance himself. But when they found Shelly Umber’s body, he knew it was over.
Ah, Sophie...I’m glad you’re gone so you don’t see what is happening to me. I thought I could escape it, but it’s always been there, deep inside me, waiting to come out. A man can't escape what he is.
He opened his eyes. He stopped moving his arms, then his legs. For a moment, he just floated, looking at the blue above, waiting, waiting, waiting to be sucked down into the blue below. The water covered his face, he let it flow in. But instinct kicked in and he struggled back to the surface, coughing the water out of his lungs.
No...that’s the coward’s way. Keep going.
He flipped back on his side and started swimming again.
Time seemed to stop. The sun began to dip slowly in the west. The sunlight was coming in at a low slant over the water when he saw the green fringe of the island ahead. He was beyond exhaustion now, his limbs leaden in the water, his eyes swollen from the salt water. But he kept side-stroking.
Finally, his feet touched sand and he dragged himself toward the mangroves, using the roots to pull himself up.
He stood for a moment, knee-deep in water, breathing heavily. It was near dusk. He heard the shriek of a grackle, and then the odd rusted-hinge call of a limpkin. He knew birds didn’t normally call at dusk. They were announcing the presence of an invader. He wiped a hand over his eyes, tried to steady his shaking legs. When he looked up, he saw a figure standing on the dock ahead.
“I knew you’d make it,” the man said.
Frank staggered toward the dock.
“I heard the distress call go out on the radio,” the man said. “So I came out here to see.”
Frank looked up at the man’s face. Thirty-five years...Jesus, he hadn’t seen him in thirty-five years. He looked different, older, yet so familiar it was like looking in a mirror. Frank felt a sudden urge to embrace him and took a step forward. But the man’s expression froze him there in the water. And the rifle...he had a rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Why did you come back?” the man asked.
“Emilio —-”
“You were told to stay away,” the man said. “She told you that. She told you never to come back.”
“I left with her blessing,” Frank said.
“We don’t want you here,” the man said. “I don’t want you here. You’re dead to us.”
Frank let out a long breath and looked around. “Where are the others?” he asked. “Do they know about me?”
The man shook his head. “They know what you did. But they didn’t hear the distress call. They won’t even know you ever came.”