Authors: Natalie D. Richards
“We need to get out of here,” I say. “Do it quick. What is that anyway?”
Deacon grins, holding up a black, waterproof backpack. I’ve seen dozens like it—it’s a popular brand around here.
“What’s in it?”
“Maps, notes. Contact numbers. Passports with Charlie and Thorpe’s pictures but different names.” He smiles. “This is more than enough.”
There’s a loud laugh from the boardwalk. Doesn’t sound like Thorpe or Charlie, but it tenses me all the same.
“Get a picture and send it now,” I say, feeling cold sweat trickle under my arms. “We need to get off this boat.”
“I’m working on it,” he says, fiddling with my phone. He swears softly, and I see the soft glow of the camera app on my phone screen. The red button for taking the picture. The white flash indicator.
“Deacon, wait!”
But he doesn’t. The flash goes off. My heart slams out two more beats, and then I hear the door fly open on the shack.
“—flash in the cabin—” is all I hear. The footsteps are back. On the dock.
Shit.
Pounding closer.
They’re coming.
I hear Charlie first, his voice a rasp. “Do you see something up there?”
“Where?” Thorpe this time.
The fear is palpable in Deacon’s eyes. I’ve frozen solid. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Deacon grabs the bag and my arm, tugging us out the cabin door and immediately across to the far side of the boat, away from the dock. We stick close to the shadows.
“Over there!” Thorpe’s voice booms, moving down the dock. “The cabin door is open.”
They land heavy on the boat, one and then the other. Everything’s wobbling under my feet, slanting sideways. Deacon drags me to the rear of the boat, keeping the cabin between us and Thorpe and Charlie.
Air saws out of me. I can’t get more back in.
Deacon swears softly. We’re at the back of the boat and well concealed by the thick shadows, but that doesn’t matter. They know someone’s onboard. It’s only a matter of time.
He adjusts the strap of the bag over his back and scuttles forward, flinging open a hatch that leads down into the belly of the boat. Then he’s back with me in the darkness.
Thorpe and Charlie are still in the cabin, near the storage bins.
One of them curses. Then, “It’s gone! It’s gone!”
A cluster of tourists comes by on the boardwalk. Thorpe and Charlie look toward the noise. They scan the crowd on the boardwalk as if maybe we got off while they weren’t looking.
How
are
we going to get off the boat?
The question sends my stomach swirling down an imaginary drain. Because Thorpe and Charlie are leaving the cabin, and they’re more frantic now. They know someone has the bag. Blood is roaring in my ears now, almost deafening.
Deacon climbs over the back of the boat on the ladder, beckoning me closer. I slide under the railing as Thorpe thunders closer, my hands slipping on the top rung, my legs heavy as lead as I let them dangle.
The ladder snags my hair, but I rip myself free. Pain shoots across my scalp. I bite back a yelp. A soft noise tells me Deacon is off the ladder and in the water now. The thump of heavy boots hits the dock again. Charlie or Thorpe? Only one of them. I still hear someone banging around in the hold beneath me. My hands are slipping. I can’t hold on.
“Emmie,” Deke whispers.
I look to see only his head poking out of the oil-slick water. I don’t want to go in. I’m so cold, shaking so hard already. I force myself down the ladder, until the water swallows me up to my knees. It’s worse than I thought. Tar black and reeking of fish and petroleum. It’s so filthy, I’m not even sure it’s still water.
I twist to look at Deacon, who beckons me frantically.
My stomach roils, but Thorpe is coming back up on the boat. I can hear his feet on the metal ladder in the hold. There isn’t a choice. There is
no
choice at all.
I let myself go and slip quietly into the water. Cold. Cold enough to steal my breath and cramp my joints. I taste brine and darkness and fear. My legs thrash automatically, scraping razor-sharp barnacles on the side of the boat, but Deacon reaches for me, tugging my arm.
We slip under the shadow of the dock. It’s rattling under Charlie’s steps. “They’re not on the boardwalk. Did they go overboard?”
One breath later, Thorpe leans over, searching the water. He moves to the starboard side, repeating that same hungry look, and I don’t know if the shadows hide us well enough or if we stirred the water too much. I hold my breath and clench my teeth, though they want to chatter.
We can’t stay in here forever. They’ll search every inch. They want that bag.
Deacon moves in front of me, points to a small boat at the end of the dock. One of the Westfield skiffs. Fast, but only good for short distances. It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.
I pull in a breath, try to look around. Everything is quiet. I don’t know where Thorpe is. Where Charlie is. I shiver violently on my way to the boat, my strokes rough and my teeth chattering. The bottom drops away beneath me before my fingers graze the side of the skiff. Deacon joins me, pressing a finger to his lips.
As if I need a reminder to stay quiet.
He helps me over the side of the boat. I land in the bottom with a wet thump. My ears prick. Footsteps at the edge of the dock. Thorpe. Shouting. Cursing.
They heard me.
They’re coming back.
Deacon hauls himself into the boat, and I hear the soft snick of a pocketknife. Thorpe says his name like it’s a filthy word, but Deacon doesn’t answer. He cuts the rope and starts the engine. Thorpe’s feet are pounding closer. I’m sure he’ll leap from the dock, land right on top of me. But then Deacon opens the throttle wide, and the skiff surges with a whine.
We are flying.
I stay on the floor of the boat for what seems like hours, fixated on the layer of grimy water and God-knows-what-else beneath me. Deacon weaves in and out, heading around boats or little marshy bits. I don’t know. I don’t care.
Wet as I am, I can still feel the filth on the bottom of the boat. I imagine it soaking through my clothes, right into my skin. I push the thought away and focus on the drone of the engine instead. The motion of the ride and my pumping adrenaline roll through my belly until I’m half sick.
I don’t know where Deacon is heading, but at some point, he slows down. The scream of the engine drones to a soft purr, and I open my eyes, willing my stomach to settle.
A star-dotted sky rolls above me. I smell trees and the earthy tang of waveless water. He took us into an inlet. I wouldn’t know one from the other, so I don’t bother to ask for particulars. The Carolina coast is a maze of shallow shoals and barrier islands. It’s not a hard place to stay hidden.
“Can I sit up?” I ask.
“Yes,” Deacon says, looking down. “God, I’m sorry. Yes.”
He slows the boat even further and helps me. I feel stiff and half-frozen, and the air is twice as cold up here. I ease onto a bench seat, hugging my middle. Deacon finds a couple of towels under the driver’s seat, and I do what I can to dry my clothes.
“We’re safe for the moment,” he says.
He’s hatless now, and soaked from head to toe. Though he doesn’t have a towel, he’s not shivering like me. He finds a sweatshirt down there too. I peel off mine and put the dryer option on. It’s still cold but so much better.
Deacon stops the boat in a marshy patch, grass rising four feet high on both sides. We bob gently in the water, but he keeps the engine at an idle, not dropping anchor.
“The phone was in my pocket,” he says. He pulls it out, and I can tell it’s trashed by his expression alone. “I’m sorry, Emmie.”
My shoulders sag, but he touches my wrist, pulls me over to the driver’s seat. “It’s going to be okay. We’ve got you, right? You’ll have a plan before you know it.”
Sure. I’ll plan us right out of this. Thing is, Deacon’s looking at me like that’s exactly what I’ll do. I love him so much in this second that it physically hurts. Because I
don’t
know what to do, but he still believes in me.
I sniff, trying to find strength. “Where are we? Can we get to Emerald Isle? To that Coast Guard station?”
He shakes his head. “North of Beaufort. Near Harker’s Island. Nowhere near enough gas for Emerald Isle. I’m not sure we’d make it to Morehead City.”
My laugh is humorless. “Of course we’re low on gas. Is there an iceberg nearby? Seems like a fine time to bump into one.”
Deacon grins. “We could easily make it back to the old Carmine place. My bike’s still there.”
My shoulders hunch, the wind blowing like January through my wet hair. “There’s no phone.”
“I’ll admit, I’m not crazy about it anyway,” he says. “It’s closer to Beaufort than I’d like. I’d rather stay out of the sheriff’s jurisdiction until we have help.”
I adjust on the vinyl seat. “Could we shoot flares?”
Deacon chews his bottom lip. “I don’t know. I’m sure Thorpe’s looking for us. Not exactly the guy I want
rescuing
us.”
“Agreed.” I shudder, looking around. Thinking of Thorpe and Charlie in the cabin. “I’m pretty sure they know you have that bag. Whatever it is, they want it pretty bad.”
“That’s because it’s proof that they’re up to something. Falsified passports for ex-cons? I’m thinking that alone would be really serious jail time for both of them.”
Deacon adjusts on the seat, pulling the strap over his head. He sets the bag on my lap and unzips it. I flip through it too, looking at the contents under the faint dashboard lights on the boat. Maps and a list of coordinates with dates and ticks lined down the right margin of the page.
“They’ve got red dots all over this map,” he says. “Pencil lines too. Wonder if they’re tracking Coast Guard patrol routes?”
“Makes sense, I guess,” I say, feeling over the back of the backpack. There’s something hard and rectangular in there. My fingers brush the tag on the inside, but something catches my finger. A tiny zipper head, buried in neoprene folds. I push the folds apart and run my finger along the smooth teeth.
“I found something,” I say, working out the head of the zipper and tugging it free. The whole lining unzips, revealing another black vinyl layer behind that.
“Is that the waterproofing?” Deacon asks.
“I don’t think so.” I peel the Velcro loose on the next layer. Then I pull it back, finding a slim plastic box with two latches. It rattles when I take it out, making me think of my old bead organizer from my bracelet-making phase in junior high school. Sturdy clasps for such a cheap-looking box.
I pull it open. There are close to thirty compartments inside, and every single one has a rock or two. Maybe more. It’s hard to count them in the low lighting.
“Deacon, is that…is it crack?”
He frowns, looks confused. “I don’t know. I’m not exactly a specialist.”
I shift the box closer to the dashboard lights to get a closer look. The rocks vary in size—garden peas to lima beans—and they’re all sort of translucent. Glassy.
“I don’t think crack is clear like that,” I say. “Is it?”
Deacon leans in closer to the box. The rocks are organized by size, smallest to largest. There are numbers etched on the sides, I think.
“I have no clue what the hell we’re looking at,” he says.
I tilt the box until I can see the numbers better: ¾–1½, 1½–3. It goes on this way up to 5–6, and there are tiny letters on the side, so small I can’t make them out.
“What are those letters?” I ask.
Deacon squints and shifts the box this way and that. He shakes his head, carefully handing it back. “Maybe c-f? Or c-t?”
Ct?
I bite my lip and try to think. And it hits me like a sledgehammer.
Carat.
“Diamonds.” The word comes out like a sigh. Like I barely believe it’s true, and I don’t. Because it can’t be. But I look again, and it is. “Deacon, these are uncut diamonds. They’re smuggling
diamonds
.”
He seems tempted to argue, but then his gaze roves the box again before meeting mine. The fear I see there is undoubtedly a reflection of my own.
He swallows hard, and I can hear the lump that tries to stop him. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit,” Deacon says again. I just nod this time, because I’m trying to do the math. Mom had a two-carat diamond engagement ring when she and Dad were married. She kept it after the separation but commented more than once that she was a sentimental fool for letting fifteen thousand dollars sit in a dish on her dresser.
“Emmie, do you have any idea how much all this might be worth?”
I glance over the box, and my mental calculator goes up in smoke. A guesstimate doesn’t matter really. I feel the blood drain out of my face. “A whole, whole lot.”
• • •
We’re bobbing along in the reeds, trying to figure out what to do. Staying out here is too dangerous. Running out of gas and relying on whoever might be out in these waters at two in the morning sounds like an equally bad idea.
Deacon suggests breaking into an empty rental on Harker’s Island, but I don’t like it. “We are not adding breaking and entering to the list of crimes we’re committing.”
“We’re not committing a crime. We have proof of a crime.”
“We have a box of diamonds that we technically
stole
,” I say. “You have an outstanding warrant, and I’m already in trouble for helping you. Now we show up—after running from the sheriff, mind you—with this?”
“It’s the truth,” Deke says.
I rub my shaking hands over my eyes. “I don’t know that the truth is enough this time. People are going to see what they want to see. We need somebody we can trust.”
“We need Joel,” he says. “Or your parents. Or police who aren’t being paid.”
Joel would be better. My mom called the sheriff on me tonight. Not sure I’d list her among those I trust to help right now—but desperate times. I glance over at the dark sliver of land dotted with the occasional light. “Are there any pay phones on Harker’s Island?”
“Doubtful there are any phones at all,” Deacon says with a scoff, only half joking. “Just suspicious Down-Easters and the ferry to Cape Lookout. Perry’s family lives on Harker’s Island. I mean, the chances are slim…”
“With the way our luck is going, we’ll end up in Perry’s dad’s living room. No thanks.” I scan the northeast horizon, where the lighthouse should be. There’s nothing for a second. Two seconds. Then the light comes, bright white and whirling toward us. It rotates past as suddenly as it arrived.
“Does the lighthouse have phones?” I ask.
“No. But it will in the morning. Tourist phones.” Deacon perks up and leans forward, and the boat shifts. “We can hunker down there until dawn. We’ll snag a tourist phone and call Joel. We should still have enough gas to get back to the Carmine place. Worst-case scenario, we can claim an emergency and have the park service that runs the ferries take us back to their office. We can call the state police from there.”
“Maybe we could just go there now?” I ask, eager to be done with this backpack.
“They’re not staffed overnight, and we could run into the police. It’s only a few hours until sunrise.”
I shiver, watching the light swirl past again. The wind kicks a wave underneath us, and the boat bobbles. “The lighthouse is outside of Perry’s jurisdiction, right? Is it patrolled?”