Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
A fter a few minutes, we start to near an island with lights brightening the shoreline—but instead of heading in that direction, Driver 2 starts to veer away, toward a different, darker mound of an island. If it weren’t for the lighthouse positioned at the tip of a thin peninsula, I wouldn’t have been able to see the second island at all. It doesn’t look like it’s inhabited, much less hospitable.
I glance over at Kimo and see him looking uncharacteristically grim. He’s remained oddly positive during this whole ordeal, and I think that’s mostly been for my benefit. But even he can’t read anything optimistic into them taking us to an abandoned island. Maybe the plan isn’t to kill us right away, if they’ve kept us alive for this long. But they sure aren’t planning on throwing us a surprise party, either.
Suddenly, Driver 2 cuts the engine and turns out the boat’s lights. I tense, worrying they’re about to throw us overboard or something—Why did they stop? In the middle of the dark water? When we’re so close to shore now?—when I hear it.
Another boat’s engine, approaching from not too far off.
That would explain why Driver 2 cut our engine. They don’t want anyone to witness our boat going toward the spooky, uninhabited island. That might raise some alarm bells. Whatever they’re planning to do to us on the island, they don’t want anyone to know we’re there.
Sandy pulls out his gun, aiming it toward us. “Not a peep out of either of you, you hear me? Not so much as a sneeze.”
Could the other boat really hear a sneeze over the roar of their own engine? Doubtful, but now doesn’t seem like the time to quibble, with a gun pointed toward me and all.
I watch the lights of the other boat as they swing in an arc. It looks like they’re turning around, heading back toward the other island with all the lights and people. It feels like hope snuffing out across all that dark water.
Kimo leans into me, and at first I think he’s just lending me some physical comfort, like he’s been doing the whole trip—reminding me he’s here with me, etc. But then his lips brush my ear, his voice low and quiet. “Time to trust me, Mattie. Follow my lead.”
Follow his lead? What the hell does that mean? It probably goes without saying that I’m not much of a follower. I tried out ballroom dancing once, when I was at university, but got politely asked by the instructor to leave when I kept (helpfully!) informing my partners of everything they were doing wrong and trying to take over. For the record, they were doing a lot of things wrong, and I was better at leading, but try explaining that to the frail masculine ego...
Then all at once, Kimo stands and kicks his right flip-flop into Sandy’s face. Sandy tumbles off the bench, his pistol shooting off into the night air, and the sound of it ricochets loudly across the water. Kimo reaches for me—Wait, when did he get his hands free? How did he do that?—and hoists me to my feet. I don’t miss the slight nod he gives to Freckles before pulling me up against him. “Hey, over here! Mayday! COWABUNGA!” he shouts at the top of his lungs.
Cowabunga ?
Then the next thing I know, he’s wrapping his arms around me and toppling us both over the side of the boat, into the dark, churning water.
* * *
As you can imagine, I do not go quietly into that good night. I scream from the depths of my soul as we plunge into the dark abyss, the water shockingly cold in contrast to the lingering heat of the day. With my hands still bound, I can’t swim properly, and even though I’m thrashing my legs frantically, it feels like all I’m doing is sinking down farther, and farther, the darkness engulfing and disorienting me. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe .
Then I feel something wrap around my torso. I jerk away instinctively, envisioning all kinds of horrible tentacled beasties that might be grabbing at me, until my brain catches up. Kimo . My legs continue thrashing on instinct, but he withstands my unintentional kicks and tugs me upward. I think. I don’t know which way is up, but he seems to be sure, and I go limp against him, surrendering to his certainty.
When we surface, I gasp in greedy, panicked gulps of air. Then, without further delay, I’m screaming again.
Kimo flips me so I’m on my back and starts cutting through the water, towing me under his arm. He’s swimming away from the back of the speedboat as fast as he can, but his voice comes out characteristically calm. “They’ll have to turn the boat back on if they want to swing around and get us,” he explains. “And that’s gonna let whoever’s on that boat over there know we’re here, so let’s call them on their bluff, huh?”
I just keep screaming.
“That’ll help, too,” Kimo continues conversationally as he paddles us along. “Boat engines are loud, but you’re a really shrill screamer, so hopefully that’ll carry. Plus, that idiot fired off his gun, so hopefully between all those things—oh, heh. Yep. They’re turning around.”
I pause my screaming just long enough to turn my head and see that, in fact, the other boat has swung back around and is heading in our direction.
“Over here!” I’m not going to be able to stop screaming until I’m out of this water and, ideally, back on dry land, but I guess I can at least try to make my shrieking slightly more productive. “Help! We’re over here!”
“Of course,” Kimo continues, “now that the other boat already knows we’re here, the kidnappers might decide to just go for broke and come after us. Guess it depends on how much whoever hired them to kidnap me was willing to pay. I’m guessing, based on how intricate this whole scheme was, it was probably a lot, so if you can help me swim...”
I’m not a great swimmer under the best of circumstances. With my hands literally tied behind my back, and floating on said back in the middle of my literal nightmare, I’m no Olympic qualifier, let’s just say that. But I kick with gusto, hoping that all my regular cardio is about to pay off.
“Good, Mattie. That’s real good...”
We’re making progress, but it probably won’t be enough to keep the kidnappers from reaching us before the other boat, if they put their minds to it. Behind us, I hear the kidnappers’ boat roar to life.
“Shit.” It’s a rare admission from Kimo that the situation is anything less than ideal, and that has me frantically chopping my legs even more, trying to put as much distance between us and the kidnappers’ boat as possible.
Then, over the expanse of the water, I hear the most beautiful sound in the world: “Mackinac Marine Rescue. Are you in distress?”
Marine Rescue—that means they’re an official agency, not just another random boater out at night. They’ve probably already radioed into their headquarters on the island, which means there will be a record of us being here. The marine rescue team might even have guns. The kidnappers would have to be extremely organized and proficient to even consider taking on an official government-operated department—and, let’s face it, mastermind criminals, these guys are not.
Sure enough, lifting my head from the water, I see the kidnappers’ boat making a speedy exit in the opposite direction.
“Yes!” I shout, thrashing my legs frantically. “We’re in distress! Help! Over here!”
Kimo treads water, raising his arms over his head to wave as a searchlight sweeps over us. “Told you to trust me,” he says with a huge, shit-eating grin. “I knew everything would turn out all right...”