Chapter 51
BENJAMIN
“Lenora,” Dr. C shouts, “I won’t let him touch you.”
He lunges between us, like he’s protecting her, both of them wedged into a corner of the cockpit. The knife is on the deck, between us.
“He’s lying!” I shout, but I can tell, as she peeks out from behind his back, that she doesn’t believe me and will never believe.
Eye on the knife, I pull Lenora’s phone from my back pocket. “Look. I didn’t lose it. Your phone, see?”
I’m only helping to convince her that I’m a liar. A manipulator.
I struggle to dial my own number with my thumb. In seconds I hear my mother’s voice, faint and tinny. I shout, “Mom! Mom! We’re on a boat! Can you track us? I’ve got a phone—”
But my distraction has cost me. Dr. C darts forward and grabs the knife, with Lenora still behind him.
To the tinny voice still squawking from the phone in my lowered hand, he shouts, “Call the police, Abby! Send help!”
My mom can’t believe his side of things. She just can’t. And Lenora—even if she thinks I was trying to rape her, she knows I didn’t. Right?
“Tell them your name,” Dr. C orders her.
“Lenora!” she shouts. “Lenora Young! Call my father, please! Brad Young. His boat’s called Siren II. Please!”
“Mom,” I say, holding the phone to my ear. “Mom!”
The sun is low on the horizon to our left. West, I mean. I can see the shoreline, only barely. A few sailboats so small they look like seagulls bobbing on the waves. A smear of green. One tall structure—maybe the same lighthouse we saw when we launched.
“Mom!”
Lenora is sobbing. Dr. C catches her, turning as she buckles, wrapping an arm around her waist.
The call has dropped. I try to redial, eye on the knife in Dr. C’s right hand.
He leans forward and all I see is the winking metal and I don’t understand what he’s doing until the boat suddenly leans hard and I stumble forward, catching myself only feet away from the blade he’s holding at chest level.
I steady myself again, on the edge of hyperventilating.
Phone on the cockpit deck, where I dropped it.
Tiller freed from the lock that was holding our position.
Boat circling, so we won’t keep advancing toward shore, but we’re not that far away and he knows it. If someone is looking, they’ll find us.
He gives Lenora a shove toward the cabin. “You’ll be safer in there. Go.” But she’s too scared to move.
“He’ll lock you in,” I warn her. “Don’t do it.”
She stares at me, then risks a hesitant side step away from Dr. C, with a quick glance back for encouragement. I see the confusion in her eyes. Even my mom doesn’t look at me that hard. A few seconds, maybe, then she flits away. My mom tries not to let me see, but I know she’s afraid.
Izzy wasn’t, though. She trusted me with her secrets. She begged me for the pills. She said she had to meet one last time with the Weber guy. Face-to-face. As if she couldn’t just say forget it, never mind, the game’s over.
I should have gone with Izzy, to the motel. Instead I just gave her the pills, like she asked, so she’d feel less nervous. I told her they worked for my mom. They weren’t strong.
So, in a way, I did kill her. By accident, but I did.
If Dr. C stabs Lenora or suffocates her inside the cabin, it will be the same. I set the trap.
“Lenora, please,” I say. “Look at me. Please. Please please look at me.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Dr. C says, dropping the knife, which gives me hope until I see he simply wants both hands free.
He wraps his arms around Lenora’s narrow waist and hauls her up, feet off the ground, pedaling.
Her eyes widen with surprise. He looks proud and in control, like a dad who’s lifted a crying toddler out of a sandbox and is going to show the kid what’s what.
He risks loosening one arm to grab a hank of her hair. She’s tiny. He’s strong.
“Fucking help me with this,” he shouts at me, more annoyed than irate, and I know I’ll be forgiven if I just follow his orders.
“She fell overboard,” he says, as if it’s already done. He clamps his hand over her mouth. “It happens. Especially when teens are foolish enough to drink.”
He tries to heave her over the side, but she has his shirt clutched in one fist. She lands a kick to his knee. A less powerful one to his gut. No more swearing from Dr. C. No more requests. Not a word. He’s furious and he’s focused.
Her feet pedal—thunk thunk thunk—on the shiny white molded cockpit bench, tip of her sandal trying to find purchase on the edge of the boat, but it’s white and rounded, slippery smooth, like the edge of a bathtub. Dr. C grunts as he tries to lift her higher. Almost. Almost.
I’m paralyzed.
He grunts and twists and then . . . he drops her and she sort of bounces off the outer side of the sailboat. I hear the splash.
If she’s really not a good swimmer, like she said. And even if she were. If she hit her head.
I try to think. Quotes I memorized. Song lyrics. Swift comebacks. How to be strong. How to fight back. How to be a man. How to make them sorry. How to make them see you.
It’s all noise. And Dr. C’s eyes, locked on mine, are the opposite.
There’s no way to think my way through what comes next so I don’t. I just close my eyes and jump.