The Raft (2 page)

“What? You?” Maggie replied in horror.

“Yes. There's a lot of interest in the Raft
right now. You know, buzz with our readers. People are curious. My
editor is curious. You know... about how exactly you people deal
with stuff like this. I know it's out of the ordinary, and I know
you and I...” she trailed off.

“I don't know,” Maggie said after a long,
pregnant silence. “I think you think I'm some sort of cop. That's
not what I do...”

“No, I know. I know it's all different out
there on the Raft. That's what I want to write about. That's what
interests our readers.” Rachael sighed and tried to sound earnest.
“Look, I know how weird this is. Five years and we haven't spoken.
But... well, this might be good for both of us: the Raft will get
some non-critical exposure and I'll get a good story. A very good
story. And we can reconnect. Catch up...”

“Your editor told you to call me, didn't he?”
Maggie said flatly.

“Yes,” Rachael replied honestly and tried to
laugh, but Maggie could almost hear her wince in pain. “But
Maggie-”

“No, no,” Maggie interrupted. “If you've got
your orders, that's fine. It takes guts to call. I couldn't have
called you.”

“I know, Maggie... about...”

It was Maggie's turn to force out a casual
laugh. “If you want to come out and write a story about the Raft,
that would be great.”

“Really?” Rachael replied with surprise.

“Sure. I can't promise you
a 
good
 story. I don't know anything about what has
happened – there's no reason to believe I'll have anything to do
with it. But if you want to get a story about the Raft, then I'd
like to help.” Maggie was rambling, she should have kept her mouth
shut. The second the words left her mouth she regretted uttering
them.

“Great.” Rachael seemed genuinely happy. “I
can meet you at Alki Beach. In an hour? Would that work? I don't
know the protocol...”

“That's fine, I'm not far from the city. Just
bring some boots, I can't come ashore.”

“Great. Great. Great.” Rachael repeated. “Um,
Maggie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know..?” Rachael trailed off, then
came back strong. “I have a daughter. I'm married. Married.” She
rolled the last word around in her mouth, as if enunciating it
could give it more meaning.

“Yes, sure,” Maggie lied.

“Okay then. An hour?”

“Great.”

#

Maggie's toes curled against the fiberglass
hull of her launch.

The silhouette of Rachael was growing larger.
Maggie kept the bow pointed towards her. Rachael, wrapped in some
large, bulky overcoat with a brown scarf snapping behind her in the
biting wind, was standing in the surf. A large bag sat in the sand
next to her and she wore knee-high rubber boots, as instructed.

As Maggie approached, slowing her launch in
the shallows, Rachael scooped up her bag and strode out into the
water. Five yards from the shore, Rachael met Maggie's boat, tossed
her bag inside and agilely hopped up and over the gunwale.

It all happened so fast. Suddenly, Rachael
was sitting before Maggie, large as life, tugging strands of hair
out of her mouth and smiling.

Maggie brought the launch about. She
throttled the small, high-pitched engine to life and began the
return journey out into the bay.

“Don't start,” Rachael said, watching the
skyline of West Seattle fade away behind Maggie's back.

“I wasn't,” Maggie grinned.

“Just... don't start,” Rachael repeated.

“I wasn't. You look good.”

“I said-”

“Okay!” Maggie held up her free hand in a
gesture of surrender.

Rachael did look good. Five years older
perhaps, but still beautiful. Like Nicole Kidman with laugh lines,
Maggie remembered. That was how Maggie had often described Rachael.
Back then. She had more crow's feet now, sure, and some gray in
amongst the red hair. But still, she looked perfect. Maybe a little
thin.

They let the rain and the waves stream past
them, sitting in silence. The boat bobbed on the wakes of passing
craft. Five years and so much to say. Neither one spoke.

“Married?” Maggie finally broke the
silence.

“I said don't start.” Rachael refused to make
eye contact, looking out at the passing ships.

“It's just... to a
man
?”

“Maggie...” Rachael said, finally turning to
face Maggie.

“I know. Don't start.” Maggie focused on her
navigation, falling in behind a fast-moving speedboat, staying
within the V of its wake. “How old is your girl?” Maggie asked.

“Three,” Rachael replied.

“Children, huh?”

“It happens.”

“So I've read,” Maggie smirked.

“Don't-”

“I know. I know.”

They both looked to port to watch a sailing
dinghy, its sheets billowing in the breeze as it cut a speedy
course perpendicular to their own.

Then, without warning, Rachael blurted out,
“I called her Margaret.”

The revelation stunned Maggie. She sat in
silence, her mouth slightly ajar.

Rachael backpedaled, realizing she'd put her
foot in it. She stammered, “Maggie, I- I can explain...”

But the tears were already coming. Any chance
of Maggie keeping her composure had taken flight with that last
bombshell. She couldn't hold back. She sniffled and steered and
tried to pick a path through the busy bay. Back towards her
sailboat. But the tears kept coming.

Chapter 2

“You must think I'm a monster... after all
this time... coming out here and saying all these things...”
Rachael sounded sincere.

She hadn't just come out to the Raft to ruin
Maggie's life. Really, she hadn't. But when the story of the dead
Rafter had come across the wire, Rachael had reacted badly. She'd
been sure it was Maggie. Positive. Even after reading the physical
description of the deceased, Rachael hadn't been able to shake the
sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to hear Maggie's voice,
make sure she was okay.

“Forget about it,” Maggie said as she cranked
her dinghy back up to its storage position. It had brought them
across the crowded bay, out into the relative peace of the open
Puget Sound, where Maggie's sailing yacht waited. Up a short ladder
and Rachael found herself standing in the cockpit of the
40-foot-long craft, her luggage at her feet. Despite her heavy
jacket, she shivered.

Rachael had found Maggie's old number in the
margin of her 2008 notebook, diligently filed away with a gaggle of
identical, dog-eared, blue exam books from throughout the years.
The number was right where Maggie had written it the night they'd
met in that bar. Rachael had gone home with someone else, she
remembered, but called Maggie the next evening. She had no idea if
the number would still work - the last time she'd called it was
over five years prior - but it was all she had.

The number had rung to Rachael's infinite
relief, and Maggie had answered.

“Really, I'm sorry,” Rachael said.

Rachael had lied and made up some tale about
chasing down a story, and here she was aboard Maggie's boat with no
clue of why she was there – that was a lie, too, she knew exactly
why she was there, but she almost refused to admit it to herself.
The task was so Herculean: she knew she had to get Maggie off the
Raft. Somehow.

“It's okay,” Maggie dismissed, securing the
dinghy. The yacht was named the
Soft Cell
, Rachael could
only vaguely remember why. It was the name the ship had borne when
Maggie had purchased it and she was the unsentimental sort who'd
never bother to rename anything once it'd been named. The yacht had
been the dimensions of Maggie's home for the last five years. Since
she'd left dryland and joined the Raft.

“Is it always this bumpy?” Rachael asked. She
was already starting to feel seasick. She'd never had the stomach
for boats.

Maggie didn't answer. It was still drizzling,
but she removed her jacket as she worked. She tied ropes off to
cleats. Maggie hefted the dinghy's electric outboard off its mount
and began to spirit it away in a compact storage bin under one of
the cockpit's benches.

Five years and Maggie hadn't aged a day,
Rachael marveled as she watched her work. Her dark skin still
exotic, with her hard-edged face that only softened when smiling.
Maggie stood a good head taller than Rachael, with wide, strong
shoulders, and lean, thin arms. Time seemed not to have touched
her. Her head of dark, tangled hair was well kept but still wild,
whirling around her head. With her jacket off, Rachael could see
the complex arrangement of her tattoos. The oversized, finely
detailed Cross of Lorraine on her right upper arm still held
Rachael's attention. Its significance escaped her.

“So, what do you have? On the victim?” Maggie
said, now businesslike, turning to Rachael and dusting off her
hands.

Rachael reached into the pocket of her coat
and came back with a folded photocopy. She unfolded it and held it
out for Maggie. The rain quickly began to smudge the grainy DMV
photo.

“The girl's name was Joanna Church,
twenty-six,” Rachael began. She felt she needed to say something,
anything, even though Maggie could read the photocopy for herself.
“She was found by a homeowner at around seven this morning, bobbing
in the tide. First guess is she'd been dead in the water for maybe
three hours. Cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the back of
her head. No water in her lungs. Dead before she went
overboard.”

“Meerkat,” Maggie said, looking at the
photocopy.

“Sorry?” Rachael steadied herself, feeling
woozy.

“I don't know any Joanna Church, but this
girl,” Maggie handed back the photocopy, “is Meerkat. And if
Meerkat has washed up dead... hell, truth be told, if anyone on the
Raft has mysteriously washed up dead... then there is only one real
suspect: Horus.”

“Horus?” Rachael repeated.

“Yes. Horus the Brontosaurus.”

“What?” Rachael said, confused. “That's a
name?”

“Meerkat's boyfriend. Nasty piece of work.
Weed dealer. Meerkat had her demons. Anyway, if she fell overboard,
then I'd bet you sixty hours to a second that Horus was standing
right behind her when she did. Sorry, Rachael, I doubt there's any
sort of story here for you. I think you came all this way for
nothing. Unless domestic violence is interesting to your
readers.”

In all honesty, Rachael didn't care. She
hadn't really come to report on the murder.

She'd come to get Maggie off the Raft.

There was a storm brewing onshore, Rachael
knew, though she herself was only aware of it at the very edges.
The murder, the dead girl, the Raft... yes, a storm was brewing.
Murmurs were leaking out of cracks in the normally watertight
Seattle Police Department. Federal agents were walking the halls. A
murder aboard the Raft? It was a prime opportunity.

But Rachael cared even less about the Raft
than she did about the murder. The second she'd seen the wire, a
flood of old emotions had welled up inside her. Her breakup from
Maggie had been... well, had they ever really broken up? Did it
count if you never said goodbye? A total, blinding panic had
consumed Rachael until she'd been able to positively confirm that
the murder victim was
not
indeed Maggie. If anything had
actually happened to Maggie, stranded out on that damn boat,
Rachael would have never forgiven herself.

Logically, she knew that Maggie's exit from
dryland had not been her doing, but emotionally, she still bore the
full weight of it. Maggie had run away from Rachael, that was the
horrible truth that had welled up inside her as the terror had
consumed her. And it was Rachael's fault. Even when Rachael had
come to fully realize that Maggie was okay, totally unaffected by
the events detailed in the wire, Rachael had been unable to shake
the feeling of self-loathing that apparently sat locked up inside
her.

But now it was all over – the Raft, that is,
not Rachael's guilt. When the storm building onshore finally broke
over the Raft, it'd sink it to the bottom of the Puget Sound as
sure as anything. Rachael had maybe hours, maybe minutes, before
the feds and the cops finished their respective jurisdictional
pissing matches and came out, loaded for bear, onto the Raft.

If Maggie was still aboard when that
happened... well, Rachael couldn't let that happen. She'd lost
Maggie once already that day – at least emotionally – and she
wasn't about to lose her again. Maggie could be stubborn... shit,
she was practically half mule, but Rachael couldn't let anything
happen to her. No, not after all that had happened, not with so
much still left unsaid.

God, Peter was going to be furious when he
figured out where Rachael was. Margaret would be in daycare until
three. She was going to have to call, tell Peter everything, but...
maybe Rachael had enough time...

Maggie was busying herself, preparing the
Soft Cell
to get underway. She was moving to the bow to
raise the anchor. Rachael tried to follow, moving cautiously on the
slick deck. “Maggie, I know this might not seem like much to you,
but-”

Rachael slipped, her left foot coming out
from underneath her. She landed hard on her rump.

“Take those boots off,” Maggie interrupted as
she cranked up the anchor. “You'll kill yourself as well, and then
the cops will have two reasons to sail out here and start poking
around.”

Rachael laughed in nervous shock. She should
have known better to think that Maggie wouldn't have already
grasped the full political implications of the young girl's death.
Rachael sat down on the roof of the boat's cabin and pulled a
rubber boot off. She did the same with a sock. Maggie slipped by,
returned to the cockpit.