Uncharted Waters (25 page)

“Honey, are you in there?” Straightening the paper clip with violently shaking hands, she knelt and inserted it into the hole. “Answer me, Kevin. Honey, you're scaring Mommy. Open the door for me, okay?”

An instant later the knob turned. Alison shoved open the door, let it swing wide. For a heartbeat she just stood there, watching the curtains billow in the wind.

“Kevin?” She rushed to the window and looked out, saw his footprints in the sandy flower bed below.
“Kevin!”

Sick with dread and fear and panic, she looked frantically around his room. Oh, God. Oh,
God!
Had someone taken him? Had he wandered off? She ordered herself to calm down, to think. Kevin had never wandered off before. From a very early age, she'd drilled it into
his head that he never went anywhere without her or without her permission.

Where was her son?

It registered in a small corner of her mind that his jacket was gone. She flung open the closet door to see that his sneakers were missing as well. His favorite bear usually sat on the chair next to his bed, but it was nowhere in sight. She searched the room for clues. A postcard on his desktop caught her eye. She strode over to it, snatched it up. On the front was a picture of the Brewer Salvage Yard, which was about a half a mile away, down a long, gravel lane. She flipped over the card and saw on the back that Drew had signed it to him.
To Kevin, the best kid in the world.

She stared at the card, suddenly remembering Kevin had wanted to go to the “airplane graveyard” and a horrible realization gripped her. “Oh, no. Oh, dear God.”

She left the room at a dead run, snatched up her cell phone, punched 911 as she flew out the back door. “Kevin!”

She ran into the backyard, but Kevin was nowhere in sight. When the 911 operator answered, Alison quickly apprised her of the situation, giving her name and address and a description of Kevin. The operator told her an officer would be dispatched, but because of street flooding it could take a while. She asked Alison to wait, but Alison refused. She'd only been asleep for ten minutes or so; Kevin couldn't have gotten far. She rattled off her cell phone number and told the operator she was going to look for her son.

Alison disconnected and looked frantically around the yard. The rain was coming down hard, but she barely noticed the cold or the wet or that she was
soaked to the skin. She imagined Kevin all alone in a storm like this and a fresh surge of panic sent her sprinting to the street.

“Kevin!” She looked in both directions, but the street was deserted. Cupping her hands, she screamed his name as loud as she could. “Honey, it's Mommy! Please answer me!”

Water flowed like a white-water rapid in the gutters. Trying not to think of all the trouble a little boy could get himself into, she sprinted to the stop sign at the end of the street and then toward the gravel lane where the salvage yard was located.

“Kevin! Honey, where are you?”

The full impact of the situation struck her when she reached the mouth of the road and saw Kevin's sneaker prints in the wet sand. A fresh wave of horror sliced her when she realized he was, indeed, heading in the direction of the old salvage yard.

Dropping to her knees, Alison pressed her palm against the faint imprint. The tears came in a rush, unwanted and impotent and hard enough to choke her. Several seconds passed before she could pull herself together enough to tug the cell phone from its clip. She couldn't do this alone, she realized; she needed help. The first person who came to mind was Drew. He was a former search-and-rescue pilot. He would know how to find her son, and he wouldn't let the street flooding stop him.

She punched in his number from memory as she got to her feet, then started down the lonely gravel road at a dead run.

* * *

Drew watched the storm from his back porch. Wind and rain and small debris pelted the trees that grew
along the inlet shore. He felt as if a similar violent force was at work inside him, tearing at him from the inside out.

An unopened bottle of Puerto Rican rum sat next to his cell phone on the wicker table. He hadn't yet broken the seal, but he wanted a drink so badly, he could already feel the heady bite of alcohol on his tongue. He wanted to call Alison even more, but couldn't bring himself to reach for the phone.

Yeah, he'd done a fine job of screwing things up.

It had been a little over three hours since he'd walked out on her. Three of the hardest hours he'd ever endured. He hadn't expected to miss her so desperately. He knew all he had to do was pick up the phone. But that was a lofty task for a man who didn't have a whole hell of a lot to offer a woman and her young son. Would his love for them be enough?

He was staring at the phone when it chirped. Drew jolted, then glanced down to see Alison's cell phone number in the window and a brilliant spark of hope slammed into his heart.

“Alison—”

“Drew, it's me.”

He knew immediately something was wrong.

“It's Kevin... My God, he's
missing.
” Her voice was breathless, he could feel her panic coming through the line.

“Calm down,” he said. But the hairs at his nape stood on end. Alison Myers wasn't simply frightened. She was terrified.

“How long?” he asked, trying hard to keep his emotions out of it, trying even harder not to think of what had happened at Evans Yachts the day before.

“I don't know. Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.”

“He couldn't have gotten too far.”

“I think he went to the salvage yard. I saw his sneaker prints in the sand. Oh, dear God...”

Drew reached for his car keys. “Have you called the police?”

“They're on the way.” Her breaths were labored, as if she were running. “But the streets are flooded. It could be a while. I told them I couldn't wait.”

“Where are you?”

“On my way to the salvage yard.”

“I'm on the way.” He started for the door. “Try to stay calm, okay?”

“Oh, God, Drew, he's all alone. There's a canal that runs parallel with the road. The water's deep. He's taken swimming lessons, but...” Her voice broke with another sob. “Oh, God, there are alligators. I'll never forgive myself if something happens—”

“Don't go there.” Stepping into the rain, he locked the door behind him and sprinted to his truck. But he knew that every danger she'd mentioned was an all-too-real possibility. Multiply the odds with the risk of an asthma attack and they had an extremely serious situation on their hands. “I'll call Seth. He'll give us a hand. Emma can wait for the police at your house.” Holding the phone at the crook of his neck, Drew threw the truck into gear and tore out of the parking lot. “I'll be there as soon as I can.”

Neither of them said it, but Drew knew that with flooded streets he might not be able to make it at all.

“Please tell me he's going to be all right,” she choked.

“He's going to be fine.” He pulled onto the street, but instead of making a right toward Alison's house, he turned left toward Water Flight Tours. He'd only
been to the Brewer Salvage Yard once, but knew it was on a canal. He knew the canal was deep enough for a barge. If it could accommodate a barge, it could damn well accommodate a seaplane.

* * *

Five minutes later, Drew was on board the Mallard, strapped into his seat and taxiing toward his takeoff point. The water in the marina was choppy because of the wind. Visibility was poor. Flying conditions were horrendous, but Drew had flown in worse. After a final instrument check, he pushed the throttle forward, knowing he would need to take off fast and climb quickly.

A sudden gust of wind rocked the seaplane as it began to move across the water. The rough surf battered the floats, sending vibrations through the plane. Drew administered full throttle, building speed, holding the nose down.

The floats left the water with a jolt. An unstable tremor ran the length of the plane as it became airborne. Drew maintained full throttle, pulled back on the elevator, forced the plane into a blood-chilling climb and headed due north.

He'd known the climb through the rain bands and low clouds would be turbulent, but he hadn't expected the violence that met him. Layers of unstable air sent the plane soaring upward and then plunging down. A sudden gust of wind from the west sent the left wing tip dangerously high. Drew reached for the yoke and delivered full aileron deflection.

At two thousand feet, visibility plummeted. He turned his attention to the instrument panel and its glowing, artificial horizon, and tried like hell to ignore the jitter of nerves rippling through his body.

Six miles south of the Brewer Salvage Yard, he began a bumpy descent. Around him, the twin engines blared in unison with the storm. He watched for landmarks: the sodium vapor lights surrounding the salvage yard, the L-shaped building, the wide swath of canal that ran inland from the Intracoastal Waterway. But as the plane pitched and dipped downward, he knew a safe landing would be nothing short of a miracle.

Until that moment, Drew hadn't had time to think about his own safety. He'd had his hands full, wrestling with the turbulence and wind shear and rain. Now, as he prepared to touch down, he found himself faced with the most treacherous part of his journey.

He radioed the Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport control tower west of Miami and told them he would be making an emergency landing in the number seven canal. The tower tried to deflect him to Ft. Myers to the west, but Drew explained the situation and the tower cleared him.

Soaked with sweat, mouth parched, he watched the altimeter drop. Six hundred feet. Four hundred feet. The entire plane shook violently as he plummeted through a layer of clouds. At three hundred feet, a wind shear slapped the plane toward the ground like a giant hand. Drew delivered full throttle. The craft shuddered. The engines screamed. Drew caught a glimpse of treetops to his right. A wide swath of gray water dead ahead. An instant later, the jet thumped hard and skidded wildly across water fraught with whitecaps. The nose dipped precariously, throwing a rooster tail of water twenty feet into the air. The landing gear groaned. The impact threw Drew hard against his belt.

The plane came to an abrupt halt ten yards from a copse of tangled mangroves. Drew blinked through the
windshield, incredulous that he'd pulled off such an impossible landing, and struggled to get his bearings. Twisting in his seat, he spotted the Brewer Salvage Yard sign on the other side of the canal. He thought about Kevin, alone and wandering in a very dangerous place, and a new sense of urgency burned through him. Turning the plane, he started toward the docks.

Drew shut down the engines the instant the floats made contact with the protective row of tires along the pier. With shaking hands he unbuckled his safety harness and stumbled into the passenger cabin. He unlatched the hatch and flung it open. Wind and rain pelted him, but he pushed himself into the maelstrom and prayed he found Kevin before something terrible happened.

* * *

Alison barely felt the rain and wind pelting her as she climbed over the chain link fence and jumped to the other side. Brewer Salvage Yard was as deserted as a ghost town. She didn't know if it was because of the hurricane or because it was Sunday, but there wasn't a soul around to help her. She knew her son was there—she'd seen his tracks in the sand—and come hell or high water she was going to find him.

The rain was coming down sideways when she stumbled past the ramshackle building that served as the office. A stubby palm outside the front door flailed wildly in the wind. Several pieces of roofing had torn loose from the roof and snapped like tin blankets on a clothesline. Ahead and to her right, the skeletons of a dozen aircraft were lined up like the fossilized bones of long-extinct dinosaurs.

“Kevin! It's Mommy! Honey, can you hear me?”

Mud and sand sucked at her ankles as she sprinted
along the row of planes. Rain stung her eyes, but she barely noticed as she searched for Kevin. Her only focus was finding her precious child, and there was no force on earth that could have stopped her.

Cupping her hands on either side of her mouth, she screamed his name.
“Kevin!”

A flash of blue in her peripheral vision snagged her attention. At first she thought the tiny form huddled beneath the belly of an old jet was a piece of debris. Then she recognized the blue jacket, and her heart simply stopped.

“Kevin!” She sprinted toward him.
“Kevin!”

Halfway there she realized he wasn't moving. Fresh terror flashed through her. “Oh, God. Oh,
God!” Please let him be all right.
She silently chanted the words as she sped across the sandy path.

But her son didn't move.

On reaching the plane, Alison dropped to her knees and crawled beneath the fuselage. A cry escaped her when she reached him. Her hands shook uncontrollably when she pulled him close and gathered him into her arms. “Kevin? Honey, are you all right?”

“Mom...” he said, but broke into coughing.

She could feel his little body trembling. He felt cold and listless. Her worst nightmare came true when she realized he was wheezing, struggling to get air into his lungs.

“I'm here, honey,” she said. “Everything's going to be all right. Are you hurting anywhere?”

“Can't...breathe...right.”

Her blood ran cold when she turned him toward her and saw his face. He was deathly pale. His lips were turning blue. She lifted his little hand, saw that his nail
beds were dark. She shoved back a paralyzing wave of terror.

Jerking her cell phone from its clip, she punched 911. “This is Alison Myers! I've found my son. But he's having a severe asthma attack. I need an ambulance!
Now!
Please! Send someone!”

The dispatcher said something, but Alison couldn't hear over the roar of wind and rain. “Send an ambulance! Right
now!
” she cried. “I'm at the Brewer Salvage Yard on Cypress Creek Road. Please, send someone.
Hurry!
”