Feeling worse than he’d felt in a very long time, he walked to the window and watched the storm tear at the palms, felt as if the same forces were tearing him apart inside.
He didn’t know how he was going to get through this. He didn’t know how he was going to live with himself. Worse, he didn’t know how he was going to live without Alison and her boy.
* * *
Alison found Kevin lying on his bed, staring at his Zoomer 57 Skyeagle. “Hey, kiddo,” she said. “You feeling okay?”
Her little boy turned chocolate-brown eyes on her. “Hi, Mommy.”
“Whatcha doing?”
He lifted a skinny little shoulder and ran his finger along the wingtip of the toy jet. “Thinking.”
“Oh yeah?” She sat on the bed beside him. “About what?”
“Drew. He didn’t even say goodbye.”
“Oh, honey, I think he just had some business to take care of.”
“I heard you arguing. You made him go away.”
Because he was hurting, she couldn’t bring herself to remind him that eavesdropping wasn’t polite. She was still trying to decide how to handle the situation when he hit her with another zinger.
“Drew’s mad at you, and he’s mad at me. And he’s not going to come back ever!”
“Oh, honey, he’s not mad at you.”
“He said we could go to the plane graveyard, Mommy. He promised.”
“I’ll tell you what. Maybe you and I can take a drive over to the plane graveyard as soon as the storm passes. Drew said it’s pretty close. Maybe we can go tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to go with you. I want to go with Drew!”
“Kevin,” she said firmly. “Drew...has a lot on his mind right now. He’s not mad at you. And he’s not mad at me. Okay? He’s just...trying to work through some problems.”
Kevin’s shoulders slumped. “I thought he was my friend.”
“Oh, he is, honey. He cares for you very much.”
“Why did he leave, then?”
“He just...had some things to take care of today.” The words sounded hollow even to her. “He’s an adult. He has a business to take care of. You understand, don’t you?”
His thin shoulders rose and fell. “I guess so.”
Alison took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I have a really exciting surprise for you.”
Kevin looked up at her with hopeful eyes. “Really?”
“Yep.” She brushed the hair off his forehead. “I just got off the phone with your uncle Roger. Do you remember Roger? From San Diego?”
“Yeah. He’s bald.” Kevin nodded. “And I threw up in his car when he took me for ice cream.”
Alison reached out and tugged on his earlobe, chuckling. “Well, Roger was telling me that the asthma clinic in San Diego is really good, and they’re looking for smart little boys just like you. He and his wife have a big house near the beach and invited us to stay with them for a little while.”
When that elicited nothing more than a blank stare she trudged on, doing her best to sound enthusiastic. “How would you feel about moving out to San Diego, honey?”
Kevin blinked at her. “But I like it here, Mommy.”
“Oh, but just think: in San Diego you have the Pacific Ocean. Disneyland isn’t too far away. I’ll bet you’ll like San Diego even better.”
“What about Drew?”
Her smile faltered at the mention of Drew, but she held on to it with all of her might. She wasn’t going to let Drew do this to them. She wasn’t going to let him make her and her son unhappy. For too long she’d fought her way through heartbreak. She wasn’t going to go through it again. Damn it, she wasn’t.
“Drew’s life is here in Florida, honey.”
“I don’t wanna go to San Deego.”
“San Diego. And you could always call him.”
“I like it here because there are hurricanes and plane graveyards and Drew takes us for rides in his plane.”
“There’s a Navy base in San Diego, honey. I’m sure Roger would—”
“I don’t wanna go to San Deego, Mommy. I wanna stay here.”
Realizing this wasn’t a battle she was going to win overnight, Alison didn’t press the issue. She’d planted the seed; that was all she could do for now. Kevin would come to terms with it. He would have to. She’d already accepted her older brother’s invitation. Kevin’s medical records were already en route. By the end of the week, she and Kevin would be gone.
She looked down at her son and told herself she was doing the right thing. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out why it felt so damn wrong.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alison awoke with a start. She wasn’t sure what had wakened her, but her heart was pounding and a cold uneasiness gripped her like icy fingers. Sitting up abruptly, she looked around the dimly lit living room, trying to identify the source of the unease running through her.
With half an ear, she listened for Kevin in his bedroom. The small television set was on, but there was no singing along. No clanging of toys or revving of motors. No conversation with his favorite bear.
The silence was deafening.
Slipping off the sofa, Alison headed toward his room. She could hear the wind whipping around the house. It was eerily dark, though the clock above the television told her it wasn’t yet noon.
“Kevin?” Trying hard to shove aside the uneasiness, she reached for the knob on his bedroom door. “Honey, would you like some lunch? I thought we’d make some of those chocolate chip cook—”
A bolt of fear went through her when the knob refused to move. She jiggled it from side to side. “Kevin?” Using her palm, she pounded on the door. “Young man, you know the rule about locking doors in this house.”
But it was fear resonating in her voice, not authority. Holding her breath, she waited for a response that didn’t come. Panic laced her voice when she tried again. “Honey, open this door immediately!”
Heart pounding, she leaned forward and put her ear to the door, listening. “Kevin? Are you in there? Sweetheart, open the door for Mommy!”
Kneeling, Alison looked at the knob, noticed the little hole and realized the lock was the kind that could be easily jimmied with any long, narrow object.
A dozen scenarios raced through her mind as she sprinted down the hall toward the extra bedroom. First and foremost was the ever-present fear that he’d had an asthma attack and was unable to respond. The thought shook her so thoroughly that a sound of pure terror escaped her. She could hear herself breathing hard as she crossed the room to her desk and yanked open a drawer. Pens and papers flew as she searched for a paper clip. Finding one, she tore out of the room and dashed to Kevin’s door.
“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 t
ower 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.