And Then There Were Four

  But the helicopter is huge overhead, silhouetted against the dusky sky. It’s white and black. It says NEW YORK STATE POLICE.

  Kenyon waves a desperate hand toward the marina, which is crammed with countless docked boats. “Come on! Let’s go hide in there.” The helicopter engine is so loud that she has to shout.

  It’s tempting to run and hide, like children. But you’ll be caught, because the marina is a dead end, with the water beyond it.

  Anyway, it’s already too late. The helicopter moves into a hovering position directly above. A door on its side opens. A ladder drops, and a man moves onto the ladder. He’s wearing a uniform, with a gun on his belt. Police.

  A second man begins to climb down the ladder.

  “That’s my father,” you say evenly.

  “What?” says Saralinda, and at the same moment Evangeline exclaims, “Why is he here?”

  Kenyon squints upward. “That second guy is not my grandfather. That’s some ordinary police guy.”

  Saralinda says, “Kenyon, before, you said that the police wouldn’t pursue runaway teenagers who’ve skipped out on school and been gone a few hours.”

  “My grandfather has friends. But he isn’t here. I’m confused . . .”

  You’re confused too. Confused, but also tense. Very tense, as your father and the policeman maneuver down the ladder rungs and reach the ground. They unhook their safety harnesses. The cop waves upward. The helicopter swoops off, its engine noise fading.

  The four of you face your father and the policeman. He is white and young and big, with wide shoulders that strain his uniform. His badge is shiny. He places his hand on his weapon and draws it, though he keeps it pointing down.

  “Come on,” Evangeline mutters. “He can hardly shoot us down in cold blood.”

  Saralinda nods. “I’m not scared.”

  “I am,” you snap, and bite your tongue on what you could say. The girls can’t conceive that a cop would shoot them? You know different.

  You put your hands up as your father speaks.

  “Martha. Evangeline. Saralinda. I can’t say I’m happy to see you under these circumstances, but I am glad you’re all well. You’re feeling okay, Saralinda?” Behind his glasses, your father’s gaze is humane, kind, troubled. “Your mother is beside herself with worry.”

  Saralinda doesn’t answer.

  Your father indicates the cop. “This is Officer Perotta. He came with me to make sure that all of you would be safe. We’ll all go back to the mainland together. The helicopter will meet us at the helipad.”

  The police officer’s teeth have had the benefit of a superb orthodontist. “That’s correct.” He raises the gun slightly. “Come along.”

  What will happen, you wonder, once all four of you are in the helicopter?

  The gun is pointed at you. You lift your foot to do as they say.

  Only then Saralinda says, “Let’s see if he really does shoot.”

  The cop begins to talk, but Evangeline speaks at the same moment.

  “The marina, like Kenyon said. Now.”

  And Saralinda simply runs, holding her cane. Kenyon swears and swivels to follow, and—now that you have no choice—you go too.

  But first you scoop Kenyon up in a fireman’s carry. Then you race just behind Saralinda, with Evangeline keeping pace beside you. Kenyon bounces on your shoulder, but it must be true about panic giving strength. You hardly feel her weight.

  “What are you doing?” Kenyon yells.

  “You hurt your back. You can’t run.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Maybe.” You can’t believe you’re all doing this. You might die any second—

  Only there is no gunfire, and the marina is a hundred yards away.

  “The cop is running after us,” Kenyon says. “He’s put away his gun. But your father is just walking.”

  He knows we’re trapped, you think. There is nowhere to go from the marina. The water lies beyond. You run anyway, watching Saralinda’s backpack jounce as she moves.

  Saralinda gets to the marina gate, which is as tall as the fence. The gate and fence are both made of chain link, with barbed wire eighteen feet up. She rushes through, and one second later, you and Kenyon and Evangeline follow. Evangeline says something you don’t catch as the cop pounds up, but the girls are ready and they slam the gate shut in his face.

  The cop throws himself against the other side, pushing, but there are four of you pushing back. Then Saralinda snakes a thick chain into place and snaps its padlock shut with quick, competent fingers.

  The cop stops pushing. Evangeline slips an arm around Kenyon’s waist. “Come on! Everyone, let’s go hide!” Those two stumble off into the maze of the marina.

  Hide? You sigh.

  There is nobody else here. It’s an autumn weekday evening, and the boaters of Fire Island are in the city. They’re thinking about dinner.

  You look beyond the cop, at your father, at how the setting sun glints off his glasses as he approaches.

  You wouldn’t have said he was walking. You’d have said he was strolling.

  You realize again that you don’t understand this man who is your father, and you never have. And maybe—though you still don’t know why he would have done it—maybe, just maybe, he is behind what has happened to Antoine . . .

  You slip your hand in your pocket.

  “Go with them,” you tell Saralinda as the cop eyes the chain-link fence and, matter-of-factly, starts to climb.

  “But—”

  The sun is halfway down the horizon. Your knife is out and ready. “I’m going to buy us some time. I’ll be five minutes behind you.”

  You have no idea what you’re doing.

  “Promise?” she says.

  You don’t look at her. “Promise.” You hear her footsteps recede.

  The toe of the cop’s shoe is in a fence link at your shoulder level. You feel inside yourself for some remnant of Mr. Hyde, or failing that, a brave version of yourself. You reach through the link below and grab the cop’s pants, pulling the fabric and wrapping it around your fist. This slams his leg against the fence. Your blade slices through the fabric and along his calf. He screams. You dig deeper. He drops backward to the ground, clamping a hand to his calf.

  There is blood on your knife, dripping onto your hand.

  Staring at you, the cop reaches for his gun.

  Your father stops beside him. He lays a hand on the cop’s hand. “Now, now,” he says. “Remember what we agreed.”

  The cop snarls something. He drops the gun. Then: “Help me, dammit! I thought you were a doctor. I need, like, a tourniquet.”

  “In a minute,” says your father, serenely, and turns to you. “Hello, son.”

  You don’t move.

  Your father puts his hands in his pockets. “A professional tip,” he says. “Your computer search history should be cleared daily. It’s simply good technical hygiene. If you’d done that, I might not have found out how often you visit little Saralinda’s page in the Rockland student directory.”

  Truly, you do not know this man. But you still know better than to let your face show anything.

  Including bewilderment.

  “Maybe you’ll do better at protecting her over the next day or two.” He winks. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  The marina lights come on, soft white bulbs strung from wires overhead.

  “But what about Antoine?” you blurt. “Antoine and the other girls—what’s going on—what are you doing—”

  You clamp your mouth shut.

  “It’s a multifaceted game,” your father says, in the warm explanatory voice his patients probably love. “We’ll see if you can figure it out. I’m curious. For now, run along.”

  He turns his back. He bends to help the wounded man at his feet.


  What is going on?

  If only you had the gun. If you had had some way to take it from the cop.

  You would kill him.

  And then—yourself? No. Or not yet. The girls need you.

  You back away, one step, two, three. Then you run—you can’t help it—your sneakers pounding down on the metal of the piers. And all at once you realize you’re not looking for the girls. You let yourself be swallowed by a forest of tall powerboats with elaborate fishing gear, and wide catamarans, and sleek cabin cruisers, and elegant sailboats with towering masts. As you run, automatically, you squeeze your knife closed with one wet sticky hand, and push it into your pocket.

  The dock comes to a dead end. The water lies before you. You face it.

  You suddenly realize that your father has been playing some game or other with you your entire life. And now he has involved other people.

  Maybe you should dive into the ocean now and swim as far out as you can. But would that satisfy your father and end his mysterious game?

  What if it doesn’t?

  So you can’t die. The girls need you. And Antoine needed you, but you didn’t realize it. You didn’t understand. And what you didn’t understand is this: If this is your father’s game, then you are the one responsible for Antoine’s death.

  You.

  You you you.

  You stare at the cold water. If you can’t stop him, then you should end it, here and now. It would mean you don’t risk witnessing any more death. Being responsible for any more death.

  Cowardly, but maybe you are a coward. Maybe it would be better to be a coward—

  A voice pulls you back. “Caleb.”

  It’s Saralinda.

  Chapter 32. Saralinda

  I move as unobtrusively as I can between Caleb and the end of the dock, except I am probably quite obtrusive because I sort of lurch and I need to lean heavily on Georgia after having run earlier which I am not exactly accustomed to doing, I would never have believed how fast I could go and pain totally did not matter. But what is important now is to get in Caleb’s way because before he knew I was here he was leaning toward the ocean in a very scary way.

  Caleb is lethal it turns out just like I always thought, but it is not in the way I used to think. I am upset about what might be going on with my mother but right now more upset about Caleb because not only is he dangerous to himself, he is dangerous to me.

  Because when I look at him with his hair hanging down around his face I could drown in his pain and go down almost willingly.

  I ask, “What happened just now with your father?”

  “Oh.” He pauses for a second, as if he forgot and has to remember. “The cop was trying to climb the fence, and I have this folding knife, and I stopped him.” He looks at his hands. “I, uh. So I stabbed him in the leg and he fell.”

  On one of his hands I see dark stains in the folds of his knuckles and around his fingernails. I blink. He used a knife to do physical harm to another human being on our behalf, me and Kenyon and Evangeline.

  “Are you hurt?” I ask feebly.

  “He’s the one who got hurt.” Suddenly Caleb grins which makes my stomach lurch in a melty way.

  I manage to say, “Let’s go. Kenyon and Evangeline are waiting.”

  Caleb doesn’t move though. “Saralinda, listen. My father is letting us get away. He wants us to run, that’s what’s going on. He’s giving us rope. This is fun for him. A game. It’s not only about Kenyon and Antoine.”

  I look up at him again. “He said that?”

  He holds my eyes. “He said it. He said he was playing a game.”

  “What does it mean, a game?”

  “For now, it means that we have to stay alive. All of us.”

  “I guess that’s not brand-new,” I say slowly, as I try to take this in. “But what kind of game? Was Antoine a game, or—wait, what does your father have to do with, well, me? Or Kenyon, or her grandfather, or—” I stop. I am totally confused.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know those things either. We’ll have to all talk, I guess, except right now—we have to get out of here.” He looks beyond me. “Where are Kenyon and Evangeline?”

  Silently Georgia and I lead the way to a large sailboat and I motion to Caleb to get on board, then Georgia and I clamber after him. We duck beneath a loose tarpaulin and call out that we’re coming (although they probably heard us already, as Georgia and I are more clumsy than usual).

  In the boat’s cabin, Kenyon leans against the wall and aims a flashlight toward us. Evangeline is talking before we get all the way in. “There you are. Caleb, you’ll tell us what happened, but first, do either of you know how to sail?”

  Caleb says, “No.”

  I shake my head and sit down on a bench along one side of the cabin.

  “It’ll have to be a motorboat, then. Kenyon will pilot it. We’ll take the boat along the coast and then up the East River to the city. It’ll still be dark when we land. In the city somehow we’ll get money. And a phone. We’ll redo our videos and stuff and go ahead with our internet plan.” Evangeline nods toward me. “Then we’ll contact Dr. Lee.”

  “Uh, what’s this about me piloting the boat?” asks Kenyon.

  “You’re the one who knows how to drive a car. A motorboat is similar.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “I’ve been out on motorboats. I trust you to figure it out.” Evangeline waves her hand vaguely.

  Kenyon’s jaw drops. I guess it’s from hearing Evangeline say that she trusts her, on top of the blithe statement about how driving a car is the same as driving a boat. Then Kenyon recovers and says in almost (but not quite) her usual sarcastic voice, “You also trust we’ll find a key in order to start this hypothetical boat?”

  “Yes. Boating people often hide keys onboard.” Evangeline lifts her chin challengingly. “We’re improvising. We find a key, or we’ll hot-wire the engine. Or something.”

  “Really. You think it’s that easy?”

  “I think that if one thing doesn’t work, we’ll try another.”

  They lock eyes. Kenyon is the one who looks away. “Caleb?” she says. “I want you to know something. You might have saved my life before by carrying me. I think I could have run, but honestly, I’m not sure how fast. So. Thank you.”

  Caleb looks shy. “You’re welcome. I didn’t think about it, though. I just—I did it.”

  Which is basically what Kenyon said about shielding me in the carriage house.

  Caleb tells the other girls what he did at the gate. “My father’s playing a game with us,” he finishes. “He wants us to escape for now, so that he can torture us longer. Torture me, in particular.” He hesitates. “I think—he’s a strange guy—he said something about seeing if I could—could protect Saralinda . . .”

  “What?” I exclaim.

  Caleb doesn’t look at me. “He said, and I quote, ‘It’s a multifaceted game. We’ll see if you can figure it out. I’m curious.’”

  We are all silent as we think about that.

  Finally, Evangeline says, “What’s with him? You said he was strange. But this—I don’t even know what this is.”

  Caleb shrugs. “Me neither.” After a second, he adds, “I—you guys, I’m sorry.”

  “A game?” Evangeline’s voice rises. “A game with Antoine’s life?”

  Caleb shrugs again. “I know,” he says.

  I have never heard anyone sound so miserable.

  Kenyon’s face hardens. “Well, listen. My grandfather doesn’t play games. He plays for keeps, and he’s in this too. Obviously.”

  We are quiet again.

  “Okay,” Kenyon says. “Caleb. Before we do what Evangeline is suggesting, are you sure that at this point we’re not being, well, herded by your father into something? Like drowning at sea?” She glance
s at Evangeline. “Or stealing a boat?”

  “No, I guess those are possibilities,” Caleb says.

  “We have another choice. We could sneak back out of here and onto the ferry later.” Kenyon pauses, thinking it through.

  “They’ll be waiting,” Evangeline says. “The ferry only lands in one spot. My way, they don’t know where we land.”

  I say, “Let’s take a motorboat. We’re trying to get someplace safe—or safe enough—so we can make our videos. Caleb’s father is giving us space for his reasons, but we’re taking it for our reasons. He doesn’t know what we’re planning. And once we get a phone, we won’t need much time! It’s dark, so they won’t know what boat we’re in or where we’re going. That is, if you can drive it, Kenyon.” I pause. “And we can put this stuff about the game online too. We can say that this is what’s going on and that we don’t understand it. Why not?”

  Caleb nods. “Agreed.”

  He still looks horrible.

  Kenyon pushes herself away from the cabin wall. “I guess we’re borrowing a boat.”

  We troop down one pier and onto another, looking.

  Kenyon gestures to a catamaran called Ship Happens. Evangeline hops up to see if its owners left a key in any obvious spot but no. We check other boats, searching under cushions and seats and in storage compartments. After what seems like forever and in the total dark night we get lucky with a not-too-small open boat called Après Ski. Its key is actually in the ignition.

  “I knew it!” Evangeline says as if she willed the boat and its key into existence.

  Après Ski feels like a car. At the front, there are two cushioned chairs behind a windshield and control panel. One chair has a steering wheel. There are two more chairs at the rear and also a bench. I find an operator’s manual which I examine immediately.

  Then I crow, “Guys, this is an unsinkable nineteen-foot Boston Whaler!”

  Kenyon smiles. “I like the sound of the word unsinkable.”

  “Also, it has GPS,” I say.

  “Now we’re talking!” says Evangeline. “We can do this.”

  Kenyon moves to the instrument panel. “Let’s hope for a full tank of gas.”