“You’re lucky, mate—probably the last we’ll fish out,” one of the crew said with his hand outstretched. “Well, come on, then.”
I stared at his hand for only a moment. Then—almost without thinking—I turned and began paddling away from them.
“Oy! What’s this?” the startled man cried out after me.
I had delivered the boy to safety. I knew there was no chance of saving Celia but I wanted to die trying. That was my choice.
Still using the broken chair leg as an oar, I maneuvered the wobbly craft away from the dinghy and quickly floated into the strong current that had lifted the trunk away. As the bewildered rescuers called after me, I paddled with what little strength I had left.
And, incredibly, within a few moments I saw the trunk again. It had become entangled in an arrested mass of debris that included a section of one of the masts and some kind of rigging. I pushed myself harder and harder, and I soon came upon the wreckage. I carefully poked and prodded my way through the flotsam until I was upon the trunk.
I reached out and took Celia’s hand. It was deathly chilled. I tugged her and the trunk closer. I couldn’t pull her off—the raft was too small to take on another person, and I didn’t dare risk having her fall into the water. I just held her as near as possible and stared into her eyes.
“Your voice,” she croaked faintly. “This time I knew your cry.”
I tried to rub warmth into her hands. She faltered and her eyes fluttered shut. I looked back toward the freighter, but it was now some distance away. Turning slightly, I saw something moving toward us—the dinghy! The crewmen had steered after me! I used my other arm to flag them, and after a moment someone waved back. They would be upon us in minutes.
“Hang on, old girl,” I urged Celia. “We made it! We’re free!”
She barely opened her eyes and was clearly struggling to stay conscious. I leaned in and gently kissed her. She came around and it seemed to me her face took on a kind of glow.
“But Nigel…our pasts…we’re both wanted…”
“No one in America knows our pasts or our names,” I assured her. “We’ll start over—though without very much, I’m afraid—or, to be more exact, without anything at all. But we’ll be together.”
Celia began pulling something out of her wool jacket. Her actions rocked the trunk and I put a hand out to still her. She gave me Emily’s small beaded bag and nodded for me to open it. Inside was a folded piece of paper—the check from Davies. Though wrinkled and water stained it had somehow survived her ordeal.
“Throw it in the ocean,” Celia said. “That will be our new beginning…”
I looked down at the check that represented so many wrong and painful things in our lives. I was about to quite willingly toss it but then hesitated.
“I’m not sure, Celia…I honestly don’t think Davies would have wanted that,” I said. “He wanted us to be happy. He wanted us to live.”
Celia sighed and gave a small rueful laugh. “We’ll discuss it later, Mr. Bowen. Our arrangement needs to be renegotiated anyway.”
I pulled her into my arms and we floated together silently, listening to the dinghy oars steadily lapping through the water, coming closer and closer and closer. Soon they were directly behind us—as everything was now.
About the Authors
James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.
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Scott Slaven is a graduate of UCLA and a creative director, designer, and writer.
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2016 by James Patterson
Cover design by Kapo Ng; ship image: digitally altered painting of Titanic © Ken Marschall; woman: lassedesignen/Shutterstock
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ISBN 978-0-316-50410-2
E3-20161004-NF-DA
James Patterson, Taking the Titanic
(Series: # )
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