“Well, I’d better be off,” Shelly said.
“How are things going with Dusty?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. He’s under control.”
“You be careful,” my father told her.
“Yeah, well, don’t go sinkin’ that boat again,” Shelly said, “especially if I’m on it.”
Then she said goodbye and breezed out the door, leaving us in silence with a light sweet scent of tangerines.
* * *
That night Abbey barely touched her dinner. She said she didn’t feel well and asked to go to bed early.
Mom tucked her in and returned to the table. “I think your sister’s got a touch of the flu. Are you feeling all right?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Paine?”
“Never better,” said my father.
“Did you call the taxi company?” Mom asked.
“Tomorrow. I promise,” Dad said. He was supposed to make sure that they were holding his job for him.
“Actually, I was thinking of trying to get my captain’s license back,” he said matter-of-factly, “so I could guide in the backcountry again.”
My mother put down her fork. “You can’t be serious.”
“Well, why not?”
“After what you did to the casino boat, you honestly believe the Coast Guard will let you take customers back out on the water?” she said. “Honey, you’ll be lucky to get your cab back.”
Dad stabbed at a green bean and let the subject drop.
“Somebody from the Herald phoned while you were in the shower,” Mom said. “I explained that you won’t be giving any more interviews. Right?”
“Yeah,” my father mumbled. One of the conditions for Dusty Muleman dropping the criminal charges was that Dad stop ranting to the press.
“You know, he’s started flushing his holding tanks again,” Dad said. “It’s true. Ask Noah.”
Mom looked at me, then back at my father. “How do you know this?”
“We’ve got our sources,” Dad said mysteriously.
“Someone who works on the Coral Queen,” I added.
“I see,” my mother said. “Then this ‘source’ of yours should go straight to the authorities and make a report. That’s the way it’s supposed to be done. Noah, please pass the rice.”
“But Dusty’s got connections with the Coast Guard and the cops,” Dad complained. “They won’t do diddly unless somebody catches him red-handed.”
“And maybe somebody will,” said Mom, “but whoever that ‘somebody’ is, they don’t live in this house. I’ve made my last visit to the jailhouse, is that understood?”
That night I couldn’t sleep, so I dug out a stack of old skateboarding magazines. It was real late, well past midnight, when Mom peeked into my room and saw that I was still awake. She sat down on the bed and told me she was sorry that dinner had gotten a little tense. Everything would get back to normal, she said, once Dad’s legal problems were over and he was working again.
It took every ounce of courage, but I had to ask: “Did you mean what you said to Grandma Janet about a divorce?”
Mom took a short breath and pressed her lips together. “You heard me on the phone that night? I’m so sorry, Noah—I was extremely upset….”
I could tell she wanted to give me one of those big smothering hugs, like she used to do when I was small. This time, though, all she did was reach over and touch my hand.
“Your father is a very unusual and intense personality,” she said, “as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I love him dearly, but sometimes he drives me bananas. More than sometimes, truthfully.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Look, I understand that he gets terribly upset by certain things he sees in this world—greed and injustice and cruelty to nature. That’s one of the things that first attracted me, seeing how deeply he cared. But he’s a grown man,” my mother said, “and he needs to start behaving like one. I don’t care to be married to a jailbird.”
“So you were serious,” I said.
“I’d never bluff about something like divorce. It wouldn’t be fair to you and Abbey.”
I didn’t need to tell Mom how worried we both were. She knew.
“Speaking of your sister,” she said, “I’d better peek in and see how she’s feeling.”
I said good night and turned out the light and pulled the covers up to my neck. I heard Mom open Abbey’s door and say her name. Abbey didn’t answer, so I figured she was already asleep.
But then Mom started calling out for my father in a voice that didn’t even sound like hers, it was so choked up. Dad came running down the hall from one direction, and I came running from the other.
When we entered Abbey’s room, my mother was standing there with tears in her eyes. Her knuckles were pale and pressed to her cheeks, and her shoulders trembled.
“She’s gone!” Mom cried. “Abbey’s gone!”
My sister’s bed was empty. The window was wide open, and the screen, which had been removed, was propped against the bedroom wall.
“Okay, everybody take it easy,” Dad urged. I could tell he was trying to calm himself, as much as me and my mother.
He tried to wrap his arms around Mom but she jerked away. “Somebody kidnapped her, Paine! Somebody broke in and took her!”
“No, Mom, nobody took her,” I said.
“How do you know? How?”
What could I say? Sometimes I sneak out my bedroom window late at night to go bridge fishing or crabbing with Thom and Rado. One time I got back and Abbey was hiding in my room, watching me as I climbed in through the window and put back the screen. She never ratted me out to my parents, but obviously she’d remembered the trick.
“A kidnapper wouldn’t bother to stack the screen against the wall,” I pointed out. “He’d just cut his way through with a knife.”
“Noah’s absolutely right,” Dad said. “This is way too neat and tidy. It’s pure Abbey.”
Mom wiped her eyes on my father’s sleeve. “So what you’re saying is, she ran away? Why in the world would she do that?”
“I don’t think Abbey ran away,” I said.
“Noah, get to the point.”
“She probably just had something she needed to do.”
“In the middle of the night? All by herself?” My mother turned to my father and froze him with one of her deadly laser-beam stares. “Paine, what’s going on here?”
“I’ll be right back,” Dad said, and rushed out of the room.
Mom spun back toward me and snatched me by the left ear.
“Young man?” she said.
She never called me “young man” unless she meant business.
“Yes, Mom?” I was almost sure that I knew where Abbey had gone. And I had a feeling that Dad had figured it out, too.
“Does this have something to do with the Coral Queen?” my mother asked.
“It’s possible,” I said weakly.
“Has this whole family gone completely insane?” She let go of my ear and called out: “Paine! You come back here right this second!”
Moments later Dad appeared at the bedroom door. He had put on a ball cap, a pair of khaki trousers, and his old deck shoes. In one hand was the portable spotlight that he kept stowed on the skiff.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mom demanded.
“The video camera is missing,” my father said.
“Answer my question. Where are you going?”
“To find Abbey,” Dad replied evenly.
“Paine, you’re under house arrest. Remember?”
My father sheepishly pulled up the right leg of his pants to reveal a bare ankle.
“Oh, that’s just terrific,” said my mother. She was not normally a sarcastic person, but she could be brutal when she was. “I’ll go pack your suitcase for state prison,” she said to Dad. “Will they let you bring your own pajamas?”
“Donna, please. There’s no time to argue.”
“Oh, really? Our little girl is roaming around alone in the dead of night, and meanwhile you’ve tripped off some fugitive alarm at the sheriff’s station, and any minute a dozen squad cars with screaming sirens will be racing down our street—”
“I’ll go get Abbey by myself,” I volunteered. “Don’t worry, Mom, I can handle it.”
“No, we’ll go together. All three of us,” she declared. “And if we get into a jam, I want both of you wise guys to keep your lips zipped and let me do the talking. Is that understood?”
My father and I glanced helplessly at each other. There was no point in objecting.
“Noah, get a can of bug spray out of the pantry,” Mom said. “And, Paine, could you please go find my car keys?”
ELEVEN
Mom drove, both hands on the wheel. She stuck to the speed limit because she didn’t want the police to pull us over and find my father in the car.
When she turned down the road to the marina, Dad leaned out the passenger window and began shining the spotlight through the mangroves, in case Abbey was hiding there. He lit up a family of raccoons and a grouchy blue heron, but there was no sign of my sister.
We were more than a hundred yards from the docks when Mom stopped the car. I suggested that we split up and start searching, but Dad said no way, it was too risky. We got out of the car and together headed toward the boats.
Every so often my mother would call out Abbey’s name while Dad probed the shadows with the spotlight. As we approached the marina, I could see that the Coral Queen was dark, though a light shone in the ticket shack at the foot of the dock. I put a finger to my lips, signaling for my parents to stay quiet. Parked by one of the lampposts was Dusty Muleman’s long black SUV.
We huddled in the shadow of the broken sewage tank. Dad had snatched a rusty gaff from a dock box near one of the charter boats, and I could tell by the sound of his breathing that he was agitated and pumped up. Mom, however, remained calm.
Dad said, “You two stay here. I’ll go scope it out.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” my mother told him. “Tonight we’re a team.”
Dad started to argue, but then he stopped and cocked his head to listen. I heard it, too—a man’s laughter, coming from inside the ticket office.
“What if he’s got Abbey?” I whispered anxiously.
“Then we’ll politely ask him to give her back,” Mom said. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. Come on.”
My mother only weighs 110 pounds, but she doesn’t think small. She walked up to the shack and rapped on the door and didn’t wait for it to be opened—she just barged in. Dad and I were right behind her.
“Why, look who’s here!” said Dusty Muleman, hanging up the phone.
He was sitting under a bare light bulb at a wobbly card table. Piled in front of him were stacks of cash and tally sheets from the gambling boat.
Mom said, “Dusty, I apologize for the interruption but this is very important.”
“No problem, Donna.” He looked highly amused by the sight of us.
“Have you seen Abbey tonight?” my mother asked.
“Abbey? What would she be doing hangin’ around this place?” Dusty scoffed.
Dad started edging forward with the tarpon gaff, which wasn’t good.
“She went looking for pilchards,” I piped up. Sometimes the boat basins were loaded with little fish, which Dusty Muleman knew for a fact. “We’re supposed to go fishing tomorrow and she decided to catch her own bait.”
Dusty didn’t fall for my story. “Abbey ain’t much big-ger’n a pilchard herself. I’d sure like to see how she throws a net,” he said. “What’s she doing out so late, anyway? Most little girls would’ve been tucked in beddy-bye a long time ago.”
“Have you seen her?” Mom asked again. “We’re getting worried.”
“Nope.” Dusty was wearing a baggy, fruit-colored shirt that was decorated with palm trees. A fat soggy cigar wagged in the corner of his downturned mouth. Fortunately it wasn’t lit; otherwise we would have gagged on the smoke in that closet-sized room.
“Let me check with Luno,” he said, and spoke gruffly into a walkie-talkie. Then he looked up and addressed my father: “Paine, I’m a little surprised to see you out and about. The sheriff told me you were under house arrest.”
“I was,” Dad said, “until my daughter went missing.”
His jaw was set and his shoulders were bunched. He was wound up as tight as a spring, and I thought that any second he might pounce on Dusty Muleman, who was smaller and flabbier.
Mom must have been thinking the same thing. She snatched the sharp gaff from my father’s hand and carefully placed it upright in a corner.
“Dusty, listen,” she said. “Paine’s got something he wants to say.”
“I do?” Dad said.
“Yes, you do. Remember?” my mother replied pointedly. “You wanted to apologize for what happened to the Coral Queen.”
I burst out coughing like I was having a seizure. I couldn’t help it.
“Apologize?” my father said numbly.
“Yes, Paine, we had this discussion the other night.” Mom’s tone was pleasant but determined. “You and Dusty have known each other too long to let this kind of situation get out of control.”
“Donna’s right,” Dusty said. “All those years we fished out of Ted’s, we never had a problem.”
Dad was steaming, but there wasn’t much he could do. Dusty had promised to drop the criminal charges only if Dad agreed to behave. Mom must have figured that this was as good a time as any for Dad to start acting remorseful, even if he didn’t mean it.
“Fine,” my father said stiffly. “I’m sorry for sinking your boat.”
“Apology accepted.” Dusty smacked on the cigar, and his shifty gray eyes swung to me. “Son, I heard from Jasper Jr. that you’ve been givin’ him a hard time.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I said.
Dusty shook his head. Dad looked at me curiously.
“No, it’s the other way around,” I started to protest. “He and Bull …”
“He and Bull what?” asked Dad.
“Nothing.”
“Noah, what’s going on?” my mother said, like she’d already forgotten about my black eye. I figured she just didn’t want to stir up more trouble, with Abbey missing and Dad’s future freedom in Dusty Muleman’s hands.
Still, I had to bite back the urge to tell everything that had really happened between me and Jasper Jr. Dusty was clearly enjoying himself at my expense. He knew the truth, too. I could see by the way he smirked.
“I know it’s gettin’ more and more like Miami down here,” he said, “but a boy still ought to be able to go fishin’ without having to fight his way home. Don’t you folks agree?”
“Absolutely,” said my mother, although this time I detected a slight chill in her voice. When she glanced at me, I knew that she didn’t believe a word Dusty Muleman was saying.
I also understood that she expected me to suck up my pride and do what was best for the family, as my father had done.
“Tell Jasper Jr. it won’t happen again,” I said to Dusty.
“That’s the spirit.” He gave me a gloating wink.
The door swung open and Luno appeared. Up close the man was even taller and uglier than I remembered. His slick bald dome glowed pink in the pale light, and his smile was as crooked as his nose. A swatch of dirty-looking gauze was taped on one of his branch-sized forearms, probably where my sister had chomped him. In one hand he carried a walkie-talkie like Dusty’s; in the other hand was a half-empty bottle of beer.
“What’s up, chief?” he said to Dusty.
“You seen a young girl hanging around the docks tonight?”
“Girl?”
“Little kid,” Dusty said. “Curly brown hair, if I remember right.”
“Ash blond,” corrected my mother.
Luno’s shark eyes flicked to the wound on his arm. I wondere
d if he’d ever admitted to Dusty that he’d been bitten by a pint-sized trespasser. I also wondered if Luno recognized me as the one who’d slugged him that night on the charter boat.
If he did, he didn’t let on. His gaze revealed nothing but icy and casual indifference, and I had no doubt he was capable of anything—even killing Lice Peeking.
Dad didn’t seem even slightly intimidated by the bald-headed goon, which is one of my father’s problems. Sometimes he doesn’t know when to be afraid.
“No girl here tonight,” Luno said with a shrug.
“We want to look around for ourselves,” Dad declared.
Dusty said, “Luno says she’s not here, she’s not here. You can take it to the bank.”
“Please,” said Mom. “We won’t be long.”
“Suit yourself. I got nothin’ to hide.” Dusty took the cigar out of his mouth. “So, Paine, I meant to ask you—how’re the anger management classes goin’?”
Part of the deal for Dusty dropping the charges was that my father would sign up for “professional counseling.” Dad thought it was ridiculous, of course.
My mother said, “We’ve got an appointment with a therapist in Key Largo, as soon as Paine gets off house arrest.”
“Outstanding!” said Dusty.
“Yeah, I can hardly wait,” Dad mumbled.
“Listen, man, you can’t go around sinkin’ other people’s boats just because you get some wacko idea in your head,” Dusty told him. “You need to get a grip. Seriously.”
“He will,” Mom said.
My father’s face reddened.
“Let’s go look for Abbey,” I said.
Luno went along, probably to make sure that we didn’t go snooping anywhere Dusty didn’t want us to go. We traipsed from one side of the basin to the other, up and down the charter docks. Dad and Mom kept shouting my sister’s name, but the only response was some crazed dog barking its head off—a big old German shepherd that one of the captains kept chained on his boat.
When we returned to the ticket shack, the light was off and Dusty had gone. Luno leaned against the fender of his beat-up station wagon and folded his beefy arms.
“See? Girl no here,” he said. “You go away now.”
Mom and I turned to leave, but Dad didn’t move. He stood there nose to nose with Dusty’s goon. It was too dark to make out their expressions, but the tension in the air was like the hot static buzz you feel before that first clap of thunder.