She peeled off her sooty T-shirt, took a fresh one from the drawer, and put it on. Then, she looped the chain with the house key and whistle over her head.
Running would help. It always helped.
On her way back through the house, she wondered if she shouldn’t stay and wait for Joey’s call. He’d promised to let her know, when they found Charlie. But that might be an hour from now. Or never. No point hanging around.
Besides, the news, when it came, was almost sure to be bad.
Vicki stepped outside. On the sidewalk in front of the house, she did her stretching exercises. Then, she ran.
She ran fast, darting her legs far out, pumping her arms, feeling the warm air rush against the bare skin of her face and arms and legs. She had no destination in mind, but when she found herself on Center Street racing northward past the deserted shops, she remembered a few mornings ago when she followed Central to its junction with River Road and turned back at the Laurel Creek Bridge.
She thought, what if I stick to the shoreline? I’ll come to the Laurel Creek inlet. I can follow the creek upstream and look for Charlie without anyone interfering.
It hurt to think about Charlie. She wanted to block him out of her mind, to block out everything, to run and, for a white at least, to be free.
But she wondered if she could reach the inlet. There was private property along the shore beyond the north end of town. There might be fences blocking her way.
I could swim around them, she thought.
Ahead was the park. She left the sidewalk and ran on the grass. It felt soft and springy under her shoes.
Go down to the beach and follow the shoreline. Might work.
What’s the point, though? Charlie wouldn’t have walked toward the river. If he survived the jump from the bridge, he would’ve climbed back up to the road. If he’s downstream, he got carried there by the current.
I wouldn’t find him alive.
The searchers may have already found him.
I owe him a try.
Vicki shortened her stride as she started down the slope toward the public beach. Gazing beyond the sand, she saw the dim shape of a fence stretching down to the water’s edge.
I can wade around it, she told herself. I can swim all the way to the inlet, if I have to. It’s probably no more than half a mile.
At the bottom of the slope, she picked up her pace. She came to the beach. She raced across the moonwashed sand.
“Vicki?”
She recognized the voice.
Her head snapped to the left.
Jack was speeding down the silvery ramp of the slide. He flew off its end and ran toward her.
Vicki stopped and faced him. He was barefoot and wearing only shorts. He stopped a few steps away from her.
“Early for your morning jog,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep. I was just lying in bed, thinking about you. When I heard the fire alarm, I decided to get up. I just wandered for a while, and ended up here. I guess I hoped you’d show up, sooner or later.”
“What for?” she asked. Her heart was thumping. She felt as if she couldn’t get enough air.
“Oh, Vicki.” He started to raise his arms toward her, then let them fall to his sides. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I was wrong to jump on you. You’re not Gloria. You’re so different from her that…I guess I’ve still got a lot of anger in me, and for just a minute there I let it out at you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m not Gloria.”
“I know.”
“I’m not an Amazon career bitch.”
“Partly Amazon, maybe.” As he said that, a corner of his mouth tipped up and he rubbed his right arm just below the shoulder. “You pack a pretty mean wallop.”
He turned sideways and pointed. His skin, milky in the moonlight, had a faint smudge of darkness like a shadow where she had punched him.
“I did that?” Vicki asked.
Reaching out, she let her fingertips drift over the contusion. The dark area felt slightly warmer than the skin around it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right.”
“I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“It was assault and battery, you know. But don’t worry, I won’t press charges.”
“The cops would love it if you did.” She slid her hand down his arm and took hold of his hand. “The chief seems to hate my guts. He just gave me the bum’s rush. All I wanted to do was help look for Charlie.”
“Charlie Gaines?”
“He’s missing. That’s what the fire alert was about. He crashed on River Road. They think he was on fire and jumped off the bridge into the creek, but they couldn’t find him. I wanted to help and they kicked me out.”
Jack squeezed her hand. “Why wouldn’t they let you help?”
“I don’t know. But I thought I might sneak in the back way and search upstream. The inlet’s not far from here.” She nodded toward the fence at the boundary of the beach.
“Want some company?” Jack asked.
“I’d like that.”
“Lead on. I’ll try to keep up.”
He released Vicki’s hand. She whirled away and rushed across the beach. She heard him running behind her. Then, he caught up and ran at her side.
She angled toward the end of the chainlink fence. A sign near the final post read, “Public Prohibited Beyond this Point.” The water splashed up her legs as she rounded the post. On the other side, she leaped onto the bank and hurried across the back yard of a cottage. The windows of the cottage were dark. Ahead, a pier stretched into the river. An outboard floated alongside it.
Jack caught up to her, then passed her.
She stared at his wide, pale back, at the dark seat of his shorts, at his strong legs pumping out.
And it felt so good to be with him.
Vicki could hardly believe they were suddenly together. It had happened so fast. One moment, she was alone and Jack little more than a bitter memory: the next, he was back and she felt closer to him than before their fight in the car.
He was waiting for me, she thought. Hoping I’d show up.
She followed him past the pier, past a small beach, and through a gap in a hedge at the far side of the yard. They came out behind a two-story house with a wooded lawn. A car tire was suspended from one of the limbs. This house had a larger beach area than the cottage they had left behind. A canoe rested, hull up, on the sand. Some distance ahead was a dock with a boathouse on the other side.
Jack turned toward the beach. He came to a stop beside the canoe, crouched down and flipped it over, uncovering a pair of paddles that had been left beneath it.
“What’re you doing?” Vicki whispered.
“Let’s borrow it. We’ll get there in no time, if we take it.”
“Are you kidding? It isn’t ours.”
“This is an emergency. They’ll understand. Besides, they’ll never find out we took it. Probably.”
Vicki glanced toward the house. She could only see bits of it through the trees.
Jack handed a paddle to her. He kept the other for himself, and lifted the prow. Vicki grabbed the stern. The aluminum canoe felt nearly weightless as she hurried behind Jack, rushing it down the beach.
She half expected someone to shout from the house and come running out to stop them. But no one did.
They waded into the river and eased the canoe down. Jack held it steady while Vicki climbed in. As she knelt and dipped her paddle into the water, Jack swung himself aboard.
She looked over her shoulder.
We’re getting away with it!
She felt a strange thrill. She’d never stolen anything before.
We’re not stealing it, she reminded herself. Just borrowing it. And this is an emergency.
Though she hadn’t been in a canoe for years, she used to spend long hours in them exploring the river’s shor
eline and islands. It felt so familiar: the narrow wooden slats under her knees, the paddle in her hands, the weight of the water against the blade as she swept it back, the sound of the drops spilling away when she lifted the paddle out, the soft rushing lap of the river under the hull as the canoe glided forward.
Jack acted as if he too, had spent much of his youth in such a craft. He knelt upright, drawing his paddle through the water with smooth, graceful strokes, leaving the steering to Vicki, seeming to know that the job was hers and realizing immediately that she was good at it.
She matched his strokes. Soon, the canoe was speeding over the calm suface of the river. When they were out beyond the end of the pier, she turned them northward.
The air was warm. The river was calm, black except for silvery moonlight sprinkled across its ripples. Vicki saw no boat lights. She heard no motors. There seemed to be no one else on the river. A few specks of light glimmered along the far shore. The stillness and beauty gave her a hollow feeling of regret.
If only she were out here with Jack and no terrible errand. They could paddle out to the middle of the river and let the canoe drift. She would go to him. He would put his arms around her. They would kiss. They would lie down in the bottom of the canoe…
Some other night, she told herself. Maybe next week or next month. All of this will be a bad memory, and we’ll come out here for no other reason than to be with each other.
She pictured Charlie floating dead in the creek, and felt a hot jolt of guilt.
We’re out here for you, Charlie. It doesn’t matter about me and Jack.
Not tonight.
She turned her face to the left. They were gliding past the dock of the last house before the woods. In the distance, she saw a point of land. She remembered from long ago that it reached into the river just this side of the Laurel Creek inlet.
Holding the paddle straight down beside the canoe, she twisted its blade against the flow. Water swooshed and bubbled up. The canoe turned. When it was aimed toward the point, she resumed stroking.
Soon, they slipped past the jut of land.
“It’s just ahead,” Vicki said.
Jack, nodding, rested his paddle across the gunnels.
Vicki eased the canoe forward. She peered into the darkness of the bushes and trees along the bank, but didn’t see the narrow opening until Jack pointed. Sweeping the canoe toward it, she heard the soft rush of the running water. She gave the paddle a final, strong pull.
As the canoe glided closer to the inlet, she scanned the woods. She saw no lights. She heard voices faint with distance.
Either the searchers hadn’t yet come this far, or they’d already reached the river and turned back.
Jack slipped into the river. It covered him to the waist. Gripping the prow with one hand, he waded ashore and dragged the canoe partway up the embankment near the edge of the creek. He crouched and held it steady for Vicki. Staying low, she scurried to the front. Jack gave her a hand as she climbed out. It was wet. Together, they pulled the canoe farther up the low slope.
“Now what?” he whispered.
“I guess we walk upstream.”
His big hand closed around her forearm. They stepped around a cluster of bushes and entered Laurel Creek. Its rocky bed felt slick under her shoes. As they approached the middle, the water level rose above her knees.
“Too bad we don’t have a flashlight,” Jack said.
“I hadn’t really planned to do this.”
Side by side, they waded slowly forward. The creek and its shores were dark except for a few flecks of moonlight. Vicki heard the voices of the searchers, but they seemed no closer than before. She couldn’t make out the words.
Though she often checked the black path of the creek in front of her, she concentrated on studying the shores. If Charlie’s in the water, she thought, we won’t have to see him. We’ll feel him. This stretch of the creek was so narrow that they wouldn’t be able to miss the body. It would strike their legs.
And she prayed that Charlie was not in the water. They were too far downstream from the bridge.
If he’s still alive, she thought, he’s either on the shore or the searchers already found him.
Her heart gave a sudden lurch as she spotted a pale shape floating toward her. Jack squeezed her hand, then let go. He hurried toward the thing. “Just a branch,” he whispered.
“Thank God.”
He bent down and pushed it. The branch slid out of the way, scraping against rocks along the shore.
They continued walking up the creek.
While Vicki’s eyes roamed the dim shapes of bushes and rocks alongside the stream, she listened for the searchers. Minutes went by when all she heard were birds and insects, an occasional frog, the slurp of their own legs moving through the water.
Then, a voice would come from the distance ahead. Another would usually answer. Then, more silence.
The voices seemed farther away then before.
That pleased Vicki, at first. She certainly didn’t want to run into any of the men from the chief’s party. But she began wondering what it meant.
It could mean, she decided, one of two things: either Charlie had already been found, or the searchers had finished hunting downstream.
She hoped that they had turned back because Charlie had been found. Found alive.
But what she believed, in spite of her hopes, was that the men had made their way to the river’s edge without finding him. Some time before she and Jack arrived. Once he was in the river, there was no point in continuing the search. The body would be lost. Until it washed ashore somewhere, maybe miles downriver. Or until it decomposed and the gases sent the bloated corpse popping to the surface. So the men had given up and headed back for the bridge.
We might as well quit, she thought.
No. Too soon.
Jack made a quiet “Hmm?” He waded to the right. Vicki stayed beside him, peering at the shore, wondering what he’d noticed. He stopped and looked down. Vicki saw the vague shape of a cigarette butt on top of a dark rock.
“My hands are wet,” he whispered. “Do you mind?”
Vicki shrugged, unsure of what he meant.
He pressed his right hand against the front of her T-shirt. She felt it rub across her belly, and she realized he was using her shirt as a towel because he wore no shirt, himself, and his shorts were damp. He turned his hand over, rubbed the back of it against her, then clenched the shirt in his fist. When his hand went away, she felt the moisture it had left on the fabric. And she still felt his touch like a warm, exciting after-image.
He bent down. He picked up the remains of the cigarette. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Fresh,” he whispered. “Filter’s still wet.”
“So the searchers got this far,” Vicki said. It confirmed her suspicions.
“They might’ve missed him, I guess.”
“They’ve got lights.”
“Do you want to turn back?” Jack asked, and tossed the cigarette into the bushes.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s fine with me if you want to keep looking.”
“We’d just be going over ground they already searched.”
“It’s up to you,” he said.
“I guess there’s not much point.”
“Maybe they found him.”
“Maybe.”
Jack took a step closer to Vicki. He gave her upper arm a gentle squeeze, then kept his hand there. “I wish there was something we could do for Charlie.”
“We did all we could.”
“He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
Vicki nodded. “He helped me so much. I was his patient, you know. He was my doctor when I was a kid. When he found out I was interested in medicine, he kind of took me under his wing. I’d go over to the clinic after school, sometimes, and he’d show me things and we’d talk.”
“I suppose he must be like a father to you.”
“I never needed a father figure…
have a perfectly good real one, you know? Charlie and I were never even all that close. We were friends, but it was pretty much on a professional level. He was always encouraging me.”
“He must’ve cared a lot for you,” Jack said, lightly caressing her arm.
“More than I ever suspected. I wish…” Her throat tightened. “I wish I’d paid more attention to him. I should’ve seen him outside the clinic, had dinners with him, or…”
“Does he have a family?”
“He’s divorced. He never had children. He was all alone, and I just ignored him.”
“You joined him in his work,” Jack said. “It sounds as if that’s exactly what he wanted all along. I think you fulfilled whatever hopes he had for you. You shouldn’t feel guilty for not doing more.”
That’s a good way to look at it, she thought. “He never acted as if he…I mean, I went my way and he went his. I don’t know what he did when he left the clinic. He had lots of money, a beautiful home. He was fairly handsome for a man his age. So I just assumed he was getting along fine. I never worried about him. I hardly gave him any thought at all. I should’ve.”
Jack caressed the side of her face. “Do you want to keep looking?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ll go back to town and find out what’s happening. For all we know, Charlie’s made it through all this. He might be in a hospital room, right now, giving orders to the nurses.”
“That’d be nice,” Vicki said. “If only it’s true.”
They turned away from the shore. Vicki held his hand. Side by side, they waded down the middle of the creek. Though she had no more hopes of finding Charlie, she scanned the darkness anway.
I should’ve cared more about him, she thought. I should’ve made sure he was happy. He wasn’t a father figure to me, but was I like a daughter to him? Maybe. Probably. He did what a father does for a daughter: encouraged me, taught me, gave me advice and guidance…paid for my schooling.
God, Charlie, I’m sorry.
You fulfilled whatever hopes he had for you.
Did I?
If you’re still alive, Charlie. I’ll make it up to you. I will.