“Wait here.” Cole took a few jogging steps then leapt the five feet of shallow water between the shore and the deck, landing in a half-crouch that would have done Thom proud. He held his position while the boat rocked, kicking out waves that splashed duckweed onto my boots. “Let me strap this down, and I’ll maneuver closer for you.”
Once he secured the supplies, he removed a long metal pole from a strap and used it to push the boat closer to shore. Our fingers brushed when he reached for me, and his hand clamped down on my wrist, right along the first metal band. The brush of his thumb along the raised skin would have made me cringe had another man stroked me in such a way, but his caress sparked heat in my veins. I cleared the gap with a hop that slammed me into him, and I rode out the gentle swells tucked against his side while trying to control the scent of desire that clung to my skin around him.
“Thanks.” I disentangled from him and plopped down on the bench seat to put distance between us. “Do I get a hint?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” He cranked the engine, and the propeller mounted in a steel cage behind me whirred to life. “Hold on.”
Conversation on an airboat is impossible unless you like screaming, so there was nothing for me to do but sit back and enjoy the ride. The spotlight mounted on the front of the boat cast a spear of light to dispel the darkness, but I didn’t worry about the narrow scope. Cole saw in the dark just fine. The light was a concession, one I appreciated since – his keen night vision or not – cruising the swamp past midnight at high speeds was enough to jumpstart my pulse.
Twenty minutes into our ride, he killed the motor, and we coasted to a stop in an area that might have struck a familiar chord had I been able to see more trees to use as landmarks. While I studied the buttressed knees of a bald cypress tree, a sense of déjà vu swirled through me. As we drew closer, I spotted the knot where I had carved a date into the trunk in chunky numbers, a child’s remembrance of her unbirthday. “Why are we here?”
“This is where Edward Boudreau pulled you from the swamp.” He shifted his angle to the right about a foot. “We breached two yards south of here.” He pointed off in the shadowed distance. “Less than a dozen yards east, War staged her grand entrance.”
I stood and turned a slow circle, seeing the area through new eyes. I wished we had made the trip in daylight. I had been out here dozens of times to sit and think, but discovering this was a nexus point for us all gave me new perspective on this corner of the swamp.
“Famine will breach here.” He knelt and removed a metal panel from a depression in the deck. “The broken seal is a beacon.” He removed what appeared to be a thin laptop encased in black metal, not dissimilar to my new phone. “She’ll follow its pull to this area when the time comes.” He tapped a few keys then set it on the seat beside me, angling so I could view the grid covering the screen. “Each square represents a different live video feed.”
Vibrancy was not what I expected from a live feed given the hour. “They’re color night vision cameras?”
“There’s more.” He pulled up a different screen covered in a multicolored graph that expanded as I watched. “Santiago talked me into purchasing an acoustic Doppler current profiler. He’s wanted one for years, and this gave him an excuse to write it off as a business expense.”
The readout kept inching along, but I had no idea what it meant. “What is an acoustic Doppler whatchamacallit?”
“ADCP is a hydroacoustic current meter similar to sonar,” he explained. “Using the Doppler effect of sound waves scattered back from particles within the water column, it measures current velocities over a depth range.”
Sonar. Doppler. Particles. Velocities. “Mmm-hmm.”
“According to Santiago, that means it measures the speed and direction of water currents.”
Ah. Now that I got. “How much current is he expecting out here?” The surface was calm until you reached River Bend.
“Large bodies gliding through the water create wakes the same as boats do,” Cole explained. “Santiago is hoping to train a program to spot anomalies so that when Famine breaches, we’ll get notified of the disturbance.” He flipped through a few more screens. “He mentioned side-scan sonar and something about a trawl, but I shut him down after he asked permission to buy scuba gear and a shark tank.”
I brushed my fingers over the keys, switching back to the camera feed, and pulled up the one over our heads that showed a hulking man bent protectively around a slender woman half his size. “This must have taken days to install and connect.”
“The order arrived the morning we were set to go to Ludlow.” He secured the laptop back in its bin then reclaimed his seat. “Thom was already in town running an errand, so I asked him to go in my place.”
“You made the right call.” I spared him the need to make an excuse. “We needed a cool-down period.”
“Yes,” he agreed without looking at me. “We did.”
“Thom and I got the job done. That’s all that matters.” I gestured toward the laptop. “It’s not like you were twiddling your thumbs, either. I’d call how things shook out a win.”
He turned his head in my direction but kept his eyes downcast. “Can I show you one more thing before I take you back?”
“Sure.” I tightened my grip and told myself it was so I wouldn’t slide when he accelerated. “I’ve got time.”
“Let me refresh the bait first.” Cole cracked open the cooler, and a wall of stank smacked me in the face so hard my eyes watered. “Santiago is using natural alligators as test subjects.” Rather than the hooks I expected, Cole threaded a piece of thin rope through the cavity of each whole raw chicken then tied them off on preset anchors floating in the water. “The rope breaks away easily, and we monitor the area to make sure none of the local wildlife is harmed.”
That last part was a calculated kindness. The guys didn’t give a fig for much outside of the coterie, but they would fake compassion. For me.
“Do you trust me?” Cole killed the light, and we plummeted into velvety darkness.
My response was automatic. “Yes.”
This time there was no burst of speed once the engine caught, no wind lashing hair in my eyes. We puttered for about ten minutes before he cut the motor again and used the pole to angle us in position behind a copse of cypress trees. Through a split in the trunks, I spotted a ball of artificial light hitched to a lamppost illuminating the blonde head of a woman sitting on the deck with her back facing us. Even without her signature pencil skirt, crisp blouse, and neck-breaker heels, I would have recognized her anywhere.
“Maggie,” I breathed. “She looks so…”
Alive.
Cole tapped my knee then brought a finger to his lips. I nodded that I understood and settled in to watch. I’m not sure what held her attention as she stared up at the White Horse bunkhouse. It was peculiar with its staircases that led nowhere and windows in place of doors. The quirky building was nothing like the tidy house she’d shared with Justin, and it stood worlds apart from the sprawling plantation-style home where she had spent her childhood.
Portia seemed to like the place, but I wasn’t sure Maggie would embrace the idea of so many roommates or such an isolated location, not that she had much say in the matter. I had taken all her choices away from her. What to wear, where to live, who to love…
I started to protest when Cole shoved off and let us drift back the way we’d come, but he had already given me a gift that pulled me down as sure as a pair of cement shoes.
I was grateful for an excuse not to talk on the ride back to the SUV. As it was, the trip was too short for me to blame my tears on windburn. I used the hem of my shirt to wipe my face when we coasted to a stop, but it didn’t help. The pain kept pouring out through my eyes from my heart, leaking down my chin to drip onto my knees. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stop the sobs from escaping, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.
I ached for what I had done to Maggie, and the fact I was grateful she still lived gutted me.