“Oh, my God! Oh, thank God! Avery, you’re all right!” Kelsey said.
She managed to set the book on the hospital bed before she bent over him, kissing his cheek, his forehead and his lips.
“Wait, wait!” he told her.
She jumped back. “Did I hurt you? Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, I’m fine, you didn’t hurt me, only my head is spinning just a bit. Where am I? No, no, dumb question. We’re in a hospital.”
Kelsey furrowed her brow, worried. “Avery, don’t you know what happened?”
He was thoughtful for a second, touched his head and winced. “Yes, I do. I was talking to the dolphin.”
“Yes, you were out at the docks. You were fascinated by the dolphin. I went in, and you were going to talk to the dolphin awhile longer. When I came out, you were in the water.”
He nodded.
“Avery, what happened?”
He looked at her as if something was dawning in his mind. He smiled. “She saved me. He saved me. I’m certain. I felt myself falling, falling…and the creature lifted me up!”
“Avery, Jonas and I pulled you from the water. Liam administered CPR.”
“I don’t remember that, but thank you. No, bless you. I’m assuming you all saved my life. But, Kelsey, honestly, I do remember the creature, the dolphin, being there. I think I would have gone straight down if it hadn’t been for the dolphin.”
He was obsessed with the dolphin. He was marveling about the animal, and, of course, she was amazed and gratified, as well. She’d heard such stories before, about dolphins rescuing swimmers, divers, surfers and shipwreck survivors. She didn’t think it at all impossible that a dolphin had kept him from drowning initially, and she was deeply grateful.
But she needed information from him.
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Liam. He sounded a little tense when he answered, but she told him quickly, “Avery is awake.”
“Thank God,” he told her. “Does he know what happened? Can he talk to me on the phone?”
“He thinks that the dolphin saved him at first—the dolphin that hangs out by the docks next to the beach.”
“Okay,” Liam said. “And before? Can he talk to me?”
She held the phone up to Avery’s ear. She didn’t hear Liam’s question to him, but Avery’s response was clearly audible.
“Hell of a headache, and hell of a thing. I don’t know what happened. I was leaning over the dock. Then my head was killing me, the world was going black and I was in the water.”
Kelsey was certain that Liam asked him to think, to try to remember every second leading up to what had happened.
“I was…was talking to the dolphin. Do you know they make noise? It was kind of making a little noise and moving back in the water…and…”
Avery stopped speaking. “I think I did hear something. Like a pounding. Yes! I felt a vibration on the wood, too. I thought that Kelsey had come back out. But before I could really register the sound or turn…I was in the water, my head killing me, the world going black and spinning.”
Liam spoke again.
“I didn’t scream!” Avery protested. He waited, listening. “I’m telling you, I didn’t scream. I would remember screaming. In surprise, in pain, in…whatever! I didn’t scream. There was no time. It was bang, and then the rush of the water and the pain in my head.”
Avery listened again to Liam, closing his eyes for a minute. “Of course. Of course, I will do my best to remember more, but…it was sudden. So sudden. Seriously, I went into the water. How the hell do you scream in the water? I mean, I suppose you could try, but…no one would hear it, certainly. Oh, my God. I was attacked on that property by some bastard!”
Kelsey, watching him, shook her head. “You don’t ever have to go back there!” she whispered.
“Like hell! I want to know who did this!” Avery told her.
He spoke to Kelsey’s cell phone again. “Sorry, Liam. Kelsey was telling me that I didn’t have to go back there. I told her no slinking ass was driving me away from staying with her. Whoever this is wants to separate her from the rest of us. I’m not letting that happen! What? Oh, I haven’t seen the doctor yet. I woke up with Kelsey reading to me, and then she called you right away. All right, yes, of course.” He closed the phone and handed it back to her.
“You hung up on him?” she asked.
“He wants a doctor to come in and see me, and see how I’m doing, and decide how long I have to stay here,” Avery explained. “He was in the middle of something. Blood and guts on the beach.”
“What?” Kelsey demanded.
Bartholomew was back on his feet, anxiously frowning.
“There was a dead animal on the beach, that’s what it sounded like. Not a human being,” Avery explained. “Are you going to go and get the doctor for me?”
“Yes, of course!”