Uncharted (40 page)

Why had she ever thought that their relationships were as tenacious as Velcro? Even she and Kevin were more like old postage stamps from which time and life had licked away every residue of adhesive.

Susan said nothing as K dropped to the sand by the fire. She knew Karyn hadn’t come back to keep her company, but still she was grateful for the companionship. No one wanted to die alone.

Karyn took a palm frond from the pile. “Ready for another one?”

Susan took it and placed it on the smoking fire. “Thanks.”

They watched as the frayed brown ends caught and curled, then faded to black as the still-living green material hissed and smoked. In the fire Susan could hear a whispering and cackling—were the flames laughing at them?

“So,” she said, desperate to drown out the chuckling flames, “do you think they’re going to make it?”

Karyn exhaled an audible breath. “I’m worried they’ll die trying.”

In the water, Mark, Lisa, and Kevin were walking the raft toward the breakers; only their heads were visible above the foaming slate sea. At one point Lisa’s head disappeared, then popped up on the other side of the raft.

“They’re swimming,” Karyn said, her voice tight. “But how are they going to swim through those waves?”

Susan rubbed her bare arms as the hair at the back of her neck rose with premonition. “Was Kevin ever a surfer?”

Karyn laughed. “He’s from Cleveland, remember? No beaches there, nor are there any in Atlanta.”

“Mark surfs, I’ll bet. Maybe he can get them through the breakers.”

They watched as Mark gestured for Lisa to climb onto the raft. She did, with great difficulty, and wrapped trailing pieces of seaweed around her wrists as the men tried to push the raft over an approaching breaker. The wave caught the raft, flipped it, and launched Lisa into the surf.

Karyn waited until Lisa’s head rose from the water, then she whispered, “Strike one.”

Mark swam after the raft, snagged it, and held it until Kevin and Lisa caught up. Then they shoved the raft toward the breakers again, this time using their combined strength to push it over the wave before it bowed and broke . . .

Susan held her breath, half in anticipation, half in dread, as the raft glided over the wave. She was about to cheer when Karyn’s hand closed around her wrist.

“Not so fast. The swimmers caught the brunt of that one.”

A cold knot formed in Susan’s stomach as the wave thundered ashore. The raft lay safely beyond the breakers, but three dark heads were being pounded by the surf.

“Look there,” Karyn said, pointing. “The current isn’t running to the east anymore. The waves are coming right toward us.”

She was right; the farthest swells had turned toward the beach. Mark and the others wouldn’t have a chance unless they put out to sea
now
—

“Last chance,” Karyn whispered. “Dive under the waves, you fools. Go for it!”

The oncoming surge crested, and the three swimmers dove, disappearing under the water as the breaker arched and whitened, then broke and rumbled ashore. Susan straightened, her eyes searching the horizon; then she saw three heads moving toward the bobbing raft.

“They made it!” Karyn turned and squeezed Susan’s arm. “I can’t believe it.”

Susan studied her companion. “Are you sorry you came back?”

Karyn’s gaze lit with speculation, then a smile found its way through the mask of uncertainty. “A few minutes ago, I wanted to curl up here and die. I couldn’t imagine myself making it through the breakers. But now . . . maybe they
will
be picked up. If they are, Kevin will send someone for us—just like we’d send a rescue party to search for them if someone sees our signal fire.”

Susan wrapped her arms around her bent knees, then propped her chin on her hand. “I was serious, you know. I don’t want to go back.”

Karyn looked as though she might argue, then her mouth quirked as she studied the sea. “You might change your mind.”

Susan closed her eyes. Karyn was confident about everything, but she didn’t know what an empty vacuum Susan’s life had become. She didn’t know about the gut-wrenching loneliness, the tedious social obligations, or the escort service Susan called every time she needed a handsome man on her arm.

Better to die here and have Houston people think well of her than to go home and let them see that her appearance had become as repulsive as her personal life.

“Look! They’re all aboard!” Karyn pointed toward the brooding gray sea. “I can’t believe it. Mark actually knew what he was talking about!”

Susan lifted her gaze, but as she watched, the waves shifted, inexorably nudging the raft closer. All three figures bent, their arms paddling furiously, but the surf continued to nudge the platform toward shore, bumping it back to the beach.

“It’s not working,” Karyn whispered, the corner of her mouth twisting. “Maybe there is no escape from this place.”

Susan chewed on the edge of her thumbnail as the dreadful truth became apparent. Despite the frantic efforts of those aboard the raft, a breaker picked the vessel up and hurled it toward land with a show of determined ferocity. Karyn gasped, and Susan forgot to breathe as the raft flipped and shattered, tumbling all three riders into the wave wash.

For a long moment Susan couldn’t speak. Her eyes searched the swirling water, hoping for some sign of her friends, but she saw nothing but floating bamboo canes draped in seaweed.

Had they been pulled out to sea in a rip current? Were they knocked unconscious? Perhaps there were sharks or even worse things in these waters . . .

She pulled the veil from her face in an effort to see more clearly. Standing, she scanned the sea, rising on tiptoe to peer over the curling edges of incoming waves, searching for a head, an arm, a speck of clothing.

Karyn stood, took two steps toward the sea, and stopped. When she turned, fear was visible in her eyes and audible in her voice. “They have to be there,” she said. “Don’t they have to be there?”

“Of course they do. People don’t just vanish.”

Susan ran toward the waves, determined to spot anything that would calm her racing heart. Karyn ran with her, yelling out Kevin’s name with every other step.

Time became as precious as drinkable water spinning down an open drain. Susan waded into surf up to her knees, bent, and swept her arms through the waves, hoping her fingertips could uncover what her eyes could not see.

Nothing.

Susan saw a look settle over Karyn’s face, a look she remembered from inside her own skin. The look of loss.

“They’re gone, aren’t they,” she said, her voice hollow. “I don’t see any sign of them, and it’s been, what—six minutes?”

“At least,” Susan whispered. And even though she had been prepared to die alone beside their smoky fire, she had not planned to grieve for old friends.

Staring at the still-gray water, the last remaining tendril of hope within her shriveled into nothingness.

Karyn searched the water as the muscles of her throat moved in a convulsive swallow. Surely they were all right! She had missed seeing them somehow; maybe the similarity of the waves had confused her and she and Susan were looking in the wrong place.

She tried to control herself as she paced the beach, but her lip wobbled and her throat tightened in spite of her efforts. They were not coming up. The sea had won.

She stared at the water, the shock of defeat holding her immobile. Kevin couldn’t be gone. She needed him;
Sarah
needed him. The thought of a world without Kevin was about as appealing as a world without art.

She pressed her trembling hands to her cheeks, feeling as if a section of her body had been torn away. No wonder neither of them had remarried. Though they couldn’t live with each other, they couldn’t live
without
each other, either. All those calls to arrange Sarah’s visits . . . they had really been calls to check in with Kevin, to place her palm against her touchstone, the one who kept her grounded in an actor’s fantasy world.

And now he was gone.

The knowledge twisted and turned inside her, forcing her to confront every nasty thing she had ever said about the man she’d married. Why had she resented Kevin’s long hours at the office? Because they’d been hours away from
her
. Because even then, she’d been so self-centered that she couldn’t bear to love a man who found fulfillment in anything that wasn’t . . . her.

She gulped hard and released a dry sob. If by some miracle she and Susan did make it home, how could she tell Sarah her father was gone?

At least he and the others would wash up here. They had spilled on the island side of the breakers, which meant their bodies would tumble in with everything else that had come to litter this terrible terrain. She wasn’t sure how she and Susan would manage to bury three adults, but she would not let them decompose like the other trash in this horrid place.

She was shivering, her toes in the foam, when a blond head bobbed out of the water. Karyn’s hand went to her throat, afraid she’d see some horrible death-grimace on Lisa’s face, but the woman lifted her hand and waved, then stood and trudged from the surf.

Alive?

Karyn sank to her knees as Lisa approached and collapsed on the shore. She was panting, drawing deep breaths that visibly expanded her ribs beneath her wet blouse.

Karyn knelt beside her. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Lisa paused to lick her lips. “Not exactly my idea of a pleasant ride, though.”

Karyn was about to brush a ribbon of slick hair from Lisa’s eyes when she heard a shout: “Hey!”

Kevin was limping toward her, followed by Mark. A purple bruise had bloomed on Kevin’s cheek, and Mark’s hair had been flattened into a gruesome Frankenstein style, but they were both alive.

Karyn floundered in a maelstrom of emotion as she watched them trudge out of the sea. Impossible. No one could remain underwater that long without drowning. No one, yet—

She reached over and pressed the backs of her fingers to Lisa’s cheek. Her friend’s flesh was cold, but her breath was audible, her teeth chattering. Lisa’s cut feet were bleeding onto the sand, and the skin of her forearms had shivered into gooseflesh.

She was alive, but she shouldn’t be.

Mark and Kevin should be dead, but they weren’t.

Those thoughts towed another in their wake, with a chill that struck deep in the pit of Karyn’s stomach. This island owned their secrets . . . Did it own their lives too?

She said nothing as Kevin dropped at her feet and Mark sank onto the sand. The would-be travelers were exhausted; their raft destroyed. Mark would need to recuperate before he tried to build another one.

With a heart too full for words, Karyn stood. Her voice broke as she whispered, “I’ll build up the fire for you.”