Midnight Rambler_ A Novel Of Suspense Part 48

Air had never tasted so sweet. The FBI cutter was parked next to Perez's boat. Two men wearing wet suits and scuba equipment were on deck, preparing to take the plunge.

"Over here," I yelled to them.

They jumped into the water and swam over to me.

"Where's the guy who threw the girl into the water?" one of the divers asked.

"Dead," I said.

"How about the girl?"

"Follow me. I'll show you."

I took them down to the coral ledge and pointed at the spot where I'd last seen Melinda. The divers glided effortlessly past me. I stopped at the ledge and waited. The pressure was intense, and my head began to throb. After what seemed like an eternity, the divers swam past, holding Melinda between their arms. With her flowing blond hair she looked just like a mermaid. I said a silent prayer as she pa.s.sed.

One of the divers spotted me. With his head, he indicated the ocean floor. It was a simple gesture, one I didn't understand.

I started to follow him up. The diver stopped and repeated the gesture. I looked through his mask at his eyes and saw pain.

I swam back to the ledge and looked straight down. The first thing that caught my eye was the school of lemon sharks swimming below, the next the hull of a boat covered in a fine brown silt. As the silt moved with the current, other shapes appeared. Then my throat constricted, and I saw what the diver had seen: the decomposed bodies of Chantel, Maggie, Carmen, Jen, Krista, Brie, and Lola, each with lead weights ties around her ankles and wrists. They were lying so close together they could have formed a circle had they still been alive. Perez had dumped their bodies there in an effort to frame me, and I thought back to all the times I'd swum here in the past six months. Once a day, sometimes more. Perhaps Rose was right. Perhaps their spirits were clinging to me, so strong was their desire for vindication. Perhaps this was why I couldn't let go.

A minute later, I was standing on the cutter's deck with the crew, watching a pair of medics try to revive Melinda with a noisy machine called AutoPulse that mechanically pumped air into her watery lungs. Her face was a ghostly blue, and she looked more a part of the next world than of this one.

Perez's boat drifted nearby. Perez had tumbled out of it, and the crew seemed confident that the sharks had finished him off. I wasn't going to be happy until Perez's body was found, and I talked the divers into going down and searching for him.

"Do you know her?" one of the medics asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Well, start talking to her. She needs all the help she can get."

I got on my knees and put my lips to Melinda's ear. It was hard talking to someone who looked dead, but I tried. I told her that if she didn't start breathing, I wasn't going to speak to her again. I told her to fight. I told her anything that came to mind.

"Keep it up," the medic said encouragingly.

I kept talking and talking. Dime-sized spots of pink appeared on her cheeks.

"Here she comes," the medic said.

We all leaned in. Like a baby chick hatching from an egg, she popped back to life. Her first breath was a violent hacking sound. Then she started breathing normally. She looked all around as if seeing the world for the first time. The crew began to applaud.

I saw motion in the water and glanced over the side. The two divers had reappeared. Seeing me, they both shook their heads.

"Jack, is that you?" Melinda said.

I turned and looked at her.

"Hey," I said.

"Is this real?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did I die, or is this real?"

"You're alive," I said. "This is real."

"Are they gone?"

"Yes."

She lowered her voice. "Am I safe?"

I glanced at Perez's empty boat. I did not have the heart to tell her that his body was unaccounted for. Better for her to be happy, even if it was just for a little while.

"Yes, Melinda, you're safe," I said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE.

The Queen of Heaven Cemetery in north Fort Lauderdale was a special place for me. Both of my parents were buried there, and so was my sister. So it only seemed fitting that I should bury Skell's victims there as well.

Wearing a dark suit I'd purchased at a thrift shop the day before, I watched as the seven bodies I'd found in the ocean were lowered into the freshly dug ground. With the last of my money and an old credit card, I'd purchased seven plots, seven coffins, and seven tombstones. I still didn't know how I was going to pay the bill, but that really didn't matter. It was the only way I knew to properly say good-bye.

Rose and Jessie stood alongside me, holding fresh flowers to put on the graves. A few days ago they'd appeared on my doorstep and offered to help with the funeral. I could not have managed without them.

When the last coffin was lowered into the earth, Rose handed me a Bible, and I read a pa.s.sage from Psalms about G.o.d's eternal love and forgiveness. It was the same pa.s.sage that I'd read at my parents' funerals, and my sister's. As I spoke, my tears stained the page on which the words were written.

Finished, I closed the Bible and bowed my head. Then an earthmover filled the graves with dirt, and it was over.

My wife and daughter slipped their arms through mine, and in silence we walked back to my car. It was a beautiful morning; the air was crisp and clear, the cloudless sky an aching blue. I found myself taking solace in that.

"Jack, that woman is staring at us," Rose said.

I lifted my eyes from the pebble walkway. Behind a tombstone twenty feet away stood a Hispanic woman holding a bouquet of wilted flowers. She wore a black dress, a black hat, and sungla.s.ses, and she appeared to be in mourning. I wondered if she'd known one of the victims, or perhaps was a relative. She glanced furtively at my wife and daughter, then turned and abruptly walked away, her heels clacking noisily.

"How rude," my wife said.

"Maybe it was one of those pesky reporters in disguise," my daughter said.

"Maybe so," I said.

We continued our walk. I'd been contacted by plenty of reporters in the past week, all of whom wanted to tell my story. I'd also heard from Bobby Russo, who'd hinted that an unnamed job with the police department was waiting for me, should I choose to return. I'd become everyone's favorite guy, not that I particularly cared. These same people had helped Skell walk out of prison, and I wanted nothing to do with them.

Reaching the parking lot, I found Buster asleep on the driver's seat of my car. I let him out, and he jumped on me, his tail wagging furiously.

"Daddy, someone left you something," my daughter said.

Tucked beneath the winds.h.i.+eld wipers were a white envelope and a single wilted flower. I pulled them both free and looked for a trash bin.

"Aren't you going to open the envelope?" my daughter asked.

"No," I said.

"But it might be something important."

I tossed the envelope to her.

"Have at it," I said.

Jessie tore open the envelope and removed a ca.s.sette tape.

"I thought these things were obsolete," my daughter said.

Tape ca.s.settes were obsolete, except in my car. Once the engine was started, I slipped the ca.s.sette into the tape player, and the three of us sat and listened. At first, nothing but crackling static came out of the speakers. Then we heard the blast of a harmonica, followed by Mick Jagger's young, raw voice. Then the music started.

"What the heck is this?" my daughter asked.

An invisible knife twisted in my gut. As I gazed over endless rows of tombstones that graced the landscape, I searched for the Hispanic woman dressed in black, knowing that I hadn't seen a woman at all but an old enemy who was trying to track me down.

It was the opening lyrics to "Midnight Rambler."

The live version.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I would like to gratefully acknowledge several people for their help during the writing of this novel. They include Shane James, Ed Jones, Christine Kling, Shawn Redmond, and the ever-helpful Fred Rea.

A special thanks to the folks at Ballantine Books, who continue to support me in everything I do. Thank you, Gina Centrello, Dana Isaacson, Elizabeth McGuire, and my terrific editor, Linda Marrow.

During the early stages of this ma.n.u.script, several people made suggestions that helped shape this book, and to them I owe a huge debt of grat.i.tude. Thanks to my wife, Laura; my agent, Chris Calhoun; and his a.s.sistant and editor extraordinaire, Dong Won Song.

Above all, I must thank Andrew Vita, Team Adam Consultant with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and former a.s.sociate Director/Enforcement for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Without his help, this book could not have been written.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

JAMES SWAIN is the author of seven bestselling novels. In 2006, he was awarded the Prix Calibre 36 for Best American Crime Fiction. He lives in Florida with his wife, Laura. is the author of seven bestselling novels. In 2006, he was awarded the Prix Calibre 36 for Best American Crime Fiction. He lives in Florida with his wife, Laura.

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