Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

“Hard to feel good about that,” I said.

He winked. “That’s what makes you one of the white hats,” he said.

A nurse came charging in and started clucking at Deacon. He waited for her without saying anything. She checked my dressing, my pulse, my temperature, and gave me a new IV bag with what I truly hoped was more painkillers.

Then she glared at Deacon and said, “He needs rest.”

Deacon smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am. He’ll get it.”

They had a staring match for just a second, then the nurse shook her head and went racing out again.

I let my eyes fall closed again. “What do you think will happen with all that other stuff?”

“The piracy charges, all of that?” He made a sound that was either clearing his throat or a dry chuckle. “Hard to say. Guess we could get you an eye patch and a peg leg. But I have this gut feeling that somehow a pretty good local reporter is going to get a hold of this story and shake it ’til all the bugs drop off. There’ll be a lot of noise for a while, but in the end there’ll just be too damned much public pressure to do anything. They’re not going to name a bridge after you, but they won’t dare file charges, either. They’re mighty damn scared of looking bad.”

I could feel myself drifting off again, and I guess I looked it. Deacon leaned a little closer.

“One last word on the subject,” he said.

I managed to get one eye open. “Just one word?” I asked.

He nodded. “Proud,” he said. He tapped the side of my face with his open hand, and then he was gone.

Chapter Thirty-One

It was a too-bright day in September with no trace of autumn in the air when they wheeled me out the front door of Jackson Memorial Hospital. They made me stay in the wheelchair until I was out the front door—hospital regulations—and I didn’t fight them. I was too grouchy, groggy, and grungy to fight anything.

Nicky danced beside me the whole way out like a leprechaun on speed. He led me down to my car. It stood at the curb—

—with Anna in the front seat.

She was looking straight ahead when I saw her. The sunlight coming through the windshield lit her, made her near-perfect profile stand out like it was carved in marble. She looked like the girl who pets the unicorn. She was so pale and pure and clean that I almost couldn’t believe she was real.

As I got into the back seat of the car she turned to me with a funny smile and reached to touch my hand, then blushed.

I wanted to say something. But then Nicky jumped into the driver’s seat, laughing and burbling like a demented elf.

“Right! Off we go, then! Buckle up, Billy. Can’t have you bouncing through the windscreen. Hee hee!” Anna turned around to face the front.

The ride home was long and strange. We went through prolonged spells where nobody could say anything, and then suddenly everybody had something stupid to say at the same time.

Maybe it was my pain pills. They had given me some pretty strong stuff and I kept drifting in and out of focus. The world had an extra edge of brightness to it, and time was doing funny things. We made it from Florida City to Key Largo in the blink of an eye, but crossing the Seven Mile Bridge took a lifetime and a half, the rails going past like they had always been there and would never end. And every time I looked at Anna—which was a lot—she was staring out the window, watching the flat blue of the water below.

And so in a cloud of anxiety, fake jolliness, and anesthesia, we rolled into Key West as the sun was about an hour from closing in on the horizon. Nicky and Anna helped me into my house, one on each side, and into bed. They got me propped up, with a large plastic cup filled with ice water and a straw on the table beside me, and promises of chicken soup.

Nicky bounced away to his house to get a pot of the stuff ready for me, and I was finally alone with Anna.

She stood beside the bed, clenching and unclenching her hands, looking at everything but me. I wondered if the sight of me so banged up was bothering her. Maybe it brought back bad memories, or she felt guilty, since she might think it was her that got me into this.

“Hey,” I said, holding out my hand, trying to get her to relax just a little. I touched her arm; she jumped like she’d been shocked. She settled down with a small smile and took my hand in hers. “What’s wrong?”

“Ah,” she said. “Surprisement. Too much of think.”

“What kind of think?”

She was very quiet for a long time,. Finally she shook her head slowly. “Is very much the ball of roach,” she said, and I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. She made a knotted, confused gesture with her hand. “Like so.”

“Worms?” I asked her. “A ball of worms?”