A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [154]
He turned the key and the starters began to whine loudly. Looking back through the plastic curtain he saw the reporters had all turned to the boat. The engines finally turned over and he worked the throttles, revving the engines into a quick-start warm-up. He glanced back again and saw Buddy coming down the dock to the boat’s stern. A couple of the reporters were hurrying down the gangway to the dock behind him.
Buddy quickly uncleated the two stern lines and threw them into the cockpit. He then moved down the side pier to get the bow line. McCaleb lost sight of him but then heard his call.
“Clear!”
McCaleb took the throttles out of neutral and moved the boat out of the slip. As he made the turn into the fairway he looked back and saw Buddy standing on the side pier and the reporters behind him on the dock.
Once he was away from the cameras he unzipped the curtains and took them down. The cool air swept into the bridge and braced him. He sighted the flashing red lights of the channel markers and put the boat on course. He looked ahead, past the markers, into the darkness but saw nothing. He turned on the Raytheon and saw that which he could not see ahead. The island was there on the radar screen.
Ten minutes later, after he had cleared the harbor break line, McCaleb pulled the phone out of his jacket and speed-dialed home. He knew it was too late to call and that he was risking waking the children. Graciela answered in a whispered urgency.
“Sorry, it’s just me.”
“Terry, are you all right?”
“I am now. I’m coming home.”
“You’re crossing in the dark?”
McCaleb thought a moment about the question.
“I’ll be all right. I can see in the dark.”
Graciela didn’t say anything. She had an ability to know when he was saying one thing and talking about something else.
“Put the deck light on,” he said. “I’ll look for it when I get close.”
He closed the phone and pushed the throttles up. The bow started to rise and then leveled off. He passed the last channel marker twenty yards to his left. He was right on course. A three-quarter moon was high in the sky ahead and laying down a shimmering path of liquid silver for him to follow home. He held on tightly to the wheel and thought about the moment when he had truly thought he was going to die. He remembered the image of his daughter that had come to him and had comforted him. Tears started to roll down his cheeks. Soon the wind off the water dried them on his face.
acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the help of many people during the writing of this book. They include John Houghton, Jerry Hooten, Cameron Riddell, Dawson Carr, Terrill Lankford, Linda Connelly, Mary Lavelle and Susan Connelly.
For words of support or inspiration just when they were needed, thanks go to Sarah Crichton, Philip Spitzer, Scott Eyman, Ed Thomas, Steve Stilwell, Josh Meyer, John Sacret Young and Kathy Lingg.
The author is indebted to Jane Davis for her excellent management of www.michaelconnelly.com. Gerald Petievich and Robert Crais are owed many thanks for excellent career advice foolishly ignored — to this point, at least — by the author.
This book, like those before it, would not exist in publishable form without the excellent efforts of its editor, Michael Pietsch, and copyeditor, Betty Power, and the entire team at Little, Brown and Company.
And all this work would be for naught if not for the efforts of the many booksellers who put the stories into readers’ hands. Thank you.
Lastly, special thanks to Raymond Chandler for inspiring the title of the book. Describing in 1950 the time and place from which he drew his early crime stories, Chandler wrote, “The streets were dark with something more than night.”
Sometimes they still are.
Michael Connelly
Los Angeles