Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [106]
It took all my strength and concentration to paddle the boat nearer shore, where the current wasn’t as strong. Fighting as hard as I could, I finally managed to pass the first two pilings and move to the third.
Vehicles crossing the river echoed, and sounds I couldn’t identify seemed to come from the water itself and the dead space among the pilings. My heart pounded. I had to focus on saving Tinkie. This was almost over.
I saw a hook on the third piling bored into the heavy cement. I made for it and grasped it with one hand.
My cell phone rang. “Very good. Now look up.”
I did, and in the glow of lightning behind the clouds, I saw a vision in white. A woman in a peignoir seemed to hang suspended from a brace above me.
“Monica?”
She didn’t answer. She was possibly gagged. I couldn’t see that clearly.
“Leave the money or she’ll die.” The voice came from the phone.
“Where’s the antidote?” I wouldn’t budge without it.
“Monica has it with her.”
The current snatched at the boat, almost pulling me away from the piling. I had little time to make up my mind. It was leave the money and trust that Monica would bring what Tinkie needed or be swept out into the main current of the river. From there, I would never be able to paddle back upstream.
I hung both bags. “There’s your money.” I cast free of the piling and paddled like crazy for the shore. My shoulders burned with the effort.
“And here’s Monica!”
To my utter horror, she plummeted from the brace and went straight into the water only a few yards from my boat.
In an instant she vanished below the surface.
“Shit!” I wrenched in my seat, searching for her. The black surface of the river was undisturbed.
“You bastard!” I cried out as I tried to maneuver the boat to find Monica. The current tugged at me, pulling me away from the shore. I fought against it while trying to stay in the place where Monica went under.
I saw her then, only a dozen feet away from me. She came to the surface slowly, floating facedown, the peignoir I recognized as the one she’d worn when she disappeared floating around her like a lace shroud.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind she was dead. The bastard killed her before he threw her in the river.
Try as I might, I couldn’t snag the body. The current teased the peignoir, then slowly caught the body. As I struggled to make shore, Monica’s corpse moved into the main current of the river and started the long journey down to New Orleans.
And with it went the antidote for Tinkie.
Before I could do anything else, a shot rang out from the bridge. I heard a ping and a jet of water shot up by my foot. River water rushed into the bottom of the boat. The smell of mud and fish rose around me. I was sinking. Fast.
* * *
I’ve always been a strong swimmer—not pretty, but powerful. The Mississippi River, though, wasn’t the placid Tallahatchie or Yazoo. This was “the Father of Waters,” as the Indian name went. The treacherous currents claimed numerous lives each year.
As the boat foundered, I divested myself of my favorite boots and struggled out of my jeans. I couldn’t afford the extra weight of the clothes.
The night was pitch black, which worked for and against me as another shot rang out. A bullet plunged into the water only six inches from the sinking boat. The kidnapper continued to shoot.
Monica’s body was now twenty yards downriver. I didn’t believe anything the kidnapper said, but the possibility that Tinkie’s antidote was on the body forced me to take action.
I stripped off the rest of my clothes and plunged into the cold water. I entered a world of black. When I resurfaced several yards away from the boat, I had trouble distinguishing the water from the horizon. My sense of direction was totally screwed. At last I sighted in on the traffic on the bridge and reoriented myself. The delay had been costly. Monica was now fifty yards away.
As I struck out for her, I felt the tug of the eddies that made the Mississippi so formidable. I