Page 115 of No One Aboard
“Help,” she tried to say, but her voice crackled. She summoned what little remained of her strength and waved her leaden arms above her head. “Help!” she called again and again until her voice gained power and pierced the quiet air.
If the ship had been a few minutes earlier, it wouldn’t have been light enough for them to see her. If the surface had been any rougher, her waving arms wouldn’t have made a difference. But the ocean had put her through enough, and the ship changed its course to come get her.
It was a corporate fishing vessel, and the man who helped her aboard still had shaving cream slathered on his lower face and didn’t speak English.
“Where’s the nearest land?” Tia asked to no avail. She scoured her brain for high-school Spanish. “Um... dónde... tierra,” she said as her hands flailed in the air, “aqui?”
The man gave her a dry towel and some beef jerky. “Tierra?” he asked.
Tia ripped off a piece of the meat with her teeth. “Sí, señor.”
“Yo te llevaré allí,” the man said with a pat on her back. She could only hope he’d said something along the lines ofYes, I’ll take you somewhere safe.
The man inputted a destination on his screen, and the little boat motored to life, heading northwest. Northwest... That meant Florida!
But what about Rylan in the life raft? She needed to find him, and going to Florida posed a new set of problems. Shewasn’t some kid taken against her will by her father anymore. She hadkilledsomeone.
Tia bit off a large bite of jerky to cover up the nasty taste in her mouth. Not justsomeone. She had killedNico. Nico who had helped drown MJ. Nico who had kissed her and touched her while he knew in his soul he was the reason her friend was dead.
And now he was dead.
The man left the screen to go back down below and finish shaving.
When he came back, she gestured to his clean-shaven chin and then to her hair. “Can I use that?” she asked. “Mi pelo... uh, apagado.”
The man nodded and showed her to the head. She looked through the bathroom drawer and retrieved the razor and a pair of scissors.
She twisted her hair up into a ponytail and began to cut.
The man let her off in Hallandale, wrapping the remaining jerky in tinfoil and sticking it in her life jacket pocket in farewell. When he was gone, she finished it off and left the life jacket in the nearest dumpster. She kept the raincoat’s hood up to protect her bald head from peeling in the sun as she walked for an hour to the nearest homeless shelter. They handed her a toothbrush and fleece blanket at the door. She slept there for three nights.
On the fourth morning, she ate cold scrambled eggs in the mess hall and watched the television. Waiting. Hoping.
There was nothing.
So she left the shelter, Rylan’s raincoat knotted around her waist. She shoplifted a turkey sandwich and a pack of cigarettes from the nearest gas station. She walked to the marina and looked out at sea, hands deep in her pockets.
Her fingers closed around a tightly folded piece of paper. Without even pulling it out, she knew what it was: the piece of paper torn from the ship’s log. The one with the coordinates to Francis’s secret island hideout written in blue ink on the back.
If Rylan and Lila had survived, but they hadn’t been rescued, they might have managed to get there. She’d told Rylan the heading they were at.
She turned to walk—to where she wasn’t sure—when the sight of a familiar white and teak wood boat caught her eye.
The Old Eileenwas tucked between the other sailboats in the marina. Tia’s heart clambered into her throat, and she walked toward it, afraid the boat would vanish at any moment and prove to be nothing more than a sailor’s mirage.
She wasn’t, though. She was real, majestic and tall without so much as a scratch from the night in the storm.
But something was different. Tia paused, noticing the dirty footprints all over the deck, the salt that crusted the railings. No one had taken care of her since docking. She must have been searched by the coast guard when they found her. And yet wasn’t it a miracle she was here at all?
“Damn,” Tia murmured. Somehow they were both here. Unbroken. Uncaptained.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Tia jumped. Her first instinct was to turn around and push the person who’d spoken into the harbor. She restrained herself, though, hoping he couldn’t hear the blood rush to her head. She glanced over her shoulder at the man. He was old and beer-bellied with strands of fish in his teeth and a Bass Pro Shops cap on his head.
“I found her last night,” the man continued. Justher. So the ship must have been empty when he found it. “Jus’ drifting. Can’t understand it. Do you work here in the shipyard?”
He’d given her an easy backstory. “Yeah,” she said with anod. No need to be specific. Tia offered a cigarette to him and put it between her own lips when he refused.
