“That would do it,” I said.
“But this storm moved in. The tail end of that hurricane, what is it?”
“Hurricane Andrew,” I said. “It’s supposed to miss us.”
“Well, it’s blowing pretty bad here, so they’re staying in the lagoon overnight. They’ve all gone in the dinghy to set an extra anchor.”
I sat up straight. “All of them?” It didn’t seem possible.
“The two in your boat are dead.” That would be Bob and Bill, or whatever their names were. “Doyle killed them and left them in your boat. He wants it to look like there was a fight and all of you died.”
That would make sense. When they found my battered boat, it would look better if my charter was on board. Nobody would connect it to Doyle. Still, the brutality of it shook me.
“But there’s only one guarding us,” Nancy went on. “The rest of them are in the little boat doing the anchor.”
I thought about it, which was still a little harder than usual with my head throbbing. But she was right. “It’s not going to get any better.”
She nodded. “I know that. Now here’s what we do.”
I looked around. There were two portholes, but they were tiny. Above was a hatch. I pointed. “The hatch is our only way out.”
“Will you be quiet a moment? I’ve been thinking about this. The guard knows the hatch is our only way out, too. Besides, it’s locked from the outside.”
“Then how—?”
She put a hand on my mouth. “Just hush, Billy. I’m going to start pounding on the hatch. The guard will yell at us to stop. I’ll keep pounding. He’ll think it’s you pounding.”
“Why will he think that?”
“Trust me, Billy. I was a tomboy, I hit hard. The guard will open the door. You’ll be beside the door. When he comes in you’ll knock him out. Can you do that?”
I checked my hands. I wasn’t sure I could open a pickle jar with them, but I thought they might work as bludgeons. If the guard was Carl and not the one who didn’t blink. “I can do that.”
“All right,” she said. And then she leaned forward and kissed me, hard, on the mouth. She pulled back again too quickly for me to do anything but stare stupidly. “Let’s do it,” she said.
I stepped over beside the door and flattened myself against the bulkhead. “Okay,” I said.
Nancy stood on the bunk under the hatch and doubled her hands together. “Billy, no!” she screamed, winking, and then she slammed her fists against the hatch. “Please, stop!” She got into a good, strong rhythm, pounding the hatch. I had to admit, the pounding didn’t sound like a slim, beautiful woman’s.
“Hey!” the guard called cautiously. “Hey, knock it off.” We were in luck; it sounded like Carl.
I cupped a hand to project my voice away from the door and roared something incoherent. Nancy screamed again and pleaded with me to stop, still pounding in a mad rhythm.
“All right,” yelled the guard. “You’re asking for it.”
I heard him scrabbling at the lock. So far so good. I braced myself.
The door swung inward. And then—nothing.
He must be playing it smart, staying a step back from the doorway.
I looked at Nancy. She was frozen where she was, staring past me through the door.
“Get down from there, nigger,” Carl hissed. “Where’s the guy?”
Nancy shook her head.
“Where is he? I mean it!” Nancy flinched slightly.