Out of the Deep (7 page)

Leaning on the railing, he studied the long pier. That's where he'd been last night, at the end of it, where the weird stranger had wanted to know his name. Because of the darkness, Jack had never gotten a good look at the stranger, but in daylight, the pier looked innocent. The same small rowboat, tied to the pier near the shore, still bobbed gently in the water. Gulls wheeled through the air while a band of ducks waddled out from a cluster of trees.

Jack's thoughts needed sorting out. What did he really know about Bindy? No one at her school believed she was telling the truth about her brother Cole beating her up, again and again. Her adoptive parents didn't like her—that much had come from Ms. Lopez. But did that actually prove anything? An idea nibbled at the edges of his mind. What if she'd been telling the truth? What if the problem was that Marian and her husband didn't want to take Bindy's word—Bindy, the adopted girl who'd turned out to be such a disappointment—against the word of their own flesh-and-blood son? What was it Bindy had said? Jack searched his memory.
Only ugly people lie; that's what everyone thinks.
Bindy wasn't ugly, but Jack could tell she believed she was.

The phone rang, causing Jack to jump. Finally! Ashley was still sitting in the chair as he hurried inside.

“It must be Mom,” he told her as he reached for the receiver. “She must have gotten my message.” Placing the receiver to his ear, he said, “Hello?”

“Hi, Jack. Surprise, surprise.” Although there was a lot of static, the voice on the other end of the line was unmistakable.

“Bindy?”

“It's me.”

“Where the heck are you?” Jack shouted. “Do you have any idea how worried—”

“Just quit talking, Jack. I baptized your dad's phone in the Atlantic, remember? Even though it dried out, it's still not working too well. I don't know how long it will hold out.”

“Where are you?” he asked again, softer this time. Ashley had run over to where he stood, watching him with wide eyes.

“I like that red shirt you have on now. You should wear red a lot—the color looks better on you than that yellow jacket you wore this morning.”

“What?”

“I saw you on the balcony, Jack. Like, two minutes ago.”

“Where are you? Why did you run?”

“Because you wouldn't believe me. No one ever believes me. But now I have proof. So listen carefully. I want you to walk toward the pier, but not all the way. Stay to the left. You and Ashley go to that jagged place in the rocks, the one covered with all the barnacles and stuff. Do you know which place I mean?”

“Yes.”

“And then I want you to walk around the shoreline. There's no one over here. Meet me in ten minutes.”

“We're not allowed to leave!” Jack protested.

“Ten minutes,” Bindy told him.

The line went dead.

“S
h-she's out there,” Jack stammered. “Bindy—she said she wants us to meet her on the shore.

Right now!”

Ashley's dark eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead, and her voice came out even higher. “You know we're not allowed to leave this room.

We can't go.”

“I tried to tell her, but she didn't listen. She said she could see me standing on the balcony, which really creeps me out. She said we had ten minutes to meet her, and then she hung up.”

Ashley didn't wait for Jack to finish. Banging open the sliding door, she ran to the balcony and waved wildly, calling, “Bindy! Bin-dy!” When she leaned over the railing so far that her head seemed to disappear, Jack grabbed her by her belt loops, yanked her back, and set her down with a thud. “She can't hear you. She's way too far away.” He pointed to the rocky coast where she'd told them to meet her, slicked wet with ocean water and kelp. The tree line began just beyond the rocks—tall, cone-shaped pines, dark and full of shadow, that seemed to guard the land from the sea. Was she hiding in there, watching both of them now?

“We've got to call Mom and tell her what's happened,” Jack said grimly.

“Bindy said ten minutes. How much is left?”

Jack glanced at his watch. “Eight minutes.”

Hurrying back inside, he grabbed the phone and punched his mother's cell number. Come on, Mom, be there. Answer this time. Come on!

You have reached Dr. Olivia Landon at the Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole. If this is an emergency, please call the Jackson Hole Veterinary Hospital. Or, if you'd like to leave a message, please….

Slamming the receiver into its cradle, he yelled, “I don't believe it! Who the heck is she talking to?”

“The park people are probably using it.”

“Yeah. Maybe you're right.”

“Should we call the police?”

“Bindy will be gone before they can get here.”

He began to pace the room, stopping at the sliding glass doors, looping back to the bathroom, then back to the balcony. Ashley sat on a bed, cross-legged, her dark eyes following him. For a second time he called his mother, this time leaving a message. After a third attempt, he found himself fidgeting at the motel door; he could feel Ashley staring at him.

“You're not seriously thinking of going out there.”

“Got to,” he snapped. “Time's past up. If I could ever get through to Mom, she'd probably tell us to go after Bindy. I've got to find her and make her come back.”

“Why?” Ashley thundered. “Just let her go. She's nothing but trouble.”

Jack's voice was just as hot. “You don't get it, do you? Just think about how bad it could be for Mom and Dad if Bindy disappears. They're the ones responsible for her! It could get really,
really
ugly, and I'm not going to let that happen.”

With her thin arms crossed tightly over her chest, Ashley said through tight lips, “What if Dad comes back and finds us gone? It could get
really, really
ugly for you and me. I don't want to get grounded for the rest of my life because of that—troublemaker!”

But Jack wasn't listening. He'd been over all of it in his mind, and there was no other way. He had to at least talk to Bindy, convince her to come back. If that failed he could try to force her, but the truth was, Bindy was a year older than Jack and 40 pounds heavier. The thought of trying to wrestle her into submission was ludicrous.

Yanking on his wet shoes, he gave instructions to Ashley about what to say when she finally got through to their mother, but when he looked up, Ashley was already pulling a navy blue sweatshirt over her head. “I'm going, so don't even start,” she announced. When he hesitated, she said, “It's my family, too, Jack. I'll write a note for Dad and tell him what's happened.”

“Well, write it fast. We gotta go.”

Bits of seashell crunched underfoot at they made their way to the cove, and his shoes still squished from their dunking in the Atlantic. The rocks had some sort of sea plant growing all over them, slimy and thick and brown; it looked like the whiskers on a walrus's face. It was easy to slip here, and it stank. Flies swarmed at him, then vanished, only to reappear moments later, buzzing his ears like mosquitoes.

“Man, these flies are nasty,” he told his sister.

“I think they're hanging around those tide pools in the rocks—there's a lot of dead stuff floating in them. Let's get up where the trees are. It'll be better there.” Ashley, who had always been nimble, scrambled over the rocks as easily as a cat. It wasn't so easy for Jack. With his arms outstretched like airplane wings, he tried to keep his balance but slipped at every turn.

Bindy was nowhere to be seen. He knew there was no use calling out to her. If she'd watched them clamber up the rocks, she would know exactly where they were. No, in her own good time, Bindy would come to them. Ashley had already settled onto a rotting log. He joined her, scooting to the side when he discovered he'd sat squarely on a knot.

“How long now since she called?” Ashley asked.

“Twenty-eight minutes.”

“She said we had to get here in ten. Do you think she left?”

“Maybe. But I don't think so.” Straining for any human sound, Jack looked overhead into the thick criss-cross pattern of spruce branches. Wind rustled the pines, causing them to shiver in the perpetual dusk of their shade. Sounds were muffled by a thick layer of needles that carpeted the ground. Where was Bindy?

“So you came,” was the way she greeted them.

Jack whirled around to see Bindy standing five feet behind him, making her usual dramatic entrance, leaning against a tree with one hand high on the trunk and the other on her hip. She wore a pair of faded jeans and a blue-and-green plaid flannel shirt that hung past her hips in loose folds. Her hair fell in damp strings. If she was worried about running away, she didn't show it.

“Yeah, we're here,” Jack nodded. “And what about you? How'd you get back to the motel? You couldn't have walked.”

“I hitched,” she answered. “This sweet old lady stopped to give me a ride. I told her that my car had broken down a ways back, and I needed to get to the motel where I was staying.”

“Your car! Like you were driving your own car?” Jack scoffed.

“You think I can't play the part of a 16-year-old? Watch me.”

Right before their eyes, Bindy seemed to grow older. She straightened up, flipped back her hair, pulled in her cheeks and looked—16.

“OK,” Jack said, “but now you have to come back with us to the room. Bindy, do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused? My dad's driving all over Bar Harbor, frantic! He thinks you've run away. He's gone to the police, and he'll have to call Social Services in Wyoming to report that you're gone.

Do you know what that means? You could get taken away from us.”

“Not that you'd care. Now maybe someone will listen to me. That'd be a first!” Bindy laughed harshly.

Ashley rolled to her feet, facing Bindy squarely, demanding, “Are you coming back with us or not?”

“What about what I found out? Don't you care about that?” When neither Jack nor Ashley answered, she said, “I know why the whales and all the other marine animals are dying. I can prove it.”

“Come on, Bindy,” Jack answered scornfully. “Is this that government conspiracy thing? That was pretty lame—”

“Shut up and listen to me!” she blazed. “I heard a man talking in the bar.” She closed her eyes as if trying to remember—or maybe she was just rehearsing. When she opened them, she began, “I was waiting for the pay phone. At first I wasn't really listening to what he was saying because I had other things on my mind—like what I was going to tell Aunt Marian. Should I say that even though I told about Cole beating on me, I wasn't actually trying to get him into trouble, wasn't trying to make him lose his scholarship or anything? Cole has this big football scholarship to Duke University, did I tell you that?” She didn't wait for any acknowledgment, but went on so fast it seemed one word touched the next. “Or, should I tell her I know they love him more than me, but now I'm OK with that? He's their own son, right? Anyone would love their own child more than their adopted niece. Don't you think?” Bindy's question was tinged with sadness; how was Jack supposed to answer it? He remained silent.

“So all that was going through my head. Then I started to get impatient, because this man kept talking to Alex, whoever he was. He kept saying, ‘You better have the money, Alex. These techie guys want to get paid right away. They're yammering that sonar components are pricey to build and the suppliers need to be paid off.

The price is up 'cause it's a rush job.' I didn't know what ‘sonar components' meant, and right then I didn't care. But the man said it a couple more times—sonar components—and then he goes, ‘I got the parts right here at my feet.'”

Now Bindy appeared more intense, leaning forward as though she really wanted to convince them. “I looked over to see what he was talking about, and there was this square metal case, like a suitcase, only silvery. He said, ‘I'll wait at the pier till midnight.' Whatever this Alex answered got him upset, because he said, ‘I thought you were the one in the big rush. If you don't show by midnight, I'm gonna leave it with the bartender. You can get it from him tomorrow. Yeah, the bartender's my partner. He'll be counting the cash, so don't try any games. God bless America.'”

“God bless America?” Jack questioned.

“Don't interrupt. So all of a sudden he saw me, and he slammed down the phone. He said, ‘How long you been sitting there?' and I told him, ‘Not long.' He stared at me with the coldest eyes, and he asked me, ‘You know what I'm doing here?' I shook my head no, because really, I had no idea what was going on, and I didn't care—I just wanted to use the phone. But then, after about a minute, he goes, ‘What I just did on the phone is my business. Anyone who messes with my business messes with me. I don't think you'd want to do that. If a person repeated my phone conversation—to anybody—I'd consider that messing with me. People who mess with me end up dead.'”

“Oh, come on, Bindy,” Jack scoffed. She had to be making that up.

Confused, Ashley looked at Jack, and asked, “What does any of this have to do with the whales?”

“Sonar components!”
Bindy cried. “Weren't you listening? That ranger said the government had sonar that could blast out a mammal's ears, but the government wasn't using it. Right? Well this guy was obviously selling sonar to the Navy—he even said God bless America.”

“Why does it have to be people in our government?” Jack asked.

“Because they're the only ones buying. Who else would even want sonar? That has to be the answer!”

“Bindy, you're totally guessing. You don't know if anything you heard has anything to do with the sonar that blows out the mammals' ears,” Jack protested. “You don't have any proof.”

“I know it in
here!”
She pushed her finger into her gut.

“Here,” Jack said, pointing to his own stomach, “isn't worth much. The whole thing makes no sense. If the Navy needed sonar components, why would it be getting them from some sleazebag who left them in a bar in Bar Harbor?”

“Conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy!” Bindy practically danced as she hissed out the words. “Think about the facts. Fact: A whole bunch of animals are washing up onto Acadia's shore. Fact: That's never happened before. Fact: Sonar blew out the eardrums of the whales in the Bahamas. Fact: The animals in Acadia have the same broken eardrums. Face it—everyone says they're not sure what's causing it, but we know it has to be the sonar.

We can
prove
it.” She jerked her fingers through her hair, pushing her locks apart in damp rows. “We have to.”

If Jack hadn't known it before, he knew it now. She really was crazy. Bindy, with her mousy hair and thick, plain features, had somehow blurred the line between television and reality. It was as if she thought they were in some spy show, with bad guys and techno-gadgets and a possible happy ending all wrapped up into a tightly written script. But this wasn't television, this was reality, and the only thing he cared about was getting her back to the room. Let his parents deal with Bindy's lunacy. He just wanted out of the middle of it all.

A couple of gulls flapped through the air to land beyond the swells, feet first, onto the slate gray water. They began to squabble and bicker loudly before settling down, bobbing on the waves. That's what Jack wanted to do. He'd like to float for a while, instead of struggling to keep his family's head above water. For a moment he was half tempted to walk away from it all. Then he thought of his parents.

“Bindy, my folks'll get in big, massive trouble if you leave. Will you please come back with us?” Even Jack could hear how weary the question sounded.

“Yes.”

The answer took Jack by surprise.

“I'm so glad,” Ashley breathed. “I mean, I thought you were going to—I'm just so glad you'll go with us. Dad's been so worried, driving all over, trying to find you. This is great. Mom and Dad can maybe investigate that sonar thing for you.” Ashley stood, brushing flakes of bark from her jeans.

“Wait—not so fast.” Bindy held up her hand. “I'll come back to your folks and be a good, obedient foster child, but on one condition.”

“A condition?” Jack frowned. “What condition?”

“You have to come with me first. I have a plan. See, I watched your face when I told you my story, and it was the same old thing. You didn't believe a word I said.”

“That's not true,” Jack lied, embarrassed that he'd been so transparent.