27
“I’m so scared!” Gia said as she watched Jack
and his rubber boat melt into the darkness. She was cold despite
the warmth of the night.
“So am I,” Abe said, throwing a heavy arm
over her trembling shoulders.
“Can this be true? I mean, Vicky is missing
and I’m standing here watching Jack row out to a boat to take her
back from an Indian madman and a bunch of monsters from Indian folk
tales.” Her words began to break around sobs that she could not
control. “My God, Abe! This can’t really be happening!”
Abe tightened his arm around her, but she
took scant comfort from the gesture. “It is, kid. It is. But as to
what’s in that ship, who can say? And that’s what got me shook.
Either Jack has gone stark raving mad—and comforting it’s not to
think of a man that lethal being insane—or he’s mentally sound and
there actually are such things as the monsters he described. I
don’t know which frightens me more.”
Gia said nothing. She was too occupied with
the fear that clawed ferociously at the walls of her brain: fear
that she would never see Vicky again. She fought that fear, knowing
if she let it through and truly faced the possibility that Vicky
might be gone forever, she would die.
“But I’ll tell you this,” Abe went on. “If
your daughter is out there, and if it’s humanly possible to bring
her back, Jack will do it. Perhaps he’s the only man alive who
can.” If that was supposed to comfort Gia, it failed.