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.