Out

Take a Look

‘I have to know,’ I whispered.

‘What do you have to know that you don’t already know?’ she said reaching down under the sheets.

‘It was his voice,’ I said.

‘That’s impossible.’

‘I heard his voice, I called his phone. I swam around down there in the water, exactly where we placed him in and he wasn’t there.’

‘How can you know it was exactly the spot? One or two feet in either direction and you would have missed him. It was muddy.’

‘It was the spot … exactly.’ I was sure. It’s one of the prices you pay for precision. Everything else around me may be in chaos but I am meticulous with my work. Thomas wasn’t down there. I couldn’t accept it at first. I was terrified that I might actually find him, that he would reach out and grab me and hold me down tight, in his strong grip like he did in the sack, when he was behind me.

The thought of being held tightly, begging for air ignited a flash of white hot anger. I wanted to be taken, but Katherine couldn’t control me in that way. No, she had a firm grip but it wasn’t a man’s grip.

I turned, pushing her over onto her belly. If she couldn’t take me then I would take her. A gasp of air left her as I took one wrist in one hand and reached my hand up against her scalp with the other gripping her hair and pulling her head back.

I probed her from behind, Once, twice and then I found my target and sunk deeply into her. She pressed her ass against my hips.

‘Ohhh, harder, harder.’

I did.

It was short, even in sex time when she shuddered in orgasm. I wasn’t finished but let her body drop.

‘I’m going to take a look,’ I said.

I left the room, and went into the bathroom. I slapped my half hard dick over the edge of the sink and gave it a rinse. I squirted a bit of hand soap on my hands and washed my balls.

Water seeped down between the sink and my thighs. It would have been easier to have a rinse in the shower. I grabbed the guest hand towel and patted my balls dry before leaving the room.

I plucked up my clothes and slid them on. Shorts and a t-shirt.

Katherine stirred in the bed and then sat up suddenly.

‘Ok, I’m going with you. I don’t want to but I’ll do it.’

‘I don’t think you should do anything you don’t want to do.’ I said.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We need to know. I mean that I need to know too. But what about Bobby? What if he’s watching.’

‘Screw him.’ I said. ‘If we find Thomas, I’m pulling him out and I’m coming clean. I’m going to call the police and tell them everything.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘It was an accident,’ I said. ‘And we panicked. That’s all. I can’t live with this another day.’

I left the cottage and Katherine must have slipped her clothes on like a fireman, because she was behind me before the door closed.

I sparked the motor on the boat and we were off. I didn’t think Bobby would be following us. He had just given me a hard warning and he couldn’t have known that Katherine was coming down to Green Point. I hadn’t know myself until she appeared on my doorstep. 

My own internal GPS took over and I made a direct line across the pond. The salty brine splashed up, sending a salt water mist into the air. The water here smelled fishier than it was because of the limited in and out flow of fresh water from the sea or from the underground springs which fed the ponds from the west.

Katherine sat facing me. I tried focus on our destination and avoid her gaze. It felt like she admired me. Perhaps that’s because I felt that way about myself … like I should be admired. I had taken charge. I was doing what I knew was right. 

‘What do we do if he’s not there? If we can’t find him?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

I pulled back on the throttle and my small boat slid forward. I put it in reverse slightly and came to a stop, floating.

‘This is it?’ she asked.

I nodded.

‘What do we do?

I pulled a long quahaug rake from under the seat. It’s long thin spikes could dig through the mud and then scoop up shellfish into a wire basket that allowed the mud to melt away in the water.

‘We need to be methodical,’ I said. I showed her how the onboard GPS worked. It was very accurate because it was directly linked to a gridded map of the pond, much of which I had actually done myself. By confirming depth and location for such a long time in the area I could pinpoint a spot with incredible accuracy. This was important for finding the source of underground streams and or pipes leading into the water. 

I sent a series of sonar waves into the water around and under the boat and created a map of the bottom. There was no sign of Thomas but he could have sunken into the mud.

At that point, though, I got the sinking feeling that we wouldn’t find him. In fact, I felt like I knew that we wouldn’t find him when we set out because it was his voice that had answered his phone. It was.

But I couldn’t be sure unless we checked. After the sonar tests proved inconclusive I started raking the bottom.

I had Katherine monitor the bottom continually.

The rake snagged something large and heavy after only a few minutes of digging around.

Maybe it was Thomas.

The rake was strong. Made for digging in the mud. I pulled in a long even steady way. Jerking could snap the handle or allow whatever I had snagged to break free.

I lifted the handle of the rake out of the water, fist by fist until I saw the blue nylon rope that I had used on Thomas only a few days before. The rake had hooked it and I grabbed the rope and twisted the rake free.

Katherine took the rake and placed it in the boat. 

She watched as I pulled.

‘Oh, shit,’ I said. 

No one, regardless of how vibrant they were in life, looks good after they’ve spent the night under water. Olivia was no exception.