Andrew Gross - One Mile Under

She felt herself being lifted back up. It’s working, she remembered thinking, sure that the current was giving her up.

But it wasn’t the current. It was Trey, a hand clamped onto her wet-suit collar, the other hanging on to a rock. Pulling her out. She broke free and sucked a desperate breath into her lungs. She gasped over and over, coughing out water, throwing her eyes back at the beautiful blue sky, heaving.

Free.

“I’ve got you, Dani. I’ve got you,” she remembered Trey saying. “You were in an eddy. But you can relax. Breathe in. I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”

She clung to him like he was a buoy in the middle of the ocean, and she wanted to cry.

“Jeez, and all the really hard stuff is still a ways downstream …” He grinned at her, in that offhand way of his and with a wink that at any other time she would have wanted to throw a punch at. But this time she just smiled and hugged him, nodding, wiping away the tears. He positioned her on his chest, feet forward, between his legs, and they followed the current downstream back to her raft.

She stayed with them and finished the Kirshbaum as if it were a Three.

What’s this all about? Wade had asked, not knowing what lay at the heart.

She owed Trey. Owed him everything. He hadn’t given up on her.

No way she was about to give up on him.

Especially now.

That’s what this was about.

That same night, Wade was in his home up the canyon in Basalt. Not where he used to live, on Red Mountain in Aspen. Those homes went for millions now. In a rented house, kind of a dilapidated eighties chalet, with a dirt drive and the garage filled with his things, so he had to leave his Bronco parked outside. He’d gone to see Allie Watkins at the end of the day, just like he’d said he would. First, to pay his respects; Trey’s father had come down from up north to take possession of his boy’s body. Then to ask her, just for appearance’s sake, if somehow there was anyone out there who would want to see her husband harmed.

Her raw, red eyes looked back at him quizzically.

“Just a formality,” he explained, “in these types of things. We’re just crossing off a line of investigation.”

She shook her head. She had her long blond hair wrapped back in a braid, and was in a kind of peasant dress with a shawl covering her shoulders. “I mean, there was someone who he had a dispute with over the patent they were applying for on his camera mount,” she thought back. “Mark Conners. He and Trey went to school together at CSU. But he lives in Massachusetts now. He wasn’t even here.”

“Massachusetts,” Wade said, nodding.

“Anyway, they seemed to have ironed it all out. Trey was giving him a small share of whatever he made. So no, no one, Chief Dunn. You knew Trey. Everyone liked him. I don’t know what you mean …”

“I’m not meaning anything, hon,” Wade said, putting his arm around her as he went to the door. “Now don’t go worrying about it. You’ve got enough to deal with as it is. You go take good care of that little boy of yours, okay?”

Later, he scraped together something to eat and sat down in front of the TV with a coffee. Tonight was one of those nights he longed for something a whole lot stronger.

She’s always been a tough one to rein in. Dani. Going back to when she was a kid. Whatever she did, she did as tough as any of the boys—rock climbing, hockey, snowboarding. Once she got on something, it was like a demon was in her head. One that wouldn’t let go. She had that headstrong nature. Like her mom. Wade hadn’t had much luck in that department, either.

This time, though, just this once, he knew, he would have to back her down.

There were things she didn’t understand. Things she would see in a different way if she persisted. A way that could cause trouble for him.

Things he had to make sure didn’t come out and that couldn’t get around. Too many things depended on it.

He drank up the last of his coffee and flicked on the TV. His cell phone sounded. He took a look and saw that it wasn’t his office. The words on the screen, UNKNOWN CALLER, made the acid in his stomach shoot up. He didn’t even want to answer, but, he knew, these weren’t exactly the kind of folk you left hanging. “Hello.”

There was no greeting, only a slight pause, then a firm but soft Oklahoma drawl almost hissing the words at him. “You said this would be a piece of cake, Chief. All buttoned up. So far, I’d say that’s anything but the case.”

“I know.”

“I don’t really want to hear that you know, Wade. I think you know the consequences of what happens if we can’t contain this.”

“I’ll handle it,” Wade said, though he saw the thing unraveling like a spool of thread in a cat’s paw.

“You’ll handle it, huh? You’ll handle it how, Wade? We already thought you had it all neatly bundled up. And now there’s another person going around making even more trouble. Some girl …”

“Listen …” Wade said, his stomach tightening as if it were squeezed into a ball. “How do you know about that?”

“Don’t you worry how we know about things. Just worry how you’re going to set it right. This was all supposed to go easy. First we find the kid on the river. The same route he always goes. Tuesdays and Fridays, right? Bright and early. No one around. Other than some fool flying in a goddamn balloon who goes spouting his mouth off. We both better hope he didn’t take pictures.”

“He didn’t. And you didn’t have to do it the way you did. Now I have all kinds of trouble here to factor in.”

“Sheriff, I promise you,” the caller laughed, “your little town doesn’t even know the meaning of the word trouble, if that’s what it is.”

“This time you stay out of it. I’ll take care of it,” Wade said. He also knew these were not the kind of people you lost your temper with. “I’ll make it go away.”

“ Stay out of it …? ” The person on the other end chuffed back a laugh. “How do you think you even got yourself reelected, Lieutenant Johnnie Walker Black? We stay out of it, you wouldn’t have gotten yourself appointed to the prom committee of your local high school.”

“It won’t go any further. I give you my word.”

“Damn right it won’t go further … ’Cause if it doesn’t, everything stops. Today. Not another dime. That boy of yours will have to find his own way back in life without our help. That understood?”

“It’s understood.” Wade gritted his teeth and swallowed the acidy taste back into his stomach.

“I want to be clear, Chief. Carbondale’s a cute little town. But if we have to make another stop down there, it might just be for you this time. So factor that kind of trouble into your thinking, Wade.” After waiting a moment to let the words sink in, the caller hung up.

Wade placed the phone back on the table, anger roiling inside.

He needed them off his back, but he had let them in. That he couldn’t deny.

Yes, one long set of rapids to run, he said to himself. No different than Trey.

Dani better keep her trap shut, that was all there was to it. Or he didn’t know what he’d be forced to do.

One thing he should’ve learned a long time ago, you deal with the devil, you better get ready for the temperature to rise.

Early the next morning Dani was back out on the river.

There was a ranger station at the beginning of the park road. Cammie was on duty. Dani knew her, of course; she was out here almost every day. She handed out maps and advised people on where to camp and the conditions.