“What’s that, Miss Delgado?”
“If someone found out the boy was staying with you and your wife, and wanted to hurt him, how hard would it be to find this place?”
“Look around,” I said, waving a hand to the south. “From the water, all these keys look the same. Unless someone had my GPS coordinates, they could search for days and not find this place.”
“I can attest to that,” the deputy added. “I know these waters very well and had no idea anyone lived out here. I didn’t even see this dock until we got within a quarter mile.”
“Besides,” I said, “finding my island and getting ashore are two vastly different things.”
After Andersen’s boat left, I went to the foot of the pier and waded through the ankle-deep water to shore. I found Savannah in the middle of the clearing with Alberto and the dogs.
The boy was throwing sticks for Finn and Woden to fetch. Finn was better at the game than Woden, who liked to hang onto the stick and play tug-of-war instead of dropping it at the thrower’s feet.
“Are y’all hungry?” I asked.
“I am,” Savannah replied. “How about you, Alberto?”
“I guess so,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders.
Then let’s go up to the house and have lunch,” I offered. “When I was your age, I was always hungry.”
He frowned up at me, his brows knitted in thought. “I don’t remember anything before they took me to the hospital. But I’ve been hungry since I woke up there.”
I noticed that he spoke quite clearly and used proper grammar. That was unusual in kids today. Wherever he came from, someone had taken the time to teach him well.
That made me think of something else. It was April. He should have been in school. Savannah had home-schooled Flo. They’d called it boat-schooling. I made a mental note to make sure that there was learning material on Ambrosia if he was still with us at the end of the week.
Alberto didn’t pay a lot of attention to the salad. He nibbled on some carrot sticks and tried a couple of slices of cucumber. But after I showed him how to crack open the big crab claws, he murdered half a dozen of them.
“Did you call Chyrel?” Savannah asked, as Alberto and I helped move the plates and utensils to the sink.
“Yeah, she said she’d call Julie and ask her what size Trey wears. They’re about the same size.”
“How long am I going to be here?” Alberto asked.
I knelt down and looked him in the eye. “Here on our island?”
He nodded.
“Just tonight, for now. In the morning, we’re going for a boat ride.”
“Like in the police boat? They let me turn the lights on.”
“My boat’s a lot bigger,” I said. “And Savannah’s boat is even bigger than mine.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
I grinned. “Yeah, really. And both boats even have two bedrooms, a kitchen, and everything like a house.”
I could see in his eyes that he was struggling to comprehend. I didn’t know much of anything about amnesia. I often wondered why a person afflicted with it could talk, since that was something learned over time. I assumed all memory wasn’t lost.
Did Alberto even know what a bedroom and kitchen were?
“Want to go see them?” I pointed toward the stairs. “My boat’s just down there.”
“You boys go ahead,” Savannah said. “It’ll just take me a few minutes to finish up here.” She scraped all the shells into a small pot and handed it to me. “You can dump these while you’re down there.”
I rose and went with Alberto to the steps, where I flicked on the lights for the dock area below the house.
Alberto scooted down ahead of me but stopped halfway.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed again, gazing at all the polished fiberglass and chrome rails.
He hurried to the bottom of the steps and stood alongside the Revenge, looking up at her high bow flare. “Maravillosa,” he breathed, scanning the length of the forty-five-foot hull.
I dumped the shells from the pot and left it at the foot of the stairs. Then I led him to the stern and helped him over the gunwale into the cockpit.
“This is my fishing boat,” I said, then pointed at the fighting chair in the middle of the cockpit. “And that’s called a fighting chair. It’s where the fisherman sits to catch the really big fish.”
He looked up at me, quizzically. “How big?”
“Bigger than you,” I replied. “Sometimes bigger than me.”
I opened the door to the salon, and we went inside.
Alberto stood just inside the hatch, looking around. The interior of the Revenge often left visitors speechless. It was done in light maple and holly, with tons of natural lighting.
Even though Alberto didn’t have anything to reference the experience to, I could see that he was awestruck.
“This room is called a salon,” I said. “Sort of like a living room in a house. And what we call a kitchen in the house is a galley on a boat.” I went past him to the refrigerator and opened it. “Care for a juice?”
“Yes, please,” he replied.
Good manners, too.
I gave him one of Jimmy’s mango juice bottles. He thanked me and struggled to open it. Finally, he looked up to me for help. I twisted the cap off and handed both back to him.
“Always recap a drink when you’re on a boat,” I said. “They’ll spill pretty easy.”
He took a swallow and licked his lips, then recapped his juice.
“Come on down here,” I said, flicking on the lights to the passageway and leading the way.
Opening the first hatch on the right, I turned on the light. “Up in the house, you’d say this is a bathroom.”
He looked up at me with recognition in his eyes. “What’s it called on a boat?”
I smiled. He was a bright kid. “It’s called the head.”
Turning, he opened the hatch on the opposite side and looked in. The guest stateroom had three single beds. The two lower ones could slide
