Chapter Twenty-Seven

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE VAN WITH Dani and Connor inside plummeted down to the river.

Dani lost all sense of direction. Time became meaningless. It felt like a lifetime, but it was probably just a few seconds. She could do nothing—neither fight nor flight was an option—so Dani froze. Even in the violent impact of the van slamming into the water’s surface, her body was still.

But clarity—a crystal-clear understanding of what had just happened and what was about to happen—came a split second later when she felt it.

The ice-cold water of the Mississippi River.

Dani’s back seized up in the shock of it as her arms tightened their hold on Connor. Instantly, both fight and flight kicked in. Find the door, find the door, she kept telling herself. She had to find the door, she had to get them out. But nothing made sense, all direction was distorted. Up, down; she had no idea where anything was in relation to anything else. All she knew for sure was the water was rising.

Instinct took over. Dani took a huge breath just as the water came over her head.

Once she was underwater, everything went blurry. The pain in her ears from the changing pressure told her they were sinking. A soft vibration in her arms as Connor cried out told her the boy was still alive. Bubbles tickled her face and the water got colder as the van kept sinking.

How deep was the river? How far down would they go? How far down could they go? Her chest burned. Her face ached. It felt like they’d been sinking forever. And just when Dani began to wonder if she was already dead, the van hit something.

Dani kicked her legs, and her thick turnout boots met the rocky river bottom. Down. That direction is down, she told herself as stars began to crisscross her vision in the dark, murky water. She let go of Connor with one hand to feel the inside wall of the van, but nothing was helpful. Her pulse beat in her ears. Her chest felt like it was being ripped open. She had to figure out something. Now.

Dani let go of Connor with her other hand. Both hands free, she felt for something, anything, that would help. She had no idea what that might be, but she had to try. The stars were beginning to fade. She was running out of air. She was about to black out. They were both about to die.

And that was when her hand felt something different .

She didn’t know what different was, but instinct said to go to it. She followed it, and a moment later, her head broke through the water to an air pocket created against the side of the van.

She gasped, spitting out river water, and the sound reverberated through the cave-like acoustics; the relief of the air was nearly transcendent. Connor! Dani took a deep breath and dove back under.

Swinging her arms wide, she searched for him. She shouldn’t have let him go. She’d told him she had him—how could she have let him go? The burning fear of losing Connor overwhelmed the fear of drowning. Then Dani felt something soft. A limb. An arm.

Grabbing him, she pushed off the bottom.

Breaking the surface together a second later, they both gasped, inhaling and exhaling in greedy gulps of air. She held the boy up, treading water for them both, as he coughed and gasped, spitting water into her face.

She found something to stand on, an armrest or maybe a seat, and clutched Connor to her chest, feeling both their hearts pounding. Dani looked around the dark, enclosed space, trying to suppress her justified panic as, with each passing second, she became more aware of their reality.

Yes, they were alive. Thank God.

But they were now trapped at the bottom of the Mississippi River.