The Lady Jane was already in the water by the time she reached the beach. She saw Uncle Hector still on the beach, untying the rope that kept the boat anchored to the shore. "Uncle Hector! What are you doing?"
He spun around to face her. A smile came to his face. "Hey, Lucy. You find your friends?"
"Are you leaving?"
"What? No! I was just going to test her out."
"By yourself? At night? Anyway, Wendell said to wait for morning."
"I think I know a lot more about the sea than Baby Einstein there. She'll hold up. She's a good ship."
Tears came to Samantha's eyes. "You weren't even going to say goodbye. You were just going to leave me behind."
He held up his hands and grinned wider. "You got it all wrong, Lucy. Maybe I was going to leave, but it's because I love you. I didn't want to risk you kids. If something happened, I couldn't live with myself. If I got to the mainland, then I'd get help."
The tears became a flood she couldn't control. "Prudence was right. You made them little because they found out you were going to steal the water. Miss Brigham too. She was the first one to stumble onto your scheme. So you threw the water on her so she couldn't talk. Then you surprised Rebecca and Prudence. You tried to do the same to them, but David showed up to stop you. He let them escape. Otherwise I'd have never known. I'd have kept on believing you, like a fool."
"Come on, Lucy, stop crying. I only did it for us. Back on the mainland I don't have anything. The bank was going to take the Jane from me. What kind of life would I be able to give you like that?"
"Then why were you going to leave me behind?"
"I told you: I wanted to get help. I was going to sell the water and then come back for you all. I swear it."
"Stop lying to me!"
"OK, kid. If that's what you want."
She didn't notice his foot moving until it was too late. As she'd done to Pryde's beast days earlier, he kicked up sand into her face. Between the sand and the tears, she was effectively blind. Before she could get her guard up, he kicked her in the midsection.
She collapsed to the ground, but then her instincts kicked in. She rolled into a fighting crouch. While she still couldn't see more than blurs in front of her, she still had her other senses. She could smell his stale cigarette odor as he closed in.