The Sound of Many Waters Read Online Free

bales: square groupers. For a man with weak morals and na g ging debts, coming across one was like finding buried trea s ure.
    But what was inside this bale? If not cocaine, then what? A list of other drugs flashed through Zane’s mind: marijuana, heroin, meth, ecstasy. A searing memory descended upon him—his fingers on the soft fleshy part between Lucia’s jawline and neck, and his ear so close to her mouth that he could hear the hollow stillness, like the sound of the sea in a shell.
    Miguel opened the icebox. Inside, the mahi lay submerged in icy water that was stained red by its own blood, making it look as if the icebox was filled with tomato soup. He picked up the bale, groaning as he did so, and slid it into the icebox, pushing it down beneath the fish and the crimson slush until it could no longer be seen.
    He turned to Zane. “How much fuel do you have?”
    Zane looked at the gauge. The tank was nearly full. “Plenty.”
    “Enough to get to St. Augustine?”
    “ St. Augustine? But that’s—”
    “I know how far it is. Do we have enough fuel to get there?”
    Zane sighed. “I think so.”

Chapter Three
    Dominic woke to the sting of a carpenter ant chewing on the nape of his neck. Like a small but intense burn, the bite roused a memory of the day he branded a native girl in El Salvador after a soldier accused her of stealing bread. It was a lenient punishment, he thought. After all, natives suspected of lesser crimes were often executed, but she was young, beautiful, and—unbeknownst to anyone but her and Dominic—several months pregnant.
    When he overheard murmurs of disappointment from two soldiers who had expected to see blood, Dominic convinced them that a lesser sentence was justified because the girl was only half native. It was well-known and obvious that she had been fathered by a Spanish missionary priest whose vow of celibacy apparently excluded indigenous women.
    “You stole two loaves,” Dominic said during the makeshift trial. He sat in a large chair towering over her while she kneeled, her eyes at boot level. He realized that he did not know her name and wondered if she even had one.
    “I do not steal,” she said in a soft, dovelike voice.
    “You stole, and God’s law dictates that justice must be carried out.”
    “The priests tell us that your god’s law is to forgive.”
    “You will be forgiven. First, however, you will do your penance, and you will be marked as a thief, because that is what you are.”
    Dominic had stuck the tip of his sword into a pile of hot coals and now that it glowed red he pressed the side of it against her neck. Her skin smoldered and the smell of it reminded Dominic of a roasted piglet. She did not scream or whimper like he had expected. Instead, she gazed into his eyes with a look of deep sorrow. Everyone knew that natives were forbidden to look directly at the Spanish. To the surprise of his soldiers, however, Dominic did not reprimand the girl, nor did he intensify her punishment. He simply dropped his sword and told her to leave.
    The next day, it was discovered that the soldier who accused her had been the one stealing bread, but Dominic felt no remorse about branding the girl. He was still infuriated that she had let herself get pregnant during one of their furtive trysts in the jungle. He was certain it happened on the night they heard the jaguars fighting. Dominic had held the girl in the darkness until the snarling waned and the nocturnal insects resumed their evening chant. Then, without knowing why, he kissed a salty tear off her cheek.
    There were hundreds of ants on his body now. They bit his underarms, his face, the backs of his knees, even his groin. Dominic could do nothing to stop them; his wrists and ankles were bound and his eyes were so full of soil that he could not open them. He heard a voice say several words in a language he had never heard before but he could not tell if the voice came from near or far because his ears were