Page 8 of Crash Over Us
He rose. “Okay. Thanks. Maybe I’ll splash some water on my face too. Get cleaned up a bit.”
I nodded. I wasn’t going to let him be embarrassed for being human for once. “Ethan, you aren’t really alone. Okay?”
He nodded and traipsed to the bathroom.
I still didn’t have the details about the conversation between him and Caleb. I would ask Caleb later tonight at our celebration dinner. There was a lot to tell him about the money, about the Blue Heron, and now about Ethan.
I headed to the kitchen to rinse out the iced tea glasses when I heard a knock at the door and saw Josie Queen through the window.
FIVE
Caleb
As soon as Gabe and I were underwater, we began to check the boat for any signs of distress. Had she hit something? Was there something wedged against her that had thrown the passengers? An impact like that would at least let us know the potential direction they had been thrown.
I began at the stern, and Gabe took the bow. The boat was intact. Not a scratch on her.
We broke through the surface. “I don’t see anything,” I reported, removing the snorkel tube from my mouth.
“Neither do I,” he answered. “And I didn’t see anything onboard either.”
We were equally confused and stunned. How would someone have made a distress call from the boat and then disappeared?
“Did you check the depth radar when you anchored?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re about thirty feet. What are you thinking? Get our gear?”
He nodded. “I don’t know if they could be on the bottom, but maybe drifting that way first.”
Fuck. I didn’t want to think our rescue was going to be a recovery mission, but we had to exhaust all possibilities and our resources to find out what happened to the people on this boat.
“All right. Let’s get our gear.”
I reached for the rung on our swim ladder. We climbed aboard the cutter and started to unload the oxygen tanks. It took a few minutes to hook up the gear and strap in. Diving for bodies wasn’t the same as a surface dive for survivors. Our moods had changed. Our motions were solemn. Our faces, grim. I wanted to keep a sliver of hope that maybe we would find a clue and no bodies. Or maybe a fisherman had picked up the passengers, and no one had bothered to call it in yet.
“Let me report in,” I informed Gabe. I explained to base the next phase of our mission. They hadn’t heard from any other vessels.
For a beautiful day, it was eerily quiet on the water. We hadn’t seen another boat since we arrived.
Gabe and I perched on the side of the cutter, ready to flip back into the water.
I adjusted my mouthpiece and watched as he fiddled with one of the hoses.
Maybe I was too focused on the grim task ahead of us. Maybe I was trying to think of other options for the people on the boat. Or maybe I was in my head about the accident at the beginning of the summer. Whatever distracted me, I didn’t hear the hum of the engine approaching us, at least not in time.
They grabbed Gabe first. Before I could swing backward and reach for him, a giant hook had circled my waist, and I was pulled onto another boat in a rapid three seconds of movement.
“What the fuck!” I spat the regulator from my mouth.
We hit the deck with a solid thud. I rolled one way and Gabe the other.
“Don’t say anything. Don’t try anything,” a deep voice barked at us.
I tried to make out a face, but the sun was directly behind his head, and the only thing I saw was the silhouette of his face and a gun pointed at us. I couldn’t make out the gun either.
“Grab the tanks first.” The other crew members on the boat listened to the instructions. They circled us and stripped the tanks off our backs with rough tugs.
“What are you doing?” I asked again. “We are officers in the U.S. Coast Guard, you jackasses. We are on a rescue mission. There’s someone missing.”
