Chapter Eleven
Present: Day Three at Sea
Gigi hits the ocean with a splash, her hoodie disappearing beneath the waves.
“Man overboard!” Adam yells.
He rushes past us in a blur as Emma and Beth call out for Gigi in panicked screams. Gigi’s life vest inflates with a whoosh and her head breaks the surface. She gulps for air as we speed away, the distance between her and the stern rapidly increasing.
“Gigi!” I scream.
Beth covers her mouth.
Behind us, Captain Nojan swears. I spin to see him emerge from the companionway while zipping up his shorts. He shouts at Adam: “Release the dan buoy!”
“Releasing the dan buoy,” Adam yells. “I need a spotter.”
“I’ll do it,” I say, standing on the bench and gripping the bar of the cockpit cover as I point at Gigi. “She’s about thirty feet behind the boat.”
“Shit, this is why I said not to sail by the lee,” Nojan barks at Adam as he takes the helm. “So we wouldn’t risk an accidental jibe. And why the hell wasn’t she tethered?”
Beth and I remain in the cockpit while Emma tosses a flotation sling into the water near the rear pulpit.
But with the wind at our back, the flotation device lands in the sea only a few feet behind the boat.
Emma’s top half topples over the pulpit railing as the stern rolls over a swell.
Adam grabs her arm, pulling her backward onto the deck floor as Nojan spins the wheel.
“Get a tether on,” Nojan orders Emma.
Adam tosses something lime green into the water. When it hits the surface, it inflates several feet in the air, reminding me of the inflatable Air Dancers used for advertising outside of car washes and used-car lots, only thinner.
I keep my eyes and finger trained on Gigi’s bobbing head, as Captain Nojan instructed us before we departed.
The lime-green buoy made it farther than the life sling Emma tossed, but Gigi can hardly stay afloat in these powerful waves.
My heart thuds against my chest as I assess the distance between the buoy and Gigi.
At the top of the buoy streams a long bright ribbon.
There’s no way she can reach it. A wave crashes over Gigi’s head.
My mind flashes to that day twenty years ago. Courtney, falling into the Sol Duc. Gigi screaming her name. I step onto the upper deck and teeter toward the lifeline when Beth’s fingers dig into my upper arm, pulling me back onto the cockpit bench. Gigi disappears beneath the rough sea.
“She’s gone under!” I shake out of Beth’s hold, scouring the rolling waves for a sign of her blond hair as Emma gets to her knees and hooks a rope to her life vest.
Gigi emerges amid the swell, flailing her arms frantically and gulping for air before going under again.
“She’s sixty feet directly behind the boat,” I shout as Nojan turns the boat around. “But she’s gone under again. I can’t see her.”
With a fixed jaw, Nojan studies his navigation screen. “I see her beacon on her life vest. She’s one and a half boat lengths dead astern.” He glances at me. “Keep your eyes on her.”
Beth scrambles to the rear of the cockpit, connecting her life vest to the tether ropes lying near Nojan’s feet. She clips one to mine as I strain to find a sign of Gigi’s blond hair amid the powerful waves. The boat heels from Nojan’s sharp turn.
Nojan turns to Emma. “Get on the starboard side or you’ll fall in too.”
Emma moves unsteadily to the other side of the boat and crouches beside Adam who holds a long boat hook over the side.
I slip my sunglasses above my head, squinting from the midday sun streaming through the patchy clouds, scanning the roaring waves for Gigi.
“You sit down,” the captain tells Beth before turning to Emma and Adam behind him. “Be ready to throw her that rope and hold out that boat hook to her when we get close.” He glances at his navigation screen. “Gigi should be coming up on the starboard side one boat length ahead.”
I don my sunglasses as I search the rolling waves, deciding I see better with them on. But I don’t see Gigi. Only the bright-green buoy with its long ribbon flapping in the wind as it bobs over a swell. Then I spot her.
“There she is,” I shout, pointing at Gigi’s blond head to the right of the bow. Even with the life vest, she’s struggling to stay afloat. “Hang on, Gigi!”
Her cheeks are streaked with mascara as she spews out a mouthful of water.
“Throw her a line,” Nojan shouts. “And have her grab the boat hook.”
“It’s okay, Gigi,” I yell from the back of the cockpit. “Get ready to grab a rope!”
“We need to slow down!” I call out as the middle of the boat sails past her.
Gigi coughs before gasping for air while we speed by.
“We’re going too fast.” I’m filled with the same helplessness I felt when my raft carried me away from Courtney when she was swept under by the Sol Duc’s current.
I move to the edge of the deck and grip the stanchion with one hand as a wave pushes Gigi away from the hull.
Within seconds, she’s more than ten feet from the boat.
I scoop up a coiled blue rope near my feet and toss it over the side. “Grab this line!”
The end of the rope hits the water a few feet from Gigi. She reaches for it as Adam extends the boat hook over the side. Emma throws another line, but a gust of wind catches it, tossing it back at the boat before it hits the water.
Adam turns to the captain. “Turn thirty degrees starboard. I can’t reach her.”
As Nojan turns the wheel, my eyes widen at the large swell growing in height beyond where Gigi is struggling to reach the sinking rope.
“Big wave coming—watch out!” I shout seconds before the swell engulfs the top of Gigi’s head.
“Court—” I hear myself scream as she disappears beneath the waves. “Gigi!”
“Shit.” Beside me, Emma stares into the water. “She hadn’t reached the rope yet.”
I hold my breath as the wave crashes against the side of the boat.
“Hang on,” Nojan yells.
I clench my grip around the metal stanchion, sinking to my knees for stability as water sprays onto the deck. Beth cries out behind me as she’s thrown back. She catches herself on the table as the boat rocks to either side from the wave that just pummeled us.
“Who has eyes on Gigi?” Nojan asks.
Through my salt water–sprayed sunglasses, I scour the rolling waters for a sign of Gigi surfacing. “I can’t find her.”
“Wait, there she is!” Emma points beyond the back corner of the boat.
My eyes follow Emma’s finger to see Gigi’s wet hair and inflated life vest rolling over the top of a swell. “Oh, God.”
Gigi’s previously flailing arms are no longer moving, and her eyes are fluttering closed. She looks to be on the brink of unconsciousness, her life vest the only thing keeping her afloat.
Adam sucks in a deep breath before he dives off the rear starboard pulpit.