Chapter Twenty-Eight
Present: Day Five at Sea
“Thank God,” Beth breathes.
Emma rushes to the navigation panel mounted beside the wheel. After seeing Beth is unhurt, I hurry across the slippery deck and then lean over Emma’s shoulder to peer at the lit-up screens.
Emma points at the largest screen on the bottom of the panel. “The storm blew us way off course. We’re more than three hundred miles off the coast of Northern California. But if we can sail six knots an hour going back, then we could get there in just over two days.”
I scan the map display for a sign of other vessels. “Are there any other ships in our area?”
“Doesn’t look like it.” Emma zooms out.
“They’re probably avoiding this area due to the storm.
” Russell places his hands on his hips, his demeanor visibly cooler now as he stands beside Beth on the other side of the wheel.
I remember that Russell spent a lot of time in the military, and I can see it now, in the way he reacts to a crisis.
He barely shows a hint of the emotion I saw below when we accused him of murder.
I point to a black dot on the corner of the screen. “What’s that?”
“That’s a ship. Probably cargo. But it’s over two hundred miles northeast. We’d have to sail into the storm to try and reach it. Even if we made it, we wouldn’t catch up to it.”
I lift my gaze to Russell. “Is there any way we can make contact with other boats through this?”
He shakes his head, gesturing to the empty mouthpiece holder on the side of the mounted screen. “Not without the radio mic.”
I tilt my head, squinting to assess the Starlink satellite. It’s facing down, hanging by a cord more than halfway up the mast. “Check your phones.” I fumble for my device inside my sweatshirt pocket. “Does anyone have a Starlink signal?”
“My phone’s dead,” Russell says.
“Mine too,” Beth adds. “I should go charge it.”
My phone screen lights up in my hand. Relief floods my insides as I tap the internet icon at the top left of my screen to connect to Starlink. If I can contact my sister, the Coast Guard could be on their way to us within a matter of minutes.
I bite my lip, willing my phone to connect faster. After a moment, two words appear. No signal.
“It’s not working,” Emma says, staring at her phone.
I drop my phone to my side and look up at the clank the satellite dish makes as it smacks against the metal mast. Russell turns and then disappears below deck, returning less than a minute later with a pair of binoculars.
He aims the lenses at the dish as Emma takes a photo of the navigation display.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
“I’m noting our location. We should write it down also, in case we lose power again.”
Beth frowns, furrowing her brows at Emma. “Why would we lose power again?”
I turn to Russell. “How’d you get the power back on?”
Russell squints into the binoculars. “The battery-selector switch for the two battery banks in the engine room had been switched off, so I turned them back on.”
I study him, wondering if that was true. It seems too easy of a fix. Unless he caused the power outage, then knew exactly how to fix it.
Russell lowers the binoculars. “I think I can see the problem. There’s one cord hanging loose. The wires may have gotten torn, or it may just need to get plugged back in. Then we need to resecure it to the mast with a bungee cord to get the dish facing back toward the sky.”
My confidence evaporates like mist in the sun. I stare at the top of the mast, towering taller than the length of the boat. “There’s no way we can get up there.”
“Actually,” Russell says, “we can climb it.”
“Climb it?” My jaw drops as I stare at the pole. “With no steps?”
“We’ll use a bosun’s chair,” Russell says. “We have one on board. Nojan showed me how to use it before we set sail. We can secure it to the spinnaker halyards and use the winches to crank someone to the top of the mast.”
I swallow, tearing my gaze from the tip of the mast, which tilts at a sharp angle with every roll of the boat. “Sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Emma says. “Especially in this weather. I’ve watched my grandparents do it, but only when the boat was docked on a calm day.”
“I don’t think any of us should risk going up there.” Beside Russell, Beth stares up with her hand shading her eyes. She turns to Emma. “We have the power back on. Why don’t we use the navigation to get back to the mainland? We have plenty of food for three more days.”
Russell folds his arms, turning to Beth. “The covering I attached over the broken window isn’t watertight. All it would take is one more knockdown to flood the boat.”
“He’s right,” Emma says, her eyes darkly serious.
“If we can get the Starlink working, we can call for help now, before something else goes wrong—or we get knocked down a second time.” Her gaze drifts to the boom.
“Plus, if we can’t get the mainsail unjammed, we might not have enough sail to make it back to the coast, depending on the wind.
We could get stuck out here and run out of food and water.
The weather could also get worse before it gets better.
There are a thousand things that could go wrong if we stay out here. ”
I look up at the mast tip again as it sways with each swell that rocks the boat. It must be at least fifty feet high.
“One of us has to go up there,” Emma says. “We don’t have a choice.”
“I’ll go,” Russell says.
“It would be safer to have Beth or Palmer go up the mast,” Emma says. “You and I have more experience using the winches and steering the boat.”
I gape at Emma. Maybe Beth was right to suspect her. Was she trying to get one of us killed? “What?”
“That way,” Emma explains, “Russell and I can keep the boat afloat and help get you down if there’s a problem.”
“I’ll go,” Beth says quietly.
“No.” I shake my head, recalling Beth’s panic attack when we rode the glass elevator to the top of the Space Needle our junior year.
Courtney had driven all five of us to the Bainbridge Island Ferry on Beth’s seventeenth birthday, keeping the destination a secret from us until we got to the Space Needle.
When I realized where Courtney was taking us, I tried to talk her out of it, reminding her of Beth’s fear of heights.
Courtney feigned unawareness of Beth’s phobia, saying how the tickets were nonrefundable, even though we all knew that Beth couldn’t so much as climb a stepladder without hyperventilating.
Since we were kids, Beth hated even sitting at the top of the bleachers, and we’d always make sure to find seats down below.
Beth’s not wanting to appear ungrateful turned to sheer terror when she passed out in the glass elevator.
For a moment, I thought she’d had a heart attack and died.
I called 911 as soon as we reached the top.
Beth had regained consciousness by the time the medics arrived at the observation tower’s revolving glass floor.
They had to give her a Xanax for the elevator ride down.
Now, Beth places her hand on my shoulder. “Think of your girls. I’m not letting you risk your life while I stay down here and watch.”
“You can’t. What if you have a panic attack at the top?”
“You don’t do great with heights either,” Beth adds.
That’s true. But I’m not as bad as Beth.
“I found the bosun’s chair,” Russell calls from the stern. “Who’s going up?”
I look up at the teetering mast, then lower my gaze and turn to Russell, swallowing the lump of fear that swells in my throat. “I am.”