Chapter 3
THREE
Just stay afloat.
Austen spat out seawater, refusing to give in to the urge to gulp it down. Good way to die of dehydration—by drinking salty water. She wore her mask—the only way to protect herself from the waves—and occasionally she’d duck her head under the rim of water to check for any predators.
At least her BCD stayed filled, acting as a life preserver, and she had hung on to her tank, hoping the steel might reflect sunlight, the empty aluminum also buoyant in the water.
Someone flying overhead might spot her.
But after more than twenty-four hours in the water... yeah, she might need to adjust her expectations. With the sun dropping toward the horizon, she might be in for another overnight at sea. Fantastic.
Last night, something had bumped her. But in the darkness, she hadn’t been able to see what, although she’d turned on her dive light and searched the vastness, trying not to let the endless gulf beneath her take hold of her bones.
The current had grabbed her, flushed her away from the DR out toward the open sea.
Atlantic Ocean, here she came.
Okay, that might be too morbid.
Don’t. Give. Up. What was it Stein used to say—the only easy day was yesterday?
Oh, she longed for yesterday. Any day, really, when she was safely on land. Or on her boat.
Her poor boat. Where the Fancy Free might be...
“I love this!” Margo walked into her brain, ran her hand along the teak rail of the fishing boat, all sanded and gleaming. “You got this for a hundred bucks?”
It was a hot, sunny day, the boat still on the hard in a boatyard north of Key West, the scent of varnish and sawdust rising from the deck.
Margo reached for one of the bottles of lemonade in the dinged-up cooler and sat beside Austen on an overturned bucket, her long dark hair tied back, in a pair of cutoff shorts and a tie-dyed sleeveless T-shirt. “I see only one problem with your suggestion that I move in.”
If Austen remembered right, she had waged a small defense of her accommodation—free rent, and they could dive right from their “home,” not to mention the free slip she’d gotten for working at the Galleon.
“No, silly. I mean the fact that the boat isn’t in the water .”
Right. “Two weeks and we have a date with the boat hoist.”
Margo had leaned over, tipped the neck of her bottle to Austen’s.
Austen would blame her parched throat for the memory of the lemonade, cool and sharp in her mouth. That and the fresh shrimp Margo had brought from town.
They’d made a picnic, right there on the deck, amidst all her hopes and Margo’s dreams. “You know, free means you can expand your tie-dying operation.”
Margo had slid to the deck, sitting cross-legged, peeling shrimp, dunking it into homemade cocktail sauce. “You’re missing the point. Free means we can hunt for the wreck of the San Miguel anytime we want.” She’d winked. “We’re so close, I can feel it.”
Austen had closed her eyes. No more.
“Someday, Tennie, I’m going to find it. The statue of Santa María de la Paz.”
It had felt like such a dream, but Margo had believed, so she had too.
A hum sounded, and Austen opened her eyes, looked up.
A plane, commercial, too far overhead to see her, but she waved anyway, desperately, her throat filling.
She’d tried to swim earlier, but the storm and the ocean current had fought her, and by nightfall, the shivering had taken over. More fear than cold, maybe.
The plane left a trail of white in the sky. Probably headed to one of the larger airports—the DR, or even Puerto Rico.
Mariposa?
Aw. Now Declan strolled in, even as the waves tossed her, the current stirring up around her. “Declan, you are a surprising man.”
The words had sort of rolled out of her, her emotions caught up in the moonlight, the music, the fact that he’d pulled her into a dance that felt a little more than polite.
As if...
But he’d worn an almost pained expression, and oh , she’d just...
Well, he was simply a nice guy. A really nice guy. Sure, he occasionally seemed to look at her with something of interest. And they’d worked well together after the landslide, but then again, he’d been in charge and she’d only been trying to help...
“He’s a criminal, Austen.”
Yeah, no. She just didn’t buy it. Then again, maybe she was being naive. She had a history of trusting the wrong people, so...
Oh, if she got out of this, Stein was going to murder her.
“You’re amazingly brave, Austen. I thought you were going to die down there.”
Aw, Declan was back, and this time handing her a towel as she climbed onto the boat after the near tragedy during their dive event.
He’d seemed shaken, and for a second, she’d thought.
.. well, that he might have been worried about her .
Maybe, but his new codirector had nearly run out of air at the bottom, so. ..
See. She saw what she wanted to see.
Besides, the last—very last—thing she wanted was to fall for a man who turned out to be a criminal.
Again.
No, better to keep moving, keep relationships from getting in the way.
A bump from below, something hitting her legs. She stopped kicking, realizing she’d made motion in the water. Pulling on her mask, she ducked her head down.
Just an endless, bottomless deep blue. Plankton stirring in the water.
Maybe she’d imagined it. She kept her face in the water, barely moving as she turned.
Still nothing?—
Another bump, this time against her tank, and it spun her in the water.
The shark darted away, its tail nearly hitting her. A great white, and he wasn’t the only one. In the murky distance, she made out more sharks.
A hammerhead swam below, deeper in the depths with more sharks—a couple tiger sharks and some scalloped hammerheads. And at least two great whites.
Oh no. She’d drifted into a migratory path.
If she deflated her BCD, she’d sit lower in the water, be able to face the shark, keep her eyes on him should he circle back. But then she’d lose her air, and her tank had already edged into the red. Although, given time, she could manually blow it back up.
She spotted the shark in the water, circling her, as if still curious. At least sixteen feet long, it wore scars on its dorsal fin, so it could be a female. A hook trailed from its mouth, so also a survivor.
The animal was too big for Austen to push away, but Austen could dodge the shark if she stayed alert. Unfortunately, twenty-six hours of floating didn’t bode well for her reflexes.
Still. She lifted her air hose and deflated her vest. As she replaced her regulator, her weights sank her in the water until she settled just below the surface.
There. Her killer, circling, some twenty feet away. Austen stayed upright in the water, not splashing, not moving.
Go away, Big Bertha.
She hung there, watching, as the shark came closer, circled again. She stayed with the animal, watching?—
It darted in.
Stay calm ? —
Whatever. She caught Bertha’s nose, pushed, moving over it, away. Nearly surfaced.
Letting out more air, she sank five feet from the surface, her eyes on the animal.
Her air-gauge needle sank deeper into the red.
The shark skirted away, into the murky water, and Austen lost Bertha in the haze.
She turned, just in case any of the others wanted a taste.
“They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”
Ha. Sure.
She stayed submerged, her breathing in her ears, her heartbeat a hammer against her chest. Minutes passed. Her oxygen hit the bottom of the red, and her watch started to beep.
Yes, yes, she knew?—
The attack came from behind, first a bump, then a terrible wrenching, her body tossed in the water.
Bertha had hold of her tank.
She turned and punched the shark, just like Hunter had said, and yeah, exactly what her training told her not to do, but panic hit her bones, filled her body, and she had nothing else.
The hit landed in the soft flesh of Bertha’s snout, and the shark jerked away, darting into the depths.
Her tank had saved her. Which meant—yeah, no blood. But any remaining air whooshed out, and now water rushed in.
Dragging her down.
No — no ?—
She took a last breath—the final trapped air in her BCD—and unsnapped her vest, the waistband. Pressure cracked her ears, and she equalized even as she kicked hard, fighting the pull to the bottom.
Stay calm!
Shrugging off one side, then the other, the vest finally fell away.
She swam for the surface.
The warmth trapped between her vest and her dive skin vanished, cool water chilling her to the bone as she surfaced into the fading sunlight.
Her dive light hung attached to her vest, fading into the depths.
Along with... Oh no .
Her PLB. Whether it had worked or not, she didn’t know, but why hadn’t she put it in her dive pockets? She’d secured it into her BCD pocket and...
Now it sat at the bottom of the ocean. Perfect.
So it was a choice—get eaten or drown.
She couldn’t lie on her back, not if she didn’t want to resemble a seal or a dolphin, but she couldn’t tread water indefinitely.
At least she’d ditched her weight belt. Maybe she should shuck her dive shorts too, heavy as they were on her legs.
Wait. She reached into her pocket and— yes, thank you —found her inflatable safety marker curled inside. She’d taken it out when she put her PLB into the Velcro pocket.
Thank You, Jesus. She pulled it out, unrolled it, and opened the valve.
No shark tried to kill her as she inflated the bright orange “sausage.” Six feet tall, it stuck out of the water like a flag. And if she wanted, she could float on it.
She tucked it under her arms, stopped kicking, stopped moving, and prayed.
More.
Prayed more because she’d kept herself from weeping last night by mentally singing every hymn she knew, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and finally settling on the twenty-third psalm over and over.
And over.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley—ocean—of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil!”