Chapter 40
The helicopter door slides shut behind me as the blades gather speed overhead.
A deep vibration hums through the metal floor beneath my feet while the aircraft lifts slowly into the air. Wind tears across the harbor parking lot, sending loose gravel and salt spray skittering across the pavement as we rise into the gray afternoon sky.
I grip the overhead strap and glance down toward the edge of the dock as the helicopter climbs.
May is still standing exactly where I left her.
She hasn’t moved an inch.
Even from up here, I can see the tension in her shoulders, the way her arms wrap around herself like she’s trying to hold something together inside her chest that’s threatening to come apart.
Christ.
The realization settles quietly in my gut as the helicopter banks toward the harbor mouth.
The way she looked when she realized what had happened… the way she clung to the front of my suit like I was the last bit of ground beneath her feet.
I don’t need anyone spelling it out for me.
May Moreira is gone for the man.
And Holloway, the stubborn fecker that he is, probably hasn’t the faintest idea just how lucky he’s managed to get.
For a moment, I let myself sit with it.
Not exactly jealousy, because that’s not quite what it is, more like the quiet sting of something that never had the chance to become anything real.
I’d be lying if I said the thought of her hadn’t crossed my mind more than once over the last few weeks.
A woman like that is hard not to notice, especially when being near her leaves you feeling a bit lighter than you were before.
But some things aren’t meant to be yours.
The helicopter banks again as we clear the breakwater, and the view of the harbor slips away behind us.
That’s that then.
I take a slow breath and push the thought aside, letting it settle somewhere quiet where it won’t get in the way.
Because right now there’s only one thing that matters.
Finding Holloway.
I shift closer to the open side door while the crew chief hands me my headset.
“Lost visual about eighteen minutes ago,” he tells me over the roar of the engine.
“Last known position?”
He taps the coordinates on the chart clipped beside the door.
“Just outside Pirate Cove. Current is pushing north with the swell.”
I glance down as we cross over Depoe Bay, the narrow channel cutting through the rock beneath us before the coastline opens suddenly into the full stretch of the Pacific.
The difference is immediate.
Inside the harbor, the water looked restless.
Out here it’s something else entirely.
The swells are bigger than they appeared from shore, long rolling walls of dark water rising and falling beneath us while wind tears across the surface and pulls white spray from the tops of the waves.
Behind us, the harbor at Depoe Bay quickly shrinks against the dark cliffs as the pilot angles the helicopter north toward Pirate Cove, where Holloway was last seen drifting with the current.
The pilot adjusts our heading.
“Search pattern Alpha,” he calls back through the headset.
“Copy that,” the crew chief answers.
I brace one hand against the doorframe and lean out slightly, scanning the water below.
Finding someone in the ocean isn’t about spotting a body.
A man in the water is small against all that moving water, and the sea has a way of swallowing anything that doesn’t belong there. From the air, you’re not looking for a person so much as you’re searching for the slightest thing out of place.
A color.
A shape.
Something that shouldn’t be there.
The current is running hard today, which means that if Holloway stayed afloat, the water could have already carried him a fair distance.
I sweep my eyes slowly across the swells as we move along the search pattern, watching the rhythm of the water and waiting for something—anything—to break it.
Come on, lad.
Where are you?
The helicopter continues along the grid while the wind howls through the open door and the sea rolls endlessly beneath us.
I keep my eyes moving across the swells, watching the rhythm of the water and waiting for the slightest thing to break it.
Then something farther out catches my attention.
A plume of white mist rises suddenly from the surface.
A whale’s blow.
I lean out a little farther, narrowing my focus as the swell rolls beneath us again.
The whale surfaces briefly, a dark curve of its back breaking through the water before slipping beneath the waves again.
A moment later, the blow rises once more, a plume of mist lifting into the wind before fading into the air.
Same spot.
My eyes stay there as the next swell rolls through.
The whale surfaces again, slower this time, lingering near the surface before disappearing beneath the water once more.
The pilot begins to pass it, but something about the pattern makes my chest tighten.
The whale isn’t traveling.
It’s circling.
“Hold on a second,” I say into the headset, leaning farther out of the door.
The helicopter slows slightly as I track the spot where the whale surfaced.
Another swell lifts.
And then I see it.
A flash of color between the waves.
Orange.
My pulse kicks hard against my ribs.
“Contact!” I shout into the headset.
The pilot responds instantly.
“Where?”
“Starboard side! Just beyond the whale!”
The aircraft banks sharply as I keep my eyes locked on the water.
A shape rises between the swells again.
A man with the bright orange of his flotation vest rocking with the swell.
Relief hits me like a punch to the chest.
Found you.
“Visual confirmed!” the crew chief calls.
The pilot swings us around again, bringing the helicopter into position above the drifting figure as the wind from the rotors tears across the water below.
“Hold steady,” I say, never taking my eyes off the man floating beneath us.
The aircraft lowers carefully while I move toward the edge of the door, securing the last strap of my harness as the crew chief clips the hoist cable into place.
Below us, Holloway rises and falls with the swell, his body drifting with the current.
He’s too still for my liking.
But he’s floating.
And right now that’s enough.
I grip the doorframe and take one last look at the water waiting below.
Right then, Holloway.
Just hang on a bit longer.
“I’m going in.”
The cable tightens.
The wind roars past my ears.
And as the helicopter steadies above the waves, I fix my eyes on the man drifting below.
Hold on, lad.
I’m coming for you.