Chapter 15
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Gulf of Alaska, Off the Coast of Chichagof Island, AK
Anya stood dead still, facing the back of the boat, one hand behind her, steadying the wheel.
Lady Melinda drifted.
The impatient fury of the trolling bell quieted to an occasional jingle.
The fishing vessel rose and fell as angry swells passed underneath on their way to crash against the Alaskan shore.
Anya searched the cockpit, again and again, allowing only her eyes to move—afraid that moving her body would snap her out of some dream.
A single fish flopped on the cleaning table.
Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” sang quietly from the boom box.
He was actually gone.
Her hand slipped from the wheel. Her legs didn’t move.
Her body was far away, as if it belonged to someone else.
Lady Melinda rolled and she rolled with it, weightless, hollow.
Everything held still—just the low pulse of the sea, the fish flapping on the table, the soft ache of that song on the radio, the emptiness of the fishing cockpit.
Her hand clenched and unclenched, remembering motion.
The trolling rig was still fully deployed behind the boat.
She had to do something about that. Anya hurried down the companionway and threw the hydraulic levers.
The winches sprang to life and started hauling in the two downrigger lines.
When the first salmon emerged from the water, she stopped the winch, removed the fish from the hook with a gaff, unclipped the trolling snap, then started the winch again. She tossed the salmon in the fish hold.
Money in the bank, he’d always say.
Fuck that. She started the winch back up and let it run, watching the trolling snaps bend and break one by one as they hit the main pulley block.
Several salmon were hoisted to the top of the booms, then dropped into the water as the lead lines broke or the fish just fell off.
Finally, the big cannonball weights rose above the surface and swung free.
She killed the winch, grabbed a boat hook, and snagged the end of each weight—pulling it to the side of the boat and dropping it in the well.
Secure enough.
She ran back up to the pilothouse and put Lady Melinda into gear, spinning her around and angling the bow back up the swell in the opposite direction. As she reached the top, Anya scanned the near horizon.
He was about two hundred yards away, looking in the opposite direction, trying to tread water in his heavy fishing garb.
She took the boat out of gear. The pilothouse began to swallow her whole.
She wanted—needed—him to think—to believe that she had tried to save—that it was an accident and she just couldn’t—why did it even matter?
But it did matter. She wanted his last thought about her to be good. It couldn’t be her fault.
I’m coming for you, baby.
She put the boat into gear, then immediately pulled it out again.
Anya waited.
The salmon he’d left on the cleaning table flopped off onto the deck.
He swam a few strokes, then went back to treading water. She could almost feel his panic build, then gradually give way to resignation. He had turned halfway back toward the boat, but she was sure he hadn’t spotted her yet. He appeared to have stopped struggling.
Anya blasted the horn. His head snapped in her direction just as Lady Melinda slipped down the face of a swell into a trough. She gunned the engine and pulled the ship up the next wave, rising to her tiptoes so she’d catch sight of him an instant sooner as the boat reached the top.
Endless walls of water as far as she could see.
She steered the boat down the swell and powered up the next. Another wall. She caught a brief glimpse of something floating in the water a few boat lengths away. His red stocking cap. She steered the boat directly toward it, but lost sight of it between the next two waves.
The boom box belted Quarterflash singing “Harden My Heart.”
Anya didn’t know how long she drove around in circles, up and down the growing waves.
The salmon on the cockpit floor lay stiff.
She guessed the swell had built to twelve feet or more. The wind picked up to near gale force, and she needed to do something soon. He was definitely gone. Nobody could survive in these cold waters for that long—particularly not in his condition.
It was time.
Anya switched off the boom box and reached for the VHF marine radio microphone. She took several rapid breaths, making herself a little dizzy. She keyed the mic, trying to sound anxious and frightened. “Mayday, mayday, mayday—this is the fishing vessel Lady Melinda. We have a man overboard…”