B000FC1MHI EBOK (3 page)

“I’m ready,” she said quietly, and was grateful when—rather than tell her how pale she was, that she needed food, a hot bath, and sleep more than she needed to return to the dock—Zoe simply nodded.

The three retraced their steps. The mist over the harbor had thinned some, and the visibility was improved, but what had been gained was being quickly consumed by dusk. Enough light remained to show Julia a maze of side docks meandering off the main. Empty slips, along with a dearth of lobster boats at harbor moorings, suggested that the entire local fleet had joined the search. As Julia approached, another pulled away from its dinghy and motored toward open water with its running lights on, spotlights blazing from the wheelhouse roof.

The dock itself was lit by tall torches and crowded with people. The town had come out en masse, a throng of worried faces, watchful eyes, and joined hands.

Holding Julia by the arm, Zoe waded right in. “What’s the word?”

“Not good,” said a woman with a cell phone in her hand. “Rescue boats have come from the mainland. Emergency vehicles are waiting on that end.” She stopped short, but the look in her eyes went farther.

“What are they expecting?” Julia asked, needing confirmation.

“Burns,” the woman said, but again stopped short.

Julia closed her eyes for only a second, but it was enough to be right back out there with the others in the ferry, enough to see that purple boat burst out of the fog, enough to hear the screams and feel the impact, enough to be thrown by the explosion.
Body parts.
That was what the woman hadn’t said, and suddenly Julia glimpsed the scope of the horror.

Trembling head to toe, she wrapped her arms around herself and turned to the water, though there was little to see and even less to hear: the roar of flames, the rumble of rescue vessels, the sirens were gone. Except for the occasional low talk over a cell phone or radio transmitter, she heard precious little other than the waves that slapped pilings under the pier, rocked boats at their moorings, and broke resoundingly against granite boulders that lined the outer shore.

Behind Julia, the conversation went on in hushed tones, muted by a fear that was heavy and stark. Glancing over the crowd, she could have picked those closest to the missing. They were at the center of each small group. By contrast, a gray-haired man stood alone at the very end of the dock. His hands were anchored in the pockets of a worn brown jacket that hung over loose corduroy pants.

“Matthew Crane,” Zoe said, following her gaze. “The
Amelia Celeste
is his. He’s probably wishing he’d been at the helm himself, instead of Greg. Greg has a young family.”

Julia was trying to absorb that information when the woman with the cell phone said on a note of accusation, “It was Artie Jones’s racer. They’re picking up purple debris.”

Again Zoe explained to Julia, “Artie’s up from Portsmouth. He has a house down on the shaft. You remember.”

Julia did. Big Sawyer was shaped like an ax. It was broadest and most densely populated at its head, which included the harbor, near the flat of the blade, the fishing village, which climbed the wooded hill, and, at the back of the head, viewing open ocean, the artists’ homes. The shaft, extending off to the southeast, was long and narrow. Seasonal residents lived there, putting a certain distance between the lavishness of their homes and boats and the down-to-earth functionality of the locals. The arrangement suited both groups just fine.

“Artie made it big in the Internet boom,” Zoe went on, “and if he suffered when the whole thing went bust, you’d never know it. His house is huge. No expense was spared.” She caught a breath. “If it was
The Beast,
Artie was the one at the helm. No one else drives that boat. He’s out there, too.”

“Is his family here?” Julia asked softly.

“No,” answered the woman. “They don’t move up until the kids finish school. Artie comes alone to open the house and put
The Beast
in the water.” She looked past them. A boat had come in and was approaching the dock, drawing the crowd. “There’s the
Willa B
. Looks like she has someone.” She set off.

That someone, Zoe told Julia as soon as she made the identity, was Kim Colella. She was standing on her own steam and appeared to be unhurt. Wrapped in a large towel with her hair soaked and her head bowed, she looked to Julia to be little more than a child, but when, in a voice tinged with horror, she said just that, Zoe was quick to correct her.

“Kimmie’s twenty-one and tends bar at the Grill. Life hasn’t been easy for her. She was raised by her mother and grandmother. They’re two tough ladies.”

Julia felt a tug of protectiveness, not only because her own daughter was close to Kimmie’s age, but because Kimmie Colella didn’t look tough at all. Her chin stayed low as she was helped from the boat to the dock, and when a barrage of questions hit her, she recoiled. Huddled into herself, she let the doctor guide her away.

The boat that had delivered her was already heading back out. “How long can they search?” Julia asked, because it was fully dark now.

“Awhile. They have floodlights.”

Julia had been frightened enough out there in daylight; she couldn’t begin to imagine the terror of being in the water at night. Moving closer to Zoe, she tucked her hands in the pockets of the fleece jacket. “Maybe other survivors have been taken to the mainland?”

Zoe’s eyes were understanding, but she didn’t offer easy comfort. “We’d know,” she said gently, even apologetically. “Someone would’ve called. Are you sure I can’t take you home?”

“I’m sure.”

“Does your arm hurt?”

“No.” But she didn’t think she would notice if it did. The emerging horror dwarfed aches and pains.

“Want something to eat from the Grill?”

“I don’t think I can eat.”

“Coffee, then?”

Julia gave in on that, though she didn’t drink much. She had adrenaline enough in her body without caffeine, but the warmth of the cup in her hands did feel good. As time passed, though, that warmth faded, along with the hope that others would be brought in alive. And still she resisted when Zoe would have taken her home. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with the weight of grief on her chest—and not with the rest of the townsfolk still on the docks. As long as they stayed and waited, she had to as well. She had been on that boat. She might not know the names of these islanders, but she was one of them on this night.

By eleven, the fog had dispersed, and the mood of the crowd lifted with the hope that survivors would be more easily spotted. By midnight, though, when no good news was radioed back from the boats, that hope waned. By one in the morning, those on the dock stood in silent huddles.

Shortly thereafter, word came back that the Coast Guard had called off the search for the night and would return with divers in the morning—but still the local fleet kept at it. By two, however, even they began to return. One boat after another slipped into the harbor, their engines rumbling in exhaustion. The faces of the men who climbed back on the dock were pale and drawn in the flickering light of the torches; they had little to say and simply shook their heads.

Julia searched until she saw the man who had helped her right after the accident, the man from the
Amelia Celeste
. Zoe identified him as Noah Prine. Though he hoisted himself to the dock now with the others, the depth of the pain on his face set him apart. He didn’t look around, didn’t acknowledge any of those who had been waiting there all night, and they, in turn, gave him wide berth as he strode along the planking and off into the night.

“He was with his father,” Zoe explained softly. “Hutch is still missing.”

Julia was horrified. She could only begin to imagine what Noah was feeling, fearing that his father was dead but not knowing for sure. Her own father was still alive, as were her mother and her brothers. And her daughter.

“I need a phone, Zoe,” she said, feeling a dire need, right then, right there, to hear Molly’s voice. The girl was a culinary student, normally studying in Rhode Island, but now doing a summer apprenticeship in Paris. It would be morning there. If Molly had worked the night before, she might still be sleeping, and under normal circumstances, Julia would have waited. But what had happened—and what she felt—were far from normal.

Zoe produced a cell phone, and Julia quickly punched in the number of Molly’s global phone. As it rang, she moved away from the others on the dock. It seemed forever before a groggy voice that Julia knew well said, “Mom?”

Julia felt such a swell of emotion that she began to cry. “Oh, baby,” she gasped in a choked voice that, quite naturally, terrified her daughter.

Sounding instantly awake, Molly asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine,” Julia sobbed softly, “but it’s a miracle.”

The story spilled out in a handful of sentences, to which Molly injected “Omigod” with rising frequency and fear. When Julia finally paused, her daughter said with a mix of disbelief and awe, “
Omigod!
Are you
sure
you’re okay?”

“I am, but there are others who aren’t. I’m sorry to wake you”—she was crying again, though less wrenchingly now—“but with something like this, you need to talk to people like your own daughter. Email doesn’t do it. You need to hear a
voice
.”

“I’m
glad
you called.
Omigod
. Mom, that’s just
so
awful! Here I am, pissed off that the chef at the restaurant won’t give me the time of day, and there you are dealing with life and death. When’ll they know about the others?”

“The morning, maybe.”

“That’s so bad. And you—you’ve been looking forward to this for months. It was supposed to be your vacation. Are you going right home?”

The question startled Julia. “No,” she said. Odd, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind. She couldn’t list her reasons, because her thoughts were too disordered. But leaving wasn’t an option. “I’ll be at Zoe’s. You have her number.”

“Are you sure you want to be there after all this?”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you want me to come?”

“No. You have a job. You need the experience.”

“Is Dad coming?”

Julia was startled for a second time. In all that had gone on, she hadn’t once thought about Monte, which was odd, too. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Monte had no place here on the island. She had visited Big Sawyer three other times since her marriage, and he had opted out each time. Nor had he shown any interest in coming this time. She was sure that he had made other plans for these two weeks, well beyond those he had shared with her; she was as sure of
that
as she was that she couldn’t leave the island and race back home.

Unable to explain all this to Molly, she hedged. “Honestly, I don’t know. We’ll probably talk about it in the morning.”

“Let me know?” Molly asked and rushed on. “Email me later. And call again whenever you want. I love you, Mom.”

“Me, too, baby, me, too.”

Alone, Noah Prine tromped down Main Street, turned left onto Spruce, and began the short climb up the hillside to the house he shared with his dad. It was a fisherman’s cottage in a neighborhood of other fishermen’s cottages, clapboards weathered gray by the salt air, blue shutters in need of paint—always in need of paint, because the wind was abusive to
everything,
and boats and buoys came first. It wasn’t a big place, a fraction as large as the monstrosity Artie Jones owned down on the shaft, but it was honestly come by, the product of years of hard work, and it was paid for in full.

He bet Artie’s place wasn’t. He bet there were hefty mortgages on both the house and
The Beast
. He bet that the guy didn’t have an ounce of insurance either, because guys like that didn’t think past the moment. What
that
meant was that if eight people turned out to be dead, all the lawsuits in the world wouldn’t produce enough money to adequately compensate two orphaned Walsh kids, Greg Hornsby’s wife and kids, Dar Hutter’s fiancée, Grady Bartz’s parents, and whomever Todd Slokum might have left in the world.

Money certainly couldn’t bring back his dad—not that Noah was convinced he was gone. Hutch had spent his whole life on the water and had done his share of time in the drink. He had survived storms that might have killed another man—and besides, it wasn’t like it was the middle of winter, with water almost at the freezing point. This was June. Hutch could do it. A night in the sea might even slow the growth of cancer in his blood.

The problem, of course, even beyond that of the initial crash and whatever those mammoth propellers had chewed, was the explosion. Who knew what damage
it
had done? Noah would be out there still searching if he had floodlights on the
Leila Sue
. Radar alone wouldn’t have helped, not in the chop. He would go out again at first light. In the meantime, he didn’t know what to do with himself.

He turned in and went up the short path. His mother’s lilacs were in bloom. He could smell them as he went past, though he couldn’t make them out in the dark. There wasn’t even a light on out front, because he and his father had planned to be back well before nightfall. Noah had intended to cook the bass that had come up in a lobster trap the day before. Hutch loved bass, and, sensing that their day at the hospital would be a disaster, Noah had wanted to please him.