Even in the daytime, when I could see what I was doing, I felt uncomfortable rooting around in the dark places under the floor. Gingerly I eased my hand into the bilge and felt around until I located the narrow, cylindrical apparatus that controlled Sea Song’s speedometer. A dangerous little gizmo, Connie had said, which needed to be installed in a hole drilled clear through the hull. I’d assisted one time as she’d pulled it out and cleaned it of algae. But this time I wouldn’t be standing by to cram a temporary plug into the hole while she brushed green gunk off the wheel. Holding my breath, I wrenched the fitting out of its hole.
Water fountained into the boat like Old Faithful, wetting me completely. In less than a minute the rising water covered my shoes, and I swallowed hard, fighting back my panic, knowing that I’d need to stay quiet down below for my plan to work.
Perched back on the toilet seat again, I wondered how far into the bay we’d have to sail before Hal decided we’d gone far enough to dump us overboard. I wondered how long I could tread water, how far I could swim with my sore chest and bum arm. Hal would have to make it appear like an unfortunate accident with him as the only survivor. I’d drowned trying to save poor Liz, that would be his story, and Connie had gone in after me. Such a tragedy! We’d make the front page of the Chesapeake Times for sure.
Sea Song began to slow. “What’s wrong?” Hal sounded unhappy.
“I don’t know. I haven’t changed course. The sails are full. Suddenly it’s like sailing a bathtub.”
From the cockpit I heard the click-click of the flashlight, and its beam sliced through the dark into the cabin below. I sat quietly, hardly breathing, trying to merge with the darkness in the head.
“The goddamned boat’s sinking! She must have pulled one of the through-hulls!”
From above, I heard Connie laugh.
Hal scrambled into the cabin, flipped on the cabin lights, and began wading in my direction. “Which one was it, damm it?”
I waited where I was, with the door ajar. Soon he would notice that I wasn’t where he had left me.
“Hannah?”
I extracted the lure from my pocket and gripped it in my right hand. With my left, I removed the red plastic plug that protected the hook and dropped it into the water. I didn’t think I’d be needing it again.
“Hannah?”
Naturally, Hal expected to find me in the forward cabin. As his profile appeared in the doorway, I lashed out, sinking the lure deep into his neck.
Hal screamed, a hideous sound that will haunt me forever, and dropped the gun. It sank to the floor, but neither one of us dived for it. Hal was too busy bellowing and clutching his neck, and I was staring in horror, appalled by what I had done. At first there was surprisingly little blood. Then Hal tried to remove the hook, but the barb held fast and began to tear his flesh. “Hannah!” he cried. The man was in agony. He fell back against the cushions of the V-berth. I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes.
I turned and floundered away, moving as quickly as I could in my waterlogged shoes. I headed for the pilot berth where Connie kept the life preservers.
Connie’s head appeared in the hatch. “Connie!” I yelled. “Is it too late to cork it?”
“Oh, God, yes.” She jumped onto the seat by the navigation station.
Connie flipped on the ship’s radio, punched the button that activated Channel 16, and spoke more calmly than I could believe into the microphone. “May Day, May Day, May Day. This is the sailing vessel Sea Song. We’re about two miles off Holly Point near the shipping channel, taking on water fast. Three… uh… four adults. One overboard. We’re abandoning ship now.” The radio crackled, hissed, then went silent. “Damn!”
“What’s wrong with the radio?” I was looking around for the flashlight, but who knew where Hal had dropped it?
“I don’t know,” Connie moaned. “It’s gone dead. Water probably shorted out the wires.”
Standing in water nearly up to my knees, I held out the life jackets. Connie threw them into the cockpit and pushed me up the ladder. She slipped her life jacket over her head, snapped the buckles together across her chest and waist, and helped me do the same. I held up the third life jacket. Connie sucked in her bottom lip and shook her head, but I couldn’t do it. Just before the rising water shorted out the electrical system and all the lights went out, I tossed it at Hal. “You don’t deserve this, you son of a bitch!”
Hal caught the life jacket in his bloody hands. The hook in his neck flashed and sparkled. Blood dripped from the yellow feathers at its tail, drenching his shirt. He looked so pale and weak that I wondered if I had severed his carotid artery.
Connie grabbed a couple of small floating cushions, handed one to me, and we stood together on the seats in the cockpit, waiting. When Connie judged the time was right, we jumped. Hal was on his own.
Connie and I swam a good one hundred yards from the boat, then turned around, treading water. Silhouetted against the gray night sky, we could see Sea Song’s regal mast and her sails flapping like wet sheets on a clothesline. Then she tilted, nose down, and sank beneath the water. Connie moaned. “It’s like losing Craig all over again,” she sobbed.
I felt rotten. I was a curse. A jinx. “Oh, Connie, I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t think what else to do. He was going to leave us out here to drown!” I gasped. My lungs burned, as if they would never get enough oxygen.
“It was the right thing.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Absolutely the right thing.”
As I bawled and made well-intentioned promises to God if He’d just help me out of this mess, a cloud bank slid across the sky and the moon, nearly full, laid a silver path on the water. I had my answer. I couldn’t wish anybody dead. I expected to see Hal’s head bobbing nearby, but although I scanned the water for several minutes, I didn’t spot him.
“Where’s Hal? I thought sure he’d get out.”
“Maybe he’s on the other side, treading water like we are.”
“Hal! Hal!” I called, but the only answer was the sound of my own labored breathing and the clang of the bell on a nearby buoy. I gasped, choking back tears. “I didn’t want him to die, Connie. I never wanted him to die!”
Connie grabbed my life vest by the straps and pulled me toward her until we were so close that our foreheads nearly touched. “Of course you didn’t, sweetheart.” Waves licked at my chin as I sobbed. “C’mon. We’re only in about twenty feet of water.”
“I’m not that tall,” I wailed.
“What I mean, silly, is that if we’re lucky, Sea Song’s mast will still be visible.”
I looked all around me. Miles away I could see lights glimmering onshore. A pair moving in tandem must be a car, its driver heading home after a late day at the office. One thing I knew for sure: It was too far to swim.
“Do you think the coast guard heard your call before the radio died?”
“I hope so.” She tugged on my vest. “There she is!” I looked where she pointed and saw the top twenty feet of Sea Song’s mast, jutting out at a sharp angle from the moon-spangled waves.
We swam, arm over arm, and grabbed on, exhausted. My arm and side ached as if I’d spent twenty minutes on the inside of an industrial clothes dryer. I wondered what had happened to Hal. I wondered if he’d focused on those beckoning lights and tried to swim for shore. In spite of all that had happened, I found myself praying that he’d make it.