Dar nodded. "With rental laptops. Got all the essentials covered."

Kerry briefly considered telling Dar that she had stashed one of their laptops, but decided it wasn't the time. "Be still, my techn.o.beating heart."

The mic crackled. "Hey, Dar." Bud's voice came through. "Got 70*

a distress call casting down here. 117.9"

"Thanks. I'll tune it in," Dar answered. "We're coming in around the eastern side of your island."

"Yeap." The mic clicked off.

Dar frowned, then shook her head and tuned in the marine radio. For a few moments, there wasn't any sound, and she thought she'd gotten the wrong channel. Then a shrill feedback sound erupted and a voice came through.

"Mayday! Mayday! Help!"

"Oh, that's professional," Kerry sniped.

"This is Siren of the Sea...in bad weather... sinking..."

The words cut off. Dar peered at the radio, then looked behind them. "I don't think that's them."

"Help! This is Siren of the Sea... Thirty foot sailboat in bad weather. I lost my engine and snapped the mast lines. Taking on water."

"Oh, that's bad." Kerry sat up. "He needs help." She looked at Dar. "I've crewed a thirty footer, Dar. It doesn't stand a chance with no sail control."

Dar keyed the mic. "Siren of the Sea, this is Dixieland Yankee. Do you know your location? Over." She released the mic and waited.

There was no response. "Siren of the Sea, do you copy?"

There was still no answer. Finally they heard, "h.e.l.lo? This is Siren of the Sea to whoever's calling. I think I'm off St. Johns...off the western coast!" A break filled with static sounded before they made out, "...raining like h.e.l.l! I think the swells are twenty feet!"

Kerry got up. "I'll tell our pa.s.sengers and get out the safety gear." She kissed Dar. "Think we can find him?"

Dar flipped on the radar scope, which showed not much of anything. Given that she was not familiar with the waters and had no idea what she was really looking at, she didn't want to give Kerry false hopes. "Do my best," she replied.

"Done deal, then," Kerry answered blithely before she turned and made her way to the ladder.

Dar shook her head then plotted a new course, this one curving back toward the sound of thunder and the rising wind.

Chapter.

Eight.

DAR BLEW THE wet hair out of her eyes and leaned forward, peering with a scowl through the rain lashed darkness. The weather had worsened severely, and the boat was now being tossed by fifteen-foot seas. Dar had turned on the big searchlight on the bow, but it really did very little to penetrate the darkness. The light reflected off the huge raindrops and almost made it seem like she was plowing into a silver curtain.

The Bertram rolled in a swell and Dar turned into the wave, watching both her radar and sonar with careful eyes. She was concentrating so hard, she didn't hear Kerry come up the ladder and almost jumped right through the console topper when her partner plopped down in the seat next to her. "Yeeeah!"

Kerry sniffled and pulled her jacket closer. "Sorry." She patted Dar's back. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"Mmph." Dar collected her composure. She glanced at Kerry, watching her slit her eyes against the rain. "Y'know, there's no reason for you to suffer up here in this mess."

"Yes, there is," Kerry disagreed. She carefully put her elbows on the console. "I can either sit up here and brave the best Mother Nature can offer, or I can stay downstairs and chuck my cookies."

"Ah." Dar peered more closely at her. "Yeah, you look a little..."

"Just call me Kermit," Kerry admitted, swallowing. "Didn't think I got seasick."

"I think you can blame the weather this time," Dar comforted.

Kerry grimaced, and then managed a wan smile as the Bertram rolled in the waves again.

"Watch the horizon," Dar advised, reaching over and circling Kerry's wrist with two long fingers.

"Honey, I love you," Kerry leaned against Dar's shoulder, "but you don't have to hold my hand, really."

Dar chuckled softly as she pressed down on Kerry's wrist with her fingertips. "Try calling him again," she suggested, more to distract Kerry than because she believed the man in distress would 72*

answer. There had been no response to their last two hails, and Dar was afraid their unlucky friend had run into potentially fatal trouble.

Kerry took a few deep breaths, and then picked up the mic.

"Siren of the Sea, Siren of the Sea, this is Dixieland Yankee. Do you copy? Over." She paused and listened to the crackling, closing her eyes as the boat hit a trough and pitched down.

Dar shifted her grip slightly and then pressed again, watching Kerry's face carefully. After a moment, her eyelashes flickered open and a look of mild surprise appeared. "Better?" Dar asked hopefully.

"Eyah," Kerry murmured. "Did you do that?"

Dar smirked.

"Ooh. I love you," Kerry said. "Hang on. Siren of the Sea, Siren of the Sea, do you copy?"

A harsh buzz suddenly cut the static, then a second. A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, and they both ducked in reflex. Dar grabbed Kerry and shielded her as she felt every hair on her body stand up. For that brief instant, the imperiled boat was forgotten; the storm was forgotten. Dar heard a loud crack, and then the glare vanished, leaving a wild blast of thunder in its wake.

"Holy s.h.i.t." Dar looked up, searching the topmast anxiously, then her eyes went to their instruments, hoping like h.e.l.l they hadn't lost the GPS or the sonar. She relaxed when the iridescent glow of the apparatus remained steady. "Wow."

"Dar?" Kerry's voice was m.u.f.fled. "I think you can let me up now."

"Oh. Sorry." Dar straightened, but kept one arm around Kerry's shoulders.

"You all right up there?" Charlie's voice suddenly erupted in the radio. "That sucker hit the water just off the stern."

"We're fine," Kerry answered. "Everything's all right."

Dar glanced up at the sky. "This isn't gonna work. I'm going to turn and get out of here," she decided. "We'll report the mayday when we get into dock." She reset their course and checked the depth. "I'm not risking you or the boat."

"Dar."

Dar turned and looked her in the eye. "Yes?"

Kerry knew that look. She knew Dar didn't like to be challenged, especially when she was off balance and scared. Kerry could see the jangled nerves in her lover's eyes, and by the short, restless motions of her hands on the controls she knew that Dar's temper was very much on edge. "We're all he's got," she said very gently. "Can we try for a few more minutes?"

Dar very much wanted to say no, Kerry could read it. "Let me call him one more time and see if he can at least give us a click. If*73 not," she watched the rain plaster Dar's hair to her forehead, half obscuring her eyes, "at least we tried."

A deep breath preceded her capitulation. "Okay," Dar said briefly. "Then, please, Kerry, go below."

"Okay," Kerry agreed, flexing her hand around the mic. She hesitated, set it down, then reached out and caught Dar's hand, squeezing it. "Thanks."

"Grumph." Dar adjusted the throttles and started the boat on a long, shallow curve to cut across the swells. She didn't want to turn too sharply and get caught inside them, since the waves were cresting up to around twenty feet.

"Siren of the Sea... Siren of the Sea...if you can hear this, please key in twice." Kerry requested, speaking clearly. She listened intently to the hiss. "Siren of the Sea, please key in twice if you receive this. We are trying to locate you."

The hiss broke, returned, and then broke again. Kerry grinned, then looked up at Dar.

"Could be coincidence."

"Siren of the Sea, please key in twice again."

Two clicks answered her again, and then a voice crackled through. "I'm here! Help!"

Dar sighed and shook her head. "We still don't have a chance of finding him," she said. "All I've seen on radar for the last half hour is..." Dar stopped, leaned closer to the small scope. "Wait."

She increased the magnitude of the pulse and studied the screen, unsure. It might be a tiny blip, but then it might not. "Could just be wave return." But she was already swinging the wheel around and gunning the engines. "Either way, if that's not him we're going back."

"Right." Kerry put the mic down and stood. "I'm going to go up on the bow."

Dar's eyes widened. "Not without a safety belt," she stated flatly. "I don't want you launched overboard."

"Aye, Aye, cap'n." Kerry patted Dar, then made her way to the stairs, carefully climbed down them and stepped onto the pitching deck. Charlie and Bud were standing in the cabin doorway. "We think we see him," she said.

"'Bout time." Bud picked up the rope and floatation gear and slung it over his broad shoulder. "Seems like a lotta trouble for some jacka.s.s who didn't have the sense to get out of the rain." He got up onto the railing and walked around to the bow.

Kerry counted to ten under her breath as she got a double clipped safety rope and hooked one end onto the rail, then followed him. The wind hit her as she went around to the front of the boat, driving rain right into her eyes. Kerry gamely struggled forward, careful to keep her footing as she edged around the large cruiser 74*

cabin and emerged onto the sloping bow of the boat. It was pitching up and down, and seawater was crashing over the rails, chilling her even through her jacket.

She got to the very front of the boat and knelt, peering into the darkness. The swells rose and fell, making it hard to see anything at all. All Kerry could see was ruffling waves and rain.

"There." Bud was standing next to her. "To starboard."

Kerry strained her eyes. "I don't see anything... Oh. Wait!" In a break in the waves, she spotted a flash of white, then it disappeared. Her mind tried to resolve it as part of a sailboat, and failed. "Wh..."

Dar, apparently, had also seen it. The Bertram altered course to starboard, and the engine speed diminished.

Kerry leaned forward. Then the waves broke again, and she got another look. "He's capsized!" she yelled, recognizing the white flash as an overturned hull.

"Yeap." Bud didn't seem surprised. "Jerk probably didn't bring the sail in."

Kerry stood up, biting her tongue to keep back the sharp words. Their boat worked itself closer, and she could see the up- ended boat more clearly. "He's on the back!" She pointed at a dark, forlorn-looking figure clinging to the hull.

Then her eyes almost came out of her head as the sea in front of her dropped, and they were looking downslope at the shipwreck from twenty feet up. Kerry's stomach almost came out of her nostrils as the wave crested, then she hung on as the Bertram rode the wave down, its forward motion slowed.

The wave picked up the sailing boat and lifted it, then a cross wave unexpectedly tossed it to one side. As Kerry watched in horror, the small figure on the back flew off into the water and disappeared. Without really thinking once, much less twice, she unclipped her safety rope and jumped to the top of the railing, then leaped out into the darkness.

Hitting the water was a total shock. It was cold, and it grabbed her mercilessly and whirled her around. Kerry fought her way to the surface and realized she'd probably just made a really big mistake. A wave nearly swamped her, but she rode through it, then felt something hit her on the shoulder. She whirled to find the floatation ring next to her and grabbed it.

The storm was too loud for her to hear any shouting, but she knew it was there. A dagger of hot fear hit her in the gut, and she got an arm around the ring, glad for its buoyancy. Trying not to swallow the seawater constantly washing over her head, she turned and started for the last place she'd seen the hapless boater.

At first, it was hard to make any headway. Then Kerry discovered if she found the right waves, they'd take her where she*75 wanted to go. She waited for one, then swam into it and let it carry her down and across the bow of the capsized boat.

The searchlight suddenly penetrated the rain, blazing across the choppy water. It tracked over Kerry, pausing a moment before it reluctantly moved on. Kerry's eyes followed it, then she lunged forward as she caught just a glimpse of a hand near the back end of the boat. She struggled toward it, hearing the rumbling roar of the big diesels behind her as the Bertram fought to hold its position in the water.

Kerry got her head above water and yelled. "Hey!" She flailed with her arms through the wave, feeling under the surface near the edge of the capsized hull. Three times and nothing, then suddenly her hand touched something that wasn't water and wasn't boat.

Her fingers closed, with a brief, heartfelt prayer to G.o.d that it was a person and not a shark she was grabbing onto. She felt cloth and pulled hard, heaving backwards with all the strength she could muster. It was like pulling at a wet, sand filled sack. "C'mon!"

Kerry gave another tug. An arm broke the surface, then a dark, wet head.

For a moment, Kerry wasn't sure she'd been in time. Then the head lifted and the other arm flailed out, smacking against the boat.

The man coughed, spitting up a mouthful of water.

"Here!" Kerry got his hands around the life preserver. "Hang on!" It wasn't easy, but she wrapped the device around him, then turned her head, searching for the boat on the other end of the line.

Her strength was draining out of her, and the chill water was starting to make her shiver. Warm though the seas were this far south, at night, in a rainstorm, they were no bathtub.

"Kerry!"

Dar's voice through a loudspeaker was the last thing she'd expected. She blinked through the rain, hanging on to the rope.

"Clip on to the rope! We'll pull you in!"

Oh. Kerry fumbled at her waist, finding the belt, then the big metal clip that hung from it. She clipped it onto the rescue rope and wrapped her arm around her rescuee, feeling the powerful tug as she began to be towed back to the Dixieland Yankee.

The waves swamped over them. Kerry felt her body aching from the strain of remaining upright, and she reached up and clasped her hand over a knot in the rope to get a better grip. They got closer and closer to the boat, and as they did, she realized how high the bow was over their head. She was used to coming aboard from the stern, and now she wondered how they were going to manage.

The Bertram lunged forward and Kerry crashed into the hull, slamming her shoulder into the fibergla.s.s. It knocked the wind out of her, and she dazedly pushed off before the belt tightened around 76*

her waist and she realized she was being pulled right up out of the water. "Hold on! Hold on!" she yelled, scrambling to make sure the straps on the preserver were tight. The man inside it seemed dazed, and he clutched at the rope with uncertain fingers.