He ran to the back door and looked out again.

The cruiser was gone. “Shit.”

He called 911 first, then Steve. Thomas showed up twenty minutes later while he was giving his statement to the responding deputies.

“How do you know something’s wrong?” Thomas asked.

“She would never take the boat out in weather like this, for starters. And she was waiting for me. Plus there’s a strange car in the parking lot.”

Steve ran in. “What’s wrong?”

Rob gave him the short version. “He’s right,” Steve said. “She wouldn’t do that. Not willingly.” He went behind the counter to the VHF radio, turned it on, and grabbed the mic.

“Lemon Dive One, Lemon Dive One, this is Lemon Dive Base, over.” He let up on the button and they waited.

* * *

Laura heard Steve on the radio from inside the cabin. Kern must have turned it on. There was a moment of silence before Steve repeated the hail.

“Lemon Dive One, Lemon Dive One, this is Lemon Dive Base. Laura, you out there? Over.”

A relieved breath escaped her.

Thank god, at least they know I’m missing.

She heard the engines throttle back, idling. Kern thought she was still passed out, obviously. Then came the sound of him walking up to the bow, followed by the sound of him opening the front bow locker hatch and the rattle of anchor chain against the deck as he removed it.

Apparently he didn’t know what the windlass was for. That was the spare anchor he’d tossed, the small one. In seas like this, it wouldn’t hold, it would drag. It was mostly for back-up. They’d end up crossways to the waves with the wind blowing across it.

She shut down those thoughts as she made her hands race faster.

“Lemon Dive One, this is Base. Laura, if you don’t answer, I’m calling Ft. Myers Beach. Over.”

She knew he meant the Coast Guard station.

She heard the anchor hit the water and hurried her preparations, knowing she would only have one shot to do this. The speargun had a powerhead holder shaft affixed to the side. Fortunately, Steve kept a stash of .223 blanks in the cabin. Her hands trembled as she loaded the round into the powerhead and twisted it down, not yet arming it.

She examined the bands on the gun. One was a little dried out and cracked, but the other looked nearly new. She checked the spear and found it was secure.

She was out of practice, and it was harder to do on a pitching boat and with a baby belly, but she propped the gun butt against her thigh and managed to cock the band before she thumbed off the safety.

Then she armed the powerhead and backed into the alcove, wedged between the tiny galley on her right and the entry on her left, and waited.

Kern stumbled on his way back from the bow. She prayed for a splash but no such luck. He regained his footing and she followed his progress, heard him jump down from the gunwale to the deck. He paused long enough for her to wonder what he was doing before she heard him approach the hatchway.

She braced herself, holding the speargun ready. He wouldn’t see her at first, would have to come down the steps before he could turn around to see her, and she could nail him.

The cabin door opened. He paused for a moment. “Okay, Laura, where are you? Playing hide-and-seek, are we?”

As expected, he stepped down. She let out a war whoop, jabbing him with the powerhead as she lunged. He screamed as it caught him in the back of the right thigh. She nearly dropped the speargun from the shock of the concussion but managed to hold onto it in the dim, crowded cabin.

He continued screaming in agony and dropped the gun to the cabin floor.

It went off. She heard the report but didn’t know where the round hit. She realized she was still screaming, too—in rage. He fell on his back to the cabin floor, clutching his right thigh in his hands.

She fired the speargun for good measure. His screams turned into desperate, pained shrieks as the shaft pierced his abdomen.

“Go to hell, you son of a bitch!” The shaft end was still in the speargun and she yanked back, trying to free it, determined to hit him with the butt of the gun.

He wrapped his hands around the spear shaft, a gruesome tug of war going on between them. Every time she yanked the speargun, he writhed in agony, shrieking in pain. He was bleeding from his leg, and the wings on the shaft point pulled against his flesh as she yanked on it. She finally ripped the speargun free, the shaft still embedded in his gut, and he screamed again.

Kern was too busy with his own pain to fight back. Laura loaded and cocked a new shaft. The guns and shafts were normally securely stowed in the cabin’s overhead compartment. She’d stripped the other guns of their extra shafts and had the shafts propped in the galley corner behind her.

He’ll look like a goddamn porcupine when I’m finished with the son of a bitch.

An alarm went off in the cockpit, barely audible over Kern’s inhuman screeching and finally grabbing her attention.

The bilge. She looked down and realized while Kern was still squirming, he was now splashing as well. Apparently the bullet—the hollow-point doing its job well—had breached the hull somewhere below the waterline.

“Shit!” She grabbed the spare shafts and scrambled up the steps through the open hatch, snagging a life vest from where they were stowed as she passed them.

Then the engines died.

Down in the cabin, Kern still screamed.

“Shut up!” she yelled down at him. “Just fucking die already, asshole!”

Laura slammed the cabin hatch shut behind her. There was the padlock on the dash, her keys still hanging from it. She grabbed the keys and shoved them into her pocket, then padlocked the hatch.

The mic swung from the radio in time with the pitching of the boat, and just behind it she spied the EPIRB beacon. She ripped it from its holder and flipped it upside down, activating it. Then she dropped it to the dash and prayed the signal was activated. She put on her Mae West and tightened the strap before grabbing the mic.

The boat was noticeably listing now, the bilge pumps unable to keep up with the water. As she tried, and failed, to start the engines, Kern still screamed from inside the cabin.

She gave that up as she realized she wouldn’t be able to go up and cut the anchor loose in time, anyway. Laura knew from the rapid listing of the boat that she didn’t have enough time to start the GPS and wait for it to get a fix on her position.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. Coast Guard Station Ft. Myers Beach. This is the Lemon Dive One. I have activated my EPIRB. Rapidly taking on water.”

She hoped the operator could understand her between her fear and the background scream of the bilge alarm. She was trying to remember protocol, stay calm, and failing.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, Ft. Myers Beach. Lemon Dive one. Thirty-foot, white cabin cruiser. We are rapidly taking on water through a hull breach. I have an active EPIRB beacon, and I cannot fix my location by GPS. Over.”

Laura closed her eyes and prayed and finally, through the static, she heard a woman’s voice. “Lemon Dive One, this is Coast Guard Station Ft. Myers Beach. Please stand by while we fix your EPIRB signal location. All traffic clear this channel immediately. Over.”

Laura clutched the mic and sobbed with relief.

Then she let out a shriek when the cabin hatch vibrated. Kern was up and moving and pissed off and apparently not dead yet. Not if he still had enough life left in him to hit the door.

“Ft. Myers, please hurry. There’s two persons on board, but I’ve got him locked in the cabin. He’s trying to kill me!”

* * *

They heard her distress call. Steve grabbed the boat keys and bolted for the back door, Rob and Thomas on his heels. Thomas barked orders at the deputies as he ran.

At least she was alive.

Steve jumped into the other boat while Rob and Thomas untied the lines and cast off before jumping down to join him on the deck. It was two hours before dark and the seas were building. If they couldn’t find her, they would lose her as the weather deteriorated and search choppers were grounded.

Thomas ordered Steve to ignore the no-wake signs and they flew down the channel through the deepening gloom toward the mouth of the bay.

“Rob, get the jackets,” Steve ordered as he pointed with one hand at the cabin. “It’s going to be rough out there.” He opened the electronics compartment while steering with one hand and got the GPS started.

Rob dug three life vests out, taking the wheel for Steve while he donned his. The smaller boat didn’t have as large a cabin as the cruiser, and with a narrower beam it wouldn’t fair nearly as well in the rough seas.

But the twin outboards had at least three times the speed of the slow and steady diesels on the larger boat.

Over the radio, the Coast Guard operator broke in. “Security, security, security. Hello all stations. This is the United States Coast Guard Station Ft. Myers Beach. We have a report of a vessel in immediate distress and taking on water with activated EPIRB beacon. The vessel is the Lemon Dive One, a thirty-foot white cabin cruiser, two persons on board. All vessels in the vicinity are asked to render assistance if possible…”

The message repeated, giving the lat-long coordinates again.

Rob scribbled them down and punched them into the GPS, swearing while it took its time refreshing.

Finally, he was able to plot the course. “Four miles out.”