protected Sylvie Masters from the biting cold waters of the channel that carved its way through the Alaska Panhandle.
Breathe too fast, you could die. Hold your breath, you could die. Stay too long, you could die. Ascend too fast, tiny little bubbles of nitrogen on a death mission enter your bloodstream.
Her mother’s words, an effort to dissuade her from her love of scuba diving, gripped her mind as she searched for the missing plane in the depths. Her mother had worried about Sylvie’s diving, but in turn, Sylvie had reminded her that famous undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau had lived to be eighty-seven, his death unrelated to his underwater endeavors, and his sons were still alive except the one who died in a plane crash—a seaplane, no less!
Sylvie never imagined her words would be so prophetic. Never imagined that horrible phone call two months earlier, telling her that a seaplane with her mother on board had disappeared without a trace, and that her mother was missing and presumed dead.
A sea lion glided past, much too close for comfort, and Sylvie exhaled sharply, her pulse accelerating. The enormity of the creature this close left her in awe. The large mammal, intent on a search of his own, swam away, putting a comfortable distance between them.
Slowing her breathing, she flutter-kicked and moved on. The glint of painted metal, something completely unnatural to the environment, caught her attention. A wing thrusting from the sandy bottom? The final resting place for a plane and passengers?
Her heart jumped, taking her breathing with it. Not good. At two atmospheres, or forty feet, this was a simple recreational dive. But she still needed to maintain slow, steady breaths. Two cardinal rules: never overbreathe and never hold your breath.
Inhale...
Exhale...
Her body was like a carbonated drink. The deeper the dive, the harder the shake. She only had to remember to open the bottle slowly, ascend at the proper rate with the right stops and then, upon surfacing, her body wouldn’t explode with nitrogen bubbles like a shaken can of soda opened too quickly. She wouldn’t get decompression sickness.
The bends.
As an instructor for a diving school in Seattle, and a volunteer member of a local dive rescue organization, Sylvie had ample experience and was trained to solo dive. Good thing, too. Chelsey, a friend at the school, had planned to come with her, but Chelsey’s sister was seriously injured in a car wreck the day before they were to leave, and she needed to be at her sister’s side. Sylvie didn’t blame her for that, but neither would she wait until Chelsey could join her for yet another search for her mother’s missing plane.
She’d already taken the vacation time. It was late September, and the water would soon get colder with winter. It was now or never. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to drag anyone else with her on what could be a morbid discovery.
Six weeks ago the powers-that-be had given up on ever finding the plane, but Sylvie would never stop.
She pushed her thoughts back to the present and her task. More fish darted past, drawing her gaze from the metal for only a moment. She loved the water and all its inhabitants. Her mother had always told her she should have been born a dolphin or a whale, some sort of sea mammal. Just give Sylvie the ocean any day as long as she didn’t have to fly.
Because the cold water was clearer, she could see much farther than on a warm-water dive. She spotted the remnants of an old shipwreck, which had created an artificial reef for cold-water sea creatures. Brightly colored starfish and anemones in every shade of pink and green mesmerized her, reminding her of everything she loved about diving.
Except she wasn’t here to enjoy the scenery this time.
She was on a mission and had been for the past several days. And she’d found nothing, seen nothing, until now. In the distance, she could still see the glint of metal, and needed to keep her focus on that or she might lose it.
Excitement and dread swirled together and gurgled up in her stomach, much like the bubbles escaping from her regulator and swirling around her head on their way to the water’s surface. She kicked her fins furiously, hoping to find what she was looking for. When a shadow moved over her from above, she noted another boat on the water coming or going, crossing over her despite her diver down flag, but she kept going.
Something grabbed her fin and tugged.
Sylvie turned around and faced another diver, who wielded a glinting diver’s knife and lunged. Her mind seized up. Survival instincts kicked in. He could fatally wound her, or go for her hose, hold her down and drown her. Kill her a million different ways. She turned and tried to swim away.
But he caught her fin again.
Sylvie faced her attacker. Murderous dark eyes stared back at her from behind a diver’s mask. She couldn’t swim her way out of this. She’d have to fight her way free. She struggled but he was physically stronger.
She’d have to be smarter. She could hold her breath longer than most, though holding her breath could kill her, too.
Help me, Lord!
His knife glinted in the water. Sylvie kicked and thrashed to get away, bumping up against sharp coral that ripped a hole in her dry suit and a gash in her back. Frigid water rushed through the hole in the suit. She ignored the shock of cold biting her skin and the salty sting of her wound.
The crazed diver whipped the knife around and sliced through her regulator hose.
Sylvie flailed and swam for the surface, but he dragged her back.
This couldn’t be happening.
Who was this man? What did he want? The next few moments could be her last. Sylvie fought, but fisted against water, flailed and then...relaxed.
Dead.
The man released his hold on her.
Now.
Sylvie yanked the hose from his tanks. While he struggled with his own breathing apparatus, she ditched her weight belt and thrust her way to the surface. She released air from her lungs with a scream and tried to ascend at a controlled pace, which would also expand the air in her lungs as she released it instead of having them pop like balloons. If this worked, she wouldn’t be unconscious by the time she reached the surface.
He wouldn’t be fooled twice.
When Sylvie breached the water, she dragged in a long breath. A boat rested a few hundred yards from her, but it wasn’t her boat. Treading water, she searched the area. Her boat was gone. Panic rose like a fury in her throat, and she stifled the frustrated scream that would surely alert whoever was left on the boat, waiting for the diver who’d come to kill her.
She had to hurry. He’d be up and after her soon enough. She’d only delayed him long enough to make a temporary escape.
But where should she hide? In this part of Alaska, she was surrounded by islands and trees, and trees and islands, and oh yeah, rain. A slow drizzle started up—of course—pock-marking the water around her. With no other choice, she headed to the scrap of land that barely passed for an island.
Could she make it there before the boat ran her down or the diver caught up to her?
* * *
Will Pierson couldn’t imagine living any other way. He was an eagle soaring over the awe-inspiring landscape of southeast Alaska. Okay, so he wasn’t an eagle. He was a simple bush pilot sitting in a tin can, bouncing and twisting and riding the rough air to deliver packages or people to the Alaskan bush.
And today, while he did his job, he searched for his mother’s plane like he’d done every day since she’d crashed.
He flew low, swooping over a forgotten part of God’s green earth, waters of the channel shimmering in the cold morning sun, what there was of it. His Champ 7GC glided over green and misty islands and jaw-dropping fjords. He often looked down to see the wildlife, maybe a few off-grid pioneer-types, sometimes bear or elk.
As he