Found at Sea - By Anne Marie Duquette Page 0,76

still damage, an embolus ripping apart vital heart and brain vessels, causing pain...or death.

Hang on, Aurora. We’ll get out of here yet. He linked his arm tightly through hers, and Neil did the same. The men started their ascent with Aurora, her damaged leg hanging limp in the water. When they reached the area for the first decompression stop, Jordan released her. She grabbed for his arm as he gestured that he was going down again.

Aurora shook her head violently. Jordan, no!

Jordan removed the slate attached to his belt. “2 check Flores. Got air 4 quick trip.”

Neil took the stylus and wrote, “He’s outta air & dead.”

Aurora snatched the stylus. “We’re losing light,” she added.

Jordan cleared the slate with a rub of his hand and wrote, “Murky below. Gonna check 4 sure.”

Aurora’s eyes opened wide, but she made no further protest. Jordan passed the stylus and board back to her as he prepared for another descent.

Aurora touched his arm. Wait. She quickly wrote, “Come back to me, OK?”

He pulled off one dive glove to stroke her white cheek, the only part of her not covered by her wet suit. “Take care of her, N,” he wrote on the board, then put on his glove and headed down once more into the kelp depths.

* * *

I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m doing this, Jordan thought as he descended. I can’t believe I’m going back for those killers. I must be insane.

But the thought of leaving anyone, even a deadly enemy, alone to drown went against everything he believed in, every single tradition of the sea.

Will Aurora die, too? The bends could kill. He hoped someone would be waiting for them when they surfaced. Please don’t let her die.

Quickly—more quickly than safely—he descended toward the massive debris that once was his family’s heritage, and now his family’s tragedy. By the beam of his dimming light, he located Flores half-buried in debris. A cursory check confirmed his suspicions.

A kinsman dead. He felt no satisfaction, only regret. So many Castillos dead in the seas. Such a waste. And this unknown Castillo... We could have shared. We could have been family.

Jordan hovered over the body of the other man, whose head had been crushed by the cannon barrel. Jordan noticed the hand tightly clutching something gold.

And now this fool, too. What good can your gold do you now?

He stretched out his hand for the gold, a long, jewel-studded chain that snagged and caught on the tanks. Jordan gently lifted the tanks to free it, then clenched his fists with excitement.

The tanks. The tanks! He reached for the dead man’s air gauge and nearly screamed his joy into his regulator. They were half-full. This man had died earlier than Flores did. He had air!

Jordan removed the tanks from the man’s back—the treasure that would allow Aurora a second decompression stop—and grasping them tightly, ascended, the gold necklace still tangled in the dive straps.

* * *

THE SUN HOVERED above the waterline as Jordan guided Aurora to the surface. He and Neil propelled her upward with strong legs. The cool breeze of a summer evening hit Aurora’s cheeks as her head broke through the water. The two men inflated their B.C.s from their tanks so they could float and pulled their masks down from their faces to rest around their necks. Neil quickly filled Aurora’s B.C. by mouth as Jordan supported her, arms around her waist, her back against his chest. The empty tanks were jettisoned to rest on the bottom of the ocean. Earlier, Jordan had safely tucked away the necklace in his B.C.’s Velcro pocket before he’d returned to the first decompression dive stop. It remained there throughout the second. There had been no chance for a third.

“You okay?” he asked Aurora. “You hurt anyplace else?”

“Just my ankle...” She grimaced.

“Any cramping, aching, signs of the bends?”

“Some. My arms...and my other leg. But it’s not too bad, thank goodness.”

Thank goodness is right. If he hadn’t gone down to see if those men were still alive... Jordan held on to her even more tightly. The bends could take hours to fully develop.

“I thought you were a fool for going back down,” Neil said bluntly. “Treasure-crazy. Glad I was wrong. How’d you know there was air left in his tanks?”

“I didn’t.”

Aurora’s eyes opened wide at that. “You...didn’t?”

“No. I told you, I wanted to make sure no one was trapped alive.”

“You’re crazy,” Neil said. “This whole setup is crazy.”

“It’s not over yet,” Jordan said. “Aurora, I know you’re hurting, but hang on.