entirely, landing in the water. One of the girls in the boat reached for her while others shined a light, but it was useless. She was gone.
The guy with the gun pushed the last of the girls headfirst into the boat, and then he turned toward me. I knew this because I saw the thing in his hand flash red. Once, twice, then a continual red flash. I did not hear the report of the rifle over the roar of the wind, but in my experience, you never hear the bullets before they hit you. If you’re lucky, you hear them after.
I cut the wheel hard north and slammed the throttle to full, shooting me out of one wave trough and immediately into another. Cutting the wheel again hard left, I saw the transport vessel had throttled up and was moving up on plane. Attesting to the power of the engines. All I could see was the white foam of her wake painted against the darkness that had become the ocean.
Whoever had ended up in the water was certainly long gone, but judging by her mistimed landing, she was only a hundred yards or so from the next house. The wind and waves would push her directly into the pilings or the dock. Which would either snap her neck, causing her to drown, or spit her up on the floating dock.
I made one pass. Saw nothing. Then circled again. Still nothing. Gunner whined. The black boat was becoming a speck in the distance. I screamed at the dog. “You see her, boy?” I pointed to the dock, which was appearing and disappearing with every wave. On my third pass, Gunner stood on the console, bringing his eyes near shoulder level with me. As I turned to follow the boat, he barked. Then again. I didn’t know if he saw something or he was just angry at the storm, but since he was the smartest dog I’d ever met, I whipped the wheel 180 degrees and pushed the throttle to fifty percent.
A body lay on the dock.
Somehow either the current or a wave had spit her up on the floating dock. She’d wrapped herself in a mooring line and clung to a piling. When I approached, massive waves threatened to rip her from the dock’s surface. I knew I had one shot. Gauging the current, the wind, and the time between the waves, I rode down one wave, up another, and throttled up to almost ninety percent, shooting me nearly airborne onto the floating dock. The hull landed hard, and the solid surface of the dock listed the boat violently, nearly tossing me and Gunner overboard.
I saw the girl. Reached. But she wouldn’t let go of the piling. A wave crashed over the bow and caught the center console in the middle, catapulting Gone Fiction off the dock and back into open water.
The girl was weakening. She wouldn’t last another wave. I slammed the throttle forward, broke the bow through the next wave, rode the incoming wave up onto the floating dock, and banked the gunnel off the piling. The girl extended a hand, and I grabbed it as the next wave shot us off the dock and back out into the ocean.
Gunner had squatted below me. Whining. The girl flew across the space between us and I caught her with one arm while turning the wheel with the other. The wave landed over my shoulders and caught Gunner square in the chest, dragging him out from underneath me. I had one hand on the girl and one hand alternating between wheel and throttle as I watched the water drag him out the back of the boat. Water had filled the boat, and I’d lose the engine if I didn’t throttle up right now.
I screamed, “Gunner!” but there was no response.
He was gone.
With the girl latching on to me with a terrified death grip and another wave towering down on us, I swore, gave it all the throttle it could handle, and cursed myself for bringing him.
Chapter 33
We rode southwest. One minute passed. Then another. The water drained out the back as the engine steamed and smoked amid a deluge of salt water. I turned west-southwest and put the wind directly behind us, hoping to use the T-top as a sail. We picked up speed, banging from one wave crest to the next wave trough.
The loss of Gunner cut me deeply. I aimed my anger at the boat.