"Yes, you did see that. It's real. Now I have to get us out of here. Dad will follow Ben, protect him, help him. We've got an island out beyond the bay, where they can get clothing and medical stuff and gear. Just sit. Don't think about it."
She didn't want to think about it. That part was easy. Except she couldn't not think about it. She was still shivering and having trouble with her breathing. Her fingers kept tap-dancing along the side of the gun.
"Can you do that?" The words just popped out, and she winced. She shouldn't have asked. Dangerous.
He worked controls, gear and throttle and wheel, she was starting to learn things, and the engine growled again and the boat changed from wallowing to purposeful as it cut through the waves. They headed away from land, toward a gap in the dark line of islands that showed the flat open horizon beyond.
"Yes."
She barely heard his voice over the engine and the thump of water against the hull. He sounded, what, ashamed? Afraid? Afraid of her?
"If you think you can stand up, I'll show you how to run this thing. It's easy. Easier than driving. Boats are simple. It's the ocean that's complicated."
Something different to think about. Something that didn't involve seals. And her knees worked, and she stood in front of him, inside his arms, human arms, strong arms that comforted, and he showed her the wheel and the compass and how to hold a course, varying equal amounts to either side so that the boat averaged a heading, slightly into the wind of where he wanted them to go.
Throttle was easy, just set it, you didn't have to hold it, gears were just forward-neutral-reverse. Radio, emergency channel, just push the switch and talk. Lights, he left those off. It was illegal but they didn't want anyone seeing the boat, the Maria. Depth sounder, radar screen, fuzzy green blotches of islands and coast, hard bright green pinpoints of a couple of other boats, he showed her the curving green line she should follow to find the harbor, some dark sections that looked clear but she shouldn't go through there because of rocks and shallow water.
She drove the boat. He watched. Her legs felt stronger, as if she didn't need the wheel in her hands to hold her up. They passed between two islands and headed out to sea, and darkness rose out of the east in front of them and over them.
"Okay, cut the throttle. Gear into neutral. I've got some cleanup to do." And they wallowed again, engine idling, drifting downwind in a gentle breeze that wouldn't bring them to anything for what looked like hours.
He pulled out a bucket on a rope, dipping up seawater and sluicing bloodstains from the deck, from the dinghy bobbing behind them. He reached over the stern and then over both sides of the bow, pulling off white vinyl sheets with name and port and registration numbers, climbed into the dinghy and did the same. He climbed up on the cabin roof and changed a pot buoy mounted there. Changed back all the things he'd changed after they left harbor. He grinned down at her.
"The name and numbers belong to a guy three harbors down the coast with a similar boat, who has a habit of setting traps in other people's water. If any nasty people ask questions about his boat seen off Pratts Neck, it serves him right."
He opened up his float bag and pulled out an aluminum case, it had to be the flint he'd gone in after. He sat and stared at it.
"You going to open that?"
He shuddered and shook his head. "No way. That's Pandora's box, Bluebeard's Closet." He shook his head again, and then nodded to himself. He set the case on the back of the boat, the transom, picked up his pistol, and fired three shots into the center of the case. It jerked with the impacts and fell overboard and he fished it up again and set it on the transom. He squatted and stared at it some more as if he expected it to twitch.
And then he took his gun, his float bag, guns and grenades from the dinghy, all the other stuff he'd just gathered, and pulled out a lump of some kind of mesh or netting, and spread it into a bag. He loaded everything into it. He picked up the case and stared at the paint where it had been sitting. Red stain. Blood, like he'd already washed away. He dipped the case overboard to rinse it and then added it to the pile of weapons. He slopped more seawater over the stain until the paint shone clean.
She wondered if she'd burned out some kind of circuit, that blood from a busted piece of stone didn't send her screaming. She just watched him.
He looked up at her. "I need that gun now. We're in a restricted area, a firing range, bombing range from World War II, live ammo — nobody goes diving, setting nets, or dragging for scallops. It's not even safe to anchor here. It's a perfect place to dump stuff you don't want found. All this goes overboard."
She froze. That would be a perfect place to dump a body. Weighted down.
Gary looked up from his work, saw her hesitation. "Family policy — any gun, any tool we take on a job, we destroy it. Goes for clothing, gloves, everything. Possible evidence. Cheaper that way. Lawyers cost too much."
Jane stared at him and scrunched back into her corner, braced against the roll of the deck, guarded from all sides,
