“He had a knife strapped to his leg,” Jo said.
“Yesterday’s news,” Lindstrom replied.
“We were hoping he’d kill you.”
“You were hoping we’d kill each other. Bad luck for you. Just a nick.”
“How will you explain it in the morning? You cut yourself shaving?”
“I’ll think of something,” Lindstrom said. “I always have.”
He held the gun in his right hand and the detonator in the other. Jo knew they’d reached the end. Would he shoot them first?
She didn’t wonder long. Nor did it ultimately matter.
Lindstrom stumbled suddenly down the steps. A look of astonishment stretched all the features of his face. He opened his mouth, and Jo thought he might speak, but all that came out was a brief, hard grunt. He dropped the gun and reached backward as if trying to grasp something behind him. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the cabin, then fell forward, facedown. In three places, the back of his shirt was stained with widening patterns of blood.
Cork teetered at the top of the cabin stairway. In his hand, he gripped the knife Bridger had used in his fight with Lindstrom. The blade glistened with Lindstrom’s blood from tip to hilt. The bow of the Anne Marie rose and dipped, pitching Cork down the steps into the cabin. He stumbled over Lindstrom’s prone form, bounced off the berth, and fell at LePere’s feet. He’d dropped the knife. Slowly, painfully, he reached out, took it again in his grasp, and lifted it toward LePere.
John LePere quickly turned himself around and ran the duct tape that bound his wrists along the sharp edge of the knife while Cork held it. He tore his hands free, took the blade from Cork, and cut the others loose.
Jo sat on the floor and cradled her husband’s head in her lap. “Stay with me, Cork.”
“Always,” he whispered.
LePere said, “I’m going topside. I’ll take us back in.”
He hadn’t gone a step when Grace Fitzgerald cried out, “No!” and reached toward Karl Lindstrom.
Jo saw why. She watched in horror what none of them was able to stop. Karl Lindstrom had turned his head toward his left hand, in which he still held the detonator. Before anyone could prevent him, he squeezed his fingers around the device. A muffled explosion followed, and the Anne Marie shivered as if she’d been kicked.
“You son of a bitch,” Grace yelled.
“I always was a bad loser,” Lindstrom murmured.
LePere danced around Lindstrom and hurried up to the deck. He came back a moment later, looking grim.
“He’s blown a hole in the stern. We’re taking on water.”
“What about the other boat?” Jo said.
LePere shook his head. “The blast blew the tow line free. The other boat’s gone. I can’t even see it.”
“Don’t you have life vests?” Grace asked.
“In the deckhouse,” LePere said. “Let’s clear this cabin. I have to get into that storage compartment. I keep an inflatable raft there. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
“Take Stevie up, Grace. I’ll help Cork.”
“You’re not strong enough,” LePere told her. “You get the raft. I’ll take your husband.” He lifted Cork in his arms and started up the steps behind the others.
Jo found the rolled, yellow rubber raft and two small oars where LePere had indicated. By the time she’d grabbed the items, water ran down the companionway and lay several inches deep in the cabin.
Lindstrom rolled to his back and said in a wet, bubbly voice, “Help me.”
“Ask God, not me.” Jo didn’t even pause as she stepped over him and headed topside.
Without power or guidance, the boat had turned broadside to the wind, and it tilted dangerously as it rode up the waves and rolled into the troughs. Jo struggled through the deckhouse toward the stern doorway, the shifting angle of the boat throwing her off balance at every step. LePere shouted into the radio mike at the helm station, “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is the Anne Marie. We have a damaged hull and are sinking fast.” He repeated the message several times, giving the coordinates, then abandoned the radio and helped Jo with the raft and oars. They skirted Bridger, who lay facedown in the water that sloshed in the deckhouse, two bloodstains merging across the back of his shirt.
Outside, the cockpit was awash with water calf deep. With both hands, Scott was holding tightly to the railing of the ladder that led up to the flying bridge. He wore an orange life vest that was too big for him. Beside Scott, Grace held herself to the ladder with one hand and held to Stevie with the other. Stevie, too, wore a big life vest. One more vest was draped across the ladder. Cork sat alone, propped against the side of the boat. Jo could see damage to the stern railing, and the list of the Anne Marie was becoming more obvious by the moment.
LePere cut the rope that held the raft in a roll, and he pulled the cord to open the air valve. The raft inflated quickly.
Jo saw immediately it was too small. “We won’t fit,” she screamed, beginning to lose control. She’d held herself together for so long that she felt utterly exhausted, ready to give in to panic.
“The two of you.” LePere pointed to Jo and Grace. “And the boys. You can fit.”
“I’m not leaving Cork.”
“He can’t help you.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Jo shouted at LePere. She looked toward her husband. He was flopping like a rag doll as the waves pitched the Anne Marie about. Even so, it was obvious that the shake of his head was intentional. He was telling Jo no.
She knelt beside him. “I can’t go without you.”
She had to lean very near to hear his answer.
“You have to,” he said.
“How can I leave you, Cork?”
“We’ll never leave each other.” He nodded toward where Stevie stood, held steady by Grace Fitzgerald. “Get our son home safely. Do that for me. Promise.”
Although rain ran in rivers down her face, it wasn’t the rain that made her eyes blur. “Cork-”
“No time. Promise,” he insisted.
She yielded. “I promise.”
“I love you,” he whispered against her cheek.
“I love you,” she whispered back. She couldn’t say good-bye, couldn’t manage any more words at all. She kissed him, kissed him just that once, then she turned away.
LePere held the third vest out to Grace and Jo. “It’s the last one I have. Who wears it?”
“You,” Grace said to him.
“It won’t do me any good. In this lake, I’d just freeze to death.”
“Then could you put it on my husband?” Jo asked LePere. “I don’t want to lose him forever.”
She looked to Grace, who seemed to understand her purpose. Bodies without life vests did not float in Lake Superior. The lake didn’t give up its dead. Grace nodded her assent.
“Into the raft,” LePere shouted. Then, “Wait.” He went into the deckhouse and came back with a small compass that he gave to Jo. “Hold a northwest heading, into the wind.”
Jo put her arms briefly around the man. “Thank you.”
“God be with you,” he said and pushed her toward the raft.
The stern, riding low in the water, was the easiest place from which to launch. LePere held the raft as steady as he could while Jo and the others got in. The rough seas made it difficult, but finally Grace was settled in back with one of the oars and Jo in front with the other. The two boys huddled in the middle, Scott with his arms around Stevie. LePere shoved them off.
They headed into a wind that threw the lake at them. Jo dug at the water with all her strength. They rode several feet up a swell, then dropped into the trough behind it. The black water broke over them with numbing cold, and it was clear to Jo that they were not much better off in the little yellow raft than they’d been on the foundering Anne Marie. Holding the compass near her face, she checked direction. She allowed herself one look back. She could barely see the lights of the boat. The mouth of darkness was already open, ready to swallow Cork forever. She turned her mind and her will to keeping her final promise to her husband.
