"Carson!" she shouted, extending her arm toward him as she slid backward, toward the ocean.
"Jump!" he barked back. "Get clear of the lines before the boat pitches—"
A crack split the air as the mast careened out of control. The boat lurched to the side, catapulting Nikki airborne with only a few frozen seconds to gather her thoughts before...
Water gushed up her nose. Frigid and dark as she sank, not at all like the clear depths of a pool.
Up or down? Nikki couldn't determine which way since the bubbles swirled all around. All she'd learned in swimming classes said follow the bubbles but the underwater world churned and her senses shrieked conflicting messages.
She kicked. Against seaweed? No. Stronger. Slicing. Lines from the boat.
Ohmigod. Panic urged her to gasp, but she kept her lips pinched shut. She struggled to slide the metal lines—shrouds, Carson had called them—off her ankle and wrist. Shrouds? How horribly ominous that sounded.
And what an interesting word to tell her little student later. What an off-the-wall thought that stung her eyes with tears over the possibility she might not get to share in expanding his vocabulary any longer.
The watery world closed around her, wrapping like a blanket. Or a sail. The fabric sealed to her skin.
Her lungs burned, her skin numbing. Her brain even more so.
Panic gave way to terror that this might really be beyond her control. She could die.
How could she have been caught so unaware that she didn't notice the mast crashing toward her until too late? She'd been obsessed with the dream of Carson in the VOQ room the night Gary died.
Carson. Terror squeezed tighter. Where was he? If he'd been knocked unconscious, he could be drowning even now.
No. Hell no. She wouldn't let it happen.
She didn't care what he may have done the night Gary died. If Carson had been there, she was certain he didn't remember. . .none of which mattered if she couldn't find him now. She kicked against the restraints seeking to suck her deeper, ignoring the bite of metal through her skin.
The bubbles sparkled, brighter, her head lighter, her arms and legs sluggish even as she continued to fight. Not much time left. Now that she was seconds away from checking out, too, she realized that the image of Carson had come in a dream, not in a memory flash like the recollections she'd recorded in her journal. Her confused and terrified mind could well have been playing tricks on her.
Something bumped against her. The boat? A shark? She shivered even though she'd long gone beyond numb.
Light pierced her cocoon. Death? No. The sail parted, sliced open, Carson's form looming as he split the water with sluicing sweeps of his arms, a knife in his hand.
He was alive. Relief threatened to steal precious seconds. She had to help or he would die trying to save her.
Kicking, he plunged down, unwinding the line encircling her ankle while she loosened the snaking vise around her arm. Freedom.
He clamped her to his side, surging up. She blinked back unconsciousness, but couldn't escape the stab of guilt over even thinking he could have lied about the night Gary died. Carson may have kept the alcoholism a secret, but this man would never have let her hang for his crimes. That much, she knew with a certainty as strong as the muscled arm banded around her.
The world righted as her equilibrium returned, up, up, blasting through the surface by the wounded boat. The massive keel along the bottom had righted the craft, even if the mast stretched a good thirty feet or more along the water, lines and sails such a tangled mess she wondered how he'd found her, much less freed her.
His feet trod water, brushing her with vital reassurance. Still he held her. "Are you all right? The mast didn't hit you?"
"I'm fine." She gasped, lungs aching, her feet pumping now as well since she didn't have to worry about dragging him down. "Thank you. Ohmigod thank you. And are you okay?"
"Fine." He didn't look fine. In fact he looked really pissed, his eyes stormy below a purpling bruise on his head.
Well, she was petrified to her toes. Only an idiot wouldn't be. They were in near-freezing waters, and while there were boats in the distance, they needed to book-it over before somebody lost a foot—or worse—to exposure.
"Somebody's head's gonna roll for this." Anger simmering, Carson paced in a back office at Beachcombers, while Special Agent Reis jotted notes. "I'm thinking it's going to start with you soon, Reis, if you don't figure out who the hell's trying to kill Nikki before she remembers what happened."
The horror threatened to crash over him again as heavy as that boom. The mast giving way, tipping the boat, launching both of them into the water. Then watching Nikki sink in a tangle of shrouds and sail.
His boots pounded hardwood floors in the antebellum building, intense, louder.
"Major, I understand you're frustrated." The agent sat on the corner of a desk, working a piece of gum while he typed notes in his PDA. "A freezing dip in the ocean will ruin a good mood."