The Edge of the Water

  • • •

  JENN FOLLOWED ANNIE back to the trailer. Something new had been added to the overall clutter of Annie’s possessions. On the table a map of the island was spread out. Next to it was a chart of the kind that boaters used. Both of them bore a large red X.

  Annie came to Jenn’s side and joined her in looking at the map and the chart. She said, “Chad found Eddie’s boat.”

  “You guys are going after Nera,” Jenn said.

  “We’re going after the boat first. I want my rent money back from Eddie Beddoe.”

  “What’re you planning to do? Bring the boat up? How?”

  “I’m not planning to do anything but take some pictures of it to prove it’s there. Eddie Beddoe said find it, not bring it up. He better not change his part of the deal now.”

  “And then what? How’re you getting Nera?”

  Annie glanced at her. “Chad said he’d help.”

  Jenn said, “Oh,” and she knew how she sounded. “Chad,” she said. “Figures. With the way he looks at your butt and everything.”

  Annie said, “Are we back to that? Chad’s just a friend, Jenn. I’ve got lots of friends. I’ve already said: He’s yours if you want him.”

  “I don’t want him.”

  “Whatever,” Annie said. “Look. I have to move this project forward. There’s a lot here on the line for me. I need the information that the seal can give me, Chad can help me get it, I can pay him for his help, and that’s the end of the story. I wanted you to be the one, but—”

  “The one what?”

  “The one to help me underwater. The one to help me get the DNA from Nera. But after last time . . . I mean, it’s pretty clear you hate the whole idea of diving, and I didn’t want to press you about it.”

  “What if I want to?” Jenn asked.

  “Want to what? To dive?” Annie shook her head. “You weren’t exactly taking to it like a duck to water, were you?”

  “Hey, I just freaked. She came at me, I got surprised by her, and I freaked. It happened and it’s over and I won’t freak again.”

  Annie considered this. She ran a hand through her bright red hair. She said, “You’d have to do the final dive, the checkout dive.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it. I want to help.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  Annie stood there for a moment. She stared at Jenn, as if studying her. Then she said “Okay, then,” and she raised her hand and brushed her fingers along Jenn’s cheek. It was the sort of fond gesture a mother makes to her child, and Jenn wasn’t a child, so she jerked away. She said, “I’m not—”

  Annie dropped her hand. She said, “Sorry. Sorry. My mistake, okay? It didn’t mean . . .” Her voice drifted off.

  “What? Mean what?”

  “Anything. Nothing.” Annie reached for the map and folded it. She did the same with the chart before she spoke again. She said, “I’ll make the arrangements with Chad for the checkout dive, then. I’ll tell him you’re going to be helping me with Nera.”

  “Chad’s not going to like it,” Jenn said.

  “I can handle Chad.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  They sat in Chad’s boat, bobbing on the water not far from Sandy Point. All four of them were wearing dry suits. Jenn and Becca would be going through the paces of their check-out dive with Chad Pederson while below them in the water at fifty-five feet, Annie Taylor would be taking the pictures to prove to Eddie Beddoe that she and Chad had found his boat.

  “Everyone on the same page with this?” Chad asked them.

  Silence among them was enough to imply agreement. Jenn took note of the fact that the FatBroad was watching Chad more closely than normal and doing the same to Annie Taylor. Her eyebrows were drawn together tightly, and Jenn figured she was hot for Chad and trying to work out whether he and Annie were doing the deed. As if, she thought. Like Chad Pederson would choose Fattie while Annie Taylor was breathing nearby?

  Becca glanced in her direction, and Jenn could see she’d become red in the face. Who knew why but whatever had caused it, the FatBroad was quick enough to dismiss it. She started to get the rest of her equipment ready. She did the spit thing into her mask and rubbed it around. She looked perfectly calm. Of course, Jenn thought. Aside from hooking herself up to that pathetic Tod Schuman in Western Civ, there wasn’t anything on earth that Fattie didn’t seem to do well. Except holding on to Derric Mathieson.

  Jenn’s own nerves were strung out. If diving hadn’t been the only way she could get close to Nera, she would have said forget it. Scuba was definitely not her thing.

  “Ready, Jenn?” was an interruption to her thoughts. She roused herself and went through the same routine with the mask as the FatBroad had done. Annie was already in the water. Chad was still in the boat so he could assess their entry.

  Jenn had mastered that, at least. Soon enough they were all swimming in Saratoga Passage’s frigid water where, below her, she could see the flashes coming from Annie’s camera. She was already near Eddie’s boat. Jenn thought she could see its ghostly remains beneath them.

  The check-out dive took less time than she’d expected. Chad took her through her paces in the water, did the same for Fattie, and a smile around his regulator told her that both of them were getting everything right. After fifteen minutes of equipment loss, equipment regain, equipment malfunction, equipment sharing, and everything else, Chad gave them the A-OK sign.

  Then he pointed below where Annie’s camera was still going off. He pointed to them and then to himself. He cocked his head. The implication was easy to figure out. Since they were in the water with their instructor, they could go deeper. Did they want to see what Annie had found?

  Jenn didn’t, since who the hell cared about Eddie Beddoe’s dumb boat. But Becca nodded energetically, as if Eddie Beddoe’s boat had just turned into the Titanic. So Jenn thought, Whatever. It wouldn’t take long and the water was calm.

  They headed toward it. As they approached, the boat began to take shape. Mostly what remained was the hull, dragged to this place by the strong currents that moved the tides of Saratoga Passage. As they got closer, Jenn could see an enormous hole in the hull. It looked like something made by a torpedo, blasting through fiberglass and flooding everything below deck. The boat must have sunk in minutes. Eddie Beddoe was lucky that he hadn’t drowned.

  Jenn saw Annie fin to what remained of the bridge, the flashing from her camera reflecting off something on the bottom of the passage. It seemed odd to her that something at this depth would reflect light that way. She headed toward it . . . which was when a dark shadow passed over her.

  Jenn whirled to tell the FatBroad to back off, for God’s sake. She didn’t want her hovering so close, like someone expecting to be needed because she was such an expert at diving. But then she saw that Fattie was some distance from her and swimming at the exact same depth. Whatever had been swimming above her, then, had been something else.

  Suddenly below her Annie’s flash went crazy as she began shooting rapid-fire pictures. They were all out of synch with what they’d swum to on the bottom of the passage. Taking dozens of pictures of the old boat? Why?

  Less than thirty seconds later she knew. Something brushed against her and just for an instant she thought of the FatBroad. Then light flashed from Annie’s camera below, and in that light, Jenn saw the seal.

  For an instant Nera hung above her in the water, suspended in the passage like a buoy. But then everything happened at once. And everything began with Nera shooting toward her.

  One whip of her body and she was hurtling toward Jenn like a bullet, heading directly for Jenn’s face. Jenn thought, Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic, it’s a seal, but then the seal reached her, and things got worse.

  Her mask was ripped off. Her regulator was torn from her mouth. She felt it
yanked away from her so viciously that she thought she was going to lose teeth. Bubbles rose around her, rendering her blind. She broke for the surface, swimming for her life. Her lungs seemed about to burst. She pedaled frantically to get to air.

  Something grabbed onto her ankle. Nera! She tried to shake the seal off. She kicked as hard as she could and lost a fin. Her brain was focused only on air. She tried desperately to get away, but she was unable to do it. She knew she would drown.

  But then she felt the change. Two hands were encircling her ankle and jerking on it. She looked down and saw Fattie holding on to her and what she thought was, Damn SmartAss is trying to kill me! So she kicked harder, at Becca’s face. She made contact with the other girl’s mask and she knocked it off to float away.

  Still, the FatBroad held on. God, Jenn thought, she was as strong as a wrestler. The harder she fought to get away, the harder the other girl’s grip became. Then she removed her regulator from her mouth and waved it at Jenn. Jenn grabbed it, blew the water out, and began to breathe. Her panic waned and that was when she saw it.

  Blood was flowing from the other girl’s face.

  • • •

  WHEN THEY SURFACED, Chad and Annie were right behind them, Chad with their masks and Annie with the fin Jenn had lost. Becca was bleeding from a cut beneath her eye, and the blood rendered her face a mass of salt water tinted the color of beets.

  Chad took one look at her, swore, and hoisted himself into his boat. He grabbed her by the armpits and hoisted her on board as well. Jenn and Annie clambered after them.

  No one said anything at first, just terse words about how to take care of Becca. It wasn’t until the first aid kit had been brought up from below and the butterfly bandages had been applied that Chad said, “What the hell happened down there? Did that seal attack you? Are you okay? What happened?”

  All Jenn said was, “We better be certified.”

  “You’re certified, all right. You did really good. Fast thinking on Becca’s part. Good response with the buddy breathing on Jenn’s. Nice slow ascent despite what happened. Good going. Every move was right on target.”

  Jenn glanced at Becca. One word from her and she would be cooked. Chad’s declarations told her he didn’t have a single clue about what had happened because he hadn’t seen a thing. He was supposed to be responsible for them at depth, but he’d completely blown it. As for Annie, she hadn’t seen anything either, and even now, she was huddled over her camera, going through the pictures she’d taken below.

  Jenn said to Becca, “Thanks for the help. Sorry about . . .” She raised her eyebrows and inclined her head a bit to where their two masks lay on the deck.

  “No problem,” the FatBroad said in reply. “You were great. Weird about the masks, though, huh? What d’you think happened?”

  She was covering for Jenn and with absolutely no reason except that they’d been partners underwater. Jenn said, “I owe you. You came through great,” and both of them knew that Jenn meant more than she was saying and that Becca would keep her mouth closed about Jenn’s being spooked once again by Nera.

  • • •

  WORD GOT OUT. Chad assumed the seal had been involved in a bizarre attack on the girls. When they arrived back at Langley Marina, one of the many seal spotters was just docking his boat. He saw them all. He saw Becca’s bandages. A conversation occurred. And the seal spotters hotline became hot enough to burn.

  The result was yet another meeting. The crowd was so great that it had to be moved: from the gallery at South Whidbey Commons to the Methodist church on the corner of Third Street. The seal spotters had managed to rouse the passions of people on every side of any debate about the black seal. When Jenn and Annie arrived, most of those people were arguing.

  There were too many of them for the church’s sanctuary, so they’d moved to a meeting hall in the same building and rapidly set up chairs in a helter-skelter fashion. At the front of these chairs and behind the pulpit dragged in from the sanctuary for this precise purpose, Ivar Thorndyke was trying to settle everyone down while next to him Becca sat miserably on a chair as Exhibit A in the case Ivar was presenting against anyone going near that seal.

  She was completely hunched over, with a baseball cap on her head. She was wearing so much makeup that she looked like someone in disguise. Jenn gave her a glance and thought the obvious. Becca might have saved her from a watery grave, but someone needed to advise the ol’ FatBroad about all the goop she put on her face. Except, Jenn thought with an inward start, it wasn’t really quite fair to think of her as the FatBroad after what she’d done, was it? How bizarre, she concluded. All this time, she’d figured the other girl would be SmartAss FatBroad till the day she kicked off.

  Becca raised a hand in a hello. She gave a grimace at the display Ivar was making of her. Jenn gestured to her to come over and join herself and Annie as they scored two chairs. Becca mouthed, “I can’t,” and indicated Ivar. He apparently wanted her as a living illustration of the points he was making.

  He was at that moment saying, “Now how many times do I got to stress this, people? This is a wild animal we’ve been talking about, and the accent’s on wild. If people approach it, someone is going to get hurt. More hurt’n this girl got. You get it now? So topic one is how to keep people away. Newspaper articles aren’t doing it, obviously. We might have to go with signs on every public beach.”

  A woman cried out, “You ask me, that animal needs to be shot. It could be rabid.”

  To which someone else shouted, “Fish don’t get rabid.”

  Which encouraged a guffaw and the retort, “A seal’s not a fish, you fool.”

  Annie said to Jenn, “I have to explain. . . .” And she rose and called out over the din of voices, “Listen to me! It was just an accident. No one was hurt.”

  “Lookit that girl’s eye!”

  “Another inch and she woulda been blinded!”

  “The seal was just curious,” Annie insisted. “That’s the nature of seals. They’re playful and when—”

  “No way was this playful!”

  “You should’ve kept away,” Ivar said.

  “No one went near her deliberately, Mr. Thorndyke. We were below at a boat I’d been asked to find. Chad Pederson can confirm it. We were photographing it for the owner when the seal just appeared.”

  At this Eddie Beddoe surged to his feet. He’d been sitting by himself at the far side of the room. He shouted, “You’re trespassing! All of you! You keep away from that boat.”

  Jenn frowned at this one. What the heck . . . ? She’d been right there in his mechanic shop along with Annie when he’d challenged her to find the darn thing. And there was practically nothing of it left. What was he going on about?

  Chad shouted back that Eddie himself had wanted Annie Taylor to find the boat, so what was the problem? How was she supposed to do it if she didn’t find someone with a boat to help her?

  “I didn’t ask four goddamn people to find that boat,” Eddie countered, swinging around to find Chad in the crowd. “So you tell me just what the hell’s going on.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Annie insisted. “We found the boat together, we went down to get some pictures, the seal happened to be there, end of story.” She moved toward the front of the room, where Ivar had set up his PowerPoint presentation with the oft-seen pictures of the black seal a shifting image on the screen. She handed him her digital camera and said, “Will you . . . ? Please?” and he grumpily cooperated. Annie went through the pictures that soon appeared on the screen till she found the one that she was looking for. It was a close-up picture in which Nera stared into the camera, black as the night. Annie spoke to them all about how close Nera had been to her when she’d got this shot, how the seal hadn’t even seemed frightened by the camera, how whatever had happened under the water to Becca and Jenn was just a fluke and completely unlikely to happen a
gain.

  Discussion followed. Arguing followed. But Jenn studied the picture of Nera. She felt a shiver, and the hair on her arms rose. There was something behind the eyes of that seal. She didn’t know what it was, but she could have sworn it was there.

  She looked over at Becca who was, at that instant, turning toward her. Their gazes met and Becca nodded. She’d seen something too.

  Ivar was saying, “You’re telling us it’s not dangerous, Miss Taylor, but Becca here was in the water with Nera, and so was Jenn over there. So maybe we should hear from them before we make any decisions about anything.”

  “What we should be deciding—what you should be deciding—is just to leave her alone,” Annie said. “You wouldn’t be deciding something about an orca, would you? Why’re you deciding something about her?”

  “If we’re deciding anything,” Eddie Beddoe declared, “then we should decide to shoot the damn animal like she should’ve been shot years ago when she started hanging around.”

  “Would that be when she sank your boat, Eddie?” someone called out.

  General laughter ensued. Eddie turned crimson. He hiked up his jeans. It was a movement that prefaced his attack on someone, and Ivar Thorndyke interrupted him.

  He said, “Let’s hear from Becca and Jenn. They’re the ones who tangled most with the seal. Jenn? Come on up here. Tell us what happened.”

  Jenn was reluctant, but she moved to the front of the room. Becca, she saw, had that earphone of hers plugged into her ear. Whatever music she was listening to, Jenn thought, she wouldn’t have minded hearing it herself just now.

  Becca rose when Jenn joined her. She murmured, “Same story, right?” and Jenn murmured back, “Sounds good to me.” Since Chad and Annie were there, they could hardly tell another tale. She let Becca explain that they’d merely been spooked.

  Becca said, “We didn’t see her at first. She was down at the boat with Annie and—”