It did, though her mind was still clouded as she sat up. Being upright expanded the ache, thrumming through her head, sending bolts of pain down her neck into her shoulders. Pearl dropped back on one hand, dazed.
Tristan was there, at the mast, the hood up on his raincoat. He was refitting the sails, preparing to change course. She lay on the deck of the cockpit, her bag tossed beside her. Spots of blood, still tacky, splattered the front of her sweatshirt. She reached up, found the throbbing, matted place where her head had connected with the shower stall. He must’ve carried her here. She thought again of her bag, the only belonging she’d brought on board. The only evidence. It seemed so clear: she was about to go overboard. Unconscious.
Heart pounding, Pearl dropped into a crawl, leaving the cockpit and making her way, elbow by knee, along the deck. The storm had darkened the day almost to night, rain coming down at an angle. The deck was slippery; there wasn’t much to keep her from going over the edge. The metal railing had gaps wide enough for her body to easily slide through into the waves below, unseen, unheard. Lost.
She dropped onto her belly as she passed below where he worked at the mast, gritting her teeth as the nausea came back, the blurred vision. She didn’t dare think any further than rounding the curve to the pulpit, reaching it, clinging onto the railing there. There must be a lifeboat somewhere on board—in fact, she was almost sure she’d seen one, bright yellow, the inflatable kind that folded into a storage valise—but where it was or how she’d get to it now was beyond her.
She heard him move, the squeak of rubber soles on the deck. Pearl lay her head down, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for him to say he could see her. Nothing. He must be on his way back to the cockpit. He’d realize she was missing in a second. She crawled on, finally reaching the bow and clinging to the railing, spray striking her face.
“Pearl.” His call carried on the wind. “There’s nowhere to go. Come back.” A pause. “You know I’ll find you.”
She stayed low, as far below his line of sight from the stern as she could get, wriggling her legs out through the railing so the top of her head didn’t clear the cabin housing. The edge of the deck pressed into her solar plexus, and she struggled to hold on and keep her center of gravity balanced.
Cold spray soaked her legs. Her arms shook. She tried to hear his approach, but it was lost in the sound of waves. The boat pitched and yawed, rolling her to the side, and she clenched her teeth against a scream, finally dragging herself back up with her arm strength alone. Forehead pressed to the deck, she closed her eyes, waiting for discovery.
The next sound was one that she felt more than heard, a slight vibration up through the deck. Footsteps on the cabin stairs. He’d gone below to search. He must’ve looked down both sides of the deck and hadn’t seen her.
Pearl crawled the rest of the way to her feet, catching a glimpse of the ocean below, terrifying in a way it had never been before, sharkskin gray and merciless. There was almost nowhere to hide in the cabin; he’d be back in a moment. She rounded the bow, searching the horizon for other boats, a sign of land. Nothing but fog and rain. Who knew how far out they were now?
She kicked something—the bottle of detailer. Tristan had left his stuff out, the dry bag with deck gear, some extra pins, compound pads.
When he came out of the cabin and walked around the awning, she was waiting for him by the mast. Trembling, drenched, rain dripping from her nose and chin. His face was mostly hidden by the hood, his hair clinging damply to the lining. He watched her, holding utterly still.
“Did you bring the gun?” She had to raise her voice over the falling rain.
“I don’t need the gun.”
He stepped toward her. She had to force herself to hold her ground. “Tristan. Don’t do this.”
“Nobody knows we came out here together. Nobody even knows you were looking for me earlier, do they? There was nobody for you to tell.” Another step. “That’s what I mean when I say I’m glad it was you who found out. We’re alone. Both of us. You understand it.”
“I’ll never understand what you did.”
He paused, gave the faintest gesture of dismissal, and came at her.
She dropped to her knees, grabbing the tool she’d taken from his bag and laid on the deck behind her—hydraulic rigging cutters. He grabbed her, and she lashed back with the cutters, off balance, catching him in the kneecap. He staggered with a muffled curse, nearly fell. She clambered to the preventer line, opened the cutters, and sliced.
It didn’t take much; the tool was strong enough to cut through wire line. The preventer snapped. The boom swung across the deck, pulled by the gusting mainsail.
She scrambled back, cringed away, not watching to see where or how it struck him.
There was no cry, nothing to tell her what she’d see when she turned back. When she looked, Tristan was gone.
She sat where she was, staring at the place where he’d stood before the boom had caught him. Before he’d been swept over.
She went to the railing, seeing nothing below but the gray, hungry water, the surface alive with rain. She stared until her eyes burned, until she imagined a hundred shadowy shapes reaching from the waves, but nothing emerged. He might have been hit in the head. Unconscious now, sinking.
She untied the life ring and tossed it, watching it wash away in the Cassidy Claire’s wake.
Shaking, Pearl went to the cockpit, never taking her eye from the loose boom, which hovered toward starboard with the pull of the mainsail, bouncing ever so slightly, ready to sweep back.
The VHF marine radio was mounted on the wall in the cabin, the LCD screen glowing orange, full of readouts she didn’t understand. She knew enough to flip down the red cover over the distress button and hit it, to press the channel sixteen button for hailing another vessel, to pick up the receiver and hold down the button. “Hello?” Her head was splitting; she rubbed her eyes, trying to remember Dad on the little radio in the Cat. Pull it together, for God’s sake. Talk like a sailor. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Cassidy Claire. I’m alone. I need help. I’m hurt . . . I was attacked. The preventer line is cut.” She swallowed hard. “One man overboard. Send the coast guard. Over.”
Static, hissing. In time, a voice came back: “Cassidy Claire, Cassidy Claire, Cassidy Claire, this is the Tenney’s Harbor marina. Coast guard dispatched. Switch and listen channel sixty-six, over.”
“Switching channel sixty-six, over.”
The conversation went on for a few more minutes—they asked for the color of the boat hull and cabin housing, recommended she put a compress against her head and wait until help arrived.
“No. I’m going to try turning her around. Over.”
She didn’t wait for a response to that. Back up to the cockpit, then the mast, where clouds moved overhead in a brooding formation. She gripped the lines, always watching the boom, ready to dodge it if necessary. She could tack on her own, follow the starboard pull and see if she could execute a gradual turn, even with this much resistance. If she couldn’t, the GPS in the radio was transmitting her exact location to the rescue authorities. They’d find her, sooner or later.
Once she’d done what she could with the sails, Pearl took the helm, gripping the metal wheel in both hands as she motored toward rescue lights, and people, and home.
Twenty-Five
PEARL WASN’T THE only person on North Beach. The swimmers were some distance away, granting her privacy as she walked down the shore to the waterline with a box in her hand.