“The cops will absolutely want to talk to me. And you really think anyone’s going to even think about going in the water after what happened to Mr. Marshall?”
Mom moved to a bench under the sunshade and sat, leaning her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together. She sat there for a moment staring at her hands, gathering her thoughts. I wasn’t sure what about my question had her so stumped. It seemed simple enough to me. Everyone would want to go home.
“Tasia, do you remember what happened on the Spiegel Grove?”
I’d heard that story from you about a hundred times. But Mom kept going, like she does, not waiting for me to answer.
“Four divers went into the ship, and only one came out,” she said.
“Yeah, Dad said the Spiegel eats divers.”
Most kids get campfire stories about hitchhikers with hooks for hands—but you, your scary stories were never far from the ocean.
“How long do you think it took before people were diving in the Spiegel Grove again?” Mom asked.
I took a sip of water and thought. When our apartment manager lost her sister, she wore black armbands for a year. A friend of mine didn’t celebrate her January birthday because her brother had died in August. “I don’t know, three months?”
“A charter was out there the next day.” Her gaze went to the tarp under the sunshade. Most of the other divers were on the roof deck whispering in huddles, too freaked out to be any closer to a dead body. A few stood by the cooler, fishing through the ice for bottled water.
“Life just goes on, Tasia. After everything hits bottom, it just goes on.”
She looked away, but the pain I’d seen in her eyes told me we weren’t talking about Mr. Marshall anymore. And as I stood there on the boat, two feet away from the biggest mistake I’d ever made, I knew where I was going the minute I got to shore. To see you. If anyone could understand what I was feeling after killing another human being, it would be you. No offense.
The dark feeling that hit me when we first arrived at this spot in the ocean welled up again. I looked at the white buoy and the line leading down to the USS Andrews. “We should go now, Mom. Just leave. Together.”
And I told her. I did, Dad. I tried to stop everything before it could start. I told her about the weird phosphorescent glow I saw in the ship’s hallway, and the strange feeling. But somewhere in the middle of my explanation, her lips started to curve up into a smile.
“You had me worried there for a minute.”
“What?”
She put her hands on my shoulders. “You were narced, honey.”
“I wasn’t. Nitrogen narcosis makes you feel drunk. My head was clear.”
“You were narced.”
“I was thinking straight.”
“You went off by yourself to find him. Risk-taking—that’s part of it.”
Phil, who was fiddling with a regulator hose, chuckled. “First rapture of the deep. You’re a real diver now, girlie.”
Mom glared at him, and I hated Captain Dirtbag a little more than usual. “Stop calling me that,” I said.
“That’s what seventeen-year-old girls get called on my boat.”
“What are you gonna call me when I turn eighteen?”
Phil gave me an oily smile. “Fair game.”
I opened my mouth to tell him off, but Mom got there first, her face flushing. Phil waved her off and walked away like she couldn’t take a joke, but all I could think about was the rapture of the deep. Phil and Mom together, it was enough for me to doubt myself and what I thought I saw. But I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong below our charter.
“Let’s cancel everything and just leave.”
Mom stopped glaring at Phil, who’d plopped into the captain’s chair with his back to her. “No way. You’re getting on Matt’s charter. I do not want you talking to the cops.” Mom glanced at the two divers still eavesdropping at the cooler and switched to Greek. “Tasia, I could lose the business if the police find out someone underage was leading Marshall and Colette into the Andrews.”
“You want me to lie to the police?”
She paused, pressed her lips together as if biting back a sharp word. “No, you’re not going to talk to them at all. Your job is to take these ten divers—”
“Nine. Mr. Marshall is dead.”
“—to the Haystacks with Matt and show them a good time. Don’t tell Dad either when you see him on Saturday. He’ll think I’m heartless.”
“Imagine that.”
Mom drew back like I’d slapped her. “Tasia, that’s not fair.”
“Our divers all saw me lead Mr. Marshall inside the ship. Did you tell them what to say to the police too?”
She looked at the two divers at the water cooler and then glanced up at the roof where the others had gathered. “They’ll all be going back to their hotels and then flying home in a day or so. The police in the Keys are slow. People forget details over time.”
I wanted to remind her that they weren’t slow when they arrested you, but I kept my mouth shut. So I grabbed some equipment and started breaking it down, letting muscle memory take over. I disconnected a hose on a BC before I realized it was Mr. Marshall’s. I almost dropped it, and then turned it upside down instead. A trickle of the Atlantic came out. I wondered if there were bits of it in the water. The phosphorescence, bleeding all around the wreck, worming into the seals of the BC. And now pooling under my bare feet.
I told myself Mom was probably right about me being narced. None of what I saw was real. I stepped out of the puddle anyway.
Phil passed by me then, carelessly brushing the edge of the tarp. A corner flipped over to reveal a pale white hand, palm up. The glint of a wedding ring. Captain Phil glanced at me, and the oppressive wave pushed me under again, the same feeling I’d had down below while inside the ship compartment where I’d hid. His barbed stare slipped away and the feeling was gone.
A motor buzz sounded to the east. I would have to take over for Mom soon, as always, and lead a bunch of divers into the deep whether I wanted to or not. On autopilot, I reached into my dry bag and grabbed my phone to check the conditions over in the Haystacks. The rhinestone case I’d picked up for free at Goodwill sparkled in the sunlight. I powered her up and the screen came to life. Then my icons melted down the screen.
I shut it down, swearing, and powered it back up again. Awesome. My OS had picked today to crap out on me.
A vessel appeared on the horizon. Mom squinted into the sun, unwrapped a stick of spearmint gum. She handed it to me, and I waved it off. I knew she was trying to be nice, but I wasn’t in the mood to accept anything from her, even gum.
“Matt’s charter.” She nudged me until I met her gaze. “Don’t talk to anyone about what happened.” She broke eye contact and popped the gum into her mouth, although she grimaced as if it tasted bitter. “Let me handle everything.”
ENTRY 4
WHEN THE RUBY PELICAN finally arrived, the first thing that struck me was that it was bursting with teenagers. There were at least twenty of them on the boat, yelling and laughing, sprawled across a deck as long as a school bus. A gaggle of girls on the roof had hiked their T-shirts up under their bras and leaned back on the lounge chairs like reality TV stars, faces tilted to the sun. Reggae music blared from the speakers. I exchanged a horrified look with Mom.