Death Echo

fenders into another area and hanging them out of the way by their own lines.
    Mac had handled a lot of fenders. He knew that they were heavier than they looked, especially when you were holding them at arm’s length half the time. It would have been easier if there had been fender holders on the rails, but there weren’t.
    Emma had caught on fast to the role of first mate. She didn’t question why he wanted the deck clear of lines and fenders now and not on the way to Canada, or why he did things one way and not another. When she’d said that he was the boss on the water, she’d meant it.
    Mac saw the blinking yellow channel light that warned of a float-plane coming in or taking off. He stepped out long enough to get a visual, then went back into the cabin.
    Emma looked up when the roar of a small plane drowned out everything else. She could see the pilot as he thundered by, floats barely forty feet overhead.
    Another plane came a minute behind the first. Since she knew what the sound was now, she ignored it and continued wrestling with cold fenders and cranky lines. As she did, she tried to imagine what it would be like doing the job on a heaving deck in a sleet storm.
    I’ll pass, thanks.
    She made a mental note to ask Mac if sleet was in their immediate future. She didn’t think her deck shoes were up to that kind of traction.
    By the time Emma was finished with first-mate duties, she was ready to add layers to her eye-candy outfit. She went into the salon, hurried past the pilot station, and ducked below to the master stateroom with its big bed, closet, and drawers, all built into the hull. She could walk around three sides of the bed, which Mac had assured her was a real luxury. When she thought about making a bed with only one open side, she had to agree.
    The clothes she’d brought in her duffel didn’t fill up a tenth of the space allotted to the “first mate.” She swapped shorts, boat sandals, and crop top for jeans, a T-shirt, and boat shoes with socks. She yanked a black sweater over her head, pulled her hair out from under the collar, put her cell phone on her belt, and called it good.
    When she climbed the short stairway up into the galley, Mac was watching the electronic chart with unusual attention. She looked out the window and saw why. The big harbor had vanished. There was a tiny island off their right— starboard —side that looked close enough to touch. The miniature marina on the port side wasn’t nearly as close.
    Instead of asking why they were scraping an islet when there was plenty of water on the other side, she studied the chart and their projected course.
    â€œYikes,” she said.
    â€œYeah, it’s a narrow channel out of the north end of the harbor, but it saves time and dodging ferries coming in from the strait.”
    Silently she looked through the windows, comparing the electronic chart to what she could see. Nearby, just off the bow, a bright buoy swung in the current at the end of its anchor chain.
    â€œWhat’s that?” she asked. “A weird channel marker?”
    Mac punched a button, zooming in on the chart symbol for the buoy.
    She leaned in to look at the chart, then looked outside, and listened to Mac. She could learn from books, but she’d discovered long ago that she was what was called a “directed” learner—if she experienced it physically as well as intellectually, she learned much faster.
    â€œThat marks Oregon Rock,” he said. “At low tide, it’s only a few feet below the water, right at the entrance to the Nanaimo Yacht Club,” he said. “There’s another rock forty yards north. I could run us over it—”
    â€œNo thanks,” she cut in.
    â€œâ€”but I’d like to stay afloat.”
    â€œGood plan.”
    On the islet that crowded the narrow channel, trees bent to the wind. Watercraft of all sizes poured into the far end of the channel, chased off the strait by the growing wind. She stood on tiptoe, peered into the water, and saw a shadow beneath the surface. The buoy was connected to it by a slimy green chain.
    â€œI prefer deeper water,” she said, measuring the size and closeness of the hazard. “And plenty of it.”
    Mac’s smile flashed beneath his short beard. “I hear you.”
    â€œYou’d think an ohmygod-rock like that one would be marked with bells, whistles, bonfires, and brass bands,”