St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

last check to life vests. Sometimes Lane was careless about his. He resented the confinement.
    The roar of the coming cataract was like a jet taking off.
    “You buckled up, Lane?” she shouted.
    He turned toward her, showing that he had pulled two of the three straps tight across his chest. The loose end of the third strap dangled free, eighteen inches of woven fabric ending with a tough plastic buckle.
    “Fix it,” she shouted, nodding toward the trailing strap.
    He looked down, saw the problem, and took one hand off the safety grip to tuck the buckle up out of the way. The strap was stiff, and stubborn, which was how it had worked free in the first place.
    The front of the raft plunged into the first hole in the water, then pitched up in the air like a rearing horse. Cold water sprayed Lane as the raft sideslipped. He gave a rebel yell of delight.
    Grinning, Jill worked the oars, port ahead, starboard reverse, snapping the raft back into the correct line. The shift in direction and momentum caught Lane off balance. He slammed forward, bounced off the round, slick flotation tube, and was mostly airborne when the second swell caught the raft.
    He shot over the side and into the roaring cataract.
    Faroe leaned out and grabbed, but Lane’s dark hair was snatched away from his grasp by the boiling current. The slick raft was faster than the leg-dragging swimmer.
    “Float with it!” Jill shouted to Lane. “Don’t fight it!”
    She marked the spot where she’d seen him go in, then leaned hard on both oars, abandoning the carnival ride for a back eddy on the right-hand shore. The raft shot forward, angled off the current, and slowed as she caught the eddy behind a big bolder. She pinned the raft’s nose against the back of the boulder and stared at the cataract upstream of them.
    “There!” Faroe said, pointing.
    Lane’s red life vest winked against the frothing water. He lifted his hand and waved.
    Jill let out a long breath.
    The river sucked him under again for another whitewashing.
    Faroe kicked off his sandals, ready to go over the side of the raft after his son.
    “No.” Jill’s command was sharp. “He’s doing fine. I don’t want two of you in there.”
    Lane bobbed back to the surface on an upwelling wave. He was moving swiftly with the current, bobbing merrily past them. Jill knew without looking that the other rafts would be standing by at the end of the rapids to pick him up.
    Suddenly Lane stopped like a bronc snubbed off on a corral post. The current kept going, which dragged him down below the water. He struggled back to the surface for a breath before water dragged him under again.
    And kept him there.
    That damn loose strap!
    But all Jill said aloud was “Take the oars.”
    She was in the river before Faroe could object.
    Even as she hit the water, she knew she had to get rid of her life vest. It would push her quickly down the rapids and past Lane before she could help him. As the current caught her, she unsnapped catches and let the river whip the vest away. Treading water, she gauged the wild current, the jutting boulders, the holes that could suck people down and drown them. She slanted her body and swam hard at an angle so that the rapids would carry her to the place downstream where Lane had disappeared.
    Lane flailed to the surface again, grabbing at air, getting water along with it, choking, disappearing again.
    Jill rolled onto her back and slipped the cord holding the knife over her head, gripping the knife tightly in her right hand. She’d get only one chance to grab Lane. If she missed, the river would push her past him like a rocket.
    She would probably survive.
    Lane wouldn’t.
    With the current boiling wildly around her, she hooked the teenager underneath one arm as she was swept by. She dragged him up and yelled, “Breathe, then dead man’s float!”
    He took a gasping breath, hesitated, then went limp, facedown in the river. The current stretched his body out in the water, showing Jill where he was anchored against the torrent. She clung to Lane with her legs like a lover, inching down his torso until her right arm found the strap. She thumbed the blade open, felt it lock in place, and slashed across the strap.
    They shot to the surface together. Lane flipped over onto his back, gasping and coughing. Jill kept her grip on him, letting his life vest keep both of them afloat. Suddenly she scissor-kicked hard, again and then again. Soon they were sliding into the back