THREE DAYS LATER PARKER SIPPED on bitter, burnt coffee and stared at the ocean as their boat slipped through the late afternoon toward the next fishing zone. He needed the jolt to get through the night, as it was likely to be a long one. The sea was as calm as he’d yet seen it. The wind was only a flutter, and the sun warm. Logan stood at the bow of the boat, binoculars out, his head and shoulders swiveling back and forth. Dawson and Fredricks sat at the stern in T-shirts, on the railing, their legs hanging over the edge of the boat. Parker wandered over to the center of the boat.
“You gonna join us, Puker?”
“I’m good here.” He shifted his weight.
“What? You have a problem with the ocean? Scared of it?” Dawson grinned. “I’ve noticed you avoid getting too close when you can.”
“Not scared of it. Respectful.”
“Heard it before a thousand times, Rook,” Dawson said. “That’s rookie-speak for ‘I can’t swim.’”
“Not true. I can swim.” Parker didn’t add barely. Yeah, he could get across a pool okay if he had to, and he didn’t mind lakes . . . as long as the water was clear and he was standing on a dock. But him and the ocean? Not friends. Ever since that day ages back when he almost died.
He’d been on the beach with his family and his aunt and uncle and their three sons.
Parker poked at a small sand castle he’d built as he listened to Joel and his cousins talk about exploring the tide pools.
“You guys ready?” Joel asked their three cousins.
“Just a sec. Let me finish my sandwich,” one of them said.
Parker scooted up next to his mom. “I want to go with them, Mom. Can I?”
“I dunno, Mom.” Joel squinted down the beach in the direction of a mound of rocky crags sticking out into the ocean. “It’s kind of treacherous, and I think Parker might be a little young to—”
“I won’t go anywhere except the safe spots. Promise!”
Parker’s dad rapped his beer can on the arm of his beach chair. “Let the kid go, both of you. It’ll give us a few moments of quiet here. And Joel will take care of him.”
Parker’s cousins scowled. Especially Tommy. A mean kid. Always had been.
“Do we have—”
“Yes, you do,” Tommy’s dad said. “So shut up and go.”
A few minutes later the five of them started down the beach. When the adults were out of earshot, Tommy stopped and jabbed his finger at Parker. “Speaking of shutting up, that’s what you’re going to do the whole time, you hear me?”
Joel stepped up beside Parker. “Lighten up, Tommy.”
“Yeah? That’s what you want me to do?”
“Yeah,” Joel said. He got in Tommy’s face even though their cousin outweighed Joel by thirty pounds. “That’s what I want you to do.”
“Fine, let’s just go.”
When they reached the tide pools they spread out, and for the first ten or fifteen minutes Parker had a blast finding starfish. But then Tommy motioned them over to something he’d found. “Come check this out, guys.”
It was a pool about five feet deep with a sandy bottom. Only a few mussels and sea anemones clung to the rocks.
“A hot tub!”
Tommy and his two younger brothers jumped in. Parker was about to join them when Tommy held up his hand. “No, squirt, only for us.”
“Come on!”
Parker glanced around, searching for Joel. His brother was at least 150 yards away, poking around a set of rocks to the south.
“No. Go find a clam to stick up your nose.”
“I’m coming in,” Parker said. “You can’t stop me.”
“Yeah, we can.” Tommy glared at him.
Parker just grinned and leaped into the water. The water was warmer than Parker expected, and he could tell the cannonball he’d done was a good one. Had to be a big splash. His tailbone thumped into the sand at the bottom of the tide pool. He pushed off the sand for the surface, but his head slammed into something. A hand. Holding him under.
Parker reached up and grabbed the hand, but it was too strong. He kicked at Tommy—it had to be Tommy—but even on the surface it wouldn’t have done any good. He opened his eyes and saw Tommy’s big stomach and tried to punch it, but again the water stopped his blows from having any effect.
He flailed, his hands breaking the surface of the water, and his lungs screamed for air. He dug his fingernails into Tommy’s arm, and Tommy shoved his head deeper into the water. Panic buried Parker, and with the last of his strength he yanked on Tommy’s arm, but it did nothing. Laughter filtered down through the water as his hands slipped from Tommy’s arm. Parker sucked in water and darkness started to seep in.
Then a muffled voice. “Hey! What are you doing!”
Joel.
An instant later Tommy’s hand was gone and a different hand grabbed hard on his forearm and yanked him up. He broke the surface and hacked out a mouthful of water, then another as he was lifted out of the tide pool and laid on the craggy surface of the rocks surrounding the water.
“You’re okay, you’re okay.”
Joel’s voice.
Parker continued to hack up water and gasp for air. The fire in his lungs was like nothing he’d ever known, and for a time he was convinced he would die. Tommy was punished severely, and Parker recovered physically by the end of the day, but emotionally he was still crippled and always would be.
“Rook? Hey, Rook, you listening to me?”
Parker shook himself from the memory and blinked at Dawson. “What?”
“I said, if you’re a swimmer, we’ll have to take a dip sometime before the season ends.”
“That’d be refreshing.”
“Yeah, sure would be. It’ll get up to at least fifty-four degrees this summer.” Dawson laughed. “You’d last a good twenty minutes or so before your muscles would start to freeze up and you take a slow, one-way trip to the bottom.” He laughed again.
Parker wandered back to Abraham, sat, and tried to choke down more of the ship’s coffee. “This isn’t coffee. It’s tar.”
“Seattle coffee snob, huh?”
Parker stared into his cup. “Nah, not me. But a friend of mine is. Grinds his coffee every morning, times how long the coffee stays in the water, the whole thing. I’ve had a few of his cups. Spoiled me, I suppose. I never knew coffee was a fruit till he told me. The way he makes his coffee you can taste it.”
Abraham gave Parker a light elbow. “You’re doing good. I don’t think Logan will sling you overboard. At least not today.”
“Wow. So nice to know that.”
Abraham grinned. I’m going to check in with Dawson in the wheelhouse.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You are?” Abraham stared at him like he’d just suggested breaking into Fort Knox.
“Yeah, is there a problem with that?”
“Your choice, Parker.”
Yeah, it was his choice. He liked Abraham, wanted to hang out with him a little longer. Plus, it was a chance to push a few of Logan’s buttons. See if his whole stay-out-of-the-wheelhouse thing was only for show.