The Maglite was in her pocket. Would Warren see it if she turned it on? Another bolt of lightning lit the tombed enclosure and she saw she had landed on the carcass of a headless shark. Ten or twelve feet long. Bile rose in her throat: the shark, the stench, Kopae listless. She spotted the ladder leading to the cabin. If Warren took his eyes off the swelling horizon, he would see light.
She decided to risk it.
The net—blue, she noted—hung from a giant hook. Kopae was on her stomach, hovering a foot above the floor, her head and feet jerked into an upward arch. Alexa directed the beam into Kopae’s closed eyes and was rewarded by them scrunching.
“I’ll get you down,” Alexa whispered, scuttling around the shark carcass to her side.
Kopae moaned. Her right fingers squeezed a handful of netting. Alexa thought of the fiber in Andy Gray’s fingernail. Then she saw blood. Dripping from Kopae’s head. She inhaled sharply. “You’ll be okay, Elyse.” She was thankful she remembered Kopae’s first name. “You did good. I’ll help you.”
But how? The hull lurched and creaked as she directed the beam at the ceiling. She stretched her arms high, stood on tiptoes, but the hook was out of reach. She remembered what the trawler net had looked like spread across Ed McAdam’s boat deck. Triangular. A funnel at one end, wide and open at the other. All three corners must be hooked. She searched the hold for a knife, opened a large cooler, the beam illuminating a giant shark fin. Alexa slammed it shut, gagged. She dragged the cooler under the hook. Standing on top, she could just touch it. She grabbed a handful of netting, pulling and jostling Kopae, but couldn’t get leverage. She stuffed the Maglite in her pocket and thrust up, trying to unhook the net. No luck. She grabbed another handful—its human cargo made it dead weight—and thrust again.
A thud made her stop.
Alexa fought to keep balance atop the cooler as Darla Jo heaved. The boat strained, the thrum of the engine changed. What was Warren doing?
When she tried again, thrust upward, part of the net swung loose, dumping Kopae to the floor in a yellow heap. Alexa unhooked the rest of the net, her arms full of it, and jumped down.
Kopae didn’t sit up. Alexa scrambled by her head, shining the light at Kopae’s eyes. They twitched but didn’t open. Blood came from a gash at the back of her skull, matting her dark hair, snaking down her yellow slicker. Worse, blood seeped from her right ear. There was nothing to staunch the bleeding. Alexa whipped off her poncho and pulled her jacket over her head, which tangled in the camera strap. Now she was trapped. She fought her way loose, the camera hitting her lip, and tied the jacket tightly around Kopae’s skull. She moaned, which Alexa took as a good sign. “Stay here,” she whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”
Alexa pulled her poncho back on; the dark color helped her blend. She gathered the netting, bunched it to her chest, and crept to the ladder. Her knee hit something, another jaw. She expected her knee to be bloodied, ripped. But the teeth didn’t pierce. Whale jaw.
Occam’s razor.
Two could play the netting game. She climbed silently up the ladder, toward dim light, hanging on when Darla Jo pitched.
She knew how seals felt, popping their heads above water to scout for danger. What lurked above? She couldn’t put it off. Kopae needed medical attention.
Her head eased past the last rung. Dammit. Warren wasn’t at the wheel, his back to her, like she envisioned. She periscoped her head around. The cabin door was wide open, the cabin empty. What if Warren had found the open deck hatch and jumped down with Kopae? Her ankle tingled, anticipating a grab. She quickly climbed out, dropped the netting in a heap, got to her hands and knees, and crawled to the radio mounted by the ship’s wheel. If Warren looked through the window, he might not see her. She grabbed the hand mike and pushed buttons. “Mayday. Mayday,” she whispered.
It was dead.
She pushed buttons on the mounted part, but a gun nestled in the console snatched her attention. An electric charge transferred to her hand as she lifted the Ruger, surprised by its lightness. Warren had Andy Gray’s gun. Her fingers gripped the handle as if she were a natural. When she felt her finger tighten at the trigger, she jerked. What if it was loaded and she shot herself? Or what if it wasn’t loaded? Warren would know and laugh if she threatened him with it.
She stuck the gun in her slicker pocket and returned to the heap of net. What was Warren doing? Who was steering the boat? The roar of waves and wind deadened sounds of approach. She searched frantically through the net for the open end and stood, pressed against the wall next to the door, the net stretched wide in her spread hands. Rain poured in curtain torrents, and when Warren burst in, Alexa threw the net over his whole body and jerked with full might.
The netted man fell forward as she ran backwards, outside, pulling the net tight. Warren bellowed like the sea lion, rose to his knees, twisted her way—hands clawing and flailing. “What the fuck?” he roared.
Alexa jerked again, and he fell into the door frame. She jerked, pulled, walked backwards, death grip on the straining fiber, three yards, five yards, dragging Warren in a thrashing heap, and tripped on the open hatch, tumbled toward the hole, landed on her knees. Warren lunged at her, the netting distorting his face into a hideous spider. Alexa sprang up, twirled, and snared as many diamond weaves as she could around the hook above the hatch.
“You again,” Warren yelled. “Get this goddamned…”
She lunged for the crank, turned as his webbed hand groped her arm.
Van Kees had said the net was as strong as steel. She cranked the handle a full turn, yanking Warren off his feet. Another crank and he flipped.
“Why did you kill Andy?” she screamed.
He thrust elbows against the weave, kicked, and heaved. “Get me out of here.”
Alexa braced against the pitching deck, pulled as hard as she could, turned the crank a full rotation. Warren hovered, upside down, his curls flattened, his body contorted and swinging with the swell of the waves and his crimped exertions.
“Tell me why you killed him.” She had a death grip on the crank, afraid if she let go, it would unreel, and Warren would flop into the hold with Kopae.
“Asshole Gray split the money for the jaws with me…” His voice was muffled as he kicked and jerked. “Then he didn’t want to play nice. Said no more. Threatened to report me. Like that fuckin’ cop. She’s chum, like you’ll be.”
Her muscles shook violently.
“Let me down,” he roared.
Thunder clapped. “What about Robert King?” she screamed. She couldn’t hold on much longer.
Warren gave a mighty heave, then settled. “He came onto the beach. Asked what I was doing. Took pictures of me slicing out the whale’s jaw. I hunted him down, took him out.” He thrashed and kicked. “I’ll hunt you down.”
An explosion of noise came from a giant black bird. The beam of a searchlight hit Alexa in the face. She let go of the crank and fell backwards.