Chapter 1
Hezekiah Webster didn’t notice the first scream. He was too focused on the home inspector.
Hez and his former and future wife, Savannah, had a contract on a wonderfully eccentric house outside Nova Cambridge, complete with a little rooftop observatory she had loved since childhood. It was an easy house to love—until you saw the utility and maintenance bills. The windows alone probably added a thousand dollars to the annual electric bill. Though every window was a handcrafted unique work of art, the inspector pointed out that they were all single panes and a number were drafty.
Hez sighed and added another item to his long list of post-closing projects.
Savannah left Hez and the inspector and went to an enormous picture window with a panoramic vista of Mobile Bay from a hillside that sloped down to the water. In the distance the Kate Norris Bridge extended over the inlet to Weeks Bay. Hidden prisms in the window corners cast rainbows when the sun hit them just right.
Hez didn’t blame Savannah for preferring to savor the view and hunt rainbows. After the horrors she had endured over the past few months, she deserved it. So did their ten-year-oldnephew, Simon. He was out exploring the idiosyncratic landscaping outside. He had promptly discovered the semiartificial sea cave below the house, of course. His laughter and excited yells had been a welcome change from his withdrawn silence in the month since his mother, Savannah’s sister Jessica Legare, was murdered.
The second scream finally got Hez’s attention. Savannah pointed out the window. “Simon!”
Hez ran to the window. As Savannah rushed to the door, Hez saw Simon’s blond head bobbing in the water fifty yards offshore. He was trying to swim back to land, but a rip current pulled him farther into the bay with every second. Simon screamed again, a thin and desperate cry. Hez had heard it a minute ago, but he’d been distracted.
Just like when Ella died.
Hez sprinted out of the house, past Savannah and the inspector, an arthritic retired carpenter. This couldn’t happen. Not again. He had to save Simon. Hez’s running strides seemed to take an eternity to propel him down the sloping terrain to the pier.
He kicked off his shoes as he reached the boathouse at the end of the pier and hurled himself into the deadly current. He swam through the cold, cloudy water, trying to spot Simon between strokes. The shore receded rapidly behind him, but the distance between him and Simon barely seemed to shrink.
Simon had stopped screaming, which was a bad sign. He seemed to be struggling to keep his head above water. Exhaustion killed many riptide victims, and Hez feared it might be claiming his nephew. He had to reach the boy, but he could feelhis own strength starting to fail. He was still recovering from brain surgery and was nowhere near his normal fitness level.
Hez reached Simon at last. His nephew saw him and frantically grabbed for his arm. Hez pulled back. “Simon, listen to me!” He gasped for breath. “We have to get out of this current. Swim parallel to shore. I’ll help you.”
But Simon didn’t listen. Wide-eyed with terror, he flailed toward Hez. Simon went under for a second and came up coughing.
Hez tried to remember the lifeguard training he got during high school summers working at the local pool. He inhaled a lungful of air and ducked under the surface. He couldn’t see Simon in the murk, but he caught hold of one of his thrashing legs, spun him around, grabbed his skinny torso, and put him in a cross-chest carry. Hez surfaced and gulped in a fresh breath.
Simon stopped struggling now that his face was above water and he was in Hez’s grip, but the effort left Hez nearly spent. He caught a glimpse of shore, which was now just an emerald line on the horizon. They must be nearly a quarter mile out, and there was no way he had the strength to swim back.
He switched to a sidestroke, battling to get out of the rip current and keep both Simon and himself from slipping below the surface. Hez couldn’t keep it up much longer.
Something red and white flashed above the waves ahead of him. A buoy. He might be able to reach it. He forced aching muscles to keep moving, willing himself forward.
Spots clouded his vision and he fought for air.
The buoy was fifty yards away. Twenty. Ten.
His hand touched the buoy’s hard, smooth side. A singleeyebolt stuck out of the slick surface. With his last strength, Hez put Simon’s hand on it. The boy’s fingers instinctively closed into a tight grip.
Hez tried to grab the buoy, but his fingers found no purchase. A thrumming roar built in his ears and his vision narrowed to a tunnel. His hands slipped off the buoy and the water closed over his head.
Not again.Savannah clenched her hands together in front of her and barely breathed as she watched Simon clinging to the buoy bobbing in the whitecaps. She stood on the dock with a warm April breeze blowing over her skin. She’d seen Hez’s strained face a moment ago, but now she couldn’t spot him with the waves rolling toward the shore.
The home inspector patted her shoulder. “I called the Coast Guard,” he said in a wavering, gravelly voice. “They have a boat in the area.”
“I don’t see him,” she whispered. “Hez has to be all right. I can’t lose him.”
A speedboat plowed through the water toward the buoy and slowed as it approached. The vessel’s wake dislodged Simon’s grip, and he disappeared beneath the waves.
A rescue diver dove in after him and surfaced almost immediately with her nephew. He towed the boy to the boat and delivered him to other crew members, who hauled him into the boat.
She stepped to the very end of the dock. “Hez! Hez is underwater!” Her shout frightened away two gulls near her feet.
The rescuers were too far out to hear her over the boat’s motor, but she caught the sound of Simon’s hysterical voice screaming, “Uncle Hez! You have to get Uncle Hez!”
The rescue swimmer nodded and dove under the whitecaps again.
