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It was a short drive to the pier. Then the four boarded the search boat and John handed them all life vests.
The captain of the search boat said, “Sheriff, we have word that a fishing trawler is missing from Rogue Cove.”
“When?”
“They don’t know. Hours up to two days. They had it in for repairs and no one noticed it was gone until the bulletin went out about the missing woman.”
“GPS?”
“Not working.”
“Shit,” John muttered. “Description?”
“Small shrimp trawler, thirty-six feet. We’ve put the description and numbers out.”
“Good. Go.”
They headed straight for San Juan Park, the place Cal thought Hazel had referenced. John got a report from a patrol on the shore that they couldn’t see a vessel from their vantage point.
The sheriff’s department had ordered all civilian vessels on the west side of the island to immediately dock. The navigator of the search boat was focused on radar, and the pilot knew the area well.
The sun was rapidly setting, but the clouds blocked much of the light. In an hour, it would be below the horizon and near dark. Visibility was already difficult with the reflection and angle of the sun on the water. But the biggest problem was the gusts of wind coming from the northwest. They had a search plane out, but if the wind kept up, they would have to turn back.
Twenty minutes into the search, south of the county park and marine preserve, the navigator said, “I might have something.” The pilot adjusted his course.
A few minutes later, they came up to a trawler that matched the description of the stolen boat. It had a wide flat deck with railings, and a cabin that appeared closed and dark. The waves seemed to be increasing in size as Kara watched them hit against the boat.
“It’s anchored, sir,” the pilot said to Matt. “We can’t get any closer. There are rocks all over this area. It’s well mapped here. The only way that boat could be out there is if it was anchored during high tide.”
“Are we at low tide?” Michael asked.
“Yes, sir. The tide’s coming back in, but there’s also a storm in the north that’s bringing these winds. We’re not going to see much rain, but we’re going to get some of the impact and strong winds. We’d have to wait about three hours before I can safely navigate to the boat.”
The trawler they believed Jamie was on was two hundred yards from where the pilot had stopped the search boat. Michael took off his clothes and pulled out a wet suit from his bag.
“Prepared,” Kara said with a half smile.
“Always. Can we take the lifeboat?” Michael jerked his finger to the small orange motorized boat attached to the side of the larger search boat.
The pilot looked at the sheriff. “The water is only going to get choppier. I can’t advise this.”
“It’s your call,” John told Michael.
“Kara, Matt—I need both of you,” Michael said. “Matt, you stay on the lifeboat. Bring Kara and me all the way to the deck. Then you move out, twenty, thirty feet. Circle the area and wait for my signal to come back and get us.”
“This is too dangerous, Michael,” Matt said.
Michael pulled out one of the coolest toys the FBI had, Kara thought. A military-grade heat sensor, the most sophisticated she had seen. He turned it on, adjusted the settings, and in thirty seconds, he said, “Jamie’s there, in the hull, and she’s generating heat, so she’s alive. I can’t face that little girl if I didn’t do everything I could to save her mother.”
“We don’t have time to debate this,” Kara said. “Let’s go.”
John said, “I have the Coast Guard coming in. They have a cutter about twenty-five minutes out.”
“That bitch set a motion-triggered bomb that killed nine people,” Michael said. “We don’t know why this one hasn’t gone off, but it could go off in one minute or never. It could be set on a timer. But Marcy didn’t just leave Jamie Finch out here for us to find. She left her here to die. Arguing isn’t going to save her.”
“My life, my choice,” Kara said to Matt.
“Shit,” Matt muttered. “Neither of you had better die on me.”
