The 3rd Sister would still be around somewhere. Hawk and Holly were indifferent to comfort. Only a clear and present danger kept them out of the water. When clients paid the 3rd Sister for an adventure it was not unlike making a contract with the devil. There was almost no way out.

The Lorelei glided up parallel with the dock, and Ralph, green from head to foot in foul-weather gear, came out on deck. Lucas didn’t shut down the engines.

“How time flies when you’d rather be in bed,” Anna said as she handed her air tanks over the gunwale.

Ralph gave her a life vest and she fumbled at the side lacings. ISRO had purchased all Large and Extra Large in the expectation of a future filled with nothing but brawny, strapping rangers. Even having cinched it as tightly as it would go, Anna knew it would probably pop off if she were ever thrown unconscious into the lake.

Lucas motored slowly away from the dock, scrupulous as ever not to create a wake where it could damage another vessel. A crew cut and long brown hair were about all Anna could see of Frederick the Fed and Jo. Scotty and Jim hovered behind the two benches. Ralph stayed out in the rain with Anna. Lightly, he touched her elbow. “How are you doing?”

His kindness irritated because it reminded her of her fear. “Never better,” she retorted.

Ralph laughed. “Anna Pigeon: heart of gold, body of iron, nerves of steel.”

“Oh pshaw!” Anna pronounced all the letters: “puh-shaw.” Next to “damn” it was her sister Molly’s favorite word. It took the place of “expletive deleted.”

Ralph just laughed.

Anna pulled the drawstrings of her Gore-Tex hood close around her face and backed up against the cabin out of the wind. She could put off meeting Officer Stanton a few minutes longer and she preferred the fresh air to the self-inflating chatter Scotty would suffocate the cabin with, given such a prestigious audience.

Besides, she hoped the cold would drive Ralph inside. The last thing she wanted was someone to call her bluff. Two terrors battled for dominance in Anna’s belly: that she would dive and that she wouldn’t. The latter was worse. She was afraid Pilcher would offer her a way out and she would take it.

He leaned against the cabin next to her, the bulk of his body cutting the wind that curled around the side. Boyish brown curls escaped his hood, contrasting oddly with the broken nose and unsettlingly old eyes. Ralph Pilcher wasn’t a handsome man, but Anna guessed it had never stood in his way and she felt a sudden stab of pity for his wife. In sympathy with the unknown woman, she moved a couple inches away from his sheltering warmth.

“A few things,” Ralph said as the Lorelei motored out of Amygdaloid Channel onto the vast gray bosom of Lake Superior. “The superwoman act works well for you, Anna. Good cover. But you don’t need it on a dive. It’ll kill you on a dive. This is a team sport. I’ll be looking after you. Lucas will watch me. We’ll all keep an eye on Jim.”

Anna laughed. She was feeling better. She took back her two inches. The hell with Mrs. Pilcher.

Ralph relaxed back against the cabin wall and for a moment they stood in companionable silence watching the wake fold in on itself and disappear.

“Ever do a body recovery?” Ralph asked after a while.

“A few. Always on dry ground.”

“In Superior they’re not too bad. No smell. Usually we’d take the mask off. If they were diving-breathing compressed air-the change in pressure makes fluids froth out the nose and mouth. The family doesn’t need to see that.”

Denny’s face would be clean when Jo saw him again. No mask. No tanks. No suit. Did Jo know that? Would she be surprised? Could she feign surprise if she was not? Jo had tremendous strength for so small a woman. Years of tramping through forests and swamps with her laboratory on her back had seen to that. She was-or had been-a diver, Anna thought, remembering the distinctive scars on her arms. And she was a determined woman. She had determined to marry Denny Castle and against all odds had finally succeeded. Was removing Donna Butkus a prerequisite for success? Murdering Denny the price of a long madness? Or killing them both revenge for a life squandered on an unrequited love?

The tenor of the engines changed as Lucas throttled down. They were nearing the Kamloops‘ marker buoy. Anna shook her head to clear it of the fog of unanswered questions. First she would dive, just dive.

The Lorelei glided gently up to the buoy and stopped. Anna took an instant away from fretting and dedicated it to admiration only slightly sullied by envy: Lucas Vega could sure drive a boat.

The first man out of the cabin was Frederick Stanton. The crew cut had been an optical illusion. His hair was cut close only in the back and over the ears. He wore the top long. When Anna was in seventh grade that configuration had indicated a fresh-and cheap-haircut. On Stanton it smacked of a mild punk rebellion in white socks and hard leather shoes.

Warmed by the possibility that she’d been wrong, that Frederick the Fed might have some redeeming social attributes after all, Anna started to smile.

“Fred Stanton.” Scotty, only his head poking out of the cabin, introduced the man from behind. Stanton shook, a sudden convulsion of the shoulders as if freeing himself from any proprietary claims Butkus was trying to stake.

“Frederick,” he said clearly and pulled off his glove to shake hands.

“This is Anna Pigeon,” Ralph said as she tried to balance her grip between insipid and faux machismo. “She’ll be on the wet end of the body recovery.”

“Better you than me,” Stanton said. His voice was light and gentle for a man. Pleasant and probably misleading, Anna thought. The FBI was a big stick and Stanton may have learned the value of walking softly.

“Excuse me.” Lucas was making his way past Scotty, who still hung in the narrow doorway. Butkus, muttering cowboy apologies, clomped to the stern. Vega’s eye followed his steps with a sour look, watching for black heel marks on the white deck.

Jim bumped out from the cabin and the Chief Ranger’s attention snapped back to the dive. “Ralph?” Raising a dark wing-shaped eyebrow, he officially turned the dive over to the District Ranger.

Quietly, efficiently, Ralph began directing traffic on the crowded deck, lending a hand where buckles needed buckling, rubber hoods straightening. He managed to suit up himself, keep Scotty’s great booted feet off the damageable goods, and exchange a few sentences with Jo.

With fingers that tingled, Anna pulled on the bulky suit with boots and hood. The anxiety that was robbing her fingers of feeling filled her throat with a bitter taste. The more she swallowed, the more nauseated she became. Her mind raced with cowardly alternatives: if she dropped a tank and broke her foot, she’d not have to dive; if she stumbled over a fin and rapped her head on the gunwale, she’d be excused with honor intact.

Still, she pulled and jerked and buckled and finally, without mishap, she was encased in gear. Humpbacked, orange-skinned, blue-flippered, they all looked like creatures from an unlikely lagoon.

“Okay,” Pilcher said. “Tasmanian cluster fuck.” From the corner of her eye, Anna saw a jolt of what could’ve been alarm or amusement electrify the FBI man’s dark eyes. Of the seven people on board, he alone had never before experienced Pilcher’s predive ritual. At another time, in another place, Lucas would have said a quiet word against the obscenity. But Pilcher was a first-rate dive leader. Vega was a manager first and a gentleman second: his District Ranger was free to establish trust and camaraderie any way that worked.

Anna, Ralph, Jim, Lucas, even Scotty and Jo closed ranks, forming a tight circle like a football huddle. Through the insulating layers, Anna could feel the bones of Jo Castle’s shoulder against hers. A fine mist beaded in her long straight hair, cloaking her in shifting silver. When Anna took her hand it felt clammy. Though it was probably due to the weather, Anna hoped Scotty would have enough sense to monitor Jo for shock.