CHAPTER 6: Searchlights Ask Better Questions

The Asteria should have turned immediately.
A yacht that size had procedures, crew, rescue ladders, trained deckhands, emergency lamps, and a captain paid enough to know that hesitation could become testimony. Instead, the vessel drifted forward several seconds too long, bright and useless above the water.
Then another light appeared.
It came from the east, low against the sea, a hard white beam slicing through the dark. A harbor patrol cutter cut across the yacht’s wake with disciplined speed, its siren short, sharp, and angry.
Leo lifted his head. “Mom?”
“I see it,” Maren said.
She did not know whether she was relieved or terrified. Rescue meant survival. Rescue also meant witnesses who could not be invited to tomorrow’s brunch and asked to forget.
On the yacht, figures began moving faster.
Too late always looked busy once someone else brought light.
The cutter’s beam found Maren and Leo. She raised one arm as far as she could without letting her son slip. The sea pushed her down, then let her rise again.
A voice from the patrol boat boomed over the water.
“Hold position. We have you.”
Maren pressed her cheek to Leo’s cold hair.
For the first time all night, someone had used the word we correctly.