Dangerous Depths (2 page)

“Those are turtle tracks. She’s still up
there,” Elsye had said, excitement sending her voice an octave
higher. “I don’t see any tracks coming back. Listen! Do you hear
that?”

“Hear what?” All I heard were the waves
washing the shore and the sharp sudden call of a distant tern.

“In the shrubs, up on the dune. Shhhh.
Listen, Hannah,” she insisted, impatient.

Finally, I heard it, the rustling and digging
of sand being scattered.

“Let’s go look,” she said, and scrambled up
the gentle incline to the trees. Sadie and I were right on her
heels.

“There it is.” She briefly shone her
flashlight on the female, then clicked it off, unwilling to disturb
her or confuse her with the sudden light.

“It’s a green,” Elyse said. “She must be
three feet long.”

The turtle looked like a huge boulder nestled
in the sand, her shell covered with a few barnacles and strands of
algae.

“Jeez, Elsye. Maybe we should let her
be.”

“She’s hardly aware of our presence,” Elyse
whispered. “The nesting female has only one goal, laying her
eggs.”

We sat in the sand at a distance that Elyse
assured me would not interfere. Sadie stretched out nearby, bored
now and ready for a nap. The turtle was clearing away the sand with
her powerful front flippers, digging deeper.

In the warm quiet night, the moon
illuminating the sand and the shell, we watched the turtle doing
what these ancient creatures had done for millions of years.

“She’s at least forty, maybe closer to fifty,
just at the beginning of her reproductive life,” Elsye said. We
were sitting, shoulders touching, knees up, arms wrapped around our
legs, gazing into the pit. “If she survives the hazards of her
environment and the intrusion of humans, if these nesting grounds
remain undisturbed and viable, she’ll return every two or three
years for the next half a century.”

“Lots of ifs,” I said.

“Yeah,” she responded, a touch of wistfulness
in her voice.

When the turtle determined she’d dug her pit
deep enough, she crawled into the depression.

“She’ll start digging the egg chamber now.
Look,” Elsye said.

About then, the turtle began using her back
flippers to excavate a deep hole. In an amazingly rote pattern, she
dug, scooping sand with the left leg and kicking it forward with
the right, then reversing the process until she had formed the
perfectly flask-shaped egg chamber.

Then it happened. She began to lay her eggs.
White, glistening balls began to fill the chamber.

“Probably a hundred eggs,” Elsye said,
breaking through the awe I was feeling.

We watched her bury the eggs in the wet sand
and pack it down. Then she filled the body pit and concealed it
with loose sand and rubble. Finally, she turned and headed back to
the sea. I knew it would be the last contact she had with the
offspring she’d fought to shore to produce. Now they would be on
their own. When they hatched, they would fight their way out of the
nest, and emerge. Small enough to fit in the palm of my hand and
vulnerable, they would make the treacherous journey to the sea.

At the water’s edge, the exhausted female
lifted her head once, craning her long neck and scanning the
horizon, perhaps hesitant to abandon her young. Then she slipped
into the water, her shell glistening in the moonlight, and
disappeared beneath the surface.

I’d felt an overwhelming sadness when she was
gone. What was that about? Loss maybe? Fear that she would never
return? The realization that I had just experienced a miracle and
now it was over? The beach felt empty.

“Come on,” Elyse said, recognizing my
despair. She put her arm over my shoulder as we walked back down
the beach to our boats. “We’ll keep tabs on the nest. They’ll hatch
in about two months.”

That evening had been one of the many gifts
that Elyse had given me since we’d been friends. She was a
sensitive soul, who saw beauty in nature’s details. While I crashed
through life, Elyse tiptoed. Complete opposites, we’d become
instant friends.

***

Now, Calvin and I were sitting in the waiting
room at Pebbles Hospital. We’d been there for an hour, drinking one
cup of coffee after another. My anxiety levels were peaking with
the caffeine and the fact that we had heard nothing about Elyse’s
condition.

Finally Tom Hall came out. I wondered if the
guy ever went home. He’d been the doctor on duty every time I’d
been at the hospital. I’d had my fair share of cuts and bruises
needing a few stitches here, a Band-Aid there.

“Hannah, you again,” he said. Hall was a
tall, skinny guy, eyes sunken, his complexion the color of paste.
He was a character right out of Sleepy Hollow.

“Yeah, how is Elyse?”

“She’s in critical condition. She has a
fractured collar bone and tibia, lots of abrasions. The biggest
problem is the head injury. Looks like some swelling. She is not
conscious. We’ve checked her cranial reflexes; her pupils are
constricting with light. Her brain stem seems to be undamaged, but
I am very concerned. She isn’t breathing on her own.”

“What are you doing for her?” I asked.

“I’ve called in a specialist, a neurologist
from Saint Thomas. He’ll be here late in the morning. I’ve ordered
blood tests—electrolytes, blood counts, and cultures, a CT scan of
the brain and neck, a toxicology screen, and an EEG. We’ll know
more when we have the results. In the meantime, we’ve got her
hooked up to IVs and a respirator. I’ll be setting and casting her
leg and we’ll be monitoring her condition.”

“Let me see those burns,” he said turning his
attention to the red splotches barely visible under Calvin’s shirt.
Hall didn’t miss anything.

I winced when he lifted the fabric off my
shoulder. I’d felt the sting every time I’d surfaced in the
fire-slicked ocean. The flames had danced across my back and
shoulders until I dove under the water again.

“Come on, Hannah. Those need to be taken care
of.” He led me into an examining room.

“Take the shirt off and put this on,” he said
tersely. He handed me a faded blue-and-white hospital gown that
opened in the back, then left, pulling the curtain closed behind
him.

I stood alone for the first time since the
blast had rocked my boat and thrown me into disaster. Finally, I
leaned against the examining table. Fatigue swept over me,
adrenaline giving way to pain, shock to reality.

I’d directed a steady stream of empty
conversation at Elyse all the way to the hospital—kept telling her
she was okay, she’d be fine. Right now, I was having a hard time
believing it.

I caught a look at myself in the nearby
mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. I looked like a waif. Calvin’s
shirt, covered in oil and blood, hung to my knees, the cuffs way
past my fingertips. My long chestnut hair stuck out in clumps of
singed tangles, but worse were the brown eyes, haunted, fearful.
The face was gaunt, high cheekbones sooty, as though brushed with
black blush.

By the time Hall came back in, Calvin’s shirt
lay in a heap on the floor and I’d managed to climb on the metal
examining table. He was accompanied by a sleepy-looking nurse who
just smiled at my fruitless attempts to keep vital body parts
covered with the skimpy gown. The two of them went about inspecting
the burns on my hand, shoulders, and back. Then the nurse dabbed
salve all over them and covered them in gauze. Christ, it hurt.

“Could be worse,” Hall said after a few
minutes. “Just your right hand and the one spot on your shoulder
are second degree. Your back is only slightly red, no worse than a
bad sunburn. Keep the salve on it and change the bandages
tomorrow,” he said, handing me the tube of gunk and some extra
gauze. I want to take a look at you again in a few days.”

“Doc, tell me the truth about Elyse.” I
wanted a straight answer and the right answer. I wanted him to tell
me that my best friend wasn’t lying in there dying. Maybe Hall
couldn’t do both.

“It’s too soon to tell, Hannah.”

“Yeah, but what do you think? Come on, Doc.
You’ve got to have an opinion.”

“It’s serious. The breaks and abrasions,
those will mend. And she was fortunate that she wasn’t badly
burned. But the head injury—that concerns me, and the fact that she
hasn’t regained consciousness. We’ll know more when the tests come
back.”

I couldn’t even think about losing Elyse.
We’d been friends from the day I’d moved to the British Virgin
Islands and we’d become neighbors. She lived in the boat across the
dock at Pickering’s Landing, where Tilda and Calvin Pickering
managed the small marina and about twenty boats.

Elyse’s boat, the
Caribbe
, belonged to
the Society of Ocean Conservation, a nonprofit environmental group
based in London. Elyse was the only employee in the British Virgin
Islands. By now, what remained of the
Caribbe
would be lying
at the bottom of the bay.

I live on the
Sea Bird
, a
thirty-seven-foot Island Packet, outfitted as a live-aboard. It had
become home for me and Sadie, a golden retriever-lab mix who has
been putting up with me since she was a puppy. A few months back
Nomad joined us. She’s a red, long-haired tabby that I’d found
under a tree, starving and trying to nurse three kittens—all of
which were now in the hands of loving families, the Pickerings
among them. Rebecca had insisted that I keep Nomad. She’d pleaded,
said I was obligated because I’d saved her. What could I say to a
damned six-year-old with tears in her eyes. Nomad had become
mine.

I’d first come to the islands on a special
assignment, investigating the death of the Denver police
commissioner’s son, a scientist doing research in the BVI. He’d
disappeared while out diving only to be found seventy feet under
the water, just off the coast of Tortola, trapped inside a wreck,
dive tank empty. The commissioner had been devastated and wanted
one of his own people in the Denver PD and an experienced diver
checking things out. He’d sent me.

After I’d apprehended the killers, John Dunn,
the chief of Tortola police, had asked me to stay and offered me a
job, and I’d decided to give it a try. He needed a diver and
underwater investigator on his team, and me, well, I’d needed to
get away.

***

Calvin was still in the waiting room, elbow
propped on the arm of a chair, when I came back in.

“Hannah, you be doin’ okay?” he asked,
standing.

“Yeah, nothing serious.” Nothing that showed
anyway
.
“Hall says we can go in to see Elyse for a
minute.”

We went in together. She looked peaceful
enough. She was a beautiful Caribbean woman, petite, chiseled fine
features, skin the color of caramel, hair in short tight curls.
She’d just celebrated her thirtieth birthday, but right now she
looked about twelve, small and vulnerable under the white blanket.
When I took her hand, it felt cold.

Calvin and I were quiet on the ride back to
Pickering’s Landing, lost in our own thoughts. I was the first to
speak, but I knew Calvin had been asking himself the same
questions.

“What do you think happened, Calvin?”

“Dat explosion, I’m guessing it be da
propane. Diesel don’t be exploding like dat. Don’t think der be any
leak either. I helped Elyse refuel yesterday afternoon at the da
dock. I’m real careful about it. So is Elyse.”

“Was Elyse having any problems with the
boat?”

“Naw, everything was working fine. I went
over da entire mechanical system a month or so ago. It was da
yearly maintenance check. Worked on dat old stove of hers. Tole her
she should be gettin’ dat conservation society she works for to be
buyin’ a new one, da kind with the safety shut off. It be workin’
fine though. I replaced a hose, a couple of gaskets. Checked out da
engine, fuel pump, cooling system. Dat boat be in perfect
order.”

I knew Calvin’s work. If he said it was
perfect, it was perfect. He had worked on the
Sea Bird
too.
Calvin was one of those people who never did anything halfway.

“Did you hear anything at all before the
blast?” I asked him.

“No, Tilda and me, da girls, we all be
asleep.”

“When did you last see Elyse?”

“It was in da afternoon,” he replied after
giving it some thought.

“Did she say anything?”

“Just da usual. You know Elyse. It always be
somethin’. Last week she be talkin’ ‘bout da coral bleaching over
in the shallow water up near Anegada. Yesterday, she be goin’ on
‘bout da problems over at the gravel pit.”

“What problems?”

“All dat sediment runoff into da bay. She
said she be goin’ to meet with Amos Porter, da man owns the pit.
She be wantin’ to talk to him ‘bout it before she started puttin’
on da pressure for some controls.”

“Did you see anyone around yesterday?”

“Nobody I don’t usually see. Da delivery
truck come by bringin’ goods for da store. Some of da local farmers
stopped with fresh produce. Tilda be spendin’ ‘bout an hour looking
at all them bananas, mangos, guavas. You know how picky she be
‘bout what she be puttin’ in da store.”

I knew. I’d come to take the quality for
granted at the little marina grocery that Tilda ran.

“Da owner of the
Blue Dancer
was down
at da docks real early. He don took his boat out fishing and come
back with a couple of small snappers. He be one unhappy man.”

“Did you see anyone around the
Caribbe
?”

“No, but I be goin’ into town ‘bout three.
Didn’t get back till maybe six, six-thirty.”

“What about Tilda?”

“She be busy in the store, stocking the
shelves, doin’ inventory when I left. Knowing Tilda, she be back
dar all afternoon. Dat woman had everything done by da time I got
home and she be makin’ dinner. Why you askin’? You think dis was no
accident?”