by Patti Larsen
“Historic day!” Gregg was clearly working the footage as he clapped MC on the shoulder. “Beat you to the gold, Tortuga!” He settled his mask and regulator then tipped backward, almost smacking her with his fins on his way by. MC muttered something around her own mouthpiece before rolling back, disappearing after him.
I joined Chantal in the water when Martin vanished after them, forcing myself to calm despite my renewed excitement. That sense of adventure died pretty quickly as I sank beneath and realized, unlike this morning, the murkiness wasn’t just cutting visibility, it was almost eliminating it.
I floundered a bit, already out of sight of Chantal, disorientation taking over. Panic rose despite the fact I knew I was close to the surface, safe, with plenty of air and the means to rise simply by inflating my buoyancy device. And yet, it still took me a solid minute of heavy breathing to pull myself together, a tiny meep of fear escaping when something touched my shoulder.
Chantal was there, so close I could see the color of her eyes, OK signal a question. I nodded, OK’d back, even though I wasn’t. But no way was I missing this. I looked down, hoped that the deeper we got the clearer the water would be and followed her as she descended.
I tried to keep up but she was a stronger swimmer and it wasn’t long before the black flip of her fins disappeared from view. I refused to lose it, continuing on what I hoped was my proper trajectory, knowing I’d encounter her sooner or later. Funny, it seemed like I was swimming for a lot longer than usual, and, when I finally thought to check my dive computer strapped firmly to my wrist, I swore softly to myself.
Fifty feet. I was too deep, ten feet further than I was trained for. Time to panic yet, Fleming? No way. Stubbornness settled in and I stopped descending, straightened up, tried to get my bearings. And spotted, rising beneath me from the dark water, another diver.
Thank goodness. I was saved. Except, the moment that thought crossed my mind I realized two things. Whoever it was? They were rising far too fast than was good for them. And, from the limp way they hung in the water? Something was terribly wrong.
All about a half a heartbeat before the surging body hit me and forced me up toward the surface.
***
Chapter Fourteen
I managed to slow our rapid rise, though whether it was actually anything I did or the sheer weight of my additional equipment and the fact I was literally carrying weights in my BCD that kept us from rocketing all the way to the top. I knew we were still rising too fast, panting into my mouthpiece, going lightheaded when my oxygen intake bottomed out from rising panic. It took every ounce of internal fortitude I still possessed to force my breathing down to a more normal intake, to make my shaking hands work at the other diver’s lines and BCD hooked into mine. I’d gone through some emergency procedures when I’d taken my diving course, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for this eventuality.
I tracked our surface speed, knowing I was in trouble but, at least, hopeful I wouldn’t black out from the elevated nitrogen in my system. I’d suffer, but I would be okay. At least that’s what I told myself, unable to spare much worry for the limp figure, still trapped against me, a stream of bubbles from their BCD fighting against my weight.
It wasn’t until we were almost on the surface I managed to identify the person now tethered to me, the pressure of our ascent and the close proximity of his body making it impossible for me to separate us. Maybe if I’d had a bit more experience, or if he’d been conscious, I could have found a way to part myself from Gregg Brown. But, as things stood, I was helpless, unable even to unhook my tanks and shed them, to separate us.
I broached the surface, immediately struggling to turn, to locate the boat, slowly spinning with Gregg beneath me, pushing me partly out of the water, and finally spotted the hull of our vessel not so far away Wanda could miss me waving frantically for help.
My chest twinged, though I knew I had at least an hour before the full effects of decompression sickness would set in. Sympathetic reaction wasn’t helping any, though, nor the gnawing worry we’d risen too far too fast and my typically over reactive brain wailing in the background I was going to die.
The surge of the boat’s engine at least felt urgent enough I knew rescue was at hand. Enough I could finally focus on the state of the man, clearly unconscious, still attached to me. Though it was likely the wrong thing to do under the circumstances, I forced my hand between us and our tangled gear and, through sheer will, unclipped myself from my tanks, sinking out of my BCD and spitting out my mouthpiece, pawing at the mask on my face, panting into the July afternoon while the boat rushed toward me.
Gregg bobbed sideways, the weight of my tanks taking him off balance and I realized with the dull understanding of someone who’d been through this far too many times I’d known all along he wasn’t just unconscious.
Considering his eyes stared, empty and cold, back from behind his mask as he tipped over on his side, his mouthpiece floating free of his gaping mouth, I knew I wasn’t the one who had to worry about death.
***
I inhaled deeply from the oxygen Dr. Aberstock offered me, the warm blanket around my shoulders doing little to kill the chill that had settled over me. Despite the heat of the sun now beaming down as if unaware of the present circumstances, I couldn’t get warm.
I’d never be warm again.
As usual, the doc had made it to us way ahead of the EMTs, though I knew an ambulance would be along any moment and wouldn’t fight them when they loaded me in the back and took me to the hospital.
“We’re lucky Curtis County General has a hyperbaric chamber,” Dr. Aberstock said, inserting an IV line into my wrist. He looked rather odd in his dive suit, that familiar Santa Claus roundness stuffed into shiny black rubber. “And that I’m a diver.” He winked at me, then nodded to Crew who hovered, his worry obvious, though he stayed out of the way since the doc arrived as if knowing he wasn’t helping otherwise. I reached out and took my husband’s hand, tugging him down to sit next to me at the picnic table while Dr. Aberstock elevated the bag of fluids now pumping into my system. “We’ll get you sorted, Fee. Right as rain in no time. Treated early, you’ll barely know you were sick.”
I wasn’t so sure he was being totally honest, but I’d take it. “Any idea what happened to Gregg?” I’d lowered the oxygen mask to ask that question, only to have both men move my hand out of the way, Crew replacing it for me.
The doc patted my shoulder. “I don’t know yet,” he said, “but I have some suspicions. I’ll have to examine him more thoroughly.” He’d only given the dead treasure hunter the briefest of inspections in between shoving an oxygen mask on my face and going to his car for the bag of whatever it was he was feeding into my bloodstream. “I don’t want you to think about that right now. We’ve been through this enough times before you know I’ll get to the bottom of it.” That wink. Yes, I knew it well.
Far too well.
Dr. Aberstock checked my dive computer again, frowning slightly. “It’s been over a half hour,” he said. It had taken a bit to alert the other divers, to gather them and return to shore. I’d insisted, Darius immediately calling the doc, it turned out, when he saw us returning early. I guess he knew me better than I thought, assumed there was trouble and I was the cause. Fair enough we’d practically flown to the dock, so his worry was warranted. “Are you feeling any dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath? Joint pain?” He examined my eyes while the faint wail of the approaching ambulance finally reached us.
“No.” My voice sounded odd, muffled under the oxygen mask. “I’m okay.” At least for now. I knew symptoms could show up at any time, my muscles only aching from holding myself tense in anticipation of the agony I knew was coming but never manifested.
“We’re not taking any chances,” he said. “Your dive computer says you need recompression treatment and I’m not risking your health.” The ambulance pulled into the parking lot and he waved them over. Crew’s arm around me felt firmer than
usual, and the tightness around his eyes, the super controlled way he held himself, was all I needed to know just how afraid he was for me.
And was likely blaming himself. Because Crew.
I rose when Dr. Aberstock’s soft touch encouraged me to, and, for the first time, I took note of the rest of the team. They huddled together, heads down, despair clear on their faces, even Martin and his endless filming silenced as his camera dangled uselessly from his shaking hands. Shell-shocked, like a band of warriors who’d seen too much and simply couldn’t process yet.
I wished I could join them, whisper my condolences, hug them and commiserate. Despite my feelings previously, no matter how I’d railed against Gregg Brown’s presence, I’d seen too much death to truly mean all the previous wishful thinking something bad would happen to him. Even my hot temper couldn’t survive the death of a human being, even if he really was despicable.
Oh, Fee. Enough already.
I waved off the offer of the gurney, despite Dr. Aberstock’s tsk of disapproval, perfectly capable of climbing into the ambulance, thanks. As I did, a car squealed its way into the parking lot, Hannah Brown barely at a halt before leaping out of the driver’s side and running toward us, already sobbing. She knew, how? Didn’t matter, though it was obvious she wasn’t here to mourn, not when she didn’t stop, didn’t pause an instant, before throwing herself at MC.
“You killed him!” Hannah’s words were barely coherent but her intent was clear enough. Lucky for MC Darius loomed nearby and caught the grieving widow around the waist, practically picking her up off the ground to keep her from assaulting the Tortuga dive leader. The fact MC didn’t fight her, misery on her face, broke my heart. She’d be blaming herself, too, wouldn’t she? Gregg might have played at being the boss, but I knew from talking to MC initially, she took her responsibility as leader very seriously.
She did respond, though, shaking her head, slow and heavy. “We don’t know what happened yet,” she said.
“I’ll sue you for negligence!” Did Hannah understand Gregg had been the intruder in this dive? That his own actions just this morning had, according to Crew, put MC herself at risk? Doubtful, and nor did it matter to the clearly distraught woman who struggled against Darius’s mountain of immobility while sobbing with tears washing her mascara down her cheeks. “I’ll ruin you and you’ll never dive again!”
“That’s enough of that, Mrs. Brown.” Jill had appeared about thirty seconds after Dr. Aberstock, Robert lazily following behind her in his own car. But she’d disappeared after a brief chat with me, leaving me to the doc to start her investigation elsewhere. She’d returned from the boat with Wanda, Robert emerging from the dive shack, hiking his pants up under his round belly, inhaling an impressive amount of air through his nose—enough to make his nostrils vibrate, even from a distance—before expelling the resulting cache to the pavement.
Delightful as ever.
Hannah sagged in Darius’s arms just as Jill gestured for the big man to let her go. He did as he was told without a word, backing off to join me. The EMTs didn’t seem eager to leave, clearly as fascinated with the show as I was, and since they weren’t hustling me toward the ambulance I found my natural sense of curiosity—that usually got me in trouble, I know, I know—cut through my mind’s fearful chatter I was going to implode or something.
“Who was diving with Mr. Brown?” Jill turned to Anja when she raised one hand in a tentative admission of association, though she looked like she wished she’d stayed out of it.
“I was closest to him when we first went in,” she said. “I saw him leave Martin behind and go deeper, but that was early on. I’m not sure what happened after that.”
Martin swallowed hard, his own tears making it clear he was taking Gregg’s loss personally. “I tried to keep up,” he said. “But something caught his attention and he was off like a shot.” He looked down at his camera. “I was having trouble with the equipment and before I could sort it out, he was gone.”
MC nodded, again in that slow and weighted motion, like her head rocked independently of her spine, a bobble doll, not a human being. “He signaled to me he’d seen something about five minutes in,” she said. “Went deep, fast.” She glanced at her dive computer, pressed the surface. “I made it to 160 feet. He had to have been even deeper than that.”
Jill turned to my husband who shrugged before she could ask the obvious. “I was on the other side of Anja,” he said. “The water was so murky I didn’t see a thing.” He sounded frustrated by that, still hugging me close, like I was the only thing anchoring him to the world at the moment. I was happy to be that connection, if he needed me. Heaven knew he’d do the same for me. And had.
“And I was with Fee initially,” Chantal said, face a twisted mess of regret. “When I realized the water was dirty deeper than I expected, I turned back to tether to her, but I’d already lost her.” Chantal’s green eyes met mine and she choked on a soft intake of breath. “I’m sorry, Fee. This is my fault. You should never have been out there alone like that. I take full responsibility.”
I shook my head at her, tried a weak smile and made it. “Trust me, Chantal,” I said, “this is par for my particular course.”
Didn’t seem to help, but I tried.
“For all we know, he had a heart attack or an aneurysm or something.” Anja seemed suddenly angry, lurching to her feet, arms crossed over her narrow chest. “He wasn’t the safest diver, we all know it.” She jerked her head to the side, defensive but clearly unable or unwilling to stop talking. “He was an arrogant ass who took stupid chances and got himself killed finally.”
“Shut up!” Hannah lunged for the tall diver this time but Jill managed to get in between them, holding the furious woman back from clawing at Anja with savagely swinging arms. “You shut up about my Gregg!”
Anja just shrugged and looked away, face dark, body tense, though she did sink back to the bench again, falling silent.
“I’d like to talk to each of you individually,” Jill said, crisp and professional, handing Hannah off to my cousin despite his expression of disgust at having to support the weeping woman. “Fee,” she turned to me, sympathy present but all cop, “I’ll come see you in the hospital when you’re feeling better.”
Since I was feeling okay at the moment, she needn’t have bothered. But if I didn’t get treatment soon, her words would be prophetic, so I nodded.
I watched Jill loading tanks and gear into the sheriff’s pickup as I settled in to the back of the ambulance, the doors closing on us while Crew took his place next to me, holding my hand.
***
Chapter Fifteen
I did my best to relax inside what had looked, essentially, like a giant duffle bag, the dark blue canvas surface more like the home of someone’s stinky hockey gear than a life-saving hyperbaric chamber.
“We use it for cancer treatments,” Dr. Aberstock told me, holding my hand as he encouraged me to step into what I tried not to think of as the means to dispose easily of my body if this didn’t work, my silly brain imagining being tossed into the trunk of a car and taken somewhere to be disposed of forever. His sweet, cherub smile wasn’t helping. If anything, it only made my nerves worse and my claustrophobia wasn’t helping. “Might not be perfect, but it will do the job.”
I’d closed my eyes and forced myself to relax when the zipper slid shut, the pressure instant in my ears as the interior of the chamber inflated with oxygen. I plugged my nose and pushed outward like I did when I flew, feeling my ears pop softly, the white interior at least bright enough I didn’t feel like I’d been sealed inside a flimsy coffin.
An hour to lie there and think about what happened wasn’t the best idea in my condition, but I had little choice, though I’d been offered headphones and the option of music to distract me. Instead, I went the typical Fiona Fleming route and drove myself crazy with replaying the events of our last dive over and over.
Gregg rising toward me so fast, too fast for my inexpe
rience to avoid him. Yes, that much I would accept. But our gear getting tangled, my inability to slow us down enough to pressurize properly, my panic? Sure, I might have been a new diver, but I should have been able to disengage, to offer him assistance. If I’d been on the ball, would I have been able to save him? That question ate at me the long sixty minutes of the oxygenation treatment and persisted as the pressure inside the chamber released and began to dissipate completely as the hour came to an end. Could I, with more experience and less freak out, saved Gregg’s life?
I was sweating when Dr. Aberstock unzipped the bag and Crew helped me out. I hugged my husband, not caring the hospital robe likely gaped in the back, or that I was about to break down all over again.
The doc’s hand fell on my shoulder and I pulled away from my husband, even as Dr. Aberstock smiled faintly at me in sympathy.
“I know what you’re thinking, young lady,” he said. “And I can assure you, if Mr. Brown was already unconscious by the time he reached you, had already expelled his mouthpiece, there was nothing you could have done for him.” He paused, nodded once. “Nothing. You did the best you could.”
I did cry then, wiping at the tears, before hugging Dr. Aberstock, too. He softly rubbed my back before handing me gently off to my husband who helped me into the wheelchair the doc had insisted on and returning me to my room.
I settled into my bed, Mom there, anxiously tucking me in, patting at my hands, my hair, before bursting into her own tears. Dr. Aberstock found himself hugging yet another weeping Fleming, though he didn’t seem to mind and, instead of passing Mom off to my husband, held my mother for a bit, letting her pull herself together and make her own decision to let him go.