As the music began to fade away and couples drifted off the dance floor, Julia stopped in her tracks. Amy was still clinging to her slender brunette dance partner as they talked intently to one another. Sweeping an arm around Amy's waist, the woman led her from the floor. Amy was wearing Julia's favorite dress, a sapphire blue silk dress that clung seductively in all the right places. As Julia watched, Amy held the woman's hand and strolled with her toward the back of the club. She followed the two women, easily remaining out of sight in the crowd. When they reached a far corner of the club, the stranger turned Amy around and pressed her against the wall, kissing her in a smoldering, passionate kiss that seemed to last an eternity. Although stunned, Julia felt as if her feet had grown roots, keeping her bound to the floor where she stood. What was she thinking? Amy needed to be rescued from the woman's clutches. When she finally took a step forward, she stopped again as Amy reached around the woman and ran her hands over her ass, pulling her closer and into an even deeper kiss. Clearly the other woman's advances were not unwanted and Amy had no desire to be rescued.
Unable to watch her lover and the brunette grope one another any longer, Julia spun around and pushed her way through the pulsing throng and left the club. She jerked her truck door open and jumped in, fighting back the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly and she rested her forehead on her white knuckles. She didn't know what to do. She had been dumped before, but as far as she knew she had never been cheated on. Surely it was a mistake and Amy would have a logical explanation. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe the woman slipped something into her drink. Maybe she was just fucking around behind Julia's back! Slamming her hand against the steering wheel, anger quickly replaced disbelief. Julia turned the key in the ignition and slowly drove home.
She sat in the dark in her favorite chair mentally reliving the last six years with Amy and their life together. The memory of Amy's touch against her skin, the melting softness in Amy's eyes as she succumbed to her passion and desire. All of it brought burning, bitter tears to Julia's eyes. Her vision seemed to be the same as it was beneath the water while she was diving. Only now she was drowning on dry land, the air forced from her lungs by the pressure of betrayal and loss. She sat, unmoving, staring blankly at the walls around her. Sitting in the dark gave her time to think without being distracted by the objects around her. She knew they were there, of course, but didn't have to analyze the patterns in the furniture fabric or the uneven nap of the carpeting. In the dark, her senses were heightened. She heard the fronds of the palm trees in the front yard of her home rustling against one another in the soft Georgia breeze. She smelled the heat of her anger rising from her body, mingling with the familiar scent of...home. She felt her pulse change as her thoughts wandered aimlessly from one memory to another. She felt incredible loneliness welling up inside her and wanted it to go away. Leaning her head back against the soft back of her chair she finally dozed off.
The clicking sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door jolted Julia from her dreamless sleep. Shifting her eyes quickly around the room she watched the door quietly open and saw Amy's body outlined in the door frame by a feeble streetlight.
"Did you have a good time tonight?" Julia asked, the sound of her voice steady and low as it cut through the darkness.
"Jesus Christ!" Amy said, spinning around. "You scared the shit out of me, Julia. Why are you sitting there in the dark?" Amy flipped on the light in the entry and slipped out of her shoes, bending down to pick them up. Julia blinked against the sudden eruption of light.
"Waiting for you, of course," she said calmly, pushing her body up from the chair.
"When you didn't come home, I decided to go to dinner and the club with a couple of friends," Amy shrugged. "Was your dive successful?"
"Yeah." Julia shifted her weight from one foot to another and watched Amy walk toward her. She loved the seductive way Amy's hips moved when she walked. A glance at the antique clock hanging in the entryway told her it was nearly three in the morning. Amy looked as though nothing unusual had happened, as if she hadn't been screaming a new lover's name in ecstasy an hour or two earlier. She stopped in front of Julia and trailed a hand down her arm. Continuing the charade, she stepped into Julia to grace her with a kiss.
"Who is she?" Julia asked coldly, pushing her away.
"Who?"
"I saw you together, Amy. At the club. Who the fuck is she?" she seethed.
"No one. Just someone I met." Amy shrugged as she turned away.
"Was she good?"
"Good enough," Amy answered, looking at Julia over her shoulder. "And she was there, which is more than I could say for you."
"I was working!" Julia stormed.
"You're always working, Julia. Did you expect me to be waiting for you to come home from your little sea adventure, wearing an apron and stirring a pot of soup to warm you like a good little mariner's wife?"
"That's ridiculous, Amy. You know how important my work is to me." Julia fought to remain civil, waiting for Amy's logical explanation. "I called, but you didn't pick up."
"You completely forgot today is my birthday, didn't you?"
Julia didn't answer and just stared at Amy.
"Didn't you!" Amy demanded.
"And that made it all right for you to go out and fuck someone else?"
When Amy finally spoke, her voice was cold, her eyes dark. "It's not like it's the first time, Julia. It's just the first time I've been caught."
Julia opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Amy's matter-of-fact admission sucked the air from her lungs. She watched silently as Amy walked toward the bedroom--their bedroom-- undressing as she went. By the time Julia numbly followed her, she found a sight that should have enflamed her passions, but now repelled her.
"Why did you do it, Amy? You knew I'd be there for your birthday even if I was late. Did you want me to catch you?"
"And what if I did? It's the only way I can get you to notice me or what I'm doing!"
"You've always known the demands of my job. The excavation of the Peach will make my career into what we've always dreamed it would be."
"And of course that's so much more important to you than I am!" Amy's voice began to rise, challenging Julia to deny the accusation.
"At least I'm not fucking it behind your back!" Julia shouted. "How many others have there been?"
"This is bullshit!" Amy yelled back. "There are plenty of other women who would be more than glad to come home to me every night."
"Then go find one of them," Julia said. "Take what the hell you want, but I want you gone by the time I get back Sunday afternoon." She couldn't believe she found the strength to utter those words and turned away resolutely.
"Don't be ridiculous, Julia. This is my home, too," Amy snorted as she followed Julia down the hallway.
"The mortgage is in my name, babe. Don't make me call the sheriff to remove you," Julia snapped as she turned once again to leave. Pulling her truck keys from her pocket, she remembered the bracelet. Jerking it from her pocket she said, "Oh. By the way, Happy fuckin' Birthday." She tossed the gift-wrapped box to Amy, opened the front door, and stepped into the damp pre-dawn fog moving inland from the ocean not far away.
The swells of the sea around her gradually strengthened and snapped Julia from her thoughts. The wind caused the buoy to sway violently from side to side as it began to dance around in the water, occasionally driving her under water unexpectedly before she could take a breath. Her arms ached and she was certain her body would be covered with bruises from being slammed into the metal marker repeatedly. When she couldn't stand another minute of the pounding, she pressed the mouthpiece into her mouth and reached beneath the buoy to grab its anchor line. As she went beneath the churning water it was calmer, but she was forced to hold the line with both hands to keep from losing her grip as the buoy was tossed around. Surrounded by the blackness, she shivered. As night fell the surface winds were cooli
ng the water rapidly and forcing colder water from farther east toward shore. She shivered, wishing she had worn her full diving suit. After a few minutes of catching her breath, she pulled herself back to the surface. She wasn't sure how much air remained in her tank and was afraid to go deeper seeking calmer water. She hoped the storm was nothing more than a squall line and would pass over quickly, but as the minutes ticked by it seemed to be intensifying. She was exhausted from her fight with the buoy and readjusted her hold on it several times. She called upon her anger at Amy to take her mind off the numbing cold.
"Goddamn you Amy!" she shouted against the increasing wind. "This is all your fucking fault!" Amy never understood that Julia's work was more than merely a paycheck. If they hadn't argued she wouldn't be bouncing around in the churning waters of the Atlantic Ocean like a fucking cork, fighting not to be killed by the one thing she loved.
As she hung on, wondering if help would arrive, she felt her body lifted out of the water and slammed against the buoy. She was dazed as her head struck the strut she was clinging to. Plan B, she thought. I can either give up the fight and drown or let myself be beaten to death by this goddamn buoy. The thought that her death was only a matter of time seized control of her mind and her eyes stung from the salt of her own tears. She loved the ocean and respected its awesome power, but held no desire to become fish food. Maybe she could use the last of her air to go down to the Peach, tying her body to it so it would be found--eventually. In the midst of her thinking, she felt the buoy pull her up and tried to adjust her grip to make it stronger. Before she could interlock her fingers the bottom fell from beneath her as the buoy slid down a wall of water. When it rose beneath her again, she was jolted by slamming into the wave and lost her hold on the strut. Biting down on the mouthpiece, she dove and tried to locate the anchor line. Her breathing came in panicky gasps rather than slow smooth breaths, using up her air supply too quickly, but she couldn't stop the terror growing inside. She slung her arms around, praying she would find her lifeline again. She kicked her legs and popped to the surface. She removed the mouthpiece, gulping in water from the sea and rain from the sky.
In what seemed like a miracle, the wind began to taper off and the swells she bobbed in became less violent. She treaded water, using her dwindling air supply as little as possible. There was nothing she could do other than wait for the sun to come up and hope she hadn't been carried out of sight of the buoy.
Chapter Two
AS THE SUN began to make its spectacular appearance Monday morning, Julia couldn't believe she was still alive. Most of her air supply was depleted during the long night and she was exhausted. It would be hard enough to stay afloat without dragging along extra useless weight. She connected the hose from her air tank to her buoyancy vest, using the last of her air to inflate its air cells before removing the tank from her body. The sea around her had returned to its pre-storm calm, but the buoy was nowhere in sight. She had no idea how far the current of the Gulf Stream might have carried her. Trying to find one person in the thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean made looking for a needle in a haystack seem like child's play. In the calm water, she flipped onto her back and took a deep breath as she pushed her dive mask onto the top of her head. She had been a world champion floater as a kid, even known to occasionally fall asleep in her parent's pool while floating on her back. The buoyancy vest would help her stay afloat, at least for a while. If she happened to hear a plane or see a ship in the distance, she could use the glass-like surface of her mask to reflect the sunlight as a signal.
She squinted into the sun, trying to find identifiable shapes in the scattered clouds and wondered if anyone was looking for her. She was still fairly certain she would die at sea, but then she hadn't thought she'd make it through the night. She figured she could survive a week without food, but would probably die of thirst even though she was surrounded by millions of gallons of water. Where is Aquaman's sister when I need her? She laughed out loud. Hell, at this point I'd fuck his mother for a drink of fresh water!
"You can have a drink after Mass," her father told her every Sunday. Then, sure enough, Talbot Blanchard stopped on the way home and bought his little girl a milk shake or a fountain drink at the A & W near their home in Richmond. Those were good days. Church would just last a little longer this time was all. She smiled. I can wait, Daddy. I can. You'll be proud of me. The sun made her sleepy and she sank into the embrace of the world's largest water bed.
"WHAT DO YOU mean you can't find her?" Frankie snapped. "It's Tuesday for Christsake! We gave you her last known location!"
"There wasn't a trace of her anywhere near the site, Miss Alford. We've done low level flights over the entire area," the Coast Guard officer stated. "I'm sorry, but it's extremely unlikely she could have survived Sunday's storm. Her body could have been carried miles outside the search area."
The officer's use of the word "body" struck Frankie like a slap in the face. "You can't call off the search," she said, tears pooling in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, ma'am."
"What about the GPS on the Discovery?" Damian asked, his arm encircling Frankie's slumping shoulders.
"We picked up a weak signal briefly, but it was far outside the search area."
"Well, perhaps she tried to get away from the storm by taking a heading away from it," Frankie sneered. "Did ya happen to think of that one and plug it into your computer algorithm?"
"The signal came from just north of St. Augustine. If she made it safely to the coast, wouldn't she have called? She could have made it back to Tybee faster. In all honesty we believe someone hijacked her cruiser. Dr. Blanchard may have been killed in the process"
Frankie rubbed her face helplessly. "So that's it then?" she finally asked. She hadn't slept much since Saturday night and was well beyond her exhaustion level.
"I'm sor--"
"I know. You're sorry, Commander. You will notify us if wreckage or anything...else is found?"
"Immediately."
"What are we gonna do now, Frankie?" Damian asked as soon as the officer left the Institute's offices.
"The same thing Julia would have done. Continue the excavation of the Peach," Frankie said, striding out of the office.
SHE COULDN'T REMEMBER how many sunrises had come and gone, but knew enough had passed for her to be in serious trouble. Small cracks were beginning to open on her lips and burned continuously from contact with salt water. Surrounded by billions of gallons of water, she was dehydrating from the lack of fresh water. Even swirling sea water around in her mouth to moisten it led to dry heaves. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so hungry, but lack of water would kill her long before starvation had a chance.
She tried to guess where she might be. Since the storm swept her away from the Peach site she had seen no landmarks to give her a clue to her location. If she had been caught by the Gulf Stream she was floating north. If the storm surge had sucked her farther away from shore, she was aimlessly floating somewhere in the Atlantic, a dot surrounded by endless miles of water. If she had lost her grip on the marker buoy sooner, the storm might have carried her closer to shore. If, if, if! None of those thoughts would save her now. She was exhausted. Her muscles ached and only her knowledge of survival skills if lost at sea was keeping her alive.
She leaned her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. Every logical thought running through her mind told her she would never survive this ordeal, and yet she couldn't make herself give up. What had it all been for? Had her hard work and dedication been worth the loss of everything, perhaps even her life? Hazy memories of her proudest moment as a marine archaeologist bobbed through her memory. Was it all worth it?
Slowly her mind drifted back to a few days earlier when she stepped onto the deck of the Discovery, gently rolling on the waves making their way toward the Georgia coastline near Savannah, ten miles to the west. Watching the crew of the recovery ship prepare to bring their precious cargo into the sunlight for the first t
ime in over a hundred and fifty years filled her with anticipation. Eighteen months earlier the Georgia Marine Archaeology Institute was contacted with news of a possible new shipwreck site. Images made while Coast Guard cutters tested their sonar booms revealed an outline indicating where a ship had gone down.
She walked to the railing and peered into the blue-green depths beneath her. Her short-cropped sun-bleached hair fluttered in the mild breeze wafting off the water. She could see the once huge wooden ship in her mind's eye. The year and a half long excavation revealed, a little at a time, the remnants of a three-masted wooden ship. While nothing as impressive as chests full of gold and precious jewels were discovered, to Julia the cannons and other wreckage debris near the ship represented a priceless link to the past. What happened to you? How many died along with you? Only time and patience could unveil valuable clues to the origin and history of the mysterious ship.
JULIA'S EYES POPPED open as a small wave of sea water crested over her head. She coughed and wiped the water away from her eyes, scanning the horizon once again. Was it worth it? she thought. "You're damn right it was!" she said to the emptiness around her. She smiled as she remembered the rest of the best and worst day of her life. "I'd do it again without a second thought."
The Sea Hawk Page 2