Libby wrenched the air tank out of his hands, balanced her way carefully to the side of the boat, and slid it onto the plane’s pontoon. She scrambled up beside it and lifted the tank into the plane, then returned to the boat. “Get out of your wet suit,” she said in that bossy doctor’s tone of voice that only fueled his anger and frustration.
“Did the wardens tell you they’d send their own divers out to find the plane? Is that it?” he said as he stripped out of the wet suit, glad he was wearing a set of warm long johns underneath. The last thing he needed was for her to scrutinize his scars again with those pitying blue eyes. She took the wet suit from him piece by piece as he peeled out of it and then stowed that in the plane, as well. “Is that why you’re booting me out of here so quick?”
“The wardens couldn’t have been less helpful, and you’re wasting time,” she said. “It’s going to be dark in another six hours.” She untied the painter from the pontoon and grabbed onto the plane’s wing strut to steady the boat while he climbed out.
He moved toward the stern and took hold of the strut just above her hand, leaning over her as the aluminum boat rocked beneath them. “I’m not flying out of here until you tell me what the hell is suddenly more important to you than finding that plane.”
“You imbecile!” she said, staring up at him with an expression he could only interpret as seriously pissed off. “How do you think I’d feel if anything else happened to you because of me? Don’t you understand? I can’t let you dive on the crash site. Not in your condition.”
His eyes narrowed on hers as he processed what she’d said. Could he have heard her correctly? Had she become just another patronizing doctor insinuating he’d never be able to dive again? “I don’t need your pity,” he said, his voice rough with anger. “I don’t need you to tell me what I can and can’t do. If I want to dive, I’m going to dive, but if you really and truly want me out of here, I’m out of here. And you can keep your goddamn money, every last cent. You’ll need it if the wardens can’t find the plane.” He turned to pull himself onto the pontoon but her hand shifted and closed tightly around his forearm.
“Wait!” she said, yanking him back into the boat. “I’m not implying you aren’t a competent diver, but be sensible! You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, but Carson, you have to be realistic about your physical limitations.”
“My physical limitations didn’t keep me from hauling you to shore yesterday, did they?” he shot back. “My physical limitations are all in your head, Doctor. You need me, call me. I’m in the phone book.”
He spun around in a tight half turn and reached for the wing strut to pull himself out of the boat. It would have been a perfect exit with him having the last word if the unsecured boat hadn’t drifted away from the plane while they’d been shouting at each other, but as it turned out he lost his balance and plunged headfirst over the gunnel and into the lake with an undignified shout. The icy immersion cooled his temper instantly, which was probably a good thing, and he had to give Libby credit for not laughing at him when he pulled himself out of the water and onto the plane’s pontoon. He stood glaring at her in a pair of dripping-wet long johns, looking about as ridiculous as a man could look, and she never even cracked a smile.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LIBBY WATCHED CARSON’S PLANE lift off the surface of the lake, bank gently to the west, and then bank again as it gained altitude and headed south toward Anchorage. She watched until it was out of sight, until the deep throaty roar of the engine was swallowed up in the vast silence of the wilderness, until the realization that he was gone and would probably never come back became so painful that she could scarcely draw breath. She motored back to the lodge’s dock and was relieved to see the wardens preparing to depart Frey’s dock in their own plane, presumably with Frey aboard. She secured the boat and walked up to the lodge’s kitchen. As expected, Karen was working on the next meal.
“Well?” she said, when Libby came into the room. “Did you stop him from diving?”
“Yes. He’s gone to fix his ship.”
“Good. That should keep him occupied and out of harm’s way for a while.”
“Maybe,” Libby said, collapsing into a chair and dropping her head into her hands. She was desperately tired and her head was killing her. “What day is it?”
“Saturday.”
“Karen, do you have the number that Trig was calling from?”
“It should be logged in the satellite phone’s memory.”
Libby raised her head. “Can I make a call?”
“Help yourself.”
Minutes later she was talking to Trig again. “Carson just left here to pick up the part,” she told him. “Is he going to be able to land his plane with that storm moving in?”
“Yeah, he shouldn’t have any problem. Conditions are getting a little choppy but the storm isn’t supposed to hit until tomorrow, and he’s a good pilot.”
Libby hesitated. “Look, I may have overstepped my bounds, but I told him I didn’t want him diving on the plane’s crash site because I was concerned about his physical condition. He didn’t take it very well.”
“No, I can imagine he didn’t. Carson’s one of the best divers in the business. They don’t call him the king for nothing.”
“But if he signed himself out of the hospital and the doctors told him he shouldn’t dive…”
“Look, lady, those doctors don’t know him, okay?” Trig interrupted. “They talk in terms of ordinary men. They don’t have a clue what someone like Carson’s made of.”
Libby drew a deep breath and blew it out silently. “In that case, could you please give him a message for me when he arrives? Tell him I need him. Tell him I’ll take him any way I can get him. Tell him he has a job to finish at Evening Lake.”
LIBBY WAS JUST FINISHING up her last guest room early Sunday afternoon when she heard the sound of a plane. She carried her tote of cleaning supplies into the kitchen. “I’m just in time,” she told Karen. “I think your next batch of guests is about to arrive.”
Karen was up to her elbows in a bowl of bread dough and gave Libby a puzzled look. “They’re early. They don’t usually fly in until five o’clock.” She leaned over the counter to peer out the window toward the lake. “That’s not the flying service’s plane. Looks to me like your salvage operator’s back. He must have made mighty quick work of fixing that engine.”
A quick glance outside and Libby felt her heart skip a beat. She was out the door and waiting at the dock as the plane taxied up. She tried to act nonchalant as the prop came to a stop and the pilot’s door opened. Carson leaned out, his expression dead pan.
“I heard you needed a diver,” he said.
Libby shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. “I was told you were the best in the business.”
“I don’t come cheap.”
“If I’m hiring the best, I expect to pay for it,” Libby said.
“Good. I’ll go set up camp and get my gear organized.”
“All right.”
His deadpan expression never changed. “Aren’t you going to offer to help?”
“Why? So you can tell me you don’t need it?”
He jerked his head to the passenger door. “Thanks for offering. Climb aboard.”
Libby stepped onto the pontoon, ducked into the plane and settled herself in the copilot’s seat as he started the plane’s engine back up and taxied to the point. He tethered the Otter in the same spot as before and Libby jumped down into the cold water without even feeling it. She helped carry his gear ashore, acutely aware of each time they passed, each time he handed her something and their fingers touched, each time they exchanged brief glances. She could hardly stand the tension. Her heart was hammering a painful cadence as she drove tent pegs and strung guy ropes and set up the canvas wall tent.
When everything was done and no busywork remained, they stood facing each other and Libby wondered if he felt even half of the electrical turbulence that was flowi
ng between them. She could barely breathe. “Thanks for coming back,” she said. “How long can you stay?”
“As long as it takes.”
“That shouldn’t be too long if the plane is anywhere near where Graham’s father saw it go down.”
“Finding it’s one thing. We still have to raise it and get it ashore. That could take some time, especially if Frey throws up any roadblocks.”
The wind was blowing up the lake, raising a light chop. “I’m sorry about how I acted before,” Libby said. “I should never have questioned your abilities.”
Carson shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it more tousled than before. “All my life I’ve been searching for an honest woman, and when I finally find one I behave like a jerk. I’m sorry for treating you that way. That said, let’s go find your father’s plane.”
THE DIVE MARKER WAS still in place, and they worked the first search pattern with new side-scanning sonar around the marker. Thirty minutes into the search Carson spotted what he was looking for and gestured for Libby to cut the engine. “Mark this spot with the other dive buoy,” he told her over his shoulder. “We’re right on top of it.”
“You can see it?” Her expression was a curious combination of excitement and dread.
He leaned back so she could see the sonar screen and with his finger traced the vague outline of what looked like a sunken cowboy hat. “See that? That’s the tail section. You can barely make out the outline of the wings, there and there. I’m surprised to even see that. The plane is approximately fifty-four feet beneath us.”
Libby glanced at him. “It’ll be dark down there, won’t it?”
“I’ll have a powerful light with me.” Carson was already in his wet suit. All he had to do was strap on the tank, pull on his face mask, adjust his headlamp and go over the side. He sat on the edge of the boat and gave Libby a thumbs-up.
“Good luck,” she said. She looked pale and grim, but then again, who wouldn’t if their father’s bones were about to be dredged out of the deep.
Or not. He knew he’d be lucky to find anything down there today. Finding the pilot’s remains would probably have to wait until the plane was raised.
He hit the water, tested his regulator, switched on his headlamp and began the dive. The water was murky with silt from the glacial river. Visibility was less than fifteen feet by the time he reached bottom, and the river’s current pulled at him constantly, making it difficult to maintain position. But he was diving. He was doing what the doctors told him he’d probably never do again, and it felt good. Hell, it felt great. He had to breathe shallow and fast, but he was getting enough air, and after being around Libby for a week he’d gotten used to living without much air. Damn, just being near her left him breathless. Good training for this stuff.
When he came upon the tail section he was surprised that it was so yellow in the beam of the underwater light. The tail numbers were as crisp and black as the day they’d been painted on. He scanned ahead of the tail and could see the rounded crown of the plane’s fuselage, the faint demarcation of the wings. He swam just above the wreckage, grasping the leading edge of the port wing and hanging on to it while he reached over with his other hand to dig down through the silt that covered the plane’s windshield.
Only, there was no windshield. His hand went beyond where the barrier should have been. He reached deeper, scooping out handfuls of silt that clouded the area and created zero visibility, but that was okay. He could work by feel. He pulled himself a little closer and dug deeper, trying to envision the plane’s cockpit, trying to anticipate what his hand might encounter, but he was unprepared for what he felt. There…something protruded out beyond the framework of the windshield. Something that shouldn’t have been there.
For a moment he stopped and lay suspended in the murky darkness. He then put his hand into the silt again. He was feeling the top of the seat but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Carson stopped for the second time, trying to understand how the seat could have become wedged within the windshield’s framework. He felt along the seat toward where the yoke would be. There was something between it and the seat.
Something smooth and hard and fairly long.
He closed his hand around it and tugged, surprised when it came loose. The thick swirl of silt kept him from immediately identifying what it was he held, but the current gradually swept the worst of the silt away and he became aware of a pale gleam in his headlamp. He felt his heart rate accelerate and his lungs struggled to keep up. He was fairly certain he was looking at an arm bone. Somehow it had become stuck and had remained there for the past twenty-eight years, which was nothing less than a miracle, considering the current here.
He knew it was time to go up. Libby, for all her forced nonchalance, would be worried out of her mind if he stayed down any longer. He’d seen what shape the plane was in, seen how much work it would take to raise it, and he held in his hand the bone she needed to prove her paternity. It was time to go up, but he knew when he did, everything would change.
So he stayed down just a little while longer, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t put the bone back where it was to buy himself some more time. She’d still get her proof, but he’d get another week or so of the Libby Wilson he’d come to care about way too much. The Libby Wilson he couldn’t get out of his head…or heart.
He stared at the bone in the murky light of his lamp, reluctant to let go of a woman he’d never even had in the first place but couldn’t imagine living without.
LIBBY SAT IN THE BOAT and watched the sonar screen intently, her hands intertwined so tightly in her lap that she became aware she was causing herself pain and had to force herself to relax. What was taking him so long?
If he got into trouble, could she possibly swim down fifty feet in that dark and ice-cold water and rescue him? No way. Which is why she’d thought the idea of him diving was a bad one in the beginning and an even worse one now. She should have stuck to her guns and never let him go down there. By giving in to his stubborn and prideful arrogance she may have just signed his death certificate.
Three agonizing minutes later she stood up, kicked off her sneakers, shrugged out of her parka and took off her jeans. He was in trouble. He was down there somewhere and he was in trouble and she was going to have to try to save him. Heart pounding and adrenaline surging, she dived over the side. She surfaced, treading water while she drew a few deep breaths before diving back under, then cried out as a hand closed around her ankle. Air bubbles, invisible in the rough chop, shivered up her bare legs as Carson rose out of the darkness and surfaced beside her. He pushed up his face mask, removed his regulator and said, “Libby, what the hell are you doing?”
She wanted to rage at him, but already her limbs were growing numb and she realized that in moments she would be in trouble. With his urging she pulled herself back into the boat, then leaned over the gunnel and took his dive bag from him, tossing it into the bow before helping him aboard. When he was safe she collapsed into the forward seat, pulling her parka on, her entire body shaking with cold. Carson stripped off his mask, peeled back his diving hood and sat for a few minutes bent over with his elbows on his knees, catching his breath.
“What…took you…so long!” Libby finally asked around chattering teeth. “I…thought you…were in trouble down there!”
He straightened up and said, “I wasn’t in trouble.”
“You were…gone for a long time, and you…promised you wouldn’t be any longer than…ten minutes!” Libby huddled inside her parka and glared.
“So you jumped into the water to rescue me?”
“Yes!”
He stared at her for a moment and Libby swore to herself that if he made fun of her, she was going to push him overboard. But he didn’t. “I found the plane, in case you’re interested,” he said. “And I found something else.” He nodded toward the bow of the boat. “Can you hear it talking?”
Libby followed his glance, saw the dive bag she
’d tossed so carelessly into the bow and felt a wave of dizziness wash over her as his words sank in. Through the dark mesh she saw a pale gleam and felt her heartbeat race. “You mean… Did you…?” With trembling hands she reached for the bag, opened the top and removed the bone. She huddled over it, convulsed with shivers, feeling the smooth cold wet of it beneath her fingers. Over the years the bone had become porous and yellow, but it had been a part of her father when he was young and handsome and alive. Her vision suddenly blurred, knowing that this was as close as she’d ever get to her father.
Carson remained silent. He sat with his shoulders rounded over and waited in silence until she raised her eyes to his. She cleared her throat and blinked hard. “Where did…you find this?”
“I’ll tell you everything just as soon as you get warmed up. Let’s go ashore.”
“N-No. I’m fine. Tell me now. Was it…outside the plane?”
He shook his head. “The plane’s windshield was missing and I was able to reach inside the cockpit.” He hesitated, then added, “Want me to tell you what I think happened?” When she nodded, he continued. “When the plane hit the lake, I think the windshield was blown out and that’s how the dog was able to escape, but your father was trapped.” He paused. “Are you sure you’re okay with me talking about this?”
Libby nodded again. The convulsive shivers were easing as she warmed up, though Carson’s words struck a different kind of chill in her heart.
“I found that bone between the yoke and the seat. Now, those Beavers are built like rocks. The seat isn’t going to come unbolted when the plane hits the water, and no way in hell is it going to come loose when a pilot pulls the nose up to gain altitude, but that’s what I think happened. I think he started his climb and the seat slid right out from under him and left him hanging on to the yoke. The pull on the yoke caused the plane to go straight up until it stalled. When it nosed over and fell into the lake, the seat slammed forward through the windshield and wedged there. He was trapped, water came in, and the plane sank.”
Everything To Prove Page 24
