Marcia Talley - Dark Passage

‘No!’ I screamed, and threw the life ring I had been holding over the side.

Behind me, I heard pounding footsteps, at last. ‘Man overboard! Man overboard!’ Pia was back on the deck, running flat out, waving her arms.

Behind her, also moving at full speed, was Officer Martin, his phone pressed against his chin. ‘Oscar Oscar Oscar Starboard Side.’ His voice was steady, controlled. Clearly he’d practised the man overboard procedure hundreds of times.

Almost immediately, his call was repeated, blasting from the loudspeaker mounted on the bulkhead directly over my head, echoing from other loudspeakers all around the ship. Oscar Oscar Oscar Starboard Side!

Whooo! Whooo! Whooo!

As the deafening sound of the ship’s horns died away, the ship shuddered, slowed, and began to turn.

With icy calm, David lowered the sabre and pulled down on the handle on his side of the barrier that would open the gate. I started to step aside, but as he approached me he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out his iPhone. ‘Hannah,’ he said. ‘Take it. I recorded it all.’

‘Oh, David, why…?’ I managed to croak as he pressed the phone into my outstretched hand and folded my fingers protectively over it.

Then he altered course, heading directly for Pia. ‘This is yours, I believe,’ he said, handing her the sabre. ‘I wasn’t going to push him off, Hannah, you have to believe me. I just wanted to scare him so he’d come clean about Noelle, Charlotte and Julie.’

Despite finally having his questions answered, David didn’t look any better for it. If anything, he looked more broken. I believed him; he may have forced Channing onto the chair, but it wasn’t David’s fault the magician had stumbled over the side. I remembered the look David had given me; clearly he hadn’t foreseen the outcome – Channing actually tumbling over the side.

My heart ached for my friend as he staggered to the railing, sagged and rested his head on his arms. Then, suddenly, more quickly than I believed possible, he had one leg over the rail.

‘No!’ I screamed, but it was too late. Without so much as a backward glance, David launched himself over the railing and flew overboard, too.

I rushed to the railing and looked down. David’s jacket had caught on something. Instinctively I leaned over and stretched out my hand, but he was too far below me for it to do any good. David’s jacket held for perhaps a second more, then ripped away. I watched in horror as my friend plunged into the sea.

Someone had grabbed another life ring. I felt the breeze as it sailed past my face. I leaned over the rail again, straining my eyes, trying to pick out David’s face in the inky blackness of the water.

I should have known it would be fruitless. The ship had been traveling at twenty knots. Thomas Channing and David Warren would already be floating far behind. Strobe lights attached to the life rings – there were more than a dozen of them floating in the water now – blinked in the distance like lighthouse beacons.

From the bow, flares shot into the air as the huge vessel continued its slow turn, heading back to the area where the two men had jumped.

Islander decelerated until she was barely moving. I was now only one of several hundred people crowding the rails as we watched a speedboat being launched from several decks below. I could see the white uniforms of the crew that manned the tiny vessel as the engines revved and the boat sped off, following the trail of strobes which were bobbing like breadcrumbs on the dark, oily water.

‘Do you think they’ll find him?’ Pia sobbed.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, unsure who she meant. ‘Who? Thomas Channing or David Warren?’

I felt her shrug. ‘Both, I suppose. I just can’t believe it, Hannah. I thought I was close to Tom – as close as anyone ever got to him, anyway. But I guess I really didn’t know him at all, did I?’ She swiped tears away with the back of her hand. ‘It’s partly my fault, too,’ she sniffed.

‘How can any of this be your fault, Pia?’

She turned a tear-stained face to me. ‘Remember the night I was injured? Before the show I told Tom about my conversation with David. I thought Tom was out of sorts that night but it never crossed my mind that that could be why…’ She paused. ‘And David… I really care about David, Hannah. He seems like such a lost soul. Everything he loved most in the world, taken from him, and now a cruel twist at the end. He deserves better than, than…’

I considered the dark surface of the sea and knew what she was thinking. ‘I think David died the day his wife died, Pia. His life had only one purpose after that. Find his daughter’s killer. And he succeeded. After that… well, what more did he have to live for?’

‘Suicide is never the answer, Hannah.’

‘I know. Back when I had, well, health issues, I learned that life is too precious to be given up willingly.’

The sky lit up like the Fourth of July as more flares were launched from the rescue vessel. Spotlights mounted on its pilot house switched on and began slow sweeps, combing the water.

‘I guess I’m out of a job,’ Pia said, leaning her forearms on the railing, peering off into the distance where rescue lights were dancing around on the waves.

‘There’s always the Oracle,’ I said.

‘Hah! My goal in life. Serving wine to knitters. You know what I want to do right now, Hannah? I want to go home and hug my parents.’

I wanted to do the same, but my mother had passed away more than a decade before and Dad had moved away. ‘Where do they live, Pia?’ I asked.

‘Boston. North End. They own a restaurant.’

‘Italian?’ I wondered aloud.

In the light from the flares, I saw Pia smile. ‘How did you guess?’

We stood in companionable silence for a while, until someone shouted, ‘Look! They’re coming back!’

Pia and I leaned forward, straining our eyes. Indeed, the launch was returning. As it neared the side of Islander , we noticed white-shirted crew members performing CPR on someone lying on the deck at the stern. ‘Is that David or Tom?’ I asked, straining forward, trying to get a better view. ‘Where are my binoculars when I need them?’

‘I can’t tell.’

Neither could I. David had been wearing a jacket over a blue oxford shirt, but the victim’s chest seemed to be bare. The rescue launch drew up to Islander , port side kissing our starboard, so close that we couldn’t see it anymore. But they must have offloaded the victim, because the launch zipped off almost immediately, heading back into the sea of strobes.

For more than an hour Islander idled. In the distance, lights swept the water continually, then suddenly they seemed to multiply, divide. I blinked, refocused, blinked again.

A man standing nearby who had been viewing the rescue effort through binoculars shouted, ‘It’s the Coast Guard!’

The cavalry had ridden to the rescue! Everyone on deck began to applaud and shout encouragement.

According to the gentleman with the binoculars, Islander’ s launch would be handing over responsibility for the search to the Coasties, who were ‘much better equipped.’ I watched with a heavy heart as the launch returned, empty-handed, to the mother ship.

Gradually, Islander reversed course and picked up speed. I kept my eyes on the strobes as they grew farther and farther away, watching with deepening sadness as they winked out one by one over the dark horizon.

The spectators began to disperse, heading for their cabins, or the casino, or perhaps to one of the bars where they could argue with alcohol-fueled confidence about the events they had just witnessed. By the following day, I knew, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter would take the news viral.