You Don't Want To Know

Chapter 11


On the day of the outing the sky was darkening ominously as a storm gathered, dark clouds roiling, sea undulating madly. The four of them were all on the new sailboat: Kelvin, Jewel-Anne, Wyatt, and Ava.

“Get us home!” Jewel-Anne shrieked, her eyes round with fear, her face pale in the swirling rain. She clung to the rail.

“I’m trying. Batten down the f*cking hatches and go inside!” Kelvin yelled.

“And be trapped? No way!”

“Jewel, please!” he snapped.

“Just hurry!” She clung on, as stubborn as a barnacle.

“Get inside!” Ava yelled as the wind keened, and the boat lurched violently.

“Shit!” Kelvin worked the helm as Wyatt dropped the sea anchor from the stern, hoping to keep the boat steady, but the waves were lashing at the Bloody Mary, spinning her wildly in the sea.

“Bring her around. Bow into the waves!” Wyatt screamed, then swore as a monster wave crashed over the stern and the boat shuddered wildly. “The storm’s blowing inland! Bow into the waves!”

“Nooo!” Jewel-Anne wailed as she stared at the rising wall of water. “Get us in! Hurry!”

“We have to ride it out!” With Ava’s help, Wyatt struggled with the trysail. Meant to help in a storm, the damned thing seemed as useless as the motor that Kelvin had tried and failed to start.

“Oh, please! Just get us home!” Jewel-Anne was crying now, her legs sliding around as she struggled for purchase, her arms wrapped around the rail.

Wyatt shouted, “We can’t get across the bar!”

“Then we’ll all die!” She blinked wildly. “All of us, including the baby!” Her gaze found Ava’s, beseeching her, speaking to Ava’s most maternal instincts.

“She’s right!” Ava said, thinking of her unborn child. Her child. Wyatt’s child. “We have to get to land.”

“Even if we get across the bar and into the bay, which we won’t, we won’t be able to dock,” Wyatt pointed out. His jaw was set, rain sliding down his face, his hair plastered to his head.

“For the love of God, get that damned sail down!” Kelvin demanded fiercely, his calm shattered with the magnitude of the storm.

Wyatt grimaced at the size of the next wave. “Keep her at ninety degrees!”

“I can’t. Shit!” Kelvin fought the wheel, and the rocks guarding the bar loomed larger. “Hang on!”

With a roar, the wave crested and drenched the boat. Icy water surged around Ava, who, already nauseous, fought to cling on. The small craft bobbed wildly, spinning with the force of the raging ocean.

Hair flying around her face, soaked to the bone, Jewel-Anne screamed as she clutched the rail near the helm. Her eyes were wide with fear, her skin ashen. “You have to hurry!” she cried, as if they could outrun the storm.

Kelvin ignored her, his jaw set as another wave slammed over the deck and the boat listed slightly.

“Get below deck!” Wyatt ordered.

Jewel-Anne was beside herself. “You’re going to crash! For the love of God! Kelvin! We’re all going to die! Watch out!”

“Shut up!” Kelvin didn’t so much as glance at her. Rain plastered his hair to his head; his arms strained at the helm. “Just shut the f*ck up!”

Stomach churning and freezing from the water, Ava gripped the rail and strained to see shore, a light, anything to guide them. What had started out as a whimsical tour had turned quickly into this disaster, and now Kelvin was straining to get the boat to shore without hitting the rocks that surrounded the island.

“We’re not going to make it!” Jewel-Anne screeched as the wind howled, and the boat rocked.

“Get your f*ckin’ life jacket on!” Kelvin insisted.

“I can’t!” Jewel-Anne was hysterical, her face as white as death. She grabbed his arm and nearly doubled over as the boat rocked crazily. “We’re all going to die!” Wailing, she dropped into a pathetic puddle at Kelvin’s feet.

“Get her away from me!” he told Ava. “Now!”

“Don’t you touch me!” Jewel-Anne was screaming again, glaring at Ava as she clawed at Kelvin’s arm.

“Come on, Jewel-Anne,” Ava said, but Jewel-Anne clung to Kelvin’s legs.

He tried to kick her away as he struggled to keep the craft afloat. “Get her below deck!”

“Nooo!” Jewel-Anne was having none of it.

Ava pulled on her cousin’s arm. “Come on, Jewel!”

“Leave me alone!” She scrambled to her feet, then grabbed the railing and nearly pitched headfirst into the swirling, storming sea.

“Jewel-Anne!” Wyatt leaped at the floundering woman while Kelvin tried to steady the boat in the huge trough. “Get the hell below deck!”

Jewel-Anne seemed not to hear him.

“Come on, Jewel,” Ava said as calmly as she could, though the boat was pitching crazily and her stomach was roiling, acid climbing up her throat.

“Jesus!” Kelvin yelled over the scream of the sea. “Get below!”

“So I can be trapped like a rat when you capsize?” Jewel cried.

“I’m not going to—Oh, f*ck.” He turned his attention to the helm.

“It’s safer in the cabin,” Ava said tautly, trying to sound strong and convincing when her own heart was racing, adrenaline and fear pumping through her bloodstream.

“Liar!”

“Let’s go, Jewel-Anne!” Ava grabbed her cousin’s arm, the fingers of one hand curling over the slippery sleeve of Jewel’s jacket while she located a life vest below the deck seating with the other. God, her cousin could be bullheaded. “Put this on. Now!” She slapped the vest into her cousin’s hand. “Leave Kelvin alone. Let him steer us in.” She tugged on Jewel-Anne’s arm as the boat lurched.

“No!” Jewel lost her footing and cried out in pain as she fell.

“Get her the f*ck out of here!” Kelvin roared, trying like hell to control his own panic as he navigated in the trough in front of a gathering wave.

Jewel-Anne whimpered and scrabbled away from Ava, looking as awkward as a crab on its back upon the wet deck. The hood of her jacket had blown off, and she was still not wearing the damned vest dangling from her fingers. “You stay away from me!” she hissed, panic rising in her eyes, rain lashing at her face and hair. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God! We’re all going to die!”

Ava’s control snapped. She lunged forward and hit the slick deck. On her knees, she grabbed her cousin’s arm and shook it angrily. “For the love of God, Jewel, calm the hell down!”

Jewel screamed, “Shut up!”

Smaaack! Without thinking, Ava slapped her cousin across the face. “Get a damned grip!” she yelled over the screaming wind. “No one’s gonna die. Pull yourself together!”

Startled, Jewel-Anne stared at her as the boat pitched crazily. “You bitch!”

“Both of you. Stop it! Do something, for Christ’s sake!” Wyatt screamed over his shoulder. He was still wrangling with the useless sea anchor.

Rain lashed down on them, running off their jackets and hoods, their life vests little peace of mind against the vicious, angry sea and the rocks now mere feet away, the sea whirling around them. Ava pulled herself upright and tried to drag Jewel-Anne to her feet, but her heavy cousin was a dead weight, nearly impossible to force to her feet on the slippery, unstable deck. “Come on, come on,” she muttered as the wind screamed and the storm raged. Sheer terror gave her strength, and finally Jewel-Anne was standing again, bracing herself near the helm.

Despite the fact that all hell was breaking loose around her, she rubbed the red mark on her face. “Bitch!” she hissed at Ava. “This is all your fault!”

Wildly, the boat pitched and rolled, barely staying afloat.

Jewel clung to the railing, her eyes suddenly trained on the sea. “WATCH OUT!”

Ava followed her cousin’s gaze.

Her heart nearly collapsed as she saw the rocks. Black. Jagged. Menacing. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, fear scraping down her soul. They were too close! This trough was just too damned close to the rocks!

Jewel-Anne threw herself at Kelvin. “Turn about! Kelvin! Turn about!”

Kelvin ordered, “Do something with her! Now!”

“Hang on!” Wyatt shouted as another mammoth wave swelled wildly to crest above the boat. He lunged forward, grabbed Jewel-Anne, and pulled her close. “Stop this! Now! Get your life vest on!”

Too late.

The wave crashed down, a deafening wall of water. Ava’s feet went out from under her.

Bam!

Her head crashed into the gunnel.

Pain exploded behind her eyes. The world started to turn black. Blindly she scrabbled for something to hang on to. A torrent of icy water nearly crushed her, taking her under, flooding her mouth and lungs.

The boat groaned and shuddered.

Ava came up coughing and blinking, unable to focus. This was it. They could never weather the storm. She thought of the baby and wished to high heaven the little unborn person would have had a chance . . .

Don’t give up! You can’t!

She focused on her brother.

Kelvin, jaw set, eyes filled with the look of the doomed, was braced against the helm, fighting the storm and losing. As if they were alone in the world.

Wyatt!

Oh, sweet Jesus, where was Wyatt?

And Jewel-Anne?

Coughing and spitting, Ava grabbed hold of a length of line unraveling from somewhere and held on as the boat rolled with the swells. Where the hell was Wyatt? Dread beat inside her heart. “Wyatt!” She could barely see. Water rushed over the deck. She wouldn’t believe that she’d lost her husband. He had to be here! And where the hell was Jewel-Anne? Frantic, she started yelling for help, silently praying that they hadn’t washed overboard.

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God . . .

Please, let them be safe.

Her panicked gaze searched the decking. She screamed her husband’s name, but the roar of the sea pounded in her ears, the sound as immense as her fear. Her voice was but a whisper.

“Wyatt!” she yelled, still coughing as the boat listed dangerously and the rocks . . . the damned rocks were so close. . . . “Wyatt!”

SSSCRRRAPE! The horrid sound of stone tearing through fiberglass rumbled through the sailboat.

The Bloody Mary shuddered.

Ava clung to the rope. God, help us!

Another monster wave cascaded over the gunnels and decks. “Hang on!” Kelvin yelled.

Up the sailboat lifted, masts groaning as Kelvin tried to turn the prow from the trough into the next monstrous wave.

The keel scraped the sharp rocks. Shrieking as if in pain, the keel split open and the sea swarmed over the decks, flooding into the lower part of the boat, bringing it down, the craft pitching and bobbing even as it sank into the hurtling depths.

Another wave rose, swelling beneath the broken Bloody Mary, lifting the boat high, and then, in a mighty rush, pushing it once more into the spiny rocks so sharply that it capsized.

Flung into the frigid water, Ava was swallowed by the sea. The line wrapped tightly over her palm, the nylon rope that had saved her, now pulled her deeper into the ocean and tied her to a certain death. Her damned life vest couldn’t save her.

Frantically, she tried to untie herself. Her fingers fumbled. Come on, come on! Her lungs were beginning to burn. The line wasn’t knotted, just twisted, and she couldn’t pull her fingers free.

Come on, Ava, you can do it! Don’t give up!

Her lungs were on fire now, her fingers getting clumsier as the sea tossed her in its wild current. Pieces of debris swirled around her and the line only tightened.

Panic tore through her.

If she didn’t get air soon—

Bam!

She was thrust into the rocks. The side of her face and ribs cracked against the jagged, barnacled rock.

A rush of air bubbles rose from her lips.

Pain ricocheted down her spine.

She could barely think. Blackness surrounded her, pulling her under. Her senses dulled, seducing her to just let go. . . .

No!

With one last effort, she forced the line from her fingers, ripping it away with her free hand, scraping off her skin, breaking her nails; then as the nylon finally gave way, uncoiling around her, she kicked. Hard!

Straining to reach the surface, her body beaten and exhausted, she knifed upward, fighting the raging current, uncertain she would make it despite the foam vest.

Suddenly, she broke the surface. Gasping, she dragged in a lungful of air just before the next huge breaker pounded down. She rode the wave, letting the tide push her over the rough rocks and across the bar, into the bay.

Limp, tossed around and beaten up, the wind and sea raging around her, she caught a glimpse of the lights of Neptune’s Gate winking in the distance. Warm patches of gold glowing through the gloom.

Her heart clenched.

The expanse of turbulent sea was daunting. If she could only swim to shore . . . less than a mile . . . but first . . .

She tried to tread water, to search the white-capped, undulating surface to search for Wyatt, Jewel-Anne, and Kelvin.

Surely they were alive.

They had to be.

Hadn’t they been wearing vests?

“Hey!” she yelled, but her voice was drowned by the storm. Her eyes searched through the odd shapes riding on the surging tide, the flotsam from the Bloody Mary. She saw no one. Oh, please, she thought desperately. Wyatt, please . . . Her throat clogged as another strong, freezing wave pushed her farther inland.

She closed her mind and held her breath, tried not to think that her brother, cousin, and husband could be lost. That she alone could have survived. If she made it.

“Hey!”

A hand suddenly touched her arm, snapping her out of her reverie.

Ava gasped in shock, her feet slipping a little as she left the memory and slammed into the present.

Austin Dern was glaring at her. He had a death grip on her upper arm.

And he looked pissed as hell.