Chapter 3
Off and away
Logan Rush is climbing out of the yacht.
Almost all the partiers are clustered together on the brightly lit upper deck, their attention riveted on Britney Vaux who is stretched out on the bar counter, offering tequila body shots to roars of approval from the crowd. But Logan is on the bottom deck, at the dark and quiet rear of the yacht, where a short steel ladder leads to an inflatable dinghy and a jet-ski on the water below.
He swings one long leg over the side, finds a toehold on the ladder, and then hoists himself over. There’s a loud boing! and a stifled curse as he bangs his head — hard by the sound of it — on the flagpole jutting out from the back of the boat. My arms stretch up instinctively, as if to catch him, because he’s dangling from the ladder by one hand while his feet scrabble to find purchase on the rungs.
Quickly, I paddle closer. At any moment he’s sure to lose his hold and plunge into the chilly Atlantic. But he clings on awkwardly, his back to the ladder, heels perched on a rung midway down. One hand covers his mouth, and his head tilts upward as if to check whether anyone might be peering down at him. It seems that all attention is still on Britney, judging by the cheers rising above the loud music on the top deck.
“Shh,” I’m close enough to hear Logan say, apparently to himself. “Sh-sh-sh!”
He taps a silencing finger against his lips and then appears to remember something. His hand moves to his jacket pocket into which he’s somehow managed to wedge a champagne bottle. Unable to tug it free, he lifts the whole jacket up by the pocket and tips some of the liquid down his throat. As his head tilts back, he sways, and for a few seconds it looks like he’ll lose his balance again, but then he moves with careful, deliberate steps down the remaining rungs of the ladder until he gets to the last one. Blinking hard as if trying to focus his gaze, he stares at the dinghy floating on the water in front of him and shakes his head several times. It must hurt, because he clutches his forehead again and groans before turning to face the jet-ski.
With a decisive nod, he leaps onto it, clambering like a drunken monkey over the handlebars and dropping heavily onto the seat, facing the rear of the jet-ski. After a moment, an expression of deep puzzlement steals over his features.
“Hey!” he protests loudly. Immediately his eyes widen, and he puts his forefinger back onto his lips. “Sh-sh-shhh!”
I giggle, but I don’t think he hears me because although he looks up, it’s to check over his shoulder, back at the yacht.
“There ’tis,” he exclaims, spotting the handlebars and dashboard behind him.
While he struggles to coordinate his limbs into turning around on the seat, I paddle around to the side so that I can see his face. He looks very pleased with himself — until his hand goes to the ignition slot and gropes the space where the key should be, but isn’t. He pats the jet-ski all over its dash and sides and seats, and then checks his own pockets — where he rediscovers the champagne and consoles himself with another slug.
“Gone!” he says forlornly, slumping in the seat. But his face lights up when he catches sight of the dinghy again, and at once he swings both legs over the side of the jet-ski.
Uh-oh.
When he stands up, the jet-ski lurches sideways, pitching him head-first into the dinghy, legs and feet splashing into the water.
With much cursing and shushing, he pulls himself into the inflatable and plonks down on one of its bench seats. He spends the next several minutes taking off his shoes, rolling off his wet socks and tucking them neatly inside the shoes, muttering incoherently the whole time. I watch, but my fascination turns into concern when he loosens the rope tying the dinghy to the yacht and it begins drifting away from the larger craft.
I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t look sober enough to manage the dinghy — he’s still clutching his shoes and socks to his chest, for crying out loud! Should I alert someone on the yacht? The same people he seems so intent on escaping, the same people who’re now chanting, “Take it off! Take it off!”
Maybe I should paddle over and offer to help him? I could — I know how to handle an inflatable. I pretend to weigh the options, even as I begin closing the distance between us.
“Aha,” Logan crows from his unsteady perch.
He leans over and pulls the starter cord. The outboard engine snarls into life and the dinghy shoots forward, toppling him backwards.
“Oh, crap!” This time, the curse is mine.
Clearly, the last fool to use the boat left the motor in gear when he turned it off, and now the dinghy is headed straight out to sea, with Logan Rush lying in the bottom of it. It’s moving slowly — thank God he hasn’t discovered the throttle, yet — but still, there’s no way I can swim or paddle fast enough to catch it.
I’m about to return to the yacht to get help, when I glimpse Logan’s head rising above the edge of the inflatable. He must be on his hands and knees, crawling towards the motor.
“The kill switch!” I yell. “Pull the kill switch!”
But either he can’t hear me, or he doesn’t know what I mean because instead of stopping, the boat begins turning in tight circles, throwing up arcs of water as it pushes against its own wake. He must have pushed the rudder.
I stand up on my surfboard, shouting and waving to get his attention. In the dinghy, Logan rises unsteadily to his feet.
“No! Stay down!” I yell.
He teeters for a few seconds, then as the boat hits a big swell, he tips sideways, pitches over the side furthest from me, and disappears into the black water.
Frozen in horror, I stand and stare at the still-turning dinghy, looking for some sign of Logan, expecting his head to bob up out of the sea at any moment. But I see only churned-up water rippling outward from the craft. I tear the Velcro cuff off my ankle, freeing myself from my surfboard, and dive into the cold water. I’m only about fifty metres from the dinghy, and with panic spurring me forward, it doesn’t take me long to close the gap. As I swim, I look up and glimpse a flash of white in the darkness. It’s Logan’s face. As I get closer I see that one of his hands is twisted in the inflatable’s side ropes, and he’s being towed around in circles by it.
I time my final few strokes carefully to avoid the blades of the motor’s propeller. With a hard push out of the water, I haul myself into the boat, lunge at the engine, and put it in neutral. The dinghy slows to an idle on the choppy water.
I peer over the side of the boat — straight down into the surprised face of Logan Rush.
“Oh,” he says, with a spluttering cough. “Hiya.”
“Um, hi,” is all I can think to say in this most amazing, most bizarre moment of my life.
“What just happened?”
“You fell out of the boat. We need to get you back in.”
“I’m stuck,” he says, looking at his right hand which is still caught in the ropes.
“Here, let me.”
Half of my brain is focused on untangling his hand, the other half is freaking out that I am actually touching Logan Rush. For a brief moment, we’re even holding hands — kind of.
“Tha’s better,” he says, rubbing his wrist in relief.
“Not really, no,” I mutter, because now that he’s no longer snarled in the ropes, Logan is sinking down into the water.