Page 73 of Fast Justice

A boat’s engine sounded behind him in the distance.

He spun around as a black zodiac sped toward them. With steady strokes he kept swimming toward it. Something surfaced off to his eleven o’clock. A body, floating facedown. His heart seized for a moment before he saw the blond hair fanning out in the water.

Not Rowan. It was selfish as hell for him to be relieved, but he was so fucking afraid of finding her body here to care.

The zodiacs drew closer. Rodriguez was at the helm of the first one, Hamilton and Khan leaning over the bow as it drew alongside Mal. The other took off toward Maka.

Mal towed the woman in his arms toward the boat. Hamilton and Khan both reached over and hauled her into it, immediately wrapping a blanket around her. Then Hamilton turned back to Mal and reached a hand down. Mal grasped it, propelled himself up and over the rubber gunwale.

“Any others?” Hamilton asked him as Mal got to his knees.

“Over there,” he said, panting as he pointed toward where he’d seen the blonde.

Rodriguez whipped them around and took off toward the woman. They hauled her body in, covered her with a blanket. There were more bodies in the water now. All naked, their hands bound.

Mal swallowed, ready to puke. If he had to find Rowan dead and pull her body from the water knowing he’d been so close when she’d died and unable to save her…

A crushing pressure filled his chest, like a vise was closing on his ribs.

“There!” Khan shouted.

Mal jerked his head around to look where his teammate was pointing. Sure enough, a brown head was bobbing up and down on the surface. Heart in his throat, he stared at it as Rodriguez sped them over, but his heart sank when he saw it wasn’t Rowan.

They pulled her out, wrapped her up, and Rodriguez set his hands on her shoulders, speaking to her in Spanish. Mal caught the name Rowan, guessed Rodriguez had given a description of her.

Teeth chattering, body shaking uncontrollably, the woman nodded. “S-si,” she answered, and said something else.

Rodriguez looked up at him with sympathetic amber eyes. “She was in there with them.”

Mal swallowed back the rush of tears and looked away, scanning the water. Refusing to give up, but not seeing how she could possibly have survived. Hamilton was on the radio to the other boat. Colebrook’s voice came back loud and clear that they had only found three victims so far, none of them Rowan.

Grief welled up, sharp as a razor blade. Slashing Mal’s heart to pieces. He felt like he was slowly dying inside, bleeding to death from a million cuts. He didn’t know how he would bear this.

Hamilton set a hand on his shoulder.

Mal didn’t bother shaking it off. “I’m gonna find her,” he said roughly. “I’m gonna find her and take care of her.”

“We’re not leaving without her,” Hamilton promised, and stepped back to give him room.

He couldn’t answer, his whole world imploding around him.

Then Khan suddenly shot to his feet and turned toward the stern, as if he’d spotted something. “Freeman, look!”

Mal whipped around, heart pounding, hope a painful pressure under his ribs. He shoved past Hamilton to get a better look as Rodriguez spun the boat around.

And then he saw what Khan had spotted. A lone woman with inky dark hair swimming toward the wreckage of the fallen crane just above the water line. His throat closed up, a raw sound of gratitude that came from the bottom of his soul.

Rowan.

“It’s her,” he grated out, fighting the urge to dive back in the water to get to her. “Go.”

“We’re going,” Rodriguez answered, and opened up the throttle.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The light above her was growing brighter. Brighter.

Rowan was out of air, her lungs on fire, and the surface was so heart-breakingly close but she couldn’t reach it…

---