Page 1 of No One Aboard
Chapter 1
Jerry Baugh
Jerry Baugh didn’t see the ship. He didn’t notice the red warning on the screen. He was, in fact, cozied up in the cockpit of his Dyer 29 lobster boat, feet propped between the rungs of the helm and hands stacked on his belly.
Jerry’s day of deep-sea fishing had been successful—a sailfish bill, broken at the hilt, currently stuck out of his bomber jacket pocket—and he was thinking about whether the meat should be marinated in lemon juice or just plain old butter.
He was too distracted to detect the boat in his path—white and gleaming, suspended between the black water of the Atlantic and the starless, moonless sky with the same sinister beauty of an iceberg.
Or a ghost.
When the boat alarm went off, Jerry jolted in his seat, sending his Bass Pro Shops cap tumbling down his chest. A single drop of sailfish blood had, at some point, fallen onto the face of his watch, which read nine minutes after midnight.
He detangled his feet from the helm and peered at the radar. He was heading two hundred and fifty-eight degrees toward Hallandale Marina. The strange white sailboat blocked his way.
Jerry switched off the autopilot and eased the throttle toslow down, his heart thumping soundly in his chest. If the alarm hadn’t sounded, he might have shipwrecked them both.
This sent a surge of anger through him. Why hadn’t the captain of the sailboat moved out ofhisway?Sheila 2.0wasn’t subtle, her engine making an ugly chewing noise not unlike a trash compactor. They should have heard her coming.
Jerry allowed his boat to chug closer before he killed the engine and processed what on the devil’s blue sea he was looking at.
It was a sailboat, yes, but not like the rust-laced ones that docked nearSheila 2.0in the Hallandale Marina.
This boat was mesmerizing.
It had twin aluminum masts, a wood-finished deck, and sunbathing mattresses laid out on the chart house. The body of the boat was a blinding white, smooth, curvaceous. The cap rails were teak and coated with a glittering crust of sea salt. No one had cleaned them in some time. Cursive lettering on the side spelled out the boat’s name.
The Old Eileen.
Jerry stared, a bit starstruck. Boats likeSheila 2.0were made to choke marine diesel oil and seawater until they finally died twitching in a harbor like a waterlogged beetle on its back.
Boats likeThe Old Eileenwere made to be beautiful.
Jerry found his radio, hooked to his waistband, and cleared his throat before speaking into it.
“Eileen, Eileen, Eileen, this is Sheila, Sheila, Sheila, over.”
He waited.
There was a time when Jerry was younger (and a good bit stupider) that he wanted to buy a sailboat instead of a motorboat. It was romantic, the idea of harnessing the wind to travel the world. But in the end, it was those same winds that terrified him. Wind could overpower him, seize control of the boat and bend its course. Jerry would have had to accept thatpossibility. He would have had to bare his throat to the mercy of the sea.
A mercy, he had come to understand, that did not exist.
“Eileen, Eileen, Eileen!” Jerry repeated into the radio.
They must be asleep. Jerry leaned forward and sounded his horn—five short blasts to signal danger. He waited for the radio to crackle to life, for a silver-spooned captain to sputter apologies, or maybe for an underpaid deckhand to rush up top and get the boat moving once more.
There was only the sound of the luffing, useless sails, and the ever-shifting sea.
Jerry frowned and fiddled with the fish bill in his pocket. He should leave.
He fumbled in the dark to switch the engine back on. He would report what he’d seen to the coast guard, get the captain in trouble for being so reckless. He’d be back in Florida by dawn.
But Steve...
Jerry glanced at his dash where he had taped up a photograph of himself with his younger brother. It was the last picture taken of Steve before he died. Jerry closed his eyes for a moment. He would have traded his boat, his bait, and everything he owned if someone had stopped that night to help Steve.
“Well, shit.” Jerry rubbed at his clavicle and swallowed hard. He would be in and out. Just to make sure all was well.
