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that he had already noted her singularly photogenic bone structure before he turned and ran for his cameraman.

    Faye slogged through the swampy muck separating Seagreen Island from the Gulf, trying to come up with a happy ending that fit the facts. There, beached on a sand bar and surrounded by calm water dappled in more shades of aquamarine than even Monet knew, was the boat that should have been carrying Krista and Sam back from their pancake breakfast. If they were in it, then they were lying out of sight in the bottom of the boat.
    Not liking that image, Faye tried another. Sam had fallen overboard, Krista jumped in after him, and the boat sped away out of control until it beached itself here. Two needles floating in a saltwater haystack—Faye liked that image even less.
    The boat wasn’t far away. She could swim that far. Hell, she could probably walk that far on the submerged sandbars peppering the waters around the Last Isles. Again, this did not bode well for Sam and Krista; they could have walked ashore as easily as she could walk to them. She let the gooey muck ringing the island suck the boots right off her feet and strode into the water.
    Faye ran hard through the thigh-deep water until she hit a deep spot and plunged in over her head, driving saltwater into her sinuses. Aiming for the patch of water that was the greenest and therefore the deepest, she struck out swimming, using a flailing, slapping stroke in a futile attempt to minimize contact with the shallow bottom.
    She swam until her knees scraped bloody on the sand, then she stood up and ran again. She had repeated this cycle three times before she reached the boat and dragged herself aboard. By this time, Anthony Perez and his cameraman had been standing in the muck for at least five minutes, filming every step of her race through the water and across the sand. They waited, ready to record her moment of discovery.
    Faye disappointed them by finding the boat empty.

Chapter 4
    Faye and Magda hunkered on the floor of the airless equipment shed, hiding from the media. Faye wiped the sweat off her neck and scanned the shelves. “You know there’s a laptop computer and a couple of data loggers missing.”
    “Of course. I inventoried the shed as soon as you found Sam and Krista’s boat. Either they stole the equipment, planning to sell it and run off with the money—”
    “Not likely,” Faye interjected. “They’ve been trusted with far more expensive equipment in the past.”
    Magda bristled. “They’re good kids. They wouldn’t steal.”
    “Well, you suggested it.”
    Magda spoke with her hands when she was nervous, a dangerous habit in such close quarters. “I didn’t suggest it seriously. I was just getting to the point. Someone else took the equipment. Sam and Krista may have gotten in the way of a petty thief.”
    Faye gave a small nod. “So what’s our plan?”
    “The Marine Patrol has been called,” Magda said. “If the kids are floating in the Gulf, they can surely find them better than we can.”
    “Their parents?”
    Magda pressed her lips together and nodded. “And the sheriff.”
    “What’ll he do?” Faye asked. “He’ll search the island, but we can do that. We should be doing that now.”
    “It’s a small island. If they were here—”
    “They could be here, out of sight somewhere. The island is small, but it’s overgrown. They could be hurt, right now, and we’re not looking for them.”
    Galvanized, Magda said, “Yes. We can find them. What is archaeology if it isn’t the science of finding hidden things? You and your crew can search the eastern half of the island. I’ll take my crew west. Let’s use the hill as a dividing line.”
    Faye nodded and took a first aid kit off the shelf.
    Magda smeared a gob of sunscreen over her peeling and freckled nose—field archaeology is not an optimal career for a fair-skinned strawberry blonde—and the familiar activity seemed to help her reassume her familiar, cocky