Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

you did.”
    The Coast Guard inflatable fired its engine and cast off from the Patrol boat taking the tall lieutenant with it, presumably to get his dive gear. Turning to face away from Officer Kirby who now sat in the marine patrol boat Hayden said, “At least they’re not looking at me like I’m a suspect. Of course, I don’t know how I feel about being taken for crazy either.”
    “My money’s on you, kid.” Cappy said. “If you say you saw someone, you saw someone.” A troubled look crossed his face as he reached into the cuddy cabin to turn up the volume on the marine radio. “You’re sure it wasn’t the skeleton?”
    “That kind of bothers me. I don’t remember seeing the skeleton. Isn’t it in the room below?”
    Cappy shook his head. “You know better, Hayd.”
    Misery made her stomach clench. “What if I was narked? It can happen, but you know I can identify it and compensate for it, but if it came from the migraine...” She pressed a thumb and forefinger into her eyes and rubbed them. “Sure wish I could see into the wheelhouse from here.” Sighing, she stood up straight. “If I’m wrong, we’ll be taking mortgages on our houses. That Coast Guard cutter doesn’t come cheap.”
    For the second time that day, ocean waters closed over Hayden’s head. This time they felt chilly. She checked her gauge and saw the water temperature was in the eighties. Second dives were usually colder. Pushing up the sleeve of her dive skin, she saw the tiny bumps rising from her flesh. It didn’t help that she felt the lieutenant watching her as they made their descent. He made sure they were side by side and he matched her fin kick to fin kick. It crossed her mind that if he thought she was going to try to make a run for it, she’d have no place to go.
    To distract herself she concentrated on the fish life darting in and out of the wreck profile. She couldn’t see the grouper but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. As often happens on dives, the water looked crystal clear from the topside but obscured horizontally. Visibility had deteriorated since her earlier dive. Hayden wasn’t sure whether to hope the corpse was a figment of nitrogen narcosis as the lieutenant and the officer thought or that she’d find him there. Still wrapped in his anchor line in the wheelhouse. At least that would be vindication. She couldn’t shake the thought that it could be an artifact of the migraine, or the depth triggered some lingering triptan in her system, causing a hallucination. Maybe it caused the blackout too. Maybe something in her system made the drug act differently. Could she have taken more than one, and forgotten that too?
    Paul’s hand reached out and touched her shoulder. With a start, she realized they were at the wreck. He wagged his hand back and forth asking for directions. Using hand signals, she indicated the route to take to get to the window she had used. The lieutenant, however, decided to take a more direct route. He went directly to the correct door opening on the stern side and swam into the tiny wheelhouse. Hayden went to her prior post at the window and steeled herself to look down. Knowing what she would see didn’t make it easier.
    The corpse and his eyeless face moved from where she saw him the first time.
    This time both hands were free and his arms waved back and forth in a frantic motion.
    Hayden looked up into Paul’s face and was shocked to see the lieutenant’s eyes crinkle as if he were laughing. She must be narked. She looked at her gauge. They’d only been down five minutes but it was long enough for her. She signaled that she would be ascending. Paul signaled back telling her to wait for him.
    Bastard, thought Hayden, he didn’t even ask if I had a problem, just motioned a stay here sign. She watched as he swam to the corpse and observed it closely. From his BC pocket, he removed a small watertight camera and began taking pictures. Apparently unwilling to take the time to swim