“Help me with the pilot. The ambulance crew is on the beach now.” He called to the men in the second boat.

“You guys take these ladies in, okay?” he said.

“And bring us back a knife or something to cut this seat belt with.”

Daria was usually crew chief, usually the one giving the orders, but this was not an official call, and she didn’t balk at following Pete’s instructions. She helped Pete and Andy transfer their terrified passenger into the second boat, and as the two men and the injured women sailed away, Daria and Pete turned their attention back to the pilot.

Daria reached into the plane and pressed her fingertips against the woman’s throat, feeling for a pulse.

“Is she alive?” Shelly asked from the water.

“Yes.” The pulse was very rapid, but strong. The woman suddenly rolled her head back against the seat and her brown eyes fluttered open. It was an instant before they registered alarm.

“Stay calm,” Daria said. She was shocked to realize that the pilot was very young, no more than eighteen or nineteen, with long dark hair and a pronounced widow’s peak that only added beauty to her heart-shaped face. Like the passenger, she also had a gash across her forehead, this one bleeding profusely.

“We’ve just about got you out,” Daria said as she took off her own T-shirt and pressed it against the woman’s head. It was a lie, but a necessary one. The water was up to the woman’s waist, and Pete’s arms were submerged as he leaned over the side of the boat, struggling with her seat belt.

“The door frame’s twisted somehow,” he said under his breath to Daria.

“The belt’s caught in it. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“I’m in the water, Pete,” Shelly said.

“Maybe I can do it from down here.”

“You’re just in the way. Shelly,” Pete snapped, and for a brief moment, Daria felt hatred toward him. This was the man she planned to marry in a few months, and at that moment, she didn’t even like him.

“She hardly looks old enough to have a pilot’s license,” Andy said.

“I don’t think we can work on her from the boat,” Daria said. She was losing her balance. Her hand holding the T-shirt kept slipping away from the woman’s forehead.

“Yeah, and we can’t extricate her this way, either,” Pete added.

“We’ll have to get in the water.”

The plane, Daria realized, was slowly sinking, seawater creeping up the pilot’s body.

“Andy,” Pete said, “you stay in the boat. Keep it close to the plane.

Keep your eyes open for any fuel leaks” too.” He unzipped his shorts, pulled them off and jumped into the water.

Daria took off her own shorts and followed him in. The water took her breath away, it was so cold. “I thought you said it wasn’t cold?”

she said to Shelly as she pulled herself closer to the plane.

“You’ll get used to it,” Shelly said, but her teeth were chattering.

“It’s going down fast,” Andy said from the boat.

“We need a knife out here, damn it,” Pete said, and he dropped under the water to try to work the pilot’s seat belt free. Daria felt the fruitlessness of his effort. He would be able to see nothing underwater in the darkness. She tried to keep pressure on the pilot’s forehead as she let her body float out from the plane to make room for Pete to work. She wondered how long the pilot could survive being immersed in the cold water. How long could any of them survive?

“Shelly, Andy,” Pete sputtered as he surfaced from the water.

“This thing’s sinking like an anchor. Y’all do what you can to keep it upright while Daria and I try to get her out.”

“Okay.” In the boat, Andy skirted the plane to reach the other side, and Shelly swam to the plane’s submerged nose to do what she could to keep it afloat. Daria glanced over her shoulder at the beach, praying someone would bring tools out to help them.

The pilot’s eyes were open now. Open wide. The young woman stared into Daria’s eyes as Daria tried to stem the bleeding from her head wound.

She dared to lift the T-shirt once, only to have blood gush down the frightened pilot’s cheek. She didn’t know how cognizant the pilot was of what was going on or of how much danger she was in. She was not uttering a word, yet her eyes were filled with fear.

“Don’t worry,” Daria said.

“We’re going to get you out. You’ll be all right.”

Pete surfaced from underwater again, tossing his wet black hair out of his face with a shake of his head. “Maybe I can get at her better from the other side,” he said.

“I already tried the door over here,” Andy called from his side of the plane.

“It won’t open.” He sounded winded. Daria glanced at her sister to see how she was faring. Shelly was treading water directly in front of the plane’s propeller, her hands submerged beneath the plane’s nose. She appeared to be going strong.

A small yelp escaped from the pilot’s lips. The water had reached her breasts, and Daria felt a flash of panic course through her own body.

What if they couldn’t get her out? It was beginning to look doubtful, and there was no way that Andy and Shelly would be able to keep the plane above water once it made up its mind to sink. Daria’s legs ached from treading water. She struggled with her free hand to loosen the shoulder harness, trying at the same time to stay out of Pete’s way.

Her foot kept catching on the damaged pontoon, and it was tempting to rest it there to give herself a break from the relentless treading, but she knew that her weight would only pull the plane farther underwater.

Pete surfaced once again, gasping for breath this time. Daria saw fear mixed with the determination in his eyes. She wanted to talk to him, try to puzzle out the best course of action, but before she could say a word, he was underwater again.

“Please help.” The pilot’s voice was barely audible, and she reached out to grab Daria’s wrist.

Daria gently extricated her arm from the woman’s hand.

“I need my hand to get you out,” she said.

The water was rising more quickly now. It had reached the pilot’s chin, and the young woman tilted her head back as though she could somehow prevent the water from climbing up her face. If only she could.

Pete came out of the water on Daria’s right this time. He looked toward the beach, where a second ambulance had arrived.

“Hey!” he shouted vainly against the sound of the sea.

“Come on! We need help out here!”

The woman grasped Daria’s wrist again, and this time Daria did not pull away. She watched in horror as the plane sank lower, pulling the pilot completely underwater, her terrified eyes still wide, staring hard at Daria.

“Oh, God,” Daria said.

“Pete! What can we do?”

Pete turned to Daria. He looked past her, though, and his face suddenly registered shock.

“Oh my God, Shelly,” he shouted.

“Move!”

Daria remembered that Shelly was near the plane’s propellers, and she spun around in terror. But Shelly was safe and sound, treading water, still trying to hold up the plane and wearing a look of confusion at Pete’s reprimand. Daria had no idea why Pete had yelled at her, but there was no time to find out. The plane was suddenly rising again.

And another boat was coming toward them, this one motorized.

“Ocean Rescue’s coming!” she said, then under her breath, “Hurry.

Hurry. “

The pilot’s head rose out of the water, her hair slicked back from her face. Her eyes were still open, but she was not breathing. Floating on her stomach, Daria struggled to breathe into the woman’s mouth as the rescue boat pulled alongside them. Pete got a knife from one of the men in the boat and, slipping beneath the surface of the water, finally freed the pilot.

“Get her into the boat!” Pete shouted, and he and Daria pulled the woman from the plane and passed her to the men in the rescue boat. The boat sped off, and Andy drew his small craft close to them again.

“Get Shelly in first,” Daria said.

“She’s been in the water the longest.”

Shelly was weak now, and Andy had to pull her into the boat.

Daria could barely climb into the boat herself. Her feet were numb and her entire body trembled from exertion and anxiety. Pete pushed her, while Andy pulled. Pete was winded and exhausted when he managed to crawl into the boat himself.

Andy rowed the boat toward shore, and the breakers caught them and carried them onto the beach. They could hear shouting and, in the distance, the whirring of a helicopter.

Too late, Daria thought. She shook with the cold, and her legs threatened to give out from under her as she climbed out of the boat.

She was dressed only in her wet underwear, and she shivered as she staggered over to the cot where the medic was working on the pilot.

The young woman was intubated, bagged and hooked up to an ECG. Daria peered over the medic’s shoulder and saw the flat line on the ECG screen. The defibrillator paddles rested in the sand, obviously no longer needed. The pilot was dead, her brown eyes still open. Fighting tears, Daria turned away, but even with her own eyes shut, she could still see the pilot’s pleading gaze.

“Sorry, Dar.” Mike, who’d arrived with the ambulances, handed her a blanket.

“We’ll take over from here. Do you need a form for your field notes?”

Paperwork. How could Mike even think of that right now?

“I’ve got one in my car,” she said. She tried to wrap the blanket around herself, but her fingers would not do what she wanted them to, and Mike had to help her.

“You’re freezing,” Mike said.

“Go get warm.” He walked back to the ambulance, and she turned away from the scene. She was dazed and dizzy. Where was Pete? Where were Shelly and Andy? Her breath was like fire moving in and out of her chest, and her throat was tight with the need to cry. She hugged the blanket tighter around her body, then spotted someone in the crowd handing Andy a stack of towels. Shelly was near him, and he passed a couple of them to her. She clutched the towels to her chest, and even with the sparse lights from the ambulances, Daria could see her violent shivering. “Do you need a towel?” A woman walked up to Daria and pressed a couple of towels into her arms.

“Thanks,” Daria mumbled. She turned around again, looking for Pete, and finally saw him several yards away, his back to her. By the way he was bending over the water, she knew he was sick. She walked toward him and put one of the towels over his shoulders. He was trembling uncontrollably and didn’t even look at her as he took another towel from her arms and wiped his mouth with it.

She felt his need to be silent, to be asked no questions or receive no words of empty comfort. She rubbed his back through the towel as he stared at the ground, his breathing ragged.

Finally, he glanced at her, his gaze darting quickly to her face before turning out to sea. In the darkness, at least, it appeared the plane had disappeared.

“Do you know what happened out there?” he asked.

She was confused by the question.

“Do you mean… I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

He looked at her directly now, and his eyes were cold.

“Do you know why I yelled at Shelly when we were out there?”

She shook her head.

“I have no idea.”

“Your sister,” he said slowly, deliberately, “was leaning on the propeller, trying to see inside the plane. That’s what pulled the plane under. That’s why the pilot is dead.”

Daria was speechless.

“But when I turned to look at her, she was just treading water. I think she was trying to buoy the plane up.”

“After I yelled at her.”

“Yes,” Daria admitted. Horrified, the weight of his words sank in.

“I

can’t believe it,” she said. Surely Shelly would have known she was making matters worse by leaning on the propeller.

“Believe it,” Pete said.

“I was this close” -he held his thumb and forefinger apart by half an inch “—to freeing that woman—that girl—when the plane went under. Shelly has no common sense.”

“Oh, my God, this is horrible.” Daria thought of the report she would have to write on the accident and the debriefing that would occur the following day. What could she say happened? It would destroy Shelly to know her role in the pilot’s death.

Pete seemed to soften at seeing Daria’s distress. He put his arm around her.

“Look,” he said, his gaze toward the sea once again, his jaw tight.

“No one else knows what happened out there. Just you and me. Shelly doesn’t have a clue what she did. I doubt Andy realized what was going on, and there’s a good chance the plane would have gone down, anyway,” he conceded with a shrug.