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unnecessarily. To Anna's knowledge the first mate neither smoked nor drank strong liquor, but her voiced rasped, bourbon over gravel, like a skid-row actor.
    "I see it."
    "We got a piece of hull," Danny said. "See if you can spot it for 'em, Linda. It wasn't one of ours. Not white. Green. Kind of a glittery metallic bottle green like those newer speedboats got. I don't think it was Bob went down."
    Beside her Anna heard a low mewling cry, barely audible and the first sound Teddy Shaw had made since Danny radioed.
    "Look." Linda pointed with her light south of the circle of oil. "Not the hull but something." The sun had crept closer to the horizon, chasing faint pink-and-gold light ahead to reflect off the water. Against this backdrop, Linda's keen eyes had spotted a shape.
    The Reef was closest. "I'll get it," Anna said.
    Having started the engine, she backed slowly away from the slick, wanting to disturb things as little as possible. She motored up close, and Teddy lifted the thing out of the water with a boat hook and dropped it on deck. "A life jacket," Anna called to the Curious.
    "Not one of ours," Teddy said, and Anna could hear the relief Teddy'd not had the courage to feel till tangible proof it was not her husband's boat was in her hands.
    "Whoever it belonged to wasn't wearing it. Straps are intact, buckles unbroken," Anna said. "Probably shoved under a seat and blown free in the explosion."
    "Bob always wears his. Always," Teddy said. Hope was added to the relief, and Anna was glad for her.
    Bob religiously wore a personal flotation device. It wasn't standard issue but one of those sleek little jobs that rest at the small of the back. It would keep him afloat but had to be deployed. If he were unconscious when he hit the water it would prove nothing but an additional anchor dragging him to the bottom.
    The hum of an approaching boat caught Anna's attention. She threaded back around the cabin to the radio and called the Atlantic Ranger.
    "Mack," she said when he'd answered. "We've got oil and flotsam. Looks like a boat blew up, burned to waterline and sank. It's not the Bay Ranger. No sign of Bob or his boat. You and Cliff keep looking. Linda and I'll dive on this as soon as the light gets a little stronger."
    Silence followed, then a couple clicks of the mike as Mack fingered it. "We'll need to give you a hand with that," he said finally.
    "Linda and I'll take a look. If we need you or Cliff to help with the underwater work, I'll give you a call."
    Another silence, then: "Ten-four." The National Park Service had abandoned the ten codes years before, choosing plain speaking for their radio communications, but some of the numbers, ten-four for "okay" and ten-twenty for "location" had become so ingrained in everyday language that they persisted.
    Anna could understand Mack's reticence to continue the search. In a post so isolated the arrival of groceries and mail was considered a grand occasion it would be hard to be turned away from a bonefide adventure. Quicker than thought, she sent a prayer down to Poseidon that this would prove to be the peak of the day's excitement and that Bob would turn up unharmed and with a good excuse for his nocturnal wandering. She doubted her prayer would be heard. Bob was a stickler for rules. If he were alive, he would have radioed in. The usual reasons for a man staying out all night didn't apply at Fort Jefferson. The only single women near enough for an assignation were the lighthouse keepers on Loggerhead Key and Donna and Patrice not only outweighed and towered over Ranger Shaw but had eyes only for each other.
    For the duration of the dive, Anna abdicated leadership to Linda. For Anna, scuba diving was a sport. On several occasions, the most notable being in the icy waters of Lake Superior, she'd gone on difficult or dangerous dives, but compared to the first mate of the Activa she was a neophyte. Linda had participated in and led dives all over the world. She had rescued other