Dead in the Water
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Dead In The Water
Kate Shugak 03
Dana Stabenow
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book"
DEAD IN THE WATER
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley edition / July
Berkley Prime Crime edition / September
Copyright 1993 by Dana Stabenow.
Material excerpted from A Cold-Blooded Business copyright 1993 by Dana Stabenow This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
A BERKLEY BOOK - TM 757,
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name Berkley Prime Crime and the Berkley Prime Crime design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
13 12 11 10
for Kathleen, Susan and Amy co-writers in residence and for Nancy, the angel at the gate
ONE
THE Avilda rolled into a trench of opaque green seas.
Normally, when she was vertical, those seas rose as high as her masthead. Now the crabber was listing so steeply that the portside railing was awash. Kate, legs braced against the slant of the deck, had her head and shoulders jammed up against the frame of an empty crab pot. The pot was threatening to slide over her and the port rail in that order. Her arms were widespread, her fingers, numbed with cold and wet with salt water, clutched desperately to the frame of the pot. The wire mesh pressed into the flesh of her face. Something warm and liquid slid down her cheek. She wondered, without interest, if it was tears or blood.
The pot was seven feet tall and seven feet wide and three feet deep, a steel frame covered in metal netting, pounds of dead weight empty. Kate was five feet tall, weighed just over 120 pounds and was mere flesh and bone, but she had Newton on her side, and she waited. She could feel the rest of the crew watching, but she was fiercely determined to do this herself, without help and, more importantly, without asking for help.
A muscle in her back rebelled at the unaccustomed strain and spasmed. She cursed beneath her breath, though if she'd shouted her voice would not have been heard above the crash of Aleutian water on deck, the howl of Aleutian winds overhead and the rough, deep-throated roar of the engine beating up through the soles of her feet.
At last, at last, the crabber mounted the next swell and began its inevitable slide in the opposite direction.