“Damn it.” She poked her head down the stairs and saw he wasn’t lying. If anything, it looked more like two feet of water down there. There was a breach in the hull somewhere, and from what Jess could tell, it was too late to do anything to fix it.

“Guess we’re racing,” she told Sweeney, and opened up the throttle. “Go back there and make sure Burke is comfortable.”

The boat’s engines roared, and not in a good way. The starboard motor sounded like death throes, and there was a rattle from the port side that didn’t portend good things. But the propellers churned the water, and the boat rose on a plane, punching through the swell with a violence that sent Lucy scurrying forward from where Burke was lying, to the stairs into the cabin and the rising tide.

Jess could feel the boat wallow, how sluggish it seemed when she pulled on the wheel. She kept the wheel straight. She knew there were lights up ahead, somewhere, that would guide her into Neah Bay.

But the water kept rising, even as she raced the boat up the channel and the navigation light at Chibahdehl Rocks came into view, midway between Dixie Island and civilization. The boat’s nose was planed so high she could hardly see the light, had to twist her head outside the cabin and peer forward to find it, choose her path. From the stern of the boat, Sweeney called up with a situation report.

“These engines are almost drowned,” he told Jess. “We sink any farther, we’re going to start taking water on over the sides.”

She glanced back and saw what he meant. The pitch of the deck was thirty degrees now, with Burke in his bundles wedged tight against the stern wall and Sweeney holding on for dear life.

Jess eased back on the throttle, let the boat come down off its plane a little bit, redistribute the water in the hull farther forward. It was probably futile—the water was still flooding in and the boat was moving slower now—but she had to do something. They motored on like that for another five or ten minutes, the light at Chibahdehl gradually getting closer. Then Jess heard a cough from the engines astern, and Sweeney swore, loud, as both engines cut out.

“They’re done, Jess,” the deputy called up, his voice fairly shaking. “Those engines are fried.”

She forced confidence into her voice. “Guess we’re paddling, Sweeney. Go on down below and find us some oars.”

Sweeney looked at her like she was crazy, but he did as instructed, and Jess took advantage of the sudden quiet to go back astern and check how Burke was doing.

He still had a pulse, she discovered. He was tangled up in blankets and near soaked from salt spray, but he was alive, and he even opened his eyes a little bit, seemed to recognize her.