A faint odor of oil and gas as I got near. Hopeful, as was the rainbow slick hugging the stern. She’d been run within very recent memory. Her transom said she’d been called Zephyr, out of Montauk, but her name had been crudely painted over so it read ZeRO. Some Adder trying for clever. I wasn’t having any of that. Trite as it was, Zephyr she would be.

She was high at the prow, long and low at the stern. Her aft cockpit had been cleared of the usual net winches, masts, and icing boxes. Her stubby, stick-built wheelhouse was sunk into her mids. Hardly a lick of paint left on her, but the scum I stepped into as I vaulted over the gunwale was only ankle-deep. If she’d start, she’d get a few more of us out of here.

I waded to the little wheelhouse, a step up and only moldy-damp inside. Not even a shard of glass in the surround of paned windows. I glanced back to see Poppy already herding the stumbling new rescues my way, while Daniel hissed at her to hurry. Hannah grabbed his shoulder, a staying gesture, but he shook her off roughly.

I turned to the control panel. It was battered and greasy, with gaping holes where the radio and other instruments had been. But the lighting and bilge pump switches looked intact, and the wheel and stick moved easily enough when I jiggled them. No key in the slot, but I knew the usual places to hide one. All of it coming back to me in a flood, a data download. I felt around here and there, found a key on the fourth try, a dangle of metal and plastic, hooked beneath the console. Slid right into the slot.

“Any luck?” Poppy called, over the bass beat and cheering from upstairs. The boat rocked as she loaded Macys in one by one, searching out dry spots to perch them.

“We’ll see,” I muttered, and turned the key.

Nothing. But a few tries later, the engine caught, then died, then caught again with a roar and a chuff-chuff. At last, it settled in pretty good. Poppy pumped a fist and I lifted a victory V, then spotted Daniel and Hannah facing off in the loading bay, in furious argument.

I left the engine complaining to itself and came to the cabin door. The noise from above drowned out their voices. “What’s all that?”

Poppy’s frown was quizzical. “He wants to go back in. She says enough is enough. Something about getting the hell out of dodge, whatever that means. The new storm’s got her all riled, but y’know . . . bad time for a family quarrel.”

“There’s more needing rescue?”

“He’s got something else in mind . . .”