But there was no time to lose. His brain reeling, the veins in his neck and temples throbbing, close to suffocating, Ricci placed the mouthpiece over his lips, pushed the button to open its valve, and inhaled greedily as he held it down.

A thin stream of air entered his lungs. Hardly enough to sate his aching need, but nonetheless precious beyond description.

He exhaled into the mouthpiece, then breathed from it again, more slowly and evenly this time. The oxygen cleared his head a little.

Time to lift off.

Ricci unfastened his weight belt and ankle straps, and they went tumbling down and down into the eelgrass.

Then the water ripped him away from the bottom and cast him upward in a dizzying rush.

FIFTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 22, 2001

FIFTEEN

VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 22, 2001

"COMMENT CA VA, ROLLIE?"

"Beautiful woman walks through the door speakin' French, come all'a way from the States to see me, I gotta be doin' awright."

Megan smiled at Thibodeau and entered the room. He was in a semi-sitting position, the backrest of his hospital bed elevated to help support his weight. She could see a fluid drain in his abdomen, and an IV drip running to his arm from a stand beside the bed's steel frame.

He nodded his chin at her brown paper shopping bag as she sat in the chair to his right.

"Tell me you got some Mardi Gras King Cake in there, or maybe some 'gator sauce piquant, I swear I'm gonna ask you to marry me."

"There honestly such a thing as 'gator sauce?"

"I could eat it every day a' the week."

"Ugh." She set the bag on the floor next to her chair. "You Cajuns must have iron stomachs."

"Darlin', I'd probably be dead wasn't for that," Thibodeau said. "Accordin' to the docs, slug that hit me would've gone straight through my stomach an' into my aorta if it hadn't got detoured by my abs. Instead it only cost me part a' my large intestine an' my spleen."

"Only, huh?" she said.

He gave her a weak shrug. "You gonna get gut-shot, you catch your breaks where you can."

"There much pain?"

"Could be worse," he said. "White coats say the biggest problem for me could be infection. Say the spleen helps fight off bacteria in the blood. Say the liver an' my other organs gonna take over for it, but not for a while."

Rollie paused, shifted on his pillow. Megan could see that he was trying not to wince.

"C'mon, now, enough a' the gory details," he said, settling back. "How 'bout we get to what's in the bag an' my offer of marriage? Contingent, as I mentioned, on that sauce."

Megan smiled again.

"Both of them in a minute, I promise." She leaned closer, extending her hand over the rail to touch his arm. "Doctors treating you okay?"

"I guess," he said. "Except for their pokin' and prod-din'."