“That’s fuckin’ Hill,” LuEllen said. She put the glasses on the bass boat. “And that’s St. Thomas up front. Bet they were looking for the bodies.”

There was no chance of running - the Fanny was a pig, and the bass boat was carrying a big 115-horse Mariner outboard - but I pushed the throttle full forward. If we could fend them off long enough to get to the marina, they’d be limited in what they could do.

Ten seconds later they were on top of us, throwing off a fat, curling wake, the outboard’s normally deep roar climbing toward a scream. Hill stood at the bow while St. Thomas sat behind the wheel, maneuvering to come beside us. Hill was shouting something, but with the two motors and the sound of the water breaking under the hulls, I couldn’t make it out. I waved him off and kept drifting right, away from the bass boat.

When Hill saw that I wouldn’t voluntarily let him come aboard, he shouted something back to St. Thomas, then stepped up to the edge of the bow casting-deck and crouched, one hand on the low gunwale to steady himself, ready to leap aboard the Fanny. He had a lump on his hip under his white short-sleeved shirt and when his shirt flapped in the bow wind, I could see flashes of gun-metal blue.

The Fanny had a rail all the way around and her deck was a foot higher than the low-riding bass boat’s. Coming aboard could be tricky.

St. Thomas, his brow wrinkled in concentration, brought the bass boat six feet from the Fanny, then edged closer. I stepped away. He bored in again. This time, I flipped the wheel toward him, and the distance between the two hulls went from six feet to nothing. The bass boat was faster and more maneuverable, but the Fanny was bigger. If the two hulls hit, the bass boat would fold like a beer can. Anything caught between the two hulls would be crushed. St. Thomas flinched.

Hill had been tensing to jump. When I cut in, St. Thomas almost jerked the boat out from under Hill’s feet. He staggered, swayed, caught himself, and screamed something either at Hill or at me, his face red with rage.

They came back in. This time they came an inch at a time. St. Thomas was watching me now, instead of the boat. If I moved the wheel, he was right with me.