Had the woman really seen something?

And then someone shouted:

“There!”

Archie snapped his head to follow her finger, and Carter swung the light to center on it.

Something in the water. A bird? No, a buoy? No. A person. A child. Jesus Christ. A child.

A child, moving north. Fast.

Archie started to run along the seawall. You were never supposed to approach a drowning victim without a flotation device, a rope around your waist, something. Drowning victims panicked. They flailed. They took people down with them. The kid was alive. Conscious. If he weren’t, he’d have gone under. There was no time for flotation devices or ropes.

Susan was right behind him, along with the growing crowd, everyone pointing and shouting. Archie looked for Claire but didn’t see her. He took his coat off and stuffed the pockets with his badge, wallet, and phone. Then he unclipped the gun from his belt, put it in the coat’s inside pocket, zipped the pocket, and handed the coat to Susan. “Call nine-one-one,” he told her. “And don’t lose my gun.”

Then he looked for the light. Good. Carter had kept his cool, kept the light trained on the kid in the water.

Archie climbed over the wall, got a bead on the kid, took a deep breath, and jumped into the dark, frigid river. His breath left his body as soon as he hit.

Chapter 9

CHAPTER

9

Susan had lost sight of Archie.

She’d hung up with 911, and now she couldn’t find him in the water. It had only been a minute. But it seemed like longer. She realized she was hugging Archie’s coat to her chest.

People who drowned in the Willamette were usually never seen again.

There were more lights now. More National Guard soldiers. The mob was growing as they moved along the promenade, everyone at a slow jog, eyes on the water where the lights all met. A small head bobbed. Rubber boots smacked against the pavement. Wet slickers squeaked. Puddles splattered. The seawall was higher in some places, where the construction process was further along, and they all had to strain to see over it, their heads bobbing up and down at the wall’s edge like paparazzi.

People already had their camera phones out, taking low-res video of the dancing light on the dark water. These days, everyone was a reporter.

“Got ’em,” someone snapped.

Susan’s throat swelled as she saw Archie in the light.

The throng burst into spontaneous applause.

“He’s still gotta get him out,” the Guard soldier named Carter said under his breath.