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Back The Short Forever Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  62. AUTHOR’S NOTE

It took Lance, Monica, and Sarah to haul him aboard, and he wasn’t much help. He lay in the cockpit, shivering and gasping for breath.

“Did you see him?” Sarah asked, oddly calm.

Stone shook his head. “He’s gone.”

12

STONE WOKE SLOWLY. THE ROOM WAS dark, but faint daylight showed around the edges of the heavy curtains. Something had woken him, but he wasn’t sure what. Then there was a knocking at the door.

“Come in,” he said, as loudly as he could, struggling into a sitting position.

The door opened, and Lance Cabot walked in. “Good morning,” he said.

“Morning?”

“You’ve been asleep since we got you back to the house.”

“Then it’s tomorrow?”

“It’s today; the, ah . . . accident happened yesterday. How do you feel?”

Stone got a pillow behind him and leaned back against the headboard. “Dull,” he said. “I think I’ll probably ache a lot when I start moving around.”

“The police were here yesterday, but the Wights wouldn’t let them near you. They were very concerned about your health. The local doctor came, but you showed no signs of waking up, so he said just to let you sleep it off.”

“What time is it?”

“A little after nine. Why don’t you come down and have some breakfast? All the guests left yesterday, except you, Erica, Monica, and me. We’re all witnesses.”

Stone nodded.

“There’s going to be an inquest tomorrow morning. The locals hurried it up so they could get it done while we’re all here, so we’re staying over another night.”

“I see.”

“I thought you, Erica, Monica, and I ought to get our stories straight.”

Now Stone was awake. “Straight?”

“We should be in agreement.”

“About what?”

“About what happened.”

“Is there any disagreement about what happened?”

“That depends on how you see it.”

“The yacht gybed, and James went overboard, then I did.”

“The yacht didn’t gybe; Sarah gybed it. She knew what she was doing.”

Stone resisted the thought. “Lance, how much sailing have you done?”

“None, to speak of.”

“Then you don’t really understand what happened. Boats accidentally gybe all the time; people sometimes get hit with the boom. James was unlucky.”

“So that’s the story you’re sticking to?”

“It’s what happened; I was there, too, remember?”

“You weren’t on the yacht after James went overboard.”

“No. Did something happen then?”

“Very little. Sarah seemed . . . Well, I had the distinct impression that her only real concern was getting you out of the water.”

“Tell me exactly what happened after I went in.”

“I heard you yell, ‘Stop the yacht,’ and then Sarah yelled, ‘Gybing back.’ Or maybe it was the other way around. Why would she gybe back?”

“To get the sails on the same side of the boat.”

“But she didn’t gybe back,” Lance said. “She just turned into the wind.”