Page 39 of No One Aboard
But MJ wouldn’t have left behind her equipment unless it was the last resort. She must have seen Rylan swim away, must have known he was going for help. She would have had enough oxygen in her tank to wait down there longer. So why...?
“It doesn’t make sense,” Tia repeated, her momentum slipping.
“I’m so sorry, lovey.” Lila reached for her, teary-eyed.
“Scuba diving is dangerous,” Francis said. “We take risks every time we dive.”
Tia pushed her mother away. “She’d been diving for decades! She’s a—was a—a-a dive instructor. A master. She wouldn’t have just... died.”
“She must have unstrapped her gear in order to outswim the current,” Francis told her. “And drowned before getting to the surface.”
“Why didn’t she wait for Rylan to return?” Tia cried, shaking like a leaf. MJ couldn’t be dead. She wasn’t a normal, fragile person, she was MJ Tuckett. Sherlockian and strong and larger-than-life.
Francis inhaled deeply. “She must have panicked.”
“No!” Tia hadn’t meant to yell, but her body was no longer under her control. She raised a hand without knowing what she meant to do with it.
Francis winced but kept nodding. “She panicked, Tia. She was in an unfamiliar dive site, she was being sucked deeper underwater, and her buddy... left her.”
Tia stopped, head still pounding. She looked at her brother, folded on the deck. He left her. He left his buddy. It was one of the unbreakable commandments of scuba diving, a dogma that had been drilled into the twins over and over since they’d started diving as kids.
Don’t leave your buddy.Neverleave your buddy.
Rylan tried to speak, but his breathing didn’t seem to be his own. He gulped for several moments, then managed to sob, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh,” Lila whispered, both hands flying to cover her mouth. “Oh no.”
Everyone turned toward her. Even Rylan lifted his head.
“What?” Tia asked. “What is it?”
Lila plunged her hand deep into her sundress pocket and fished out an orange canister. A prescription bottle. “Verapamil. This was on MJ’s bedside table. It’s heart medication.”
Heart medication. Tia frowned. She placed a hand over her chest to ground herself and reassess. The movement triggered a memory of MJ doing the same, putting a hand to her heart and rubbing the area like she was in pain. Had she been having heart palpitations?
And why did Lila have it in her pocket?
Francis’s eyes widened. “If she was getting treatment for her heart, she shouldn’t have been in the water in the first place.”
“So that’s what happened,” Alejandro said. It was the first time he’d spoken. He made his way over to midships where the rest of them stood, leaving MJ behind in the cockpit. He folded his arms tightly over his chest, almost in a self-embrace. “She didn’t panic, exactly. She had a heart attack. The combination of the stressful circumstance and the underwater pressure was too much.”
Francis nodded slowly. “Then she must have abandoned her gear and tried to swim for it. It was the only chance she had.”
“But she never made it,” Tia finished, her energy drained away.
No one spoke after that. Lila went back to worrying over Rylan. Francis began to pace. Tia remained motionless.
“It’s... my fault,” Rylan hiccupped, then broke down into desperate, heaving sobs.
Tia watched him cry, watched her mother smooth his hair and attempt to quiet him. She should have felt sympathy or pain as her twin brother wailed, but she didn’t.
Itwashis fault.
Tia turned her face away from her brother whimpering in Lila’s arms. She didn’t want him to see her disgust.
Nico cleared his throat. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with his uncle, who still had his arms folded across his chest. Nico stepped forward. “I... I was going to radio for help when I first saw Rylan and Tia on the surface, but there was no one in range to hear it. We need to sail to the nearest port, probably a day away.”
What a Cameron way to end a trip, Tia thought.With an emergency port and a body bag.
