He was not entirely surprised that he received no reply from it.
Lorenzo was a good pilot, and he easily maneuvered the Maiden alongside the drifting yacht. The Sea Dreamer, he could now see.
He called the Coast Guard. The radio operator interrupted him to ask his position. This was a little embarrassing for him. He was able to take the Nomadic Maiden in and out of a crowded harbor with ease, but he was not a navigator. He knew the coast-its lights, forms, and buildings-and stayed within sight of these markers. “South of Catalina Island, north of San Clemente Island.”
“We’ll find you. Over,” the operator said. When Lorenzo named the vessel he had found, he heard a sudden change in the radio operator’s voice.
“The Sea Dreamer? Any survivors? Over.”
Survivors? Lorenzo was taken aback. He had been sure that this was just another of the many pleasure boats that had probably slipped free of their moorings and ended up adrift at sea last night-a common occurrence after a storm. “I don’t see anyone on deck or at the helm.”
“Nomadic Maiden,” the Coast Guard operator said, “the Sea Dreamer had four adults aboard. Over.”
“Four?”
“Two males, two females-and a small dog. Please ascertain as soon as possible if there are survivors belowdecks, and if so, if they are in need of medical attention. Over.”
So he called Gio to take the helm of the Maiden, and taking a lantern flashlight with him, Lorenzo lowered himself onto the Sea Dreamer. He secured her to the Maiden with a tow line. Gio, he saw, was watching around them, keeping his eyes moving, as he should.
Lorenzo called out again, a hopeful picture in his mind’s eye of four adults, exhausted and sleeping below, but safe.
There was no reply.
His gut feeling, having heard the stories so many times over the years, produced another picture: someone going overboard, someone else jumping into the water to save him, both lost, the others not knowing how to operate the boat or the radio, perhaps washed overboard as well.
Not so easy to go overboard on a yacht this size, the hopeful Lorenzo thought. He called out again.
Silence.
Lorenzo took another moment to get the feel of the vessel, to listen.
Nothing but the creaking of the pull on the line, the lapping of the sea at the hull.
To all appearances the Sea Dreamer was seaworthy, but there might have been engine trouble. He would check that later. He used the flashlight to glance around the upper deck and helm station, casting its beam over the surfaces of the bridge.
He hurried down the companionway. He flashed his light in the salon area. Empty. In fact, except for taking on a little water-not enough to do more than wet the bottoms of a rich man’s deck shoes-the Sea Dreamer seemed pristine, with everything secured just as it should be. He frowned, wondering at it. Galley the same. Dinette folded away and secured. No one in the head. He checked the two stacked berths in the midship cabin. Empty. The two in the forepeak were empty as well.
He began to feel uneasy and told himself not to get spooked over nothing. But the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he made his way carefully to the aft stateroom’s double berth.
Empty.
Not a sign of life.
Nowhere on the yacht did he find any sign of occupants. He climbed back to the upper deck and called to Gio.
“Tell the Coast Guard, no one aboard.”
Word quickly came back that they should stay where they were, that a Coast Guard helicopter and cutter were on the way.
Lorenzo moved back to the helm of the Sea Dreamer. The sky was lighter. Usually, he loved this time of day, watching the dawn. Usually, he spent a moment or two thinking of what the new day would bring, and of his plans for the future of the Albettini Brothers Fishing Company. Now he looked out at the sea and thought of two men, two women, and a small dog.
He was going to try the engines, but there was no key. He could have started it without one if he had to, but he didn’t have to. Just as well. Probably get in trouble with the Coast Guard. He turned the radio on to see if it worked. It did.
He heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance and turned the radio off.
The Sea Dreamer and its emptiness were the Coast Guard’s problem now.
When O’Connor returned to the hospital, he was carrying Jack’s hat and coat, entrusted to him by Hastings. Jack was showing the first signs of fever, and it was clear to O’Connor that the nurses were keeping a closer watch on their patient. O’Connor napped in a chair, waking to hear Jack muttering in delirium about the burial of the car. He began to grow more certain that Jack had actually seen such a thing-no fleeting hallucination could become such a persistent idea.
Helen Swan walked in at six o’clock.
“I’ll stay with him this morning,” she said. “I’ve cleared it with Wrigley. Go home and shower and shave and sleep a little if you can. He doesn’t expect you before ten.”
“What would Jack do without you, Swanie?” he asked, giving her cheek a kiss as he put on his coat.
“He tries to find out on a regular basis, Conn, so please don’t ask that question when he’s back on his feet.”
He fell asleep but woke at eight-thirty when the neighbor in the apartment next to his began singing “O Sole Mio” at a volume that could have been heard down at the opera house. He lay in bed, remembering his interrupted dream: of Katy when she was a toddler. In the dream Maureen laughed and played with her, which had never happened in real life-his sister had never met Katy. Everyone in the dream was happy, but now, as he awakened from it, it made him feel sad. He got out of bed, but the feeling of the dream stayed with him even after he left the house.
In the newsroom, as O’Connor made his way to his desk, the other newsmen asked about Jack and said how sorry they were to hear that he had been hurt so badly. O’Connor figured three out of five meant it. In this business, those odds indicated great regard. Jack was the object of more than a little envy, but he knew how to live with that and still form friendships with most of his coworkers.
O’Connor was drinking his first cup of strong black coffee of the day, quietly listening to other newsmen make wild conjectures about the kidnapping of the Ducane baby-now apparently no longer a secret-when Winston Wrigley II called him into his office.
“Have a seat,” Wrigley said.
O’Connor obeyed.
Wrigley wasted no time on small talk. “They’ve found the Sea Dreamer. No one aboard. The Coast Guard is searching the waters between here and where the boat was found, but they don’t hold out much hope for finding survivors.”
Over the last few hours, he had more than once thought that Katy might be dead, but now, perhaps because of the dream, he said, “Did anyone actually see Katy and Todd get on that boat?”
“O’Connor,” Wrigley said in a gently chiding tone.
O’Connor looked away. There was no use talking to anyone about an idea like that, he thought. You went out and found out if there was any possible truth to it, or you gave it up on your own, but pitching it to an editor was a stupid idea. “Sorry.”
“An insincere apology if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Then here’s a sincere one-I meant no disrespect to you, Mr. Wrigley.”
“All right, fine. I want to send you to talk to the captain of the fishing boat that found the Sea Dreamer. I want you to get whatever you can from him, write it, and then go home. I’ve got other people covering other aspects of this-stories on those who are missing and so on.”