Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries) by A.W. Hartoin Page A

Graeme was there. He gestured wildly. I didn’t think. I grabbed his hands and pressed them on the spewing wound. Then we started the ascent, painfully slow. I tapped on my tank with my fingernails. The noise wasn’t nearly as effective as Mauro’s bottle opener, but he heard me. His brown eyes were wide beneath the mask. I shrugged and made the sign for stingray. He made us slow down further and it took an extra five minutes to get up top.  
    By the time my ears broke the surface, Mauro was yelling for Alex. Then the boat was there. In the movies, they like to show things happening in slow motion as if that’s the way people see action. In my experience, traumatic situations happen so fast the brain can’t even track it. I saw Alex’s face. I saw the boat. Then it was there beside us. I swear I didn’t see it move. Alex took Lucia’s hands and hauled her onboard. A stream of blood coated her leg the instant Graeme let go of her thigh. He went for the ladder, but I shoved him out of the way and tried to climb with my fins on. Not going to happen. Alex grabbed me and I flew over the side, cracking my head on the bench and slipping in Lucia’s blood, which coated the floor.  
    “I need a belt or a strap!” I yelled.  
    Alex yanked off his belt and I wrapped it around Lucia’s thigh. The puncture was an inch in width and deep. Once I had the tourniquet in place the bleeding stopped and I looked up at Lucia’s white face.  
    “I didn’t even see it,” she gasped.  
    “It’s okay. It’s all under control.” Yeah, right. My voice was shaking like I was sitting on top of a dryer.  
    Graeme knelt beside Lucia. “What the hell happened?”  
    “Stingray, I think,” said Lucia.  
    Mauro yelled from the water.   “How is she?”
    “The bleeding’s under control,” I said. “We have to get her to a hospital. I think it was a stingray.”  
    He gave me a look that said, “No way.” And then he told Alex, “Take them to shore and send another boat. I can’t leave. I’ve got divers down.”  
    Alex got on the radio and asked for an ambulance to meet us on shore. He turned the boat around and we sped off. Graeme lay on the bottom of the boat with Lucia. He cradled her, not noticing how his head banged against the spare tanks with every wave. I slipped on the blood and landed painfully on my scraped knees. Lucia’s pulse was racing, but she’d pinked up. I liked that. I wrapped her leg in my towel and said stupid things like we’re almost there and relax. Because telling people to relax always makes them do it.  
    We passed another La Isla Bonita boat going out at full speed and then landed on the beach like we were under a hail of gunfire. Spitball jumped into the water to tie us up.  
    “Who is it?” he yelled, but his eyes said he already knew.  
    “Lucia!”  
    “God damn son of a bitch fuck!”
    Graeme gathered Lucia into his arms. He leaned over the boat’s side, every muscle strained to the limit, and gingerly gave her to Spitball. He carried her onto the beach and laid her on a towel. Graeme turned to me and I pulled back in surprise. His eyes were full of tears. “Is she going to be okay?”  
    “Yes. Absolutely.”
    He jumped over the side and ran through the water to Lucia. Either he was one hell of an actor or Lucia was just incredibly unlucky. How many stingray attacks could there be a year?  
    Alex helped me off with my tank and BCD and I went over the side into the perfect water. I had a flash of the plume of blood flowing out from Lucia’s thigh. That didn’t feel like an accident. It just didn’t. A siren sounded in the distance as I sank down beside Lucia. Her face was twisted in pain.
    “Did you get a glimpse of anything?” I asked.
    “There was something there.” She gasped.  
    The ambulance pulled up next to us on the sand and two EMTs got out. Graeme and I stepped back, while they assessed her. When they were done, they each took an arm and started to