Flashback by Nevada Barr Page B

persistent cough left over from trying to breathe underwater.
    She was in no shape to head up a search for Ranger Shaw but, until the coast guard arrived, she was the only game in town. Letting Teddy go alone was a bad idea. Doing nothing when Bob might be alive and in need was unthinkable.
    For twenty minutes she and Teddy continued working the grid from the north-south axis to the west of where Cliff and Mack had quit. Anna tried with very little success to stay in the shade of the Boston Whaler's one pitiful awning. She'd been too scraped up to make herself spread on sun block, and the sun burned her raw flesh.
    In the midst of a fantasy about parasols, the radio crackled. Cliff had resurfaced. The bow of the boat had been destroyed by a second and more violent explosion. The beckoning finger was gone, as was every other part of the individual whose remains had hidden in the drowned cabin. Danny's guess that stored fuel had exploded due to fire left burning from the first conflagration amidships was ratified by the remnants of auxiliary fuel tanks stowed, presumably, belowdecks in the fore cabin.
    "And I got lucky," he finished. "Got something you need to see."
    "What?"
    "Come on over. It can wait a few minutes."
    His reluctance to deliver the news over the airwaves scared Teddy. Blood drained from her face, leaving it the faded gray-gold of winter grass. Anna knew they shared the same thought; you don't tell a woman you've found her husband's corpse over the radio.
    Bob Shaw's body wasn't waiting for them. Not quite.
    "Found this about sixty feet south and a bit east of the wreck," Cliff said as Teddy tied their boat to the Curious. He held up what first appeared to be a clump of seaweed-Anna's mind trying to make seaworthy sense of what her eyes saw.
    "A duty belt," she said after a moment. "Bob's." Teddy made a small sound. a muffled squeak. Given there was nothing she could do for the woman who'd saved her life but find her husband-or his body-Anna chose not to notice.
    She took the gun belt from Cliff's hands and lifted it over the gunwale to examine it. Bob's semiautomatic was snapped into the holster. Spare magazines were full, as was the magazine in the SIG Sauer; cuffs and pepper spray were in place. Because the belt Velcroed closed instead of buckling, it was impossible to tell if it had been removed intentionally or torn off with violence. What with one thing and another, Anna had allowed herself to believe Bob's disappearance and the sinking of the green go-fast boat were separate, unrelated incidents. Boats burned for many reasons, most having nothing to do with AWOL park rangers. Factoring Bob back in changed things. Now it was not just the death of a stranger but, perhaps, a man she liked.
    "Anything else?"
    Cliff shook his head then said: "I don't know. There might be. I figured you'd want to know soon as could be, so I marked the spot, brought the belt up and called."
    Technically, he should have left it where it lay, but under the circumstances that seemed a moot point.
    "You up for another dive?" Anna asked.
    "Sure. It's less than thirty feet for the most part. I shouldn't have any trouble."
    "We," Anna said. "I'm going with you."
    "Do you think that's a good idea?" Diving experience, age, years of captaining boats, of commanding, made his soft-spoken question something to be seriously considered.
    Anna did so. After a moment she said honestly: "Not a great idea, no. Maybe not even a good idea. But I'll be okay, if that's what you mean. All I intend to do is be a floating pair of eyes."
    Satisfied, Cliff nodded. "We stay together," he said neutrally, aware Anna was the captain of this particular ship.
    "We stay together," she agreed.
    For just such emergencies Anna kept an old swimsuit in the storage bin in the compartment under the bridge. It stank of mildew and bagged in the seat but would suffice to keep her legal. Putting on BC vest and tank wasn't as bad as she'd feared. Though she was bruised from