Read the book: «Tailspin»

To my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,

who truly does renew my strength.

Acknowledgments

When it comes time to write acknowledgments, there are so many people I want to thank. Too many to name in a short paragraph, but all my heartfelt gratitude goes to my family—my parents and grandparents who encouraged me, always telling me that I could be whatever I wanted to be. They taught me the sky was the limit. To dream as big as I wanted to dream and accomplish even more. The journey to this place of living my dream of writing novels has taken years, and it’s a journey I would never have made without God, who continued to nudge and direct me to answer His call. Along the way I’ve made many deep and lasting friendships—my partners in writing and in life. You know who you are. Thank you. I want to thank my wonderful editor Elizabeth Mazer, for your encouragement and suggestions that make my books the best they can be. I could never forget my amazing agent, Steve Laube.

Thank you for believing in me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Acknowledgments

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

ONE

The scuba-diving dry suit, along with the warm layers beneath, protected Sylvie Masters from the biting cold waters of the channel that carved its way through the Alaska Panhandle.

Breathe too fast, you could die. Hold your breath, you could die. Stay too long, you could die. Ascend too fast, tiny little bubbles of nitrogen on a death mission enter your bloodstream.

Her mother’s words, an effort to dissuade her from her love of scuba diving, gripped her mind as she searched for the missing plane in the depths. Her mother had worried about Sylvie’s diving, but in turn, Sylvie had reminded her that famous undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau had lived to be eighty-seven, his death unrelated to his underwater endeavors, and his sons were still alive except the one who died in a plane crash—a seaplane, no less!

Sylvie never imagined her words would be so prophetic. Never imagined that horrible phone call two months earlier, telling her that a seaplane with her mother on board had disappeared without a trace, and that her mother was missing and presumed dead.

A sea lion glided past, much too close for comfort, and Sylvie exhaled sharply, her pulse accelerating. The enormity of the creature this close left her in awe. The large mammal, intent on a search of his own, swam away, putting a comfortable distance between them.

Slowing her breathing, she flutter-kicked and moved on. The glint of painted metal, something completely unnatural to the environment, caught her attention. A wing thrusting from the sandy bottom? The final resting place for a plane and passengers?

Her heart jumped, taking her breathing with it. Not good. At two atmospheres, or forty feet, this was a simple recreational dive. But she still needed to maintain slow, steady breaths. Two cardinal rules: never overbreathe and never hold your breath.

Inhale...

Exhale...

Her body was like a carbonated drink. The deeper the dive, the harder the shake. She only had to remember to open the bottle slowly, ascend at the proper rate with the right stops and then, upon surfacing, her body wouldn’t explode with nitrogen bubbles like a shaken can of soda opened too quickly. She wouldn’t get decompression sickness.

The bends.

As an instructor for a diving school in Seattle, and a volunteer member of a local dive rescue organization, Sylvie had ample experience and was trained to solo dive. Good thing, too. Chelsey, a friend at the school, had planned to come with her, but Chelsey’s sister was seriously injured in a car wreck the day before they were to leave, and she needed to be at her sister’s side. Sylvie didn’t blame her for that, but neither would she wait until Chelsey could join her for yet another search for her mother’s missing plane.

She’d already taken the vacation time. It was late September, and the water would soon get colder with winter. It was now or never. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to drag anyone else with her on what could be a morbid discovery.

Six weeks ago the powers-that-be had given up on ever finding the plane, but Sylvie would never stop.

She pushed her thoughts back to the present and her task. More fish darted past, drawing her gaze from the metal for only a moment. She loved the water and all its inhabitants. Her mother had always told her she should have been born a dolphin or a whale, some sort of sea mammal. Just give Sylvie the ocean any day as long as she didn’t have to fly.

Because the cold water was clearer, she could see much farther than on a warm-water dive. She spotted the remnants of an old shipwreck, which had created an artificial reef for cold-water sea creatures. Brightly colored starfish and anemones in every shade of pink and green mesmerized her, reminding her of everything she loved about diving.

Except she wasn’t here to enjoy the scenery this time.

She was on a mission and had been for the past several days. And she’d found nothing, seen nothing, until now. In the distance, she could still see the glint of metal, and needed to keep her focus on that or she might lose it.

Excitement and dread swirled together and gurgled up in her stomach, much like the bubbles escaping from her regulator and swirling around her head on their way to the water’s surface. She kicked her fins furiously, hoping to find what she was looking for. When a shadow moved over her from above, she noted another boat on the water coming or going, crossing over her despite her diver down flag, but she kept going.

Something grabbed her fin and tugged.

Sylvie turned around and faced another diver, who wielded a glinting diver’s knife and lunged. Her mind seized up. Survival instincts kicked in. He could fatally wound her, or go for her hose, hold her down and drown her. Kill her a million different ways. She turned and tried to swim away.

But he caught her fin again.

Sylvie faced her attacker. Murderous dark eyes stared back at her from behind a diver’s mask. She couldn’t swim her way out of this. She’d have to fight her way free. She struggled but he was physically stronger.

She’d have to be smarter. She could hold her breath longer than most, though holding her breath could kill her, too.

Help me, Lord!

His knife glinted in the water. Sylvie kicked and thrashed to get away, bumping up against sharp coral that ripped a hole in her dry suit and a gash in her back. Frigid water rushed through the hole in the suit. She ignored the shock of cold biting her skin and the salty sting of her wound.

The crazed diver whipped the knife around and sliced through her regulator hose.

Sylvie flailed and swam for the surface, but he dragged her back.

This couldn’t be happening.

Who was this man? What did he want? The next few moments could be her last. Sylvie fought, but fisted against water, flailed and then...relaxed.

Dead.

The man released his hold on her.

Now.

Sylvie yanked the hose from his tanks. While he struggled with his own breathing apparatus, she ditched her weight belt and thrust her way to the surface. She released air from her lungs with a scream and tried to ascend at a controlled pace, which would also expand the air in her lungs as she released it instead of having them pop like balloons. If this worked, she wouldn’t be unconscious by the time she reached the surface.

He wouldn’t be fooled twice.

When Sylvie breached the water, she dragged in a long breath. A boat rested a few hundred yards from her, but it wasn’t her boat. Treading water, she searched the area. Her boat was gone. Panic rose like a fury in her throat, and she stifled the frustrated scream that would surely alert whoever was left on the boat, waiting for the diver who’d come to kill her.

She had to hurry. He’d be up and after her soon enough. She’d only delayed him long enough to make a temporary escape.

But where should she hide? In this part of Alaska, she was surrounded by islands and trees, and trees and islands, and oh yeah, rain. A slow drizzle started up—of course—pock-marking the water around her. With no other choice, she headed to the scrap of land that barely passed for an island.

Could she make it there before the boat ran her down or the diver caught up to her?

* * *

Will Pierson couldn’t imagine living any other way. He was an eagle soaring over the awe-inspiring landscape of southeast Alaska. Okay, so he wasn’t an eagle. He was a simple bush pilot sitting in a tin can, bouncing and twisting and riding the rough air to deliver packages or people to the Alaskan bush.

And today, while he did his job, he searched for his mother’s plane like he’d done every day since she’d crashed.

He flew low, swooping over a forgotten part of God’s green earth, waters of the channel shimmering in the cold morning sun, what there was of it. His Champ 7GC glided over green and misty islands and jaw-dropping fjords. He often looked down to see the wildlife, maybe a few off-grid pioneer-types, sometimes bear or elk.

As he soared over the wide-open spaces, he admitted the joy he found in the view was overshadowed by loss and grief.

His mother, the packages and one additional passenger had disappeared, and no one knew exactly where or even why. It wasn’t as if their bush pilot planes were big enough to warrant cockpit voice recorders or flight data recorders or the “black boxes” carried by commercial planes. And out here in the Alaska bush, they flew without radar coverage for the most part. Investigators had suggested that she’d been flying below clouds in poor visibility and slammed into the ground or the side of a mountain. He refused to believe it. As a bush pilot flying southeast Alaska for the past two decades, she knew the area too well.

Since that day two months ago, Will had flown a thousand times over the area where her plane should have gone down. He tried to trust God to give him the peace he longed for, but his need to know what had happened drove him crazy. Surely he owed her that much—a decent burial and a clear understanding of what had caused her death.

She’d taught him to survive. Alaska was about survival of the fittest. She’d taught him to spread his wings and fly above the storms of life like an eagle. In this way, they had survived his father’s brutal scuba-diving death and built a solid life for the two of them that had lasted until the day she’d gone to pick up a surprise package she’d said was going to shake things up. Well, things had been shaken all right, and his mother was dead and gone.

She was a skilled pilot. Something must have gone wrong with the plane. Equipment failure? Or worse. Had one of the packages been a bomb?

The thought made Will edgy with every trip he took. Every package he picked up or delivered. He didn’t want any surprise packages. He just wanted answers.

His Champ hit a rough spot, a pothole in the air as he liked to call it.

And that was when he saw someone running.

She was not out for a jog wearing a diving suit. That much he could tell. She looked as if she was running for her life. Will flew in close, sweeping the area, and searched. Was she running from a bear? The woods were thick around the meadow where she ran. Where was she heading? She was too focused on her escape to glance at his plane swooping low. He didn’t have to get any closer to see she had terror written all over her face.

And then Will saw him.

A man with a rifle. Will took a dive, letting the guy know he should back off. Between the trees, the man appeared to gaze through his scope at Will. He backed away, lifted higher and out of range. But not fast enough. He heard the ping of a bullet against the fuselage.

Will tried to radio for help, but to no avail, which was just as he’d expect out in this part of southeast Alaska. No one on the other end of his radio call answered to help this woman, so that meant he would have to do. Even if he had reached someone for help, what were the chances they would arrive in time? Zero.

He was on his own.

But how could he help her? He swung around the small island to come back and find the best place to land on the water, hoping she would see him. Hoping the rifleman wouldn’t.

Right. That was going to work.

Will sucked in a breath and veered wide and plunged low, coming around to find the woman. He’d seen a boat anchored nearby. Was that hers? Or the rifleman’s? Somehow he had to intervene and get her out before the man got to her. Flying low over the thick trees, he couldn’t see either one of them.

But he needed to keep his distance, too. Bad enough the man was shooting at someone—and Will wouldn’t stand idly by and let that happen without a fight—but if his plane was badly damaged then both Will and the woman would have nowhere to turn, no way to escape.

How could he let her know he was friendly and not with the hunter? And how could he find her at all? She’d dropped completely out of sight. Had she found a place to hide in the woods? Or...was she headed for the water? She wore a diving suit, after all.

He prayed this would all end well as he made for the water somewhere near the direction she’d been headed. Then he could offer her a ride home.

Will maneuvered his floatplane onto the water. This was cutting things close.

The pontoons touching down, he proceeded forward, watching the rough edges and sandy beaches where the land met water and the rocky outcroppings, searching for the woman and the rifleman. Both of them could be heading away from him for all he knew. Or they could be moving straight for him through the island rainforest of the Tongass National Forest. As he steered closer, Will found his weapon and placed it on the passenger seat.

Closing in on the island, he slowed the plane. A slow burn worked its way up his gut as he took the plane right up to a small section of sand, remaining wary of the thick forest hidden with danger. Which one of them would he see first?

The woman, running for her life?

Or the man with his rifle, aiming to kill?

TWO

Fear drove her past the pain of her injuries, through the shock of it all. Sylvie pushed her body because her life depended on it. Grateful for the diving boots she’d worn under her fins to protect her feet, she ran from another madman, this one holding a high-powered rifle instead of a diver’s knife.

If she could just make it to the water.

Again.

Hard to believe she’d escaped the crazy diver beneath the surface only to face off with another dangerous man. This wasn’t some random meeting, but an elaborate plan to assure her death.

She could almost laugh at their efforts—how hard had they believed she would be to kill?

Her legs screamed, and she stopped to lean against a Sitka spruce, catching her breath. The dry suit hadn’t been designed for running.

At first she’d thought the plane was just another part of the plan. A diver. A man with a rifle. Why not a floatplane to attack her in some other, horrible way? But then the man who’d been there to give her an unfriendly welcome as she dragged her body from the water onto the rocky shore had taken a few shots at it.

Providence had sent someone to save her in the most inappropriate manner. God had a sense of humor. Why couldn’t it be another boat? Why not the Coast Guard? She would never fly unless she had no choice.

But then Sylvie had never needed saving before.

And now that floatplane that had flown low and deep to find her running, and had made waves for her would-be killers, meant everything to her. She assumed the plane waited just beyond the trees. She’d seen that much—but unfortunately that meant the rifleman had seen it, as well.

Breathing hard and fast, Sylvie pushed through the wildness of this uninhabited land, brushing past thick and lush sword ferns and alongside a thorny undergrowth that shredded her dry suit. Through the trees she could make out the water.

She continued on to the water’s edge and searched for the plane. Down from her a few hundred yards, the plane waited. The whir of the props echoed across the water. Her stomach lurched. Would he leave before she could get there? How could she signal him to wait? Draw his attention without giving away her position?

God, please let him wait for me! Help me!

It was too far for her to quickly traverse the thick brush and rocky shore, but there was another way. Sylvie rushed into the water and dove beneath the surface, quickly reminded of the brush against the coral during her struggle with the mad diver. Her dry suit no longer protected her from the cold water that seeped in, icing across her skin and into her bones, it seemed, slowly stealing her body heat away.

Hypothermia would set in soon. Never mind her aching joints that brought to her attention another problem. Sylvie was too experienced to ignore the symptoms or write them off as the shock of nearly being brutally murdered.

No. She had to face the truth.

She had the bends. Decompression sickness.

But she had to keep it together until she made it to the plane. Holding her breath, she swam just under the water’s surface to keep out of sight. Without her mask, her eyes burned in the salty water as she remained vigilant in watching for the boat and the man with the rifle. She prayed the other diver wasn’t right behind her.

The flash of an image rushed at her—the diver’s knife, glinting in the water as he cut her hose. Shivering, she tossed a quick look into the depths behind and beneath her. She had to be sure the diver wasn’t closing in. At least she was safe for the moment. Head bobbing to the surface for a quick breath, she continued to swim, her limbs growing sluggish.

She drew near to the plane.

Almost there.

The pilot scrambled from the plane and onto the beach, brandishing a weapon. Her pulse quickened. Could that be for her? God, please let him be friendly. Please let him be someone here to help me. She didn’t know what she would do otherwise.

Dizziness swept over her, swirling through her core with the shock of the last few minutes.

But Sylvie was strong. She couldn’t have excelled in her career as a diving instructor if she wasn’t.

Then she heard it.

The echoing fire from a rifle. Sylvie ducked under the water. Had the rifleman seen her? Was he firing at her now in the water? Or at the pilot?

She was cold and numb and drained. Wasn’t sure she could breach the surface again. She heard the rumble of the floatplane before she found the energy to bob above the water’s surface and see it moving.

Disappointment weighed her down into the depths.

The rifleman was shooting at her rescuer. If he’d come to help, he’d been scared away. Sylvie fought the desire to give up, to sink and keep on sinking. Anger burned in her chest along with the need for air.

No, God! Her life couldn’t end like this.

Like her mother, Sylvie was a fighter, and she’d find a way to survive this. There were a million reasons to live, not the least of which was that she had to discover what had happened to her mother’s plane.

She had to be strong.

She’d always believed it was her faith in God that would see her through. But with nitrogen bubbles coursing through her blood, hypothermia threatening to sink and drown her, and men who were trying to kill her, Sylvie struggled to trust God to see her through. How much could she trust Him? How much did she do on her own?

Right now she had never felt more alone. Had never had to draw on her own strength, or even on her faith in God, in this way before.

Like her dry suit, her faith and strength failed her.

* * *

Will couldn’t leave without the woman. Neither could he stay with a man taking shots at him and his plane. He’d landed here because she’d been running in this direction. Now where was she?

In his Champ, he skipped across the water’s surface, searching and praying. If he saw nothing, he would circle the island and come back to this spot, but he needed to draw the rifleman away from her. She could be hiding in the woods and afraid to run for the plane.

There!

The woman breached the water and waved, not twenty-five yards from him. If he hadn’t been looking in the right direction at that exact moment, he might have missed her. Now to get her out of here without getting either of them killed. He slowed the plane, guided it close...closer...until he was as close as he could get without risking harm to her.

“You’ll have to swim the rest of the way,” he called. “Can you do that?”

The way she dipped below the water, that desperate look on her face, he wasn’t sure she had any reserves left enough to swim all the way. But she was already swimming toward him even as the words left his mouth.

He stood on the pontoon and leaned out, encouraging her and at the same time glancing intermittently to the shore, watching for the shooter. They had to hurry.

“Come on, you can make it.”

Determination flooded her features as she inched forward. Will reached for her at the same moment she grabbed on to the pontoon. She rested her head against it, catching her breath. Intelligent hazel eyes stared up, measuring him, her bluish lips quivering.

He thrust his hand out. “We need to get out of here.”

She grabbed his hand and held his gaze. “Thank you.”

Rifle fire exploded in the distance. They both instinctively ducked, but other than the plane itself, there was no cover.

“Hurry.” He assisted her up and into the plane, not missing that she was bleeding from a gash in her suit. She needed help in more ways than one.

When she was secured in the seat, he found a blanket and threw it over her, then quickly secured himself and headed away from land. Another chink let him know his plane had taken another hit.

A wonder the rifleman hadn’t succeeded in killing them already. But depending on the damage to the plane, the outcome remained to be seen. If he felt any trouble he could land them quickly enough, but he had to get them away from this place. He lifted off the water and glanced at her, noticing she visibly paled.

“You’re not going to get sick on me, are you?”

Shivering, she shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Well, which was it? But he wouldn’t give her a hard time.

“I need to get my diving gear.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She stared at him, the gold flecks in her hazel eyes blazing. “Please. I appreciate your help, the risk to your life, everything you’ve done, but I might need to treat myself for decompression sickness.”

“You’re with me now. I’ll get you to Juneau where they can treat you.” Treating oneself was never a good idea.

“Can we just do a flyby to see if it’s safe or not?”

It didn’t sound as if she believed he would get her to Juneau. Will held back anything derogatory he might have said. “All right. Where is it?”

“I stashed it on the north side of the island where I’d been diving. There was a boat there last I saw, so that might mean trouble for us.”

“I don’t suppose now would be a good time for you to tell me what’s going on.”

“I would if I could. I don’t know exactly. I was scuba diving when another diver appeared and tried to kill me. I escaped and swam to the surface, but my boat was missing. I swam to the island and barely made it out of the water and stowed my gear when I saw the man with the rifle. I’d been running from him, well, until you came along.”

“And you believed you could trust me?” Now that almost had him grinning.

“When he shot at you, I knew you were here to help.”

Will banked to the right, flying around the island to the north, hoping the boat she’d mentioned would be long gone. He looked her over. She’d tugged the hood of her dry suit off and worked the blanket over her medium-length hair to dry it. He wouldn’t say she was pretty, in so many words, but she definitely had a presence about her that he might find compelling if he was looking to be compelled.

“There’s the boat. We might have a chance.” Will kept his disappointment in check. “But we need to make this quick. Where’s your gear?”

She pointed. “Over there along the shoreline in the trees. See that big, funny-looking boulder?”

“And you’re sure this is a good idea?”

“No.”

Just what he wanted to hear. “I like an honest woman.”

Will brought the plane down on the water and eased up against a sandbar. He pulled out his weapon. “You stay put. Tell me where exactly, and I’ll find it.”

Her eyes grew wide. “No, you don’t have to risk your life for me.”

A little late for that, but he didn’t say as much. Without another word he hopped from his plane. “Where?”

She pointed. “Just there, by that larger boulder.”

The rifleman was well on the other side of the island, but Will didn’t know who else he might have to contend with. Wary of his surroundings, weapon at the ready, he crept forward until he spotted her diving gear—double tanks. He hated the sight of them. Diving had killed his father. He grabbed the tanks but couldn’t get a grip on the fins as well as hold his weapon in case he needed to use it.

She appeared next to him and snatched up the rest. Regulator, mask, snorkel, fins and buoyancy vest. “It’s all important.”

Carrying her dive equipment, they hurried back to the plane. Will noticed the boat heading their way. “We’re out of time.”

He lugged the tanks into the back as she tossed in the rest of her gear. Then he started the plane, speeding away on the water as he waited for her to secure herself in the seat.

Once they were airborne again and flying safely away from the boat and the island, Will glanced over at her.

Eyes closed, she pressed her head against the seat. “You said you’re taking me to Juneau, right?”

“Unless you have a better idea.”

“As long as they have a hyperbaric chamber.” She opened her eyes, but squeezed the armrest.

“I’m flying low enough, the pressure shouldn’t cause you more DCS problems.” She didn’t seem to find that comforting.

The plane hit turbulence. Will had long ago learned to ride the waves in the air—better to flow with them than to fight them. But his passenger’s face went a shade whiter. These flights were rough on most others who weren’t accustomed.

He had to get her mind off it. “What’s your name?”

“Sylvie... Sylvie Masters.” She gripped the armrest so hard, he thought she might break it.

She didn’t ask for his name in return, but it was that moment when he should give it. Billy Pierson was the name everyone called him. Will had never much liked the name Billy as a kid, and wasn’t sure why he continued to put up with it as an adult. With his father gone, changing it seemed almost disrespectful. But now his mother, who had called him Will, was gone, too. Maybe it was time he changed things out of respect for her.