Aground Read Online Free Page B

first place, that position you’ve got marked is where they think they were when they picked up the dinghy. Big-game fishing guides aren’t the world’s greatest navigators, as a rule. That far at sea, on dead reckoning, they could have been as much as twenty miles out. Add another thirty for the possible drift of the dinghy in the currents and tides along the edge of the Bank, and you’re in real trouble. You have any idea of the area of a circle with a radius of fifty miles?”
    “God no, you figure it out.”
    “Around eight thousand square miles. That’s not somebody’s front yard.”
    “But—”
    “Furthermore, that Bank is nothing to fool with—especially at night or in poor light conditions. It’s several thousand square miles of shoals, reefs, coral heads, and sand bars, and it’s poorly charted, especially down there where you want to go. But disregarding all that for the moment, what good would it do if you did get lucky and find her? Assuming, I mean, that the people who stole her are still aboard? There’s no way you can regain possession or have ‘em arrested until she goes into port somewhere; out on the open sea’s a poor place to try to call a cop.”
    “Well, you’re sure not much help, are you?” she asked. “Or maybe you just don’t want the job? Can’t you use the money?”
    He stifled the slow burn of anger. “I’m trying to keep you from throwing yours away. I’m just as interested in finding the Dragoon as you are, but you’ll never do it that way.”
    “Well, what about a plane?”
    “You’d have a better chance of finding her, if she’s still in that area. But you couldn’t get aboard, if you did.”
    “At least I’d know where she is—and whether she’s in trouble. What kind of plane would it take?”
    “An expensive one.”
    “That doesn’t matter. Where can we get one?”
    “Why do you keep saying we?” he asked. “If you charter a plane, what do you need me for?”
    “As I said, for several reasons. You’re an experienced yachtsman. You’ve been sailing boats all your life. So you’d be able to tell if she was in trouble of some kind. But the main reason is I’m not sure I’d recognize the Dragoon if I saw her. They must have repainted her and changed the name.”
    He remembered then what Schmidt had said about her not being very familiar with the schooner. It also occurred to him that he knew nothing about her whatever except that presumably she was a widow; the ad in Yachting had listed the schooner under her own name. Alarm bells began to go off in his head. He glanced at her left hand. She wore engagement and wedding rings, but that didn’t prove much.
    “Why don’t you think you’d recognize her?” he asked.
    “I’ve been aboard her only once.”
    “How’s that?”
    “My husband took her in on some property he sold about a year ago, just before he died. Since the estate was settled, I’ve been trying to sell her. But to get back to the subject, you’d recognize her, wouldn’t you?”
    “I think so,” he said.
    “Good. Now, about the plane?”
    “Not so fast. Maybe Hollister made me a little gun-shy, but this time I’d like some proof. How do I know you’re Mrs. Osborne?”
    “Well!” He thought for a moment she was going to tell him that anybody knew who Mrs. C. R. Osborne was, but she fooled him. “You’re pretty hard-boiled, aren’t you?”
    “Not particularly,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve made my quota of bonehead plays for this week. But you don’t have to bother digging up identification. Just tell me what I said in that letter.”
    She repeated it almost exactly as he had written it. “Are you satisfied now?”
    “Yes.” Then it occurred to him that his manners were almost as bad as hers. “And, incidentally, I want to thank you for going to all that trouble to call back to Houston to verify it.”
    She shrugged. “No trouble. Now what about the plane?”
    “You’re sure you want to go to all that