While he started the motor and ran down the channel he looked for some sign of her. Normally he’d have left himself a spot of mainsail to steady the boat. With the main down the boat set up a roll.

He waited for the next piece of bad luck.

His eye caught the white of her shirt against a rock. Glancing at the GPS, he realized he was being drawn toward the pass, but there was still time to escape the current. Quickly he looked with binoculars. Even with the boat’s motion he could tell that she clung to seaweed-covered granite. She was well away from the cliffs and the point from which she had fallen. From her location it was too far to swim to shore in this current.  

For just a second his eyes left the figure in the water to look for another boat—any boat. Nothing.

The wind was increasing fast, blowing right at the overfall. He knew the result: It would push

the wave up, perhaps making it half again as high. He pondered whether he could save her. He loved his yacht as much as a man could love a material thing and still possess a soul. He loved Harry. If he went much closer he would risk losing Harry and the boat, maybe dying, and for a stranger who would probably drown anyway.

            Then he saw the solitary figure on the trail from which the woman had fallen. He breathed a sigh of hope. There were two dogs running, noses down, barking their frustration at the cliff and the vanished track. Through the binoculars he managed to get a shaky view of a man standing, looking down into the water, and then turning to walk away.

She was waving frantically, but at Sam, not the man on the cliff. The man didn’t run or even look agitated. Assuming that he saw her, he plainly didn’t care if she died. Perhaps he even wanted her to die.  A moment later he had disappeared.

 “Unbelievable,” Sam said aloud.

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