Close Reach Read Free Page A

coming at us. We’ve got good wind now for going north, so we should make as many miles north as we can. When the system hits in the next ten or fifteen hours, we can ride it east, right into Puerto Williams.”
    “And the radar contacts?”
    “We’ll watch them. And we’ll set a proximity alarm.”
    “When the storm hits, if the waves go above twenty feet, we’re not gonna see much on the radar except wave faces.”
    Dean shook his head.
    “We can’t do anything about that. And besides, if we can’t see them, they won’t see us.”
    “So we hide in the storm and ride it into town.”
    “That’s right.” He reached across and put the back of his gloved hand against her cheek. “For now, you want some more tea?”
    “Sure. And then get some rest.”

They passed another day and a sunlit night as they had those before: alternating their watches and taking what sleep and food and warmth they could get in the off watches. Freefall pounded steadily north in the building seas. The sun never set, but they never saw it, either. The wind strengthened and brought clouds with it. The dark band of rain Kelly had seen on the radar filled in the sky from the west like a closing eyelid. They were sailing in gray storm light, light without shadows. The waves were green and steep but not high enough to be a real danger. Freefall was seventy feet from bow to stern; it would take a thirty-five-foot breaker to capsize her. So Kelly wasn’t worried yet.
    Not about the weather, anyway.
    On watch, she kept a close eye on the radar. The faster target was still coming up from astern, closing the gap more quickly now than it had the day before. If it was a sailboat, it had put out more canvas or sheeted in its main to draw more force from the wind; if it was a powerboat, it had throttled up during the night. They’d see it on the horizon in an hour or two and then would watch it pull in the last string of miles between them.
    And then, after that, when it was close to them on the same piece of wind-tossed sea, they would find out. Maybe it would just steam past them, and then they would watch the white light on its stern slip under the northern horizon a few hours later. If it did that, they’d laugh about it at a bar in Puerto Williams, have a few drinks and a hot dinner, and forget the whole thing.
    And then again, maybe it wouldn’t just steam past them. Maybe there was something seriously wrong; Lena hadn’t just been screwing around on the radio or getting the coordinates wrong on her blog because her boat was getting tossed like a rag in a washing machine as she typed.
    Kelly looked at the radar screen and the little green track that stood for all she didn’t know. She whispered to herself: “It’s coming.”
    She thought of the girl on the radio, the rough thread of terror woven into her voice. The memory raked down her spine like ragged nails. She opened the compartment under the chart table and found a prescription pill bottle. She opened it and tilted one of the small white tablets into her gloved palm.
    Modafinil.
    She bit the tablet in half and swallowed the pieces one after the other, watching the bow slice the face of the sea. If she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping, she might as well stay alert.
    Dean came up into the pilothouse then, clipping his tether to the eyebolt before he shut the companionway hatch.
    “I went over the charts. We’ve made good progress north, so we can make our easting now.”
    “Thank God for that,” Kelly said.
    Sailing at a right angle to the direction of the waves was a maddeningly rough course to hold. When they turned east and showed their stern quarter to the wind and the seas, it would be easier. With the wind coming from astern, the boat would ride level instead of heeling at a steep angle, and they would surf the waves instead of rolling in them.
    “I’ll trim the sails if you correct the autopilot,” Dean said.
    “What’s the new heading?”
    She still had the bottle of