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eye on her. And run more tests once she’s finished in the chamber.”
    “So how long ’til we can get out of this contraption?” Sturman asked.
    “You’ll need to be in the recompression chamber for twelve hours to be safe. If the symptoms return later, we’ll need to have you come back.”
    Sturman watched the doctor leave the room, then sat back down on one of the benches running alongside the chamber. He sighed. The dive charter business had been bad enough lately, because of the lousy economy and the lack of disposable income. And Sturman was getting tired of babysitting people who took too many chances underwater, putting his business at risk.
    Maybe it was time to find something new. But diving was all he had.

C HAPTER 9
    T he Lighthouse, a brick-walled pub on a side street two blocks up from the Capistrano Bay harbor, was a favorite haunt of the men who worked on the water. The Lighthouse drew fishermen, sailors, beachside vendors, and divers, who could all be found playing darts, shooting pool, or drinking too much inside the low-ceilinged one-story hangout. Tourists who walked in usually turned around and walked right back out.
    This evening it was fairly slow as usual. Sturman was sitting inside the joint on a wooden bar stool, brooding over a beer. He listened to Jimmy Buffett singing “Come Monday” over the speakers on the walls and watched Jill move around behind the bar, halfheartedly focusing on her long, tanned legs and bare midriff.
    Jill noticed him looking and smiled. “What you looking at, cowboy?”
    Sturman looked away. He knew Jill was interested in him, but he liked things how they were. He didn’t want to complicate his life.
    The Lighthouse was the one place besides his boat where he spent a lot of his free time. Too much of his free time, he knew. But what the hell.
    He peeled at the wet label on the beer bottle as he thought about the accident that morning and the long day at the hospital. That woman had really screwed up wandering off and leaving her dive buddy like that. She could have gotten herself killed. But Sturman couldn’t let it go; after all, she was the one unconscious, spitting up blood in the hospital.
    “She’s lucky to be alive,” the doctor had said.
    Sturman set down his beer and covered his face with his hands, rubbing the stubble on his chin, then took off his well-worn cowboy hat and ran his hand back over the matching stubble on his closely shaved head.
    Sturman and the sick woman had spent ten full hours in the recompression chamber together, her mostly sleeping off painkillers and sedatives. She had awoken briefly once, asked where she was, then drifted back to sleep. Sturman had stayed awake, fighting off guilt. He knew he’d let her wander too far off in the wreck; he’d given the divers too much freedom to explore. He knew better. When you bring out divers you don’t know well, you always keep them on a short leash. Now he was drinking off some of the guilt, when he knew he should have been headed home for a good night’s sleep.
    “Hey, buddy. How you feeling?” A handsome Latino with a dark goatee had just come through the heavy wooden front door and was approaching Sturman, smiling broadly. Joe Montoya wasn’t in uniform, so Sturman knew he was off duty as a sergeant for the county sheriff.
    Sturman smiled weakly back at Joe and, replacing the hat on his head, tipped it to his friend. Joe sat down on the stool next to Sturman and spun on it to face him.
    Sturman sipped his beer and didn’t answer Joe’s question right away, pausing for effect. “One time right after I moved here we drove down to Tijuana, stayed up all night drinking cheap tequila, and then you took a beatin’ in an alley outside that bar when you tried to leave with some guy’s girlfriend. Remember that?”
    Joe nodded and laughed, a loud, contagious laugh. “Yeah, man. You saved my ass.”
    “Remember how we felt on the drive home up the Five the next morning?”
    Joe