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doing for us."
    "You don't owe me. Next time it could be me out there."
    "Not you, Luke. You'll live to be an old pilot. That missing plane... you know who was flying, don't you? Dennis Delmonte."
    When the Cessna arrived at the wharf, Tubby and Luke lashed the pontoon into place behind the Beaver. Laurie recognized the pilot who climbed out as a local she had seen many times in Masset at her father's hotel.
    Luke opened the Cessna's fuel filler. "Anything, Gary?"
    "Rain and wind. My sector's east over Hecate Strait—checked out about fifty logs with seagulls sitting on them. Caught the forecast—getting worse out there."
    Luke nodded. "Go up to the cookhouse and have a meal. Tubby'll fuel you up."
    "You going back up, Luke?"
    "Yes, and keeping an eye on the weather. Do the same, Gary. There's no sense having two planes missing."
    "I'm not going to fly into any hills." Gary's eyes were on her as he spoke and she realized that he must recognize her. She wondered if he'd been on the search when Shane crashed.
    "You'll be all right with Luke, Ms Mather. He'll bring you home safe."
    Luke threw him a sharp look. "Go up and eat, Gary." He watched the other man's retreating back, and then tipped his head back to eye the dark clouds above.
    "By mid-afternoon we'll have the gale here, too," he predicted. "Likely a storm warning for the east coast by nightfall. Storm force winds are higher than gale force."
    "I know."
    "You can stay here at the camp. You'd be safe and warm. Mike would look after you."
    "You told Gary you weren't taking chances."
    "I don't plan to take any chances I can avoid. If I'm out searching and it blows up wild, I'll find a bay and set her down. I don't plan to crash, but if you come back up with me, you could spend the night stranded in some deserted inlet until the storm blows over. Here you can be stranded in relative comfort."
    "How can I stay in a warm cookhouse, knowing there are passengers in a crashed airplane, shivering in the wind and rain?" She knew the passengers could be dead, but she couldn't bear to believe this search would end in tragedy. The thought of flying through a storm frightened her, but not as much as her unwelcome memories. "I'm coming with you."
    She felt the jittery wakefulness that normally signaled too much coffee. She welcomed it now and watched the ground intently when they resumed their search of the quadrant, this time working west from the camp on Lyell Island towards the larger Moresby Island.
    The wind increased steadily, tossing the seaplane with turbulence. They worked their way back and forth over the land and the water.
    It seemed hours later when he said, "One more pass and we'll be back over Darwin Sound. One flight through the Sound, then we're packing it in."
    "The passengers—"
    "The storm is shutting us down. Another hour and visibility will be too poor for us to fly safely, must less see anything on the ground. We'll wait it out back at the camp on Lyell."
    She recognized the passage when he turned to line up for the flight through Darwin Sound.
    "It'll have to be a high pass," he muttered. "I don't know if we'll be able to see much."
    The land bent the wind into unpredictable gusts, tossing the Beaver about like a leaf in a hurricane. She tried to focus on the shore through increasing nausea, tried to study the wild, white water below them. When she spotted the island in the midst of the passage, she saw trees, a pile-up of logs on the shore... and something white.
    Something white!
    She felt dizzy, staring down at the turbulence, her brother in the seat beside her.
    Shane flying the heaving plane.
    ...then the illusion passed. Luke beside her... an unidentified white blur below.
    "Something!" She gripped his arm. "White! The island! Back on the island."
    The wild ride had settled now, still wind-tossed but flying level in the wider part of the channel. "Luke?"
    But he was already gaining height to circle the land and come around, heading into the south wind