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    “Seychelle, just seeing that man again can make you go all droopy like this? Lord, I thought you were through with him.”
    “I didn’t see him.”
    “But I thought you said . . .”
    “That’s just it.” I proceeded then to tell her the whole story, about the mayday call, and how I’d found the boat, and the girl, dead in the water.
    “Oh, my God.” Jeannie shuddered. She heaved herself up in a big bounce to inch forward on the couch. “Was there much blood?”
    I guess most attorneys really are ambulance chasers at heart, I thought.
    “I did my best not to look.”
    “And there was no sign of Neal?”
    I shook my head, not trusting my voice to keep steady if we got off on that. Business, stick to business, I told myself. “Jeannie, the boat was sold shortly after Neal took over as captain, about a year ago. Neal said some big corporation owns her now. I don’t think he ever did tell me the name, or if he did I don’t remember but it shouldn’t be that hard to find out. That’s what I’m here for. I need you to find the owner and get him to sign a copy of Lloyd’s Open Form. Obviously, I am entitled to a salvage claim, and to own a yacht like that, there ought to be some deep pockets there.”
    “The kind I like.”
    “You find out who owns her and start the paperwork rolling. Since she was nearly aground when I got to her, I risked the safety of Gorda and myself . . . you know the line to take. Figuring possible replacement cost of Gorda , my livelihood that I risked, and my fair wages for the effort I put in, we ought to ask for fifty thousand and settle for around twenty-five.”
    “Don’t get your heart set on numbers like those, girl. It’s not that easy.”
    “And it’s not every day that you find a multimillion-dollar yacht floating around completely unmanned. Besides, I’ve got the best damned attorney in Fort Lauderdale.” I grinned.
    “Ha, well, I always knew you were a smart kid.” She returned the smile. “Okay, tomorrow’s Friday. I’ll see what I can get started, but there won’t be too much I can do on the weekend.”
    “I know. Just do what you can. Unfortunately, business hasn’t been great lately. I’m not desperate . . . yet. But faster is better.” I stood up and started to walk to the screen door. I stopped and turned. “There’s something else, Jeannie.” The boys’ voices drifted up to the outside porch. Their little-boy voices strained for deeper pitches as they threw around “avasts” and “ahoys” aplenty. “I had a message from Maddy on the machine when I got back to the cottage. He wants me to buy him out of his portion of Gorda . I don’t have that kind of money, and he knows it. So he wants me to sell the boat.”
    “What? Did this just come out of the blue?”
    “Yeah. I don’t really understand where it’s coming from. I have my suspicions, but I’m going to talk to him about it. Once he makes his mind up about something, though, he usually doesn’t change it. Anyway, this salvage claim is now doubly important.”
    Jeannie got up and followed me to the door. When we stepped outside, she glanced toward her boys with unseeing eyes. Her mind was already at work, mapping out strategies. “What do the cops think happened to Neal?” she asked.
    I watched as Andrew leaned far out on a branch and tried to impale his brother with his plastic sword. I remembered Neal’s smile: the white teeth set in a brown leathery face, the deep cleft in his chin, the intricate patterns of crisscrossing lines around the corners of his eyes. “The cops? They’re out there now with divers, helicopters, the works, searching for a body. That’s what they think.”

V

    When I left Jeannie’s it was still too early to meet B.J. at the Downtowner, so I drove down Las Olas to the beach. As I crossed over the Intracoastal drawbridge, I could see a helicopter working a search pattern offshore.
    I turned south at A1A and cruised slowly down the beachfront. The