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pockets. They had all heard it on the radio. Catalina had been napping in her cabin. Here, at the interior steering station, Drew and Debbie had been working together, trying to get the bloodstains from Kent’s injury on the reef out of the upholstery. Drew explained that Kent had been the original mate, injured on the trip down from Fort Lauderdale. The compound fracture had pierced his skin, and the carpet and upholstery were badly stained.
    “It was so gross,” Debbie said, wrinkling her little nose.
    When they heard the call on the VHF radio, they explained, both had immediately thought of Nestor, but they’d just stood there, as though riveted to the deck, staring at the radio, waiting for their fears to be proven wrong, unaware that Catalina had been standing behind them, leaning against the bar for support. It wasn’t until Ted Berger’s voice broke in on the Coast Guard transmission to announce that he’d found the windsurfer and the body of a man he recognized that Catalina cried out and ran for her stateroom where she’d been ever since, locked inside.
    I tapped lightly on the stateroom door. “Hey, Cat, it’s me, Seychelle. Open up, okay?”
    Silence.
    “Catalina, I want to see you. I know what you’re going through. Believe me, I do.”
    Silence.
    “Cat, please.” I put my ear to the door. “I loved Nestor. I’m hurting, too.”
    The lock clicked and the door swung inward. The stateroom was dark, but I could hear the sound of her clothes sliding against the upholstery as she lay back down on the bunk. As far as captain’s cabins went, this was not one of the better ones. The inward-opening door barely cleared the bunk. From the little light that spilled through the doorway, I saw a lamp on a side table. I clicked it on.
    She was on her side, her legs curled up, her hands hiding her face from the light. “It was him, wasn’t it?” she whispered.
    I tried to keep my voice strong but failed miserably. “Yes, it was. I saw him.”
    The small moan that came from the bed sounded like the weak cry of a child. That was followed by staccato, voiceless sobs. Her body shook, and I was afraid of what this kind of grief might do to the child she was carrying.
    I rested my hand on her shoulder and tried to pat her in a soothing motion. But what I really wanted to do was throw something or hit someone. I wanted to scream.
    “Catalina, is there anything I can do for you. Anything I can get?”
    She didn’t respond at first. It was as though she hadn’t heard me speak. I was about to repeat my question when she pushed her body up into a sitting position and wiped her face on the pillow in her lap. After several ragged breaths, she whispered, “Tell me about it.”  
    “There’s not much to tell.”
    “Start at the beginning,” she said, her voice stronger now. “Tell me everything that happened.”
    I eased my body down on the bunk next to her. Tired. I just felt so tired. People I loved kept dying, and there didn’t seem to be any sense or reason to any of it. I’d heard the platitude about how only the good die young, and it wasn’t true. That would imply that there was some sort of logic to who dies—and there was none. Others always chimed in that when it’s your time, it’s your time. Bullshit. I’d seen too many good people die senselessly, as well as those I considered downright evil. Death is as random as it gets.
    “I was on Gorda late in the afternoon when I heard the first call on the VHF. I saw Ted Berger going by in the Power Play ’s tender, and he invited me to help with the search. We saw that most of the rest of the others were headed out to Sand Key, so Berger suggested we search farther downwind and down current. His hunch paid off.” Catalina buried her face in her hands and drew a deep breath. When she lifted her head, her face, aside from the puffiness around her eyes, looked as blank as a freshly swept sidewalk. “Tell me what he looked like,” she said, her voice a