Free Fallen Out: Jesse McDermitt Series, The Beginning by Wayne Stinnett Page B

this.”
    We talked for a few minutes longer. I asked her to be here at 1800, rested, and ready to go. The clients would arrive at 1900. She left after that, to move her boat to a slip three down from mine. I offered to help, but she declined. “Like I said, Sharlee’s ditched me more than once, leaving me to single hand the boat.”
    I watched from the bridge as she got the dinghy aboard by herself and started the engines on the big Riviera. Letting them warm up , she went forward and checked the line securing the boat to the mooring buoy, checked the current in the bay and looked aft where several boats were moored behind her. It looked like she reached a decision and went back to the boats helm. She put it in gear then scrambled forward to untie the line as the boat slowly idled forward against the current.
    In an instant she had cast off the mooring line and was back at the helm, expertly maneuvering the big luxury yacht toward the dock and swinging it around to back in. Just a few minutes later, she had her backed in, snubbed to the pier, and shut down the engines. I was impressed.

Chapter Seven
    The following day, I woke at 0230 and had coffee on the bridge. Jimmy arrived right on time and we spent the next several hours cleaning, polishing, and getting the equipment ready. After that, we spent some time checking tides and dive sites. We chose five shallow reefs that aren’t visited by dive charter boats very often. By staying on shallow reefs the divers could make multiple dives, without worrying much about nitrogen buildup. Before noon, we turned in to get some sleep before the clients arrived.
    The smell of coffee woke me at 1730. I poured a cup and went up to the bridge. A few minutes later, Jimmy joined me. “Did you ever find someone to help us out?” he asked, watching Savannah walk toward us with a bag over her shoulder. She was dressed in jeans and a man’s work shirt, but had the tails tied at her belly, showing off an inch or two of tanned skin.
    “Sure did,” I said.
    “Permission to board, Captain,” Savannah asked from the dock.
    “Stow your gear in the hanging closet just inside the hatch,” I told her. “There’s coffee in the galley. Mugs are right above it.”
    “She’s our crew?” Jimmy asked. His mouth hung open, watching her sit on the transom and swing her legs over. She was barefoot again.
    When she joined us on the bridge, I introduced them and said, “Savannah’s going to be a neighbor for a while.”
    Less than an hour later the clients arrived, two men and a young woman, all carrying dive bags and hard cases that I assumed contained expensive camera equipment. While I started the engines, Jimmy and Savannah helped them stow their gear in the salon and Jimmy showed them around the boat.
    They made a total of six dives and everything went very well. Savannah handled the boat whenever we had to move between dives, using the GPS and waypoints I’d already entered. That allowed me to swap tanks for the divers, while they worked in the salon with Jimmy. They made two dives on one of the reefs we’d chosen and one dive on the other four.
    W e were back at the dock just as the sun was beginning to turn the eastern sky purple and I treated the clients to breakfast at Dockside. Jimmy’s ability with both the still and video editing software was a huge hit. He wired the laptop to the high definition flat screen TV in the salon, so the divers could see much larger images and video clips. After breakfast, all three divers tipped Jimmy and Savannah a hundred dollars each and promised to feature our operation on their website.
    With an extra three bills in his pocket, Jimmy took off shortly after the clients left. “He has a lot of talent,” Savannah said over coffee. “And you seem to have carved quite a niche among the underwater photography community.”
    “Actually, that was a first,” I said. “They were referred by another group we took out a few days ago. Not sure if I want