Free Dead in the Water by Robin Stevenson

thought. She was a smart girl, but her timing sure sucked sometimes.
    â€œYour word,” Victor said, laughing. “What do you think, Patrick? Can we trust his word?”
    Patrick shifted from one foot to the other. His blue eyes met mine for a second and then flickered away. My heart sank. If Patrick wasn’t going to stick up for us, we were screwed.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said at last. “But even if they do report this, they’ve got no proof. You could dump the abalone and be long gone by the time anyone showed up.”
    â€œAh, but then they’d be watching us like hawks,” Victor said, shaking his head. “We couldn’t make a move without the Fisheries guys being all over us. If your pals here makea report, they’ll be putting us right out of the abalone business.”
    Keith stood up, his broad shoulders and thick neck suddenly looking even more intimidating. The guy probably weighed more than Olivia and me put together. “Can’t risk it,” he said.
    Olivia’s leg was pressed against mine, and I could feel it shaking. Or maybe it was me that was shaking. I had a terrible feeling that I knew where this conversation was headed, but I still couldn’t quite believe it. Stuff like this only happened in the movies. Didn’t it?

chapter fifteen
    I looked around the cockpit for anything we could use to defend ourselves. On a sailboat, there might have been a heavy winch handle, or even a knife strapped to the compass post. But I couldn’t see anything but a bucket and a few coiled ropes. I glanced back at the three men. Short of having a gun in my hand, I couldn’t even imagine fighting them. I mean, I’m five-foot-six, 120 pounds, and unfortunately I’ve never done any martial arts in my life. I snuck a peek at Olivia, who was evensmaller than me. It sure would be nice if she turned out to have a black belt in Karate, but I figured her to be more of the ballet- and piano-lessons type.
    I glanced around again. No guns. Well, on the bright side at least we weren’t about to get shot. Then I saw something. Just a couple of feet to my right, beside the cabin door, was a VHF radio. A small handheld, just lying there, tucked in the corner where someone had forgotten to put it away. If I could just grab it... but there was no way. I’d have to pick it up, turn it on, turn to channel sixteen and then explain our location and situation. All with three, large, angry men within a few feet of me. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen.
    Besides, odds were that no one was within range anyway.
    Except
Jeopardy
. And that gave me an idea. Maybe if we yelled, maybe if we made a whole lot of noise, Blair and Joey would hear us.
    I stood up and yelled as loudly as I could. “Help! Help! We’re on—” An enormous hand whacked me across the face, knocking myglasses off, smashing into my nose and mashing my lip against my teeth. Pain exploded in a flash of red and black, driving all thoughts from my mind for a few seconds.
    â€œDon’t do that again,” Victor advised me. His voice was flat and cold, but his lips were curled in a tooth-baring snarl.
    Olivia started to cry. “This is all my fault,” she said. “I was the one who wanted to come over here. Simon didn’t care what you guys are doing. Please just let him go. He won’t tell anyone about the abalone.”
    My mouth was full of blood and I ran my tongue along my teeth, checking to make sure they were all still there. A couple of hundred feet away
Jeopardy
sat still and silent in the water. No lights turned on. I braced myself and yelled again. “Joey! Blair!”
    Victor grabbed me and shoved me back down on the bench, pressing one hand against my mouth. “Duct tape,” he said, like a surgeon asking for a scalpel. Keith opened a cockpit locker, pulled out a monster-sized roll and started wrapping it around my head, covering my mouth