The Boy Beneath Blackledge Bend

I'm the top underwater search and rescue diver in the country, and the emergency call came straight to me. Missing child, ten years old. Blackledge Bend.

Ten years ago, my little sister went into that same water.

My boyfriend back then was Tanner Cavanaugh, captain of the dive team, and he promised me to my face. "You've got me down there.

I'm bringing her back safe." What came back was my sister's body, swollen from the water. I didn't learn the rest until later. On the descent he already had my sister's hand in his.

And then he unclipped the safety line from her body himself, so his partner Genevieve Nystrom could have the credit.

Back on the bank, Tanner held me and said he'd done everything he could. And Genevieve, on the strength of a false report, became a rescue hero.

From that day I dropped out of school, went to dive school, and started testing for rescue certifications. Ten years. More than two hundred underwater rescues.

A hundred and ninetythree people came up out of the water alive through my hands. I don't belong to any team.

Whichever county hits a dive job nobody can crack, they ask for me by name. I can take it. I can also turn it down.

I rent office and gearstorage space at this county's rescue team station.

I've run what happens underwater ten thousand times in my head, hoping that one day nobody ends up the way my sister did — rescue reached her, and then rescue let go of her.

But today the emergency communications center pushed the missing child's photo to my phone. I looked at that screen a long time.

The boy's father was standing on the bank, and I knew that beatendown face. I turned the phone facedown on the desk. "Not this one.

I'm not going in." Chapter 1 "Shelby, you're joking, right?" The dispatcher at the emergency communications center laughed, like he honestly hadn't understood me. "Last year, spring high water on the Missouri, you dropped a hundred and thirty feet into mud by yourself and dug that kid out of the wreck he was pinned in.

Nobody in this country has brought more people up alive than you have.

No offense, ma'am, but if you say you can't go in, then there isn't a diver in America who can say he can." He paused, and there was something almost playful in it. "A rescue at this level, and you're telling me you can't take it?" "I'm not joking." "Shelby—" "I'm serious.

I can't take this one. Get somebody else lined up and stop losing time on me." I hung up. I hadn't even gotten my gear bag zipped before the door came open from the outside.

Derek Okonkwo half fell through it, forehead running with sweat. "Shelby." He braced against the frame, chest heaving. "Don't — don't run off yet." "Cap, there's nothing to say." "Just hear me out." He pushed the door closed and put his back against it, like he thought I'd walk straight past him. "You know the water at Blackledge Bend.

Our regular divers have been on it two hours.

Three teams rotating down, and not one of them has touched so much as a shadow." He stopped and lowered his voice. "The boy who went in. His mother is Genevieve Nystrom.

She's the heir to Nystrom Marine — biggest commercial dive equipment manufacturer in the country, and it's her family's company.

His father is Tanner Cavanaugh, used to run the dive team himself. Kid's ten, just passed his junior open water cert, went down on his family's gear.

We're a county volunteer dive team, Shelby. Every good piece of equipment we own came in as a donation.

Without what those two have put into this team all these years, where would we have gotten any of it…" "Then search with the equipment." I cut him off. "If the underwater search setup is that complete, it doesn't have to be me going down." I picked up my bag to leave, and Okonkwo lunged and caught my arm, holding on hard. "We ran all of it!

Sonar can't see into the dead spots, it still has to be hands on the bottom! Shelby, if I had one other card to play I wouldn't be in here with my hat in my hand." I didn't answer.

Okonkwo paced two steps in front of the door and dragged a hand back through his hair. "Shelby, is this a safety concern? The water at Blackledge Bend is bad, I know that.

But I'll stand behind this: everything on that bank is top of the line. Drysuit, backup tank, underwater comms — you name it, you get it.

I'll guarantee your safety with my life." "Cap, it isn't safety." "Then what is it?" "Personal reasons." "Personal—" His voice came up half a step. "Shelby, there is a tenyearold boy on the bottom of that river, and you're telling me personal reasons?" By then word that I wouldn't dive had already gotten out.

Team members were gathering at the door in twos and threes. "Shelby, you're the gold standard in this business. If you won't take it, who else would even dare?" "Some legend.

Quit hyping her up. What I see is a coward who's scared of dying." The cursing came at me from every direction. Nothing moved in my face.

I looked down at my watch. "Cap, that's another five minutes you've burned." "I don't want this job. You can go find someone else to make the rescue. The clock doesn't wait.

My advice is that you start now." I turned to go without a word, and I didn't care who tried to stop me.

Chapter 2 A voice came from the back of the crowd. "Shelby, your sister… she's the one who died at Blackledge Bend, isn't she? Are you really that cold?

You'd stand there and let a kid drown?" Every muscle in me locked. Something I couldn't see closed around my heart and held it. The phone screen was still lit.

The tenyearold boy in the photo was smiling wide enough to show two dimples. Exactly the age my sister was… I closed my eyes.

If Tanner hadn't undone her safety line that day, would any of it have gone differently. Then a stir in the crowd pulled me back. A woman in flawless makeup came striding through.

She didn't look at me.

She opened her handbag, pulled out several bricks of hundreds with the bank straps still on them, and threw them at me. "What's so hard about going in?" "Money, that's all you want!

Fine! Name a number!" "This is who you found for me?" Genevieve turned her head toward Okonkwo, and the contempt was right there in her voice.

Then she looked me up and down and gave me a thin, mocking smile. "You're the top underwater rescue diver working today?" "Well.

I've learned something today." "So a socalled rescue hero is someone who takes the life of another family's kid as leverage and jacks up her price right here in front of us." She came in closer and pulled out her phone. "Still not enough?

Name your number! I'll have the bank wire it right now. Fifty thousand dollars. Two hundred and fifty thousand?

If it saves my son, there's no number I won't pay." Out in the hallway people sucked in a breath and marveled at how generous she was. I didn't move.

I was staring at the commendation medal pinned over her chest. Ten years. An honor bought with my sister's life, and she was still wearing it like a picture she'd had framed.

She followed my eyes down to the design on the medal, two hands lifting a life, and her smile went scornful. "What? Jealous?" "I'm not the class of diver you are.

This medal I bought with my life." "Ten years ago, and it was right here at Blackledge Bend!

Visibility down there was almost zero, and my husband and I went straight in without a word and worked that rescue." She had put herself up on the moral high ground. "Not like some people, who have a little skill and use somebody's life to name whatever price they want." I stared at her, and only a few words made it out of my throat. "Did you bring anybody up alive?" Genevieve's face froze for a beat, then set itself into a defense. "In conditions like that, nobody who goes down can guarantee a hundred percent—" I laughed once and didn't hide it. "So nobody came up alive.

Right?" "You're right that I'm not like you. Without complete certainty, I don't go in the water.

And I don't take a family crying on the bank and walk them from hope straight down into despair!" I made her look at me.

And it was obvious she had long since forgotten that I was the woman who stood on that bank waiting for my sister to come up.

Embarrassment turned into anger, and she cut her eyes at me. "Forget whether I saved anybody. At least I'm not a gutless chickenshit! You won't even get in the water.

What gives you the right to stand here and judge me?" The talk around us got louder. "Ms. Nystrom's right. Ten years ago she at least got in the water and put her own life on it.

This Shelby gets talked about like she walks on water, and the second it counts she's a coward who lights up at the sight of money." The accusation in all those eyes went into my back like needles.

Every one of them had decided I was greedy, selfish, coldblooded. I didn't care to answer any of it. Chapter 3 Then a man came stumbling in.

He was hunched over, and the dark bruising beneath his eyes was impossible to miss. Ten years, and even wrecked like this, time hadn't left much on his face.

The man who had promised me over and over that he would bring my sister back safe, and then pushed her into the deep with his own hands, was standing in front of me.

My hands closed into fists before I decided to. He didn't really look at me at all. He grabbed Genevieve's arm and waved her back.

Then he turned and faced me. "Please." "Cap says you're the last hope this team has. You and I have never met, but I'm choosing to trust you!" "My kid is still down there.

He's ten years old. He's scared of the dark. He's everything my wife and I have." Tears dripped off his chin. "If you'll just go in, whatever you want from me, you've got it.

Anything. Any price." I pulled in a long breath. Ten years of helddown feeling kept turning over in my chest. Maybe the price was bigger than they imagined.

Would they still hold to that?

In the end I spoke, and my voice came out flat. "I'll agree to go to the site with you." Tanner lit up like he hadn't let himself hope for it. "That's — that's wonderful.

Your last name is… Truitt?" He hesitated a second. "Whatever your name is, my wife and I are grateful to you." I cut him off. "Don't misunderstand me. I agreed to go to the site.

I didn't say I'd go in." Ten years, and I was standing on the levee at Blackledge Bend again. Gear was stacked all around my feet.

Threedimensional imaging sonar, highoutput underwater lights, three topoftheline rescue boats standing by in rotation.

More than a dozen outside consultants crowded a folding table, pointing things out on the hydrographic charts. "That's Ms. Nystrom's child down there.

Whatever it costs, we bring him up!" I stood outside the crowd looking at all of it, and my throat closed up. Ten years ago my sister went into this same water.

On that bank there was one inflatable boat and a few lengths of rope. And one weightless promise from Tanner.

But today, because the one lying on the bottom is his son and Genevieve's, this whole county can put all of this on the water inside two hours. So what was my sister's life worth?

What did it count for? A stepping stone at most. Something they stood on to goldplate themselves and buy a good name.

Even when all that came up was a swollen body, they could still wear the rescue hero halo, pull in investors, build a company, and clear a fortune in business.

The rescue crew closed in around me then, faces grim. "Running the depth pressure against the capacity of the kid's tank, the rescue window is twenty minutes at the outside.

He doesn't have much air left. If nobody goes in now, he is dead, no question about it!" Chapter 4 "Shelby, you came all this way.

Just go in now." Mouths kept opening and closing in front of me, too many to count. I shook my head. "You've got the most advanced sonar in the country sitting here.

A fully equipped medical team. All these consultants." "And besides, weren't the boy's parents part of the Blackledge Bend rescue ten years ago?

If someone's going in the water, it shouldn't come down to me." Tanner didn't seem to have expected me to bring up that day.

He lowered his head and his voice went down with it. "Yes. We went in back then. But we were both hurt after that rescue and moved behind the scenes years ago.

On skill alone, neither of us could get anywhere near the core area now!" Maybe it was guilt.

He went down on his knees all at once, and the concrete took the impact with a dull sound. "Ms. Truitt, I have never gone down on my knees for anybody in my life.

Today I'm begging you. We don't deserve to be called rescue heroes, but the boy is innocent! I'm begging you.

If you'll go down there, you can make me do anything you want!" He folded all the way forward, forehead against the concrete, both fists coming down on the ground again and again until the skin at his temple was scraped red. "Please go in!

Save my son!" Genevieve took Tanner's hand and went down with him. Her crying ripped out of her, and it lit the crowd on fire. "Shelby! Are you even human?

What are you making two victims suffer for?" "Shelby, you are so selfish!" "The man is on his knees for you and you're still putting on airs!" Several workedup team members rushed me, grabbed my arms, and started shoving me toward the water with everything they had. "You are going down there today!" The hate came in like a tide, from every side at once.

I opened my mouth, and my voice was raw. "You all want me down there that badly?" "But even if I go down, even if I get my hands on your kid…" "How do you know I won't let go too?" "What is that supposed to mean?

Are you threatening me