Then again, maybe he could save his phone. He pulled it out of his pants pocket and held it higher as he sloshed away from the Cessna.
The plane faced south, and he was pretty sure the nose was lower than it was a moment ago. Comet Cove and the airfield, wherever it was, were to his left, the direction Roz and Sebastian were moving.
He made a wide, awkward circle around the nose of the Cessna, then waded through the chest-high water toward the other two, sluggish and heavy in his drenched clothes. He guessed the shore was less than a mile away.
The water depth decreased by a few inches, hitting him just above the waist as he neared Roz and Sebastian. The bedraggled pair had stopped and turned to face the plane. Roz snapped pictures of the wreck. Sebastian was on the phone, probably calling emergency services.
Alden wanted to touch Roz, maybe out of an urgent need to assure himself she was really there. That they really were OK. But she was busy. There’d be time later.
He looked back at their ride. The nose had tipped forward now and was mostly submerged—they were lucky to get out before it was inundated. The tail stuck up and looked distressed, but it was hard to make out all the damage he knew was there.
There was certainly invisible damage that might explain why they were standing in the middle of the river in their clothes. Crash investigators would have to find out why the engine died. Alden wanted to know, too.
Someone killed Wayne. And now Sebastian had almost died, along with his two hapless passengers.
If this was a coincidence, it was a mighty unnerving one.
All three of them just stood there in the river as the plane settled. Roz took her photos, and Sebastian, holding his bag above the water, made another phone call—to his wife, judging by his soothing tones and the screeches on the other end of the line.
Alden checked his phone. To his relief, it had also survived. He shot John a quick text:
Roz and I OK after Cessna 172 crash in river. Engine died suddenly, approx ten minutes after takeoff from Comet Cove airport. Pilot Sebastian Esquivel also OK. No other passengers. Emergency services contacted. More later.
There you go. John could make a story out of that. Alden turned on the camera app and shot several seconds of video of the plane and his fellow survivors, along with a few photos, which he texted to John.
Who wrote back with a torrent of words that included, “When were you going to tell me you were getting on a plane with your subject?”
Yeah, maybe they should’ve thought that through. Alden would talk to him later. In the meantime, he held his phone above the water instead of returning it to his pocket. No sense in pushing his luck. Roz, seeing him, mouthed a silent curse, pulled her phone from an underwater pocket and peered at it. Then she smiled.
Hooray for modern technology.
Now that they’d paused in documenting the crash, Alden looked at Sebastian, who’d ended his call. “Nice landing.”
“Thank you.” A corner of Sebastian’s mouth turned down. “Sorry to put you through that.”
“I’m sorry you lost your plane,” Alden replied. “What do you think happened?”
“I damn well better find out.” Sebastian sneezed. “The engine died, obviously. I don’t know why. Oil pressure seemed OK. A blocked valve? I don’t know. I did all the checks. It almost sounded like—nah, it couldn’t be. I checked the fuel, too.”
“You think it was the fuel? Water in it, maybe?”
Sebastian threw an intense look at Alden. “You fly?”
“My dad had a small plane.”
“Well, I don’t know. I just don’t know. It looked OK when I sumped it …” Sebastian hesitated, as if he were thinking it over. “We’re going to have to get the carcass back to shore, and then the NTSB is going to want to take a look. What a royal pain in the potato.”
Alden almost smiled. “I want to know what happened, too.”
“Of course,” the builder replied.
“Should we start walking back?” Alden hoped there weren’t holes deeper than the four feet of water they were currently in. A walk wasn’t going to be pleasant, and he wasn’t sure where they were. He looked more closely at the shore. Was that a marina? Not big enough to be Star Harbor, and they weren’t looking at the inlet. Southside Wharf, then.
A blinking light caught his eye. A blinking blue light attached to the shape of a boat, which was getting bigger.
Roz was looking now, too. “I think it’s Duke.”
Alden groaned.
