“I’ll bring us in,” Cap said.
Cap docked quickly. Two EMTs rushed aboard and secured Preston. Their grim expressions made Emma’s stomach twist.
The EMTs, Cap, and the chief lifted Preston off the boat, onto the dock, and then into the ambulance.
“I hope he’ll be okay,” Emma whispered.
The chief looked at her but didn’t comment.
She turned to Cap. “What about Jonathan?” she choked out her question while suppressing her sob.
Cap looked at the chief.
“Where did you last see him, and how long has it been?” Chief Mertz asked.
Cap pointed to a spot in the water. “It’s been at least forty-five minutes.”
Cap scanned the water, then the shoreline. His face scrunched up.
“What?” Chief Mertz asked.
“At one point, when I looked back, I would have sworn I glimpsed a kayak. I don’t know for sure. There was a lot going on. I was hoping he would still be out here so we could talk to him. Ask if he saw Jonathan.”
Emma ran her gaze over the water and shoreline. She didn’t see anybody.
“Probably almost every cabin and house along the shore has a kayak, so it’ll take some time to go door-to-door. And who knows, if there was a kayaker, it doesn’t mean they have a place on the shoreline.”
“I’ll contact the sheriff’s department and ask that they do a shore search. The Coast Guard should be here shortly, and the tri-county dive team is being assembled. We’ll run a grid pattern until they get here, just in case.”
Just in case.
Though the chief said those words, his tone did not convey confidence that Jonathan would be found alive. Only a fool would think this was something other than a recovery mission.
Chapter Seven
Two hours they’d been at it and still nothing. No sign of Jonathan.
Every time Cap looked at Emma, his heart cracked a little more. She stood rigid beside the others, their eyes glued to the water as Chief Mertz instructed. Chief remained on his boat, overseeing the search.
The tri-county dive team worked methodically. The coast guard boat, police boat, and his charter boat ran overlapping grid patterns. It was the best response they could hope for, especially during a busy summer day in Door County when resources were often stretched thin.
Another hour passed.
Still nothing.
It bothered him more than he liked that they hadn’t recovered Jonathan yet. He knew exactly where the man had gone under. But the current here was strong and growing worse as the wind picked up. It wouldn’t be long before the pop-up storm, suddenly showing on the radar, would force them off the water.
“Cap, how does the radar look?” Chief Mertz yelled from the deck of the police boat.
“We should probably call it.”
“No!” Emma yelled.
Her gaze locked on him, not the chief. Pleading. Raw.
“A storm is rolling in. It’s going to be nasty. We can’t stay out here. It’s not safe.”
“Cap’s right,” the chief added.
