Terror at High Tide (12 page)

“Good,” Frank said, looking at a rivulet of water streaming into the boat. “We've got a leak here after all.” He picked up an empty coffee can
from under his seat. “I'll bail, and you try to guide us off.”

A low rumble broke the silence, growing louder by the moment. “It's a speedboat,” Frank said. “We can signal for help.”

The Hardys watched as a boat appeared out of the mist. Leaning over the side of their boat, Frank and Joe waved and shouted. As the boat grew closer, Joe grabbed Frank's arm, a shot of fear running through him. “It's Cartwright!” Joe exclaimed.

“Yeah, and he's alone,” Frank said grimly.

Joe sat down. He felt as if he'd been mowed down by a truck. “That means he must have thrown them overboard.”

Cartwright slowed his boat as he drew near the Hardys. “What happened here, boys? Get stuck on a rock? Amateurs like you shouldn't venture out in this fog.” He laughed—an evil ringing sound. “I could come aboard and kill you right now, but I see you've sprung a leak. So I'll leave the dirty work to the sharks. I just saw one offshore.”

“You creep!” Joe sputtered. “What have you done with Mr. Geovanis and Alicia?”

“I put them where you'll never reach them—my favorite picnic rock at low tide.” As Joe punched the air in frustration, Cartwright added, “Of course, at high tide it's a bit wet for
picnicking, as George and Alicia will soon find out.” With one final chuckle Cartwright zoomed off into the fog.

Joe gazed down at the water. The brown oval shape under the surface had disappeared. Joe frowned. “The tide's coming in, Frank. Alicia and her father will be shark bait.”

Frank looked thoughtful. “This might be our only hope. If the tide's coming in, we might be able to get off the rocks. Let's go back to Plan A.” Picking up the coffee tin again, he began to bail.

In seconds Joe was in the water, trying his best to push the boat off the rocks. The boat made a slight grinding sound as Joe dislodged it. “We're off!” he announced, climbing back in. “Now how do we find them?”

“I'll follow Cartwright's wake in the opposite direction from where he just went,” Frank explained as he started up the boat. “It's fading, but I can still make it out.”

Joe bailed while Frank steered. After several minutes Frank stopped the boat. “What's wrong?” Joe asked.

“I can't see the wake anymore.”

Joe scanned the ocean surface, but it was no use. The wake was gone.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air, and a man's voice groaned, “No.”

“It's Alicia and her dad,” Frank said. “It sounds like they're in trouble.”

“If we can get them to keep yelling, we'll be able to track them by sound,” Joe suggested. But before Joe could call out to them, he heard another piercing scream. “Angle right to three o'clock,” he urged. “They're not far.”

Moments later Mr. Geovanis and Alicia hovered into sight, chest-deep in water, back to back. Their hands were under water—tied up, Joe guessed. The Hardys called out to them, but the prisoners' eyes were locked on something else. Joe froze as he followed their gaze.

Twenty feet away a sharp gray fin cut through the water. “Frank!” Joe shouted. “We don't have much time. It's a shark!”

Joe's words rang out through the fog, and Mr. Geovanis and Alicia immediately turned toward the Hardys. “Frank, Joe,” Alicia called.

“We're coming,” Joe said.

“Be careful of the shoals!” Mr. Geovanis shouted. “They're all around.” Looking down, Frank saw rocks under the surface of the water. He slowed down, trying to navigate the boat closer to Alicia and her father, but in a moment he heard the hull of the boat scrape a rock.

“Can't do it,” he said, shaking his head. He glanced over at the fin weaving through the water, closing in on the prisoners. His face paled. “Joe, let's swim over. If we can cut their ropes
free, maybe they could swim back to the boat. They're only about twenty feet away.”

The Hardys stripped down to their shorts. “Hurry, guys!” Alicia cried. “The shark's getting closer.” As she spoke, the fin glided through the water ten feet away.

Frank and Joe lowered themselves into the ocean. “Let's hope old Jaws there isn't hungry,” Joe said, grinning nervously at Frank.

“I heard somewhere that if a shark attacks, you should punch it in the nose,” Frank said.

“Let's just hope we don't have to test that theory,” Joe said.

The Hardys took strong crawl strokes toward Alicia and her father. Halfway there, Frank raised his face from the water to scout out the fin. He froze in midstroke. The fin was close on his right, making a beeline for him. “Joe!” he yelled. “Look out—it's coming right for us!”

At the last second the fin veered away, but not before Frank caught sight of the creature's snub nose. “It's a dolphin,” he cried, flooded with relief. “I can't believe we mistook it for a shark.”

“Hurry, guys!” Alicia yelled. “The tide's up to my shoulders, and I can't last much longer with my hands and feet tied.” A swell of water drowned out her words as she gulped down seawater.

Once again the Hardys focused on the rescue
mission. The choppy water lapped at Mr. Geovanis's chest, and he looked tired and pale. Another minute and he wouldn't have the strength to stay afloat. Frank and Joe reached them in a few quick strokes and started to untie their ropes.

“I don't think I can swim to the boat,” Mr. Geovanis said weakly. His body sagged, and his face went under water for a moment. “Can you help me?” he choked, spitting out seawater.

Placing himself behind Mr. Geovanis, Frank cupped his hand under the older man's chin and pulled him through the water to the boat, while Joe and Alicia swam after them.

Once they were all safely in the boat, Joe went back to bailing while Frank started up the engine. “Don't you think we ought to stay here until the fog lifts?” Alicia said. “We won't know how to get back.”

“The boat's leaking and the tide's coming in,” Frank explained, “so I think we have to try to get back. The sky looks lighter over there—that's probably the lighthouse.” Frank started the engine and moved off slowly, following the glow in the sky.

After several minutes Joe said, “I can't control this leak anymore. No matter how fast I bail, the water pours in even faster.”

“You're right,” Frank said anxiously, watching
the hull fill up with water. Joe searched for more life jackets, but there were only the two.

Alicia shouted, “Look, guys!” She pointed to the left. “Over there.” Half hidden by the fog, a small speedboat rocked on the water about twenty feet away.

“Cartwright,” Joe said. “But why is the boat empty?”

“I'll swim over and check it out,” Frank said. “If it's still seaworthy, we can stay in it until the fog clears.”

Geovanis moved toward Frank. “I'll take over the rudder from you,” Mr. Geovanis said with a smile. “That much I
can
do. If you give me the thumbs-up sign, I'll bring the boat over. But promise me—be careful.”

Frank promised, then plunged into the water. Doing the side stroke, he approached Cartwright's boat as silently as possible. Once there, he stood on a shallow rock and looked over the side of the boat. Other than a flashlight and a rope, the boat was empty. There were no signs of either Cartwright or a leak.

Lowering himself back into the water, Frank moved toward the prow. The boat must have run aground, he thought, peering under the hull, but where was Cartwright?

Frank felt something tug at his legs. What in the world? he wondered. That instant, he was
yanked down, cracking his knees on an underwater rock. Flailing his arms, he tried to grab on to a rock, with no luck. Whatever was gripping his knees was pulling him under the water. The saltwater stung his eyes when he opened them.

He raised his head, trying to see what was going on. A man wearing an oxygen mask, flippers, and a diving mask was dragging him down to a crevice in the rocks. Frank recognized the man's gray hair, and adrenaline surged through his body.

Frank's lungs were bursting for air—they felt as if they were on fire. If he didn't do something immediately, he'd drown. Turning his body around, he clawed at Cartwright, but he was out of reach.

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank caught sight of Joe's wet blond head looming up in the water behind Cartwright. Joe grabbed Cartwright's oxygen tank and mask, pulling them off in one stroke. Then he punched Cartwright in the side of the head. Caught by surprise, Cartwright loosened his grip on Frank's legs. Frank shot to the surface, landing a kick to Cartwright's face.

Frank gulped deep breaths of air. As soon as his dizziness passed, he went back under to help Joe. But to his surprise, Cartwright was nowhere to be seen, and Joe was coming up for air.

“He got away,” Joe sputtered, once the Hardys were both above water. Breathing hard, Joe went
on, “He swam away from me, behind some rock, and when I followed him, he wasn't there. Then I had to come up for air.”

Frank glanced around. Alicia and her father were bailing out the boat. Otherwise, the sea was ominously quiet. Had Cartwright escaped? Or was he stalking them in the fog? Frank had the uneasy feeling that Cartwright hadn't given up.

A dark form rose from the water. “Joe, watch your back!” Frank yelled. As he spoke, Cartwright raised his oxygen tank over Joe's head. Joe whipped around, shielding himself from the blow with his hands, while Frank punched Cartwright in the jaw. Cartwright flew back, then sagged into the water, disappearing under the surface.

“Quick, let's get in his boat,” Joe said. “He might try to pull us under again.” Frank and Joe clambered into the boat. “Where is he?” Joe asked, after several seconds had passed.

Frank heard a faint splash and a gurgling sound. In a muffled voice, Cartwright cried out for help. “Sounds like he's drowning,” Frank said. “Somewhere out in the fog.”

“It's coming from over there. Let's find him.”

Frank grabbed the flashlight in the hull of the boat and turned it on, pointing it into the fog toward Cartwright's voice. “I can't see him,” Frank said. “But I'll leave the flashlight on the prow so we can find our way back.”

“Wait!” Alicia yelled from her boat. It tipped dangerously to the side. “We're just about to go under. We've got to get over to Cartwright.”

“You find Cartwright, Frank, while I help these guys,” Joe said, lowering himself off the side of the boat.

Frank followed Joe into the water, then moved toward Cartwright's voice. About five feet off the shoals, he spotted him in deeper water, panic-stricken. “Help me!” he gasped.

“You don't deserve this,” Frank growled, swimming up behind Cartwright and cupping his chin with his hand in a livesaving grip. “But maybe you'd rather drown than admit who you really are to the world.” Cartwright looked at Frank, his eyes glittering with hate, but he was too weak to respond.

Back at the boat Frank and Joe tied Cartwright's wrists and ankles and secured him to a seat with the rope.

“Let's wait here until the fog lifts,” Geovanis said. “We'll be safer that way.”

“We may have a while to wait,” Joe said. “But that's okay. Frank and I have enough questions to fill a month's time on a desert island.”

Frank looked at Cartwright gravely. “We know that you're really Carter Harris, the purser on the
Ebony Pearl.
Instead of going down with the rest of the crew, you jumped ship.”

“In a lifeboat meant for passengers,” George Geovanis added.

“Yes,” Cartwright said with a sneer. “And I made my way to Boston, where I started a new life, with jewels I stole from the ship's safe. A few years later I moved to Nantucket so I could do more sailing.”

“Coward!” Alicia cried. “You let everyone think you were a hero—that you'd gone down with the ship. Instead you let some other person drown.”

Turning to Mr. Geovanis, Frank asked, “And you recognized him from the
Ebony Pearl?”

“Yes,” Mr. Geovanis replied, his eyes flashing. “I have strong memories of the
Ebony Pearl,
and especially of the nasty purser who sat at our table at dinner. And when I met Cartwright at a fundraising party for the museum last week, he made a comment in the same snide tone he'd used onboard years ago. Then I noticed that Cartwright was missing part of his little finger, just like the purser. He used to tell stories about how he'd lost it repairing an outboard motor. I thought it had to be the same guy.”

“Now what about the balloon?” Frank asked. “How does that figure into all this?”

Mr. Geovanis gave a small smile. “I'm afraid I have to take responsibility for the balloon. You see, I wasn't totally sure whether Cartwright
was
Harris, so I made up the hoax using a real balloon I'd saved from the
Ebony Pearl.
I knew Callie was a reporter and that she was visiting Alicia at our beach. So when I came home for lunch, I planted the balloon nearby, hoping she'd find it and write a story about it. I was curious to see how Cartwright would react to news about the ship.”

“Ha!” Cartwright spat out. “Well, you soon found out my reaction—and it was more than you bargained for. But what did you expect? I'm a prominent Nantucket citizen. I wouldn't let you expose me.”

Mr. Geovanis stared at Cartwright in disbelief. “When I mentioned at Jonah's party that you looked like Harris, I hardly expected to be kidnapped. You were going to kill me, until I told you that the world would learn the truth anyway—my suspicions are all in the book I'm writing.”

Joe turned to Cartwright. “You were the intruder at the museum. You went there to erase Mr. Geovanis's book from his computer.”