But this pilot-ah, now, this pilot. Moses smacked his lips and grinned. There had been a gold shield on the pilot-side door, bright with gilt. Wyanet Chouinard might fancy herself content with her life, but she was about to receive a first-class wake-up call. Good.

Meanwhile, he squinted at the sun. Seven-thirty, he estimated, give or take five minutes. “About time for a beer.”

He might not be able to drown the voices, but he could and would drown them out, at least for a time.

He heard Charlie crying and sat up to go to him. A solid object whacked him in the forehead. “Ouch! Shit!”

Liam Campbell sat in the narrow bunk, rubbing his head. While his vision cleared, he remembered that he was still sleeping on board a twenty-eight-foot Bristol Bay gillnetter that had seen better decades. Since moving onto theDawn P,he had begun to think longingly of his office chair, which had served as his bed for the first month of his posting to Newenham, in spite of the fact that the chair had a tendency to roll out from under him at three in the morning. At least his office had a higher ceiling than the low bulkhead on this frigging boat. And it didn't smell like an old, wet wool sock.

The pain in his forehead faded and he remembered what had woken him: the sound of his dead son's tears. Before the sense of loss could take hold and pull him under, as it had too many times before during in the last two years, he swung his feet to the floor, and swore again when he splashed down into a half inch of water. His office didn't need its bilge pumped out every morning, either.

This was all Wy Chouinard's fault. He wasn't sure why, but if he gave himself some time he was sure he could come up with three or four excellent reasons.