"Duck!"

"Huh?"

"Get your head down!"

She looked around in the dark. Saw nothing. "Why? I don't see-"

Tracy Ammes felt the sharp jolt of Eric's strong hands shoving her roughly off the wooden seat and onto the wet floor of the canoe. She sprawled head first into their nylon backpacks, colliding with such impact that the narrow canoe began to rock furiously, tipping over far enough to scoop great gulps of water over the rails. The black saltwater bounced around inside, soaking the backside of Tracy's tattered jeans.

"Son of a bitch," she sputtered, inching her hands along either side of the canoe's gunwales as she pulled herself upright. "What the hell are you doing? You got me all wet."

"Keep your head down," Eric Ravensmith repeated urgently, then turned and leaned over the stern of the canoe. He poked his paddle at something out in the water. She couldn't see what.

"You're getting weird, Eric."

No response. His paddle thumped something solid.

"You hear me? Weird. Like Tony Perkins or something."

She watched him continue to grapple with whatever he'd found. Something about his intensity frightened her. Eric wasn't the kind of man who spooked easily. In fact, she'd noticed that the more threatening the situation, the calmer he often got, almost icy, like he'd flipped some internal switch that shut down his emotions. That's when he was the most dangerous.

She leaned over the side, trying to see what he was fooling with. No use. Too damn dark.

Tracy swatted at the cold water soaking through her pants. To hell with his over-protectiveness for once. She wasn't little Dorothy from Kansas, he wasn't the goddamned Wizard, and this sure wasn't Oz.