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"No one should dive alone," she rehts, vision is limited," she said "You need a dive buddy And it’s randchild,It’s still ulators, tanks and masks we keep because of work that has to sohtly, wanting to ease the tension with sed the feat

"Grampa!" Ashley protested

"Well, don’t look at me!" Beth said "Dive in that nasty oldin the Mississippi!"

"I was planning on working with Jake, too," Jackson said

"That’s fine But I’et on it," Jake said

Half an hour later, the divers were nearly ready Ashley had opted for a dive suit--she didn’t like everything in the Mississippi touching her bare skin Jake and Jackson had eschewed the idea of suits and were just in swiulators

Angela, Beth and Frazier had come down to the embankment near the cemetery while they checked and rechecked their equipela had watched Jake walk over and over the embankment near the cemetery wall He found a spot that see at the about He caround He stood after a o in here Time for tanks, children," he said

The three assisted each other, buckling into the heavy dive tanks "You’re just walking in, right?" Angela asked "Seriously, shouldn’t we be waiting for the police? They’ll have metal detectors--"

Jake lifted a rod he had on a cord at his wrist "Jackson has one, too," he told her

"It is one big damned river," Frazier said "And then there’s the bayou--"

"I don’t think so, sir," Jake said "This is how he ed the movement of the body This is where he’ll have ditched the weapon"

Frazier nodded He gazed at Ashley, and she knew that he orried about her It was only fair; she orried about him She blew him a kiss

"I’ll follow the current and watch for you down by the public raet back--I’ll be there"

"Keep up with us," Jake warned, catching Ashley’s hand

Pride dictated that she draay, pride and maybe fear that it was too easy to depend on hiether, and she wasn’t going to be uncooperative

They eased into the water over the embankment, a difficult task as it was shallow next to the levee and they sank into the th of the current, and she knehat Jake was thinking: if the killer had indeed followed this route, he had gone with the current in whatever little boat he had been ht have been heard

The brown, muddy waters of the Mississippi covered their heads, and they ith the current the their flippers to thrust them doard Ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet…forty feet She’d been in the water here before, but only ever to clear growth from the seawall or ith their little strip of dock The water was filled with silt, and everything before her eyes was curtained behind a brown haze The sun didn’t penetrate deeply

Aoff quickly They passed over the ruins of a broken-up tugboat Gar drifted by, and in the few feet she could see ahead, even with her diving light, Ashley saw that a blue suckerfish atching the in clear waters was beautiful, but the Mississippi wasn’t clear It seeht dimmed quickly, as if the riverbed sucked it up into the mottled brown darkness

She heard the rhyth in and out of her own lungs She usually loved that sound She glanced over to see that Jake was stillthe river botto their fins, the current was so strong

She tried to give her concentration over to the task at hand

She felt a jerk on her hand; she turned and saw Jake’s blue-green eyes through his o down Histhe current, they shot doard, only to discover car parts that had been in the river long enough to acquire rowth She and Jake, with Jackson close behind, started to ain

She wasn’t at all sure how she saw it, but suddenly it seelow of her beam