“Not as bad as it could have been. I mean, basically, I told him I wasn’t going to wipe him out, or anything.”

“What about the Captain? You said you didn’t like him.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t really have any problems with him. He just creeped me out because it felt to me like he was spying on us.” Anna was getting more nervous. “Turner, please tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me.”

“Someone sabotaged our navigation system. The GPS is somehow frozen, and there’s a magnet glued to the bottom of the compass. There’s no way to get it off without destroying it.” He turned the object over and showed her the problem. A round disk was fixed against the base of the compass, and the clear shine of dried epoxy had squeezed out around the edges.

Anna’s face turned white. “We can still navigate, right? I mean, there are islands all over the place. Eventually, we’ll have to run into something.”

“Yes.” He looked down. “Truthfully, I was paying more attention to you last night, not our course,” he admitted. “I’m not sure how long the GPS has been frozen up.” Turner gazed out over the water. “I think our best bet is to follow the sun west. If we were drifting to the east last night, we may not find any land masses at all in that direction, and to the west we’re bound to run into something.” Turner raised his head, and looked into her frightened sea blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Anna. I was in familiar waters yesterday, and I knew where I was because of the charters I used to run. I only glanced at the GPS a few times and it seemed to be working fine. Last night, the reading looked normal.”

Anna could see he felt miserable about their problem, and she gently stroked the back of his neck. “It’s my fault the instruments are screwed up.” She gathered her courage, smiled and said, “So, Captain, west it is, then. We’ll be fine. Hey, I said I wanted a little excitement, remember?” She tried to cheer him up.

The rest of the day they sailed the calm waters, and polite, nervous tension passed between the couple. Anna did a quick inventory of the galley. She had planned on four days at sea, figuring they could stop at another island if provisions ran low. Now, she considered stretching their food supplies just in case, and she mentally prepared meals utilizing their leftovers and lightening the menus.