Serendipity: good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries, usually by accident

Gordon makes a discovery

The figure rolled out of the raft. Bare feet touched the sand beneath the waist-high waves, the salty water feeling cool on the sunburned legs. Strength nearly gone, she forged ahead, stumbling once, twice, her head dipping below the water's surface. But somehow she held on, surfacing again, her now stinging, slitted eyes focused on one thing: the dry white sand of the beach ahead of her. The image of the expanse, with the welcoming shade created by the fronds of the palm trees just beyond it, held her blurred vision. She thought of nothing, nothing else but that dry ground; not her cracked lips, not her sunburned arms and face, not her exhaustion, not her hunger. Her mind burned with that one goal, to get to shore, and her body followed along automatically.

At last, she came to the point where the surf curled around her ankles, then she was free of the sea entirely, plodding, one weary foot after another, across the expanse of wet sand. Her shoulders drooped lower and lower until her hands almost touched the ground and then her feet felt the grainy heat of the dry beach beneath them.

"Oh, thank God," she whispered as she collapsed to the ground and knew no more.

Scott and Gordon Tracy sauntered along the beach, dressed in short drysuits, surfboards under their arms, towels around their necks, talking and joking.

"So, Gords. You really think that storm that passed by will have generated some good waves?" Scott asked. They were headed for Gordon's favorite part of the island, the beach that faced northwest and had the biggest breakers, regardless of storm-related ocean activity.

"Yeah. From what I understand, it nearly flooded a couple of Dad's minor atolls out completely," Gordon remarked. He shifted his surfboard from under one arm to the other and slowed his walk, frowning behind his sunglasses. He nudged his older brother.

"Do you see something up ahead? Is that what I think it is?"

Scott followed the track of his brother's now pointing finger, and squinted, putting his free hand to his brow. He groaned.

"Not another one! When will the female population finally get it through their pretty little heads that beaching themselves on our island is a poor way to catch our attention?"

"I dunno, Scott." Gordon was still frowning. "Something's odd here. Usually we find them walking towards us, half-fainting from having to swim in from the boat that dropped them off. This one's not moving."

"Hmm. You have a point." Scott sighed, then jammed the end of his surfboard into the soft sand. "Come on. Let's go investigate."

Gordon followed suit and the two men jogged down the beach to the fallen figure. Scott reached her first, and touched the figure's shoulder, then pulled his hand back, hissing through his teeth.

"Gordon, this might be the real thing. Look at how sunburned she is."

His brother joined him, reaching alongside the woman's neck for a pulse. "She's breathing and has a pulse." He pinched the skin on the woman's forearm. The gathered skin didn't immediately spring back. "She's dehydrated."

"And bruised," Scott remarked as he turned the woman over, brushing sand away from the reddened face. A wide bruise could be seen on either side of her neck, just where it met the shoulder, and a small, black and blue lump decorated the forehead.

"She's been here a while, Scott, her hair is drying out. Her skin is really hot. Could be sunstroke."

Scott had noticed the hair, dark brown and shot through with plenty of silver strands, curling in fluffy ringlets where it had dried. The lips were cracked and swollen, but the rest of the face was pleasant to look at despite the few lines that obvious maturity had left on it. Scott suddenly felt she reminded him of someone, someone he just couldn't place right then.

The two brothers exchanged glances. "Whoever she is, she's not our usual beach find. Call the house, Gordon, and have Virgil and Brains come out and meet us with a hover craft and some medical supplies. You and I can use a surfboard to move her up into the shade."

"Right, Scott." And Gordon stayed by the woman's side, making the call to the Tracy Villa as Scott ran back to grab one of the long surfboards.

Cool. She felt cool. Cool air circulating around her. Cool wetness pressed to her forehead and face. Cool sheets beneath her skin.

Sheets?

She slowly opened her heavy eyelids. They closed again, and she fought to open them.

"Hey! She's c-coming around!" said a tenor voice.

Her eyelids finally cooperated, and stayed open. Her vision took some time to adjust but eventually a face, no, two faces greeted her. One, - a male, in his twenties it looks like - had short brown hair and thick, blue rimmed glasses. The other, - an Asian female, early twenties by the looks of her- wore her thick black hair pulled back from her face and a soft smile.

She tried her voice, but it was too sandpapery.

"Here. Sip this." The young woman held a straw up to her lips, sliding the smooth plastic between them and into her mouth. She pulled the edge of it in and sucked on the straw reflexively. A burst of cool wetness, blessedly cool, sublimely wet, filled her mouth and she fought the instinctive urge to gulp the water down. A few sips, and she tried her voice again. This time, she was able to speak.

"W-Where am I?" she croaked out.

"Y-You're safe," said the young man. Stutter. He has a stutter. The woman's mind automatically catalogued the fact.

"Where?" she asked again, clearer and more insistently.

"You are at the island home of Jefferson Tracy," the young woman said with a smile. "My name is Tin-Tin, and you may call him Brains. What is your name?"

"Myles... Lou Myles."

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Myles," Tin-Tin said pleasantly.

Wait. Did she say Tracy?

"Did you say Tracy? The billionaire recluse?"

Tin-Tin cocked her head at Lou. "Yes, Tracy. The billionaire recluse. Why?"

Play it cool. Say something safe.

"I've heard of him... always thought he lived... in Kansas?"

Tin-Tin smiled. "Well, now you know better, Ms. Myles. Here, have some more water."

"Thanks." Lou closed her eyes again; the lids were much too heavy to keep open.

"D-Do you have any f-family we could, uh, call?" Brains - what an absurd name - asked.

"Sister. My sister. Kenne... bunkport. Shelly... Clarendon." The darkness was beckoning again.

"Okay, Ms. Myles. We'll do what we can. You rest now. We'll be back later." The Asian's melodic voice lulled Lou to sleep.

"What do you think, Brains?" Tin-Tin asked as they left the sick room.

Brains sighed. "I-I don't know what to think. And I-I won't know until she's, uh, awake enough to a-answer questions. I wish Mr. T-Tracy were here."

"And I wish Mrs. Tracy were back from that funeral," Tin-Tin murmured. "I noticed you were blushing when you helped me get Ms. Myles into the tepid water to cool her down."

Brains rolled his eyes. "I-I'm not used to d-doctoring females, T-Tin-Tin. You and Mrs. T-Tracy usually see your own, uh, physicians."

Scott approached the two as they walked into the lounge. "How's our... castaway?" he asked.

"She came around for a few minutes, Scott. Gave us her name and the name of family to contact," Tin-Tin replied.

"Well, what's the name this time? Something multi-syllabic and exotic?" Virgil asked from the piano where he had been practicing scales.

"A-Actually, no," Brains admitted. "She said her n-name was L-Lou. Lou M-Myles."

"Lou? Wonder if it's short for something?" Gordon asked from where he lay on Thunderbird Three's sofa, reading a magazine. "Louise?"

"Luanne? Louellen?" Tin-Tin answered thoughtfully.

"Louella? Lucretia? Ludmilla?" Gordon offered with a grin, causing Virgil to snort a laugh and Scott to chuckle.

"Oh, Gordon, I should hope not!" Tin-Tin cried. "No parent would be so cruel as to name their child Ludmilla!"

"Lucille?" Alan offered as he came in from the balcony. Everyone went silent, and he found himself on the receiving end of his brothers' stares. "What? It's a perfectly good name!"

Scott sighed. "Exactly how much of the conversation did you hear, Alan?"

"Uh, not enough, I guess, from everyone's reaction," Alan admitted. "But what's wrong with Lucille?"

"Nothing, Alan. It's just... oh, never mind," Scott said, shaking his head.

"Oh. Okay," said Alan, clearly still confused.

"It might be good for us to return our castaway to the mainland before Dad and Grandma return from their trip," Gordon suggested. "Then he wouldn't have to deal with her, no matter what her name."

"Right. I'll get in touch with this relative right away," Scott said firmly. "See what kind of arrangements can be made. And try to find out a little more about this Lou Myles in the process." He blew out a breath and shook his head again. "I still feel like I should know her."

"W-Well, please take into c-consideration that Ms., uh, Myles won't be ready to t-travel for another day or two. I-I want to see her fully hy-hydrated and the sunburn more or less r-resolved before discharging her," Brains warned.

"Okay, Brains. I'll keep that in mind," Scott promised.

Tin-Tin moved to Jeff's desk and logged in to the computer there. Within just a moment or two, she looked up at Scott and smiled. "I have the phone number of Ms. Myles's sister, Mrs. Clarendon. She was surprisingly easy to find."

"That's a shock. Usually our beach finds have no family, or they can't reveal where they are for fear of something bad happening to them," Gordon commented. "Or at least that's what they claim."

"True," Scott replied, taking Tin-Tin's spot behind Jeff's desk. "I'd better call the lady and let her know that her sister is still alive." He dialed the number that Tin-Tin had found for him. After three rings, a pleasant looking-woman with dark strands threaded through the bright silver answered the phone. She seems much older than our Ms. Myles, he thought.

"Hello, Mrs. Clarendon?"

"Yes, I'm Shelly Clarendon." The woman looked back at him with a bit of suspicion. "If you're trying to sell me something, I'm afraid I don't want it..."

Scott nearly laughed, but instead smiled widely. "No, Mrs. Clarendon, I'm not a salesman. My name is Scott Tracy, and I'm calling about your sister, Lou Myles."

Shelly's face took on a surprised, fearful look. "Lou? What's happened to her? Is she okay?"

This lady seems to expect bad things to happen to her sister, Scott noted. "Well, Mrs. Clarendon, we're not exactly sure what happened to her; she washed up on our private beach earlier today..."

She put a hand over her mouth and her eyes got very wide. "Washed up? On your beach? Is she all right?" she asked in a frantic voice.

Scott smiled again and spoke soothingly. "She's going to be all right, Mrs. Clarendon. She was dehydrated and sunburned and had a touch of heat stroke, but she's in our infirmary right now, being tended to by our physician. She came around long enough to give us her name and yours. We were hoping you might give us some insight as to what happened to her. And that we could make some arrangements for her to get home."

Shelly Clarendon shook her head. "I have no idea what could have happened to her. Last I heard, she was heading to Hawaii for a couple of days, then was going to catch a commercial flight home. She was retiring, and looking forward to going back to her little house."

Scott's curiosity itched and he wanted so badly to ask Mrs. Clarendon who her sister worked for and what she did. I'd better put those questions to Ms. Myles herself when she comes around again. Instead he asked, "Was she flying commercial from... wherever she was flying from?"

"Oh, no. She has her pilot's license and was returning a company plane from, lemme see-oh yes, here it is. From Auckland to Guam."

Scott was relieved to hear it; for Ms. Myles to be flying commercial would have meant a disaster that International Rescue had not heard about and should probably have responded to, but a small plane going down would have been below their radar, so to speak. His curiosity about their guest grew, and it was with difficulty that he refrained from questioning Mrs. Clarendon further.

"I am surprised," Shelly continued, "that I haven't heard from her employers. Surely they would have missed her by now. Hmph. Well, I'll let Lou deal with it when she gets back." She cocked her head and smiled at Scott. "You were saying something about making arrangements to get her home?"

"Uh, yes. She had reservations on a commercial flight from Hawaii, you say? Maybe we can fly her there and she can catch her flight back to Maine," Scott suggested.

"Oh, Lou doesn't live in Maine. She lives in North Carolina," Shelly informed him. "And I'm sure that she could get on her flight without a problem. She does have her identification on her, doesn't she?"

Scott blinked. "Uh, no. I'm afraid she doesn't." He himself had gone through what remained of the woman's clothes, looking for clues to her identity.

Shelly's face fell. "Well, I'll see what I can do here about getting copies of her i.d. to her. It will take a few days though. I'll have to go down to North Carolina..."

Scott shook his head. "No, Mrs. Clarendon, don't worry about it. We'll take care of getting her home."

"Well, if you're sure..."

"Yes, I'm sure."

"All right. You tell Lou I told her to get better and tell her I'll call Mrs. Mason about the cats, too. Please have her call me as soon as she's able."

"Uh, right. I will. May I call you again if we have any other questions?"

"Oh, yes. Feel free," Shelly told him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Clarendon. You've been a big help. Goodbye." Scott cut communications with the older woman and sat back, picking up a pencil and tapping it against his chin in an unconscious imitation of his father. Well, it sounds like this lady is legit so far. I just wish I could remember where I've seen her before! I'm sure I have!