NightShade Forensic FBI Files, page 22
Right now, she was repeating a mantra under her breath.
Stay hidden. Stay just below the surface if you can. We will come back. Stay hidden. We’ll come back. Stay hidden. We'll come back.
It was possible the other boat had spotted them already. With her hand on Jason's arm, she told him to slow the Calypso. “We can't look like we're running away. How do we make ourselves look ‘casual’?”
Jason answered by nodding and easing up on the throttle slightly. “We can't get too far away.”
Though he didn't say it, they both understood why.
“Fishing poles!” GJ tried not to dart away, in case they were being watched more carefully than it appeared. They’d brought the poles along to catch samples but, right now, it would hopefully make them look like a fishing crew or a random household out on the water rather than researchers on an investigation.
If Allison and Hannah had previously encountered someone else in this location, then looking like a research vessel could become a problem very quickly. GJ found herself being grateful that this was a new boat with a different name, so at least they wouldn't be instantly recognizable. Though she wasn't overly religious, she crossed herself as she pulled out one of the fishing poles. Although she had no bait, she threw the hook over the side and held onto the rod. “Donovan! Is there a way you can watch them without letting them see you?”
“I think so.” With a brief nod, he headed toward the front of the small boat—the side now furthest from the approaching boat. It was, in fact, red. And cigarette-style. And moving fast. Anyone watching would them would hopefully become obvious as the smaller boat approached.
GJ crossed her fingers. She might lack Eleri’s command of the elements, but she could still perform schoolyard wishes.
The small boat was sleek and fast, and she prayed that it crossed their path before Hannah and Eleri surfaced. She watched as Donovan ducked low and surreptitiously trained his binoculars toward the small boat. Then, as Jason joined her at the side, tossing another fishing pole into the water, she prayed again that the people on the boat didn’t look past the surface. But then Donovan's head swiveled, looking past her.
“Guys,” he said, “don’t move your heads, but there's another boat coming from the north.”
GJ flicked her eyes and saw a movement on the horizon that she could only assume was the boat Donovan spoke of. One boat in this particular area on the open ocean was an anomaly. But two?
This was no coincidence.
The small, sleek racing boats were aimed directly at each other. GJ felt her heart rate kick up even higher.
48
Eleri bobbed with the waves for a few moments as she slowly turned in a circle. Looking for the Calypso yielded nothing, but she tried not to worry.
Beside her, Hannah did the same and, by the worry that pleated her brows, came to the same conclusion. They were alone out in the water. But why?
Hitting the button on her vest let a woosh of air into it from her tank. The unit tightened against her chest, but buoyed her higher in the water. The waves had been smacking her around—a good reason to keep her regulator in, but now she needed to take it out. Getting her head higher up made it less likely she’d swallow sea water.
Pulling the mouthpiece out and holding onto it, she turned to her dive buddy. “Did we move too far? Or did they move?”
Several yards away, Hannah bobbed and then suddenly disappeared. Holding her breath, Eleri counted for three beats, hoping it was a wave and that Hannah was just sitting in the trough as the peak split the distance between them. The breath gushed out of her lungs as—a moment later—Hannah’s head appeared in her vision again, none the worse for wear.
“We're in the same place. Well. . .” Hannah lifted her wrist, checking the high-end dive watch she always wore. It recorded her depth, dive time, and even her GPS location. “Actually, we're in almost the exact location where we went down.”
Hannah was moving toward her now, and Eleri offered her own strong strokes to bring them together. She knew she shouldn’t be burning her energy when she couldn’t see the boat, but the fact that it was missing made her want to tether herself to Hannah while they made their decisions. But Hannah was hard to hold onto, once again turning fully around and searching the blue horizon that stretched in all directions.
No matter how she strained, or tried to pop up higher in the water, the Calypso was nowhere to be found. Of all the times that she'd gone on a dive, Eleri had never come up alone. Not before now. Her heart was beating far too fast, though she lied to herself that it was from the strain of the dive.
It was only on her third rotation—when she’d basically given up on just spotting the research vessel—that she heard it. Turning to Hannah, she saw the other woman pulling on the cord that would release her emergency signal: a three foot, inflatable tube that could be seen from a distance. “Shit! Hannah, deflate. Get down.”
But the air was fast, the tube unfurling even as Hannah looked at her oddly. She probably couldn’t hear the boat coming as the sound of the air wooshing from her tank and into the plastic tube was filling her ears. With a quick thought—that signal could not go up!—Eleri reached for her dive knife and lunged forward out of the water.
With a five inch tear now marking the side, the signal device deflated and settled on the surface of the water. Though Hannah was looking at her as though she’d gone mad, Eleri was already pushing the button on her own vest, releasing the air and feeling the water slosh past her head as she sank slightly. Shoving the regulator back in her mouth, she tugged at Hannah, who seemed to have not caught on that there was a boat approaching quickly. Too quickly.
If nothing else, they needed to get low enough so the engine’s blades wouldn't be a problem. Had the crew of the Calypso seen this other boat and hightailed it out of the area? That seemed entirely possible, and it would mean that their team wasn’t that far away. But right now, Eleri and Hannah sat so low in the water that their vision was blocked by the choppy waves.
Finally understanding, Hannah shoved her own regulator back in her mouth and, in a smooth, practiced move, disappeared under the waves. Eleri’s own instinct was to flip upside down, mermaid style, but flipping her fins in the air here would only signal her presence. She’d just destroyed Hannah’s beacon in an effort stop them from being seen.
If the Calypso had seen it necessary to abandon them, then she and Hannah needed to get underwater fast. Eleri grabbed at the floating corpse of the signal tube and dragged it under with her. She was grateful this had not been a long dive and she was not—at least, not yet—worried about their remaining oxygen. Apparently, she wasn't sinking fast enough for Hannah, who grabbed onto her ankle and tugged her slowly deeper into the ocean.
Even so, it was necessary for Eleri to grab her nose, shake her head, and work her jaw in an attempt to make her ears equalize. She sank for the second time. She knew this was not smart, immediately going down again. But they would not go so far this time—just low enough to stay out of sight of the approaching speedboat.
When they were far enough under, Eleri looked up and watched. Barely able to see a mark in the distance, she could still tell it was the underside of the boat, and it was fast approaching. She could hear it now. Turning, it startled her to find Hannah panicking.
Hannah hadn't even seen the video of Allison's murder, but it appeared something here triggered Hannah. Grabbing her friend’s hand, Eleri tugged and began the slow work of swimming her away. Despite Hannah's panic, moving was smart. If they could put some distance between themselves and the boat, they could come up to the surface, use their snorkels, and save their oxygen. Moving farther also made it less likely they’d be spotted.
Even as she thought that, the noise of the engine cut, the boat coming to a stop right behind them. The lack of sound almost brought Eleri to her own panic. What if the boaters had spotted them? What would that mean? Were they just friendlies out for the day on a cigarette boat? Did they stop because they saw divers and no dive boat around?
Though that story made sense, Eleri knew it wasn't true.
Right then, in the silence, she noticed another noise, one she’d missed given the overwhelming sound of the first boat. But now it was clear, as the sound traveled faster, if not sharper, under the water. She turned her head the other way. Even as Hannah continued to tug at her hand, pulling her farther away from the scene, Eleri spotted the second boat on the horizon. This one was coming from the opposite direction.
Then it, too, stopped.
The distance between the two small boats remained rather broad. Eleri had no idea what was going on. She didn't know if she and Hannah were swimming towards or away from the Calypso. She didn't know how long they could be stuck here with the boat stopped, or whether these smaller boats had seen them.
Surely, the divers couldn’t be spotted now, the women were too far underwater, the surface too choppy to peer through. Even if someone managed to get eyes under their boat, the two women were too far away, with the seaweed and algae and distance obscuring them.
They should be safe, Eleri thought as a way to console herself. Stopping underwater and managing to float without much movement, besides that put upon them by the current, Eleri motioned again toward the surface.
Hannah refused. Her panic was would run her out of oxygen faster than most anything else. And—in a situation like this—they needed more O2, not less. They had to conserve what they had left. Which meant one, not sucking it down in a panic-induced fit and, two, getting to the surface to breath the free air there.
With a nod, clear and soft and yet full of authority, Eleri pointed again to the surface. She began swimming upward, tugging at Hannah. Though Hannah resisted slightly, she didn't fight hard, for which Eleri was grateful. Underwater, Hannah would have definitely overpowered her. When they broke the surface, Eleri put her finger to her lips, pulled out her regulator, and put in her snorkel, staying just below the surface. Quietly, they breathed air from above the waves and waited for the boats to pass.
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until the sky began to turn dark.
49
Donovan stood with the railing clenched tight in his fists, as though he was holding both the boat and this day together. No one on the boat was asleep yet. Everyone stood watch, though the sky had grown dark and they still hadn't found Eleri and Hannah.
He was beginning to panic. Next to him, Jason had moved well past the initial stages. The abject fear rolled off of him in pheromone waves that almost knocked Donovan over.
At first, Donovan had wondered about Jason’s snap, and his near inability to function in a situation when they needed all hands on deck—literally. Surely things had gone wrong on the boat before. Despite only knowing Hannah for a short while, Donovan’s impression was that she would never hire a crew member or researcher who couldn’t keep his shit together. In fact, Donovan would have bet money that exactly this had happened before. But that was when he figured out Jason’s problem.
This had happened before. And the last time it did, Jason’s boss—his friend, mentor, and dive buddy—had never come back up. She'd been murdered. Now he was staring down another loss. With Neriah MIA, Jason was about to become the last of the original four-man crew, and he was not dealing well with it.
“We’ll find them.” Donovan gently touched the other man on the shoulder and tried to offer his best reassurance. He wanted to believe that, somehow, he had tapped into Eleri’s innate sense and that he would know if things were wrong.
His gut told him they were okay—or okay enough, and for now—but not because he would know about Hannah, not at all. He had come around to the full faith that if something had happened to Eleri, he would be feeling it now. He’d heard her voice in his head when she was threatened before; Surely she would reach out to him now if she needed him. So why hadn’t she? Why didn’t he hear her? Why didn’t he know which way to go?
“Excuse me.” The words were curt, and GJ didn’t wait for him to step back from the railing. She just pushed her way through.
The younger agent was walking full circles around the deck, her feet almost clomping in her fear. The repetitive sound was enough to drive him crazy, though he understood the necessity of her action. They had waited for the two cigarette boats to leave. Both had stopped in proximity to each other, but had not had any kind of real contact, as far as he could tell. Maybe they yelled to each other, but even his sensitive ears had heard nothing aside from a few splashes that could easily have been big fish or passing sea mammals.
The boats had turned and then headed back the way they had each come. An odd dance with no interaction.
“That wasn't normal,” Jason protested for the umpteenth time, as GJ scooted past him, her high-lumen flashlight aimed out over the open water, scanning for any sign of Eleri and Hannah.
He had been told they had a yellow inflatable they could wave around and catch the gaze of anyone looking for them. Why hadn’t they done that? He had to believe she was okay for now. But the growing darkness was like a key, cranking his chest tighter with each shade change.
Noah had volunteered to dive, to see if he could find them underwater, but the other three quickly talked him out of it. If the women were underwater, they should see the boat—unless they were very deep, which they shouldn't be now. The water was too vast, too murky, and too dangerous to send anyone else down. It wasn’t yet time for a hail Mary.
They should have surfaced by now, Donovan reasoned. They would have run out of oxygen long ago if they had stayed under. Donovan's only conclusion could be that they weren't looking anywhere near the correct place. His lack of sense of direction on the open water was disorienting. The churn of his stomach was probably no longer due to the waves beneath his feet, and was now caused by fear. Or was he just picking up Jason's panic? No, much of the feeling was his own.
GJ pushed past him again with the flashlight, working diligently to make sure that she didn't miss anything hiding between the waves, anything in the distance, or anything that blended in. She passed in front of the men at the rail, once again making them step back. Like some kind of nervous glitch, she said, “Excuse me, excuse me,” and then turned around and went the other direction, as though searching counterclockwise might make it more likely that she would spot Eleri and Hannah.
“Excuse me.” She pushed past again.
But this time, Donovan’s hand shot out as he grabbed her arm. “Shut up.”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
Beside her, Jason and Noah turned to him with the same ugly frowns on their faces that GJ was giving him.
“Don't move.” He ordered all three of them. The slap of the water against the boat and the rasp of the waves as they hit each other on the open water obscured the sound he was listening for. But when, at last, everyone on the boat was quiet, he heard it again. Donovan.
“Eleri!” he shouted out, no longer concerned about the presence of another boat. It might still be out there. They might just not be able to see it. But it didn’t matter now, as they had already more than given their position away with GJ shining her flashlight all over the water.
“Donovan.” It was faint, but it was there. “Bow. Two o'clock.”
The words had come on the wind from a distance. No one else had heard them. That was clear from the way GJ was tugging against his hand, as though she needed to break free and resume her circular pacing. Instead, he tightened his grip, dragging her to the other end of the boat. “It’s Eleri. She’s off the bow, two o'clock.”
GJ had been shaking her head to ask what he was doing, but he saw the change in her features. “Oh!” Instantly, the tension where she was yanking against him relaxed. “Where are they?”
“Over here?” He dragged her more forcefully than he should have. Grabbing her hand, he directed the flashlight. GJ didn't protest. She waved it once, twice, sweeping the surface of the water. This time, he saw movement.
Turning back to Jason, he made a circle with one finger in the air. “Go!”
As he looked back at the water, a lone yellow inflatable unfurled. They hadn't had the signal up before now, and Donovan didn't know why. But he trusted that, if Eleri stayed out in the dark water without signaling the boat, she had a reason.
He just didn't know what it was.
Ten minutes later, they were hauling the equipment and the women into the boat. Both were exhausted and shivering, though they'd been floating for the most part, treading water where they could. They'd been jostled by the waves. They hadn't eaten. Their oxygen tanks were near zero.
As he checked them over, GJ disappeared, her feet stomping down the stairs, the noise ringing in his head. GJ was often incredibly smart, and usually far too logical. He wasn't going to argue and tell her that she needed to stay. It was an effort for him to trust that those around him were doing their best. He’d worked alone for so long that any teamwork took conscious effort on his part.
But GJ made his gamble pay off. Sure enough, as the women sank into chairs, GJ reappeared, a cold ginger ale in hand for each of them. “I started soup. I'll bring it up in a minute. I'll be right back with crackers.”
Of course, GJ didn’t hug anyone. She assessed and she fixed.
Hannah turned to Eleri, an apology tumbling from dry lips. “I'm sorry I panicked. I was thinking of Allison.”
“Of course, you were.” Eleri reached out and took hold of her friend’s hand. “We're fine, and we knew we would be.” She looked up at Noah and Donovan. “We didn't stay down that long. The boats were weird, though. You were right to leave. We're all back together and it's okay now, but I think there's a reason Allison stopped here.”
