Page 94 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“I’ll be sure to check the weather forecast,” I said, and Caro narrowed her eyes at me. “But thanks for your concern. I really appreciate it.”

Dark was fast approaching when we chugged back to theCrosswindon the tender. While Cole chowed down on the leftovers I’d brought back with me—he’d already eaten one dinner, but he decided he was still hungry—I sent a donation to the turtle sanctuary because, let’s face it, Baptiste and Caro needed all the help they could get. I timed it to arrive after I’d left the country because I valued my anonymity far more than I needed thanks.

The woman I was pretending to be wouldn’t have a spare two thousand bucks to give to a bunch of sea creatures, and I wasn’t about to blow my cover.

CHAPTER 32

JEZEBEL

Caro hadn’t been lying about the manta rays. As we swam from lagoon to small lagoon off the coast of Dreadhaven, a dozen of them sped past us, flying gracefully beneath the surface. Cole filmed me as I finned through the water, cursing my cast because I couldn’t bend my left foot.

The lagoons gave way to meadows of seagrass, bright in the shallow water, and a school of damselfish parted as I headed toward them. A goatfish dug through the sand beneath me. Diving for fun was still a novelty, a joy, because ninety-nine percent of the times I put on a buoyancy compensator, I was either training or working. Leaving bubbles was unusual too. Normally, I used a rebreather so I could sneak around better.

Cole tapped his tank with a metal clip, and thechink, chink, chinkechoed through the water. I looked where he was pointing and saw a small conch inching along the sand.

I gave him the “okay” sign, the one that had since been co-opted as a symbol of the hate I spent half my life trying to neutralise. A thumbs-up didn’t work underwater—thatmeant “ascend,” and I wasn’t ready to leave yet. Not when I still had half a tank of air and a dive buddy I really liked, even though my head told me our relationship could never go anywhere. Not long-term. Not when I had to keep so many parts of myself hidden.

I swam in to take a closer look.

The conch was a juvenile—I knew that because I’d spent a good chunk of the past week reading, and most of the books on the boat were about San Gallicano or marine life or both. I’d also learned that Dreadhaven had been named several centuries ago when it was a land base for local pirates. There were two rival groups of bandits at the time—Jean Roulé’s band, who held Dreadhaven, and Pedro de Cordes’s buccaneers, who called Skeleton Cay home. The buccaneers were mostly hunters and all-around scoundrels, but they weren’t averse to piracy when the chance arose.

All were long dead, but traces of them still lived on.

I followed Cole between two rocky pillars and found myself in a garden of eels swaying gently in the current, anchored by their tails. They slowly retracted into the sand as we passed, leaving no evidence of their presence. Until this trip, I’d never realised diving could be so relaxing. Conserving air had been a matter of life and death. Without Cole acting as guide, navigation would have been more of a challenge—although I did carry a compass—but today all I had to do was float along beside him.

Float along and think that in less than two weeks, this carefree existence would come to an end.

For both of us.

Returning to Vegas no longer held the same appeal it once had.

While we dived, Dr. Blaylock had taken the tender to shore to visit the grave of a late friend of his, a man of the sea. Cole said the guy had passed during the final week of last year’s survey charter—unnatural causes, apparently.Dr. Blaylock had stayed on after the trip to attend the funeral, and clearly the loss was still fresh because he’d been quite morose over breakfast this morning.

His doldrums had made me think of people I’d lost, not just my mom and dad, but Ruby and folks I’d served with over the years. The roommate who’d dropped dead in a training exercise from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. The friend who’d gone out on patrol and been targeted by a sniper. The four soldiers riding in the vehicle ahead of mine who’d been hit by an RPG. I got a Silver Star; their families got folded flags. At first, I’d thrown the medal in the trash, but then I figured that would be disrespectful to their memories, so now it lived in a drawer at home.Home.The Cathouse was home, and the people I shared it with understood me. All of us had lost people, and when the bad days crept up on us, we were always there for each other. That was why I could never give up my job for Cole. He’d never understand me the way my team did.

“Bart was one of the few men in this country who wasn’t scared to travel west, and in doing so, he furthered our knowledge of the San Gallician ecosystem in a way few have been able to do.” Dr. Blaylock raised his glass. “To Bartholomew Huntley.”

We all followed suit. “To Bartholomew Huntley.”

Blaylock had returned from his trip as gloomy as he left, and he’d spent the rest of the evening telling us stories of his late friend. Bart Huntley had been an old-school pearl fisherman who’d kept free-diving until his death at the grand old age of seventy-eight. And it wasn’t age that took him—it was a drunk tourist on an illegal jet ski who’d run into him as he surfaced. The tourist wasserving life on Ilha Grande, and Bart was resting in the smaller of Dreadhaven’s two cemeteries. His only daughter still ran a seafood restaurant on the island, and Blaylock had picked up takeout on the way back to the boat.

“I’m curious,” I said. “How could he be a fisherman and an ecologist?”

“Believe it or not, sustainable pearl fishing—and pearl farming—is actually beneficial for the environment. A pristine ocean is needed to produce quality pearls, and so pearl farmers have an interest in keeping the water clean. Oysters themselves filter the water.”

“San Gallicano lost a great naturist,” Witt said, clearly trying to get back into Blaylock’s good books after he broke a sensor on theTide Podearlier.

“Naturalist,” Jon told him. “You mean naturalist.”

“Whatever, man.”

“One hangs around nature, one hangs around naked,” I told him. “Those two extra letters matter.”

His grin turned sleazy. “Maybe you could demonstrate?”

For a chilled-out guy, Cole could sure move fast when he wanted to. But so could I. Before he did something he regretted, I shoved him back into his seat and forced a laugh to defuse the situation.

“Sorry, sweetie. You’re not my type.”

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