Page 1 of Austen

ONE

Rule number one:Don’t run away from the shark.

Of course, when Austen said exactly that to her two dive clients, they stared at her as if she’d told them to stand in front of a moving freight train.

“Listen.You panic, you start splashing and swimming away—you become prey.”She’d been checking their tank connections and opening the air valves as she said it.

Elise Jameson sat on the seat of the dive boat, holding on as the private charter banged through the waves.Spray coated the deck, but it landed warm, refreshing, the sun high as it baked the cloudless day.

It would be a perfect day to dive theUSNS Vandenberg, seven miles off the coast of Key West.The waters glistened a deep blue, and the sun’s rays just might reach all the way to the massive sunken ship, some ten stories tall, over five hundred feet long, and settled into the sandy bottom at one hundred forty-five feet.

The artificial coral-reef habitat of moray eels, green turtles, stingrays, barracuda, and, of course...sharks.

Mostly nurse sharks and nonaggressive reef sharks, but okay, occasionally Austen had seen a tiger shark snoozing in the shadows of the upper decks.

Hence the warning.

“I heard you should just hit them on the nose.”This from Hunter Jameson, Elise’s husband and a seasoned diver, so yeah, Austen might have guessed he’d heard that.

She pulled on her BCD and tank, strapping them on and reaching for her mask.“If they get that close, it might be too late.”

The boat slowed, and she reached out to steady herself, glancing back at Hawkeye, who stood at the center console, under the bimini, his hat on backward, wearing aviator sunglasses, sporting a tan against his white Ocean Adventure Divers swim shirt.

He pointed, and she followed his gaze to the dive buoy, an orange floating ball onto which Hawk would moor his forty-foot dive skiff.The divers would follow the line down, sink into the quiet, and...

And she’d be flying.It happened every time she dove.As she descended, the ocean turned into the sky, and even as she swam through schools of fish, somehow the world dropped away into peace, only her heartbeat and her rhythmic, slow breathing tethering her to reality.

For those brief moments, she was free.

She turned to Hunter.“Just follow me, and should we startle anything down there, remember these rules: Don’t panic, maintain eye contact, and back away slowly.Feel free to shout through your regulator, to blow out bubbles, but don’t thrash.Even better—tuck your hands under your armpits.Your gloves can reflect light and look like fish, so?—”

She stopped talking at Elise’s wide-eyed look.She held up her hands.“Listen.This is a great dive.The ship is covered in barnacles and green and yellow algae, with coral already growing in areas.It’ll be inhabited by all sorts of fish.We might even see a goliath grouper, and definitely parrotfish and angelfish, lionfish, maybe silvery tarpons, and hopefully, Millie, our resident loggerhead.”She pulled on her mask.“Just stay with me.I promise—I’ll keep you safe.”

Then she sat on the edge of the boat and backrolled into the water.

Promises, promises.

She’d seen Hunter and Elise dive before—they knew how to handle themselves in the water.And Hunter had been in the military, so he didn’t seem like a guy prone to panic.

They descended the line, no problem, and Austen had called it—the light pierced the depths even this far, although she needed her dive light to illuminate the inner passageways of the ship.

The first time Austen had dived the former transport ship, the length had shaken her.The second-largest intentionally sunk dive ship in the world, it stood ten stories tall, with nooks and crannies and stairwells and compartments.But she’d dived the wreck for the better part of the last four years, so she easily guided them along the upper deck, then down a stairwell to the mess hall, where a bright green eel emerged from the empty burners of the large rusty stove.

They watched a parrotfish scrape algae from a bloom on a railing, the crunch echoing in the depths.And Millie rose from one of her favorite spots under an anchor winch on the bow, paddled into the current with her flat oar arms.

Hey, Flash,Austen wanted to say as Millie struck out for the great beyond.Wait for me.

Austen checked her time—thirteen minutes down.Four more minutes and they’d head up.Time enough for a quick trip to the satellite dishes.

Rule number two: Keep your eyes on the shark.

It might have helped if she’d seen it lurking, but she’d already swum through the spokes of the satellite array.

Not until she turned did Austen see Elise at the bottom, her tank hooked on the array.

In all her attempts to break free, she’d kicked up dust and splashes and...yep, awakened a tiger shark sleeping in one of the superstructure sublevels.

It edged out, curious.

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