She wagged her tail and yanked, as if Max was nothing but a stuffed dog toy. The dogs in this town were seriously out of control. If the aquarium was as bad off as Henry made it sound, perhaps Max could get a job as an animal control officer.
He told himself things weren’t that dire…yet.
Max somehow managed to jerk his leg free, leaving behind a chunk of khaki fabric in the Dalmatian’s mouth in the process. The dog romped back to the head of the room, tossing her prize in the air and playing catch with it.
Max buckled himself into the front seat of his Jeep and pulled away from the senior center in a few jerky movements, happy to leave that particular brand of wacky in the rearview.
The Turtle Beach Aquarium and Sea Turtle Hospital was located on the sound side of the island, past the bridge, at the opposite end of town. Back when Max had spent his summers in Turtle Beach, the north end of the island had been mostly uninhabited. A monster hurricane in the late eighties had wiped out the row of oceanfront homes at the north end and caused so much beach erosion that rebuilding wasn’t an option.
Nature was a miraculous thing, though, as Max knew all too well. The shore at the north end had repaired itself naturally over time. Now, the area that Max remembered as an untouched strip of sugary sand boasted three rows of tall, slender beach cottages built on pilings. They were painted in Easter egg hues with white lattice trim to match the other homes on the island and surrounded by lush coastal vegetation to protect the area from further storm damage. Beach grass, sea oats, and live oak trees, weathered and curved into twisted shapes by the salty wind, also provided a safe haven for birds and mammals. Max couldn’t wait to take a closer look. It was the perfect setting for an aquarium that specialized in sea life native to the Carolina coast.
The aquarium itself sat at the edge of the glassy calm waters of the bay, a stark contrast to the massive steel and glass building where Max had worked in Baltimore. The National Aquarium hosted more than a million visitors per year and was one of Maryland’s biggest tourist attractions. It could have eaten the modest building Max was currently looking at for breakfast.
Max didn’t care about appearances, though. In fact, he rather liked the colorful mural that wrapped around all sides of the Turtle Beach Aquarium. It featured sea turtles swimming against a vibrant blue background. Colorful bits of coral, orange-and-white clown fish, and pink and turquoise sea anemones lined the bottom of the mural, and the top of the brick wall was awash with sunny yellow light.
Max’s breath bottled up in his chest when his gaze moved from the painted turtles to the sign above the double glass doors at the aquarium’s entrance. TURTLE BEACH AQUARIUM AND SEA TURTLE HOSPITAL. That latter part was pure Henry. He’d taught Max everything he knew about his beloved sea turtles, and he’d devoted his life to protecting them against extinction. Now it was up to Max to carry on his uncle’s legacy.
Ifhe could somehow get the aquarium back into the black.
Max stepped out of the Jeep, grabbed the cardboard box of his personal office effects out of the backseat, and slammed the door with a tad too much force. Of course he could get the aquarium on the straight and narrow. He’d do whatever it took. First things first, though. He needed to see for himself just how big a mess he’d inherited.
The temptation to linger in the big garage-style complex that held individual open-air tanks for the injured turtles was great. Max went from tank to tank, checking on the five turtles currently in residence—four loggerheads and one Kemp’s Ridley—and then took a quick pass through the aquarium area. The building’s interior was every bit as colorful as the exterior, with interactive games for kids, a touch pool, a shark tank, a seahorse exhibit, and a series of special glow-in-the-dark jellyfish tanks. At the center of everything sat an enormous clamshell with a small bench-seat, draped with fishnet and glittery pink starfish.
Max angled his head and studied it. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought it looked like some sort of throne.
Weird.
Max glanced around, and his gaze snagged on a driftwood sign with the aquarium’s hours. They were scheduled to open in forty-five minutes. He tightened his grip on his cardboard box and headed toward the aquarium director’s office.
Everything about the small space reminded him of his uncle. Henry was everywhere, from the sweet cherry aroma to the sea turtle figurines covering every available surface. Crayon drawings of turtles, turtle nests, and tiny hatchlings making their way from the dunes to the shore were tacked on the wall behind the desk, along with notes left from aquarium visitors in children’s handwriting.
Max set his box down on the desk and reached for one of the drawings. The paper was yellowed, and there was something undeniably familiar about the drawing—a mother turtle returning to sea after laying her eggs, leaving a telltale trail behind her in the sand. Then Max took a closer look, and he saw his own initials scrawled in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.
MM.
No wonder the drawing of the turtle looked familiar. Max had drawn it himself the very first summer he’d come to visit Turtle Beach. On the day of Max’s arrival, Henry had taken him out walking late at night with a pair of small shovels and a bucket. They’d methodically filled in any holes that had been left behind by kids who liked to dig at the shore or tourists making sand castles. Holes were dangerous for nesting turtles who came ashore in the moonlight on summer nights to lay their eggs. Henry explained this to Max as they meandered half a mile in either direction of Henry’s cottage, filling in holes and patting down sand.
Just as they arrived back at the beach house, they’d heard a rhythmic swishing sound high up on the dune. Henry had placed his big palm on the center of Max’s tiny chest, stopping him in his tracks.
“Turtle,” his uncle had whispered.
Then they’d crouched down behind the sea grass and watched the big mama turtle make her nest. Henry had called her “the grand lady” and spoke of her with such reverence that Max had known without a doubt he was witnessing something magical. The next morning, he’d drawn the turtle’s picture with crayons Henry kept in an old metal Folgers tin.
And his uncle had kept the drawing all these years.
The paper shook in Max’s trembling hand. He took a ragged inhale and pinned it back in its place with a rusty thumbtack.
This, he thought, gaze lingering on the old drawing.This is just the reminder I needed. This is why I’m here.Thisis why I have to fix whatever has gone wrong.
Max sat down in his uncle’s squeaky leather chair, turned on the outdated desktop computer, and dug through the drawers until he found a stack of ledgers, a checkbook, and accounting documents for the past three years.
Dread settled in his gut as he pored over them. Things were not good. He was going to have to make some budget cuts, and he was going to have to do it fast. They were at the height of tourist season, so ticket sales would be at peak for the next two months. But without a plan, the aquarium wouldn’t make it through the winter.
“Wilson?”
Max dragged his gaze away from the mess of numbers in front of him and looked up to find Molly the mermaid standing in the doorway of the office, dressed head-to-toe in her full mermaid regalia.
“Max.” She shook her head, and blonde waves spilled down her back. Max couldn’t be sure, but he thought he spied pink glitter in her hair. “I meant Max, not Wilson. Sorry, you caught me off guard. You’re um…well…you’re the last person I expected to see here.”