Eyes of Fire (19 page)

“I'm glad I didn't live back then.”

“Yeah,” her mother teased, tousling her hair. “Now moms and dads have a bad time giving a kid a spanking! Not that children should be abused….”

“But a good spanking now and then seems in order to me,” Liam Hinnerman said, eyes glittering.

“Want to hear a funny one?” Adam asked Darlene.

“The seamen weren't allowed to smoke—the fire hazard was too dangerous. They chewed tobacco instead. They were supposed to spit their tobacco into something called a spit kid. When they spat on the deck instead, their punishment was to have the spit kid tied around their necks. Then their shipmates were allowed to use them for a tobacco-spitting target.”

“Ugh. That's gross!” Darlene said. But she grinned suddenly. “Brad would make a good target.”

“Maybe.”

Sam stood suddenly. She looked tense. “Suit up time,” she said. “We've got lots of company today.”

They did have company, Adam saw. At least half a dozen dive boats were anchored around the site, their flags waving. Beautiful weather, Adam thought.

The calm before the storm.

“Everybody buddied up?” Sam asked. Jem had cut the motor on the
Sloop Bee,
and was dropping the anchor.

“Joey and me forever!” Sue Emerson said happily.

“We expected nothing less,” Sukee murmured.

“I've got my honey today,” Liam said, lifting Jerry's hand. Poor Jerry. She was very pale. Well, maybe she had a right to be. Adam made a mental note to keep a good eye on the pair.

“Thank God!” Jim Santino said, flipping back his hair. “I get a woman today! Sam—”

“I've got Darlene,” Sam said.

“There's me,” Sukee offered dryly.

“So there is!” Jim murmured.

“Mr. O'Connor?” Brad said.

“Fine. You got me, kid.” Good. That made it a foursome—Darlene and Brad, Sam and himself.

He had to find a few minutes to get off on his own. And come tomorrow, he was going to have to get out here alone somehow.

Well, not alone.

With Sam.

“If we're all buddied up, let's take the dive. We have lots of time. Don't forget, though—you especially, my talented new students,” Sam told the kids, smiling, “to always keep an eye on your air and your time. Right?”

“Right. But I'm with you,” Darlene said.

“Still…” Sam began.

“Still, if a big shark came along and ate Sam, you'd want to survive on your own, right?” Liam asked her politely.

“No big shark is coming along,” Adam said evenly. Liam Hinnerman was the kind of man who deserved a hard right to the jaw.

But this wasn't the time or the place, and Hinnerman could probably also hit back. No matter. One to his kisser would be worth whatever he dished out in return.

“Divers in the water!” Jem called.

Suits on, masks on, fins, vests and cylinders, they entered the water. It was a familiar realm for Adam. A world he loved. Moving slowly, neutralizing the natural squeezes that occurred with the pressure as man moved deeper into the sea. In his work, he'd dived rivers, lakes, creeks, streams and canals, as well as dozens of different places in the ocean. Nothing was so beautiful as the tropical and semi-tropical sea. The reefs with their teeming, multicolored life, sea fans waving, anemones, tubes and more. Brad pointed to an outcropping of fire coral, bloodred, beautiful, painfully dangerous. They enjoyed its beauty and steered clear of it.

Following Sam and Darlene.

Following the Steps.

Twenty feet down, twenty-five feet. The air from their regulators bubbled around them, making a soft, constant sound within the watery world. Thirty feet, thirty-five feet. Forty feet, forty-five. Fifty. Fifty-five.

Sam had stopped at one of the Steps, studying it. Darlene paused with her. Adam pointed out the step to Brad, and they swam toward it. Adam caught Sam's eyes beneath the glass of her mask. Framed there, a deep beautiful green. Her hair flared out, redder in the water. As red as the fire coral, or so it seemed. He motioned to Brad, drawing her attention to the boy. She frowned, alarmed to realize that he was about to move out on his own.

Alarmed…

Or curious. Determined to know what he was doing.

She couldn't follow. He quickly left her with the children, kicking his fins hard against the water to reach the cliff and the last step embedded there.

The step where he had previously found the gold watch.

Hank's watch.

He kept his eye out for the other divers as he swam, mentally counting off those in his party, trying to make certain they were all involved in their own explorations. Jerry and Liam, Sukee and Jim, the Emersons, the Walkers. They were all present and accounted for, all looking around.

Searching?

He kicked his way deeper, following the cliff face. The drop-off brought the ocean floor from a mere sixty feet to deeper than a hundred. He sank deeper still, studying the ragged edges of coral and rock along the way.

The watery world grew darker as he went ever downward.

He blinked suddenly, certain he had seen a light. It couldn't be a light, logic told him. A reflection, perhaps.

Reflecting from what?

The world was silent, other than his air bubbles and the constant rhythm of his breathing. The light…

Flickered. Somewhere within the coral shelf. He moved along. Slowly, carefully.

The light, hazy in the shadowy darkness, flickered and blinked. He moved closer. Closer.

Bubbles. There were bubbles other than his own. Ahead of him. His muscles tensed. Someone was diving within the catacomb of coral. He moved closer, closer. He slipped through a break in the reef.

There was a diver ahead of him. A diver with his back to him and a light focused on the coral surrounding them. A lone diver, deep in a world of shadow.

Adam reached to his calf for his diving knife, tensed and ready.

The diver sensed Adam's presence and turned with a defensive swirl, his own knife raised.

Adam met the diver's eyes.

He gasped, stunned. Choked.

And the knife slipped from his suddenly frozen fingers and drifted endlessly downward to the shadowy depths below.

W
here the hell had Adam gone?

Sam remained with the children, having little choice. But she couldn't see Adam.

Minutes ticked by. Five, ten, fifteen. Twenty. She glanced at her computer, checking the time remaining until they had to surface. How deep had he gone? How much air was he using? Was he going to need a long decompression time?

Was he going to come back up?

Sheer panic seemed to seize her heart. She hadn't had the sense to be alarmed at first when her father had disappeared. And she hadn't even panicked when Hank had first come up missing; lightning didn't strike twice.

But it had. And this might be the third time.

She waited miserably in the water, trying to pretend that everything was all right, forcing herself to remember that she was responsible for two innocent children. Crabs scuttled by; shrimp shot past. A friendly grouper brushed against her, startling her. Darlene tugged her in one direction to see a magnificent ray floating by, majestically cloaked and graceful. Brad found a silver barracuda hulking in the coral. Darlene jerked them away from the barracuda.

More minutes passed.

Sam watched for Adam, trying at the same time to watch for the other divers. Liam and Jerry. Sukee and Jim. The Walkers. The Emersons.

They all seemed to disappear, yet when she looked again, they had reappeared.

This was crazy.

Crazy.

She needed to dive alone with Jem and Adam.

She needed to look for the
Beldona.

Just when she might truly have begun to panic about Adam's disappearance, he materialized. Brad was pointing to a large blue fish swimming over from behind them. Darlene was suddenly by her side, gripping Sam's arms so tightly that Sam thought the teenager's nails might rip through her suit.

The fish was a shark. A blue, Sam thought. Perhaps five or six feet long, magnified by the water. It cruised closer to them.

She slipped an arm around Darlene, holding her steady. She felt the girl shaking.

The shark, she thought, must smell the girl's fear.

But the animal behaved in a natural fashion, swimming toward them, glassy eyes on them, sleek body cutting the water smoothly.

It took a good look at them.

Veered.

And swam by.

Darlene was still shaking. She burst away from Sam, kicking hard to reach the surface, fifty-five feet over their heads.

Sam shot up, catching Darlene by the legs, pulling her down. She shook her head sternly, indicating that they had to rise slowly. Darlene blinked and seemed to bring herself under control.

That was when Adam appeared, taking Darlene's hand. A second later Brad was with them, and as a foursome, they slowly made a proper ascent.

They were the first to reboard the dive boat. Freed from her heavy gear, Darlene began to gasp again. “Did you see it? It was huge! Ten feet—”

“Honey, that shark was no more than six feet, tops,” Adam told her. “The water magnifies what we see.”

“A shark. It was a shark. Just like the ones that ate all those men in World War Two.”

“Darlene, it was a blue. It took a look at us, and it said, ‘People, yuck. Way too much body fat in those suckers!' And it swam by, because the sea is full of delicious fish.”

“But it was there, in the water—”

“Water is where sharks live,” Adam said.

Sam stood in front of Darlene and asked her sternly, “First rule of scuba?”

Darlene swallowed guiltily. “It was a shark.”

“First rule of scuba?”

“Breathe continuously.”

“Right. Second rule?”

“Regain control, respond, react.”

“Right. It was a shark. And we've talked a lot about sharks, and about seeing sharks in the water. It looked at you, you looked at it—it swam away. Right?”

Darlene swallowed again. “Yeah. We're not diving again today, right?”

“Oh, man, she's really going to be a 'fraidy cat now!” Brad moaned. “Right when things were getting so neat!”

“You leave me alone, Brad Walker!” Darlene threatened.

“What's going on?” Judy Walker asked, climbing aboard, dripping water as Jem helped her off with her equipment. “Oh, no, Lew. Darlene
did
see the shark,” she said to her husband, who was climbing the ladder behind her. “You're not going to be afraid now, are you, honey?”

Darlene was stubbornly silent for a minute.

“There's no need to be afraid,” Sam said quietly.

“I…” Darlene paused, puzzled by the answer she seemed to come up with in her own mind. “No, I'm not afraid.” She looked at Sam triumphantly. “We stared it down, right? Isn't that right, Mr. O'Connor?”

“Sure is. Something like that, anyway. If it had come closer, one of us would have bumped it on the nose with a dive light. They don't like being bumped on their noses.”

Liam Hinnerman was up by then. “Hey, kid, do you know where we got the word shark?”

Darlene shook her head.

“It came from the German word
schurke.
It was a word for a land creature—man. It means ‘greedy parasite.”'

“Hey, that's cool!” Brad laughed.

“Yeah,” Darlene agreed.

“And it's not going to stop you from diving, right, sweetheart?” her father said. Lew Walker looked at Sam as he spoke. “Especially when you can go down with Miss Carlyle and see the underwater world through her eyes.”

He was looking at her peculiarly, Sam thought.

Schurkes.

Sharks.

She felt for a moment as if she was surrounded by greedy parasites. Who was innocent? Who was not?

She glanced at Adam.

Even Adam had a peculiar look about him. Perhaps the most peculiar look.

Just who was this “private concern” he was working for?

She shivered suddenly, looking around. Liam Hinnerman—hammerhead. Jim Santino—tiger shark. Joey Emerson—white tip. Sukee—mako. Lew Walker—a blue.

And Adam…

If Adam was a shark, he would be a damned great white. Deadly.

And the way he was looking at her now…

She was definitely surrounded by sharks.

 

Adam remained in an odd mood as they docked and left the
Sloop Bee.

He remained close by her side, but he seemed completely withdrawn.

“I know what you found,” she told him as they entered her cottage.

“What?” he demanded, startled, staring at her, his gray eyes sharp.

“You disappeared for a long time. You must have found the
Beldona,
right? She's just over the cliff. We've been staring straight at her for years, but we've simply never noticed her. Hundreds of divers swim over her and never see her, right.”

“No, I didn't find the
Beldona,
” he told her.

“Then…”

“I went exploring the sides of that coral shelf. It plunges down at least another thirty feet, you know.”

She nodded. “Yes, but there's nothing to see there, just sand and rock and water. No pretty vegetation. Just…nothing.”

“You have nitrox on the island, don't you?”

Sam frowned, studying him. Sport divers never used pure oxygen; at depths past thirty-three feet it became toxic. Generally sport divers used a mixture of compressed air that was twenty percent oxygen and eighty percent nitrogen. The nitrogen, however, could produce a narcotic effect at depths of a hundred feet or more. Nitrox was a combination air that prevented that hallucinatory buildup. Sam never used it for the cylinders the guests used, but she and Jem sometimes used it when they went to greater depths with experienced friends who came to the island.

“Do you have it or not?”

“Of course.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“I was thinking of making a few deeper dives.”

Sam hesitated. “You did find the ship.”

“No, I didn't find the ship.”

He said it so strangely.

“Adam, what the hell is going on? Are you lying to me? Did you find something connected to that damn ship?”

“I'm not lying. I didn't find the ship.”

“You think you can find her, though.”

“I don't know. I'd just like to dive a little deeper, that's all.” He stared straight at her. “I think I'll shower.”

She arched a brow. “This is my cottage, you're refusing to tell me what's going on, and now you think you'll shower.”

“Okay, then, you go ahead and shower.”

Baffled and irritated, Sam left him in the hallway.

“I'll make some coffee,” he called after her. “When we're all set, let's head over to the main house and your father's office. I want to read through some of those diaries and logbooks again.”

She slipped out of her suit and turned on the water in the shower. The fresh warmth rinsing away the salt from her body felt delicious. She dimly heard that Adam had turned on the news. She closed her eyes, leaning back, just feeling the water.

Why was he acting so strangely?

Why was he lying to her?

Just who in hell was he working for?

Her eyes flew open when she felt him step in behind her, sweeping his arms around her, drawing her close against him. The water splashed over her breasts, then over his hands. He rubbed his palms sensually down her rib cage and her belly, fingers splayed. Lower down over her abdomen, the gentle pressure became sweetly erotic. Step away, she told herself. Protest intimacy without honesty.

But then he spoke.

“I wonder if you ever knew just how deeply I was in love with you?” he said.

“Ah. But you were also in love with Becky.”

“I was seeing Becky. I was involved with Becky. I told you I was no innocent. You were determined to win whatever you set out to get in those days. What you wanted was me. You didn't ask questions, and when you got answers anyway, you didn't want them.”

“You could have—”

“I could have what? I wondered at the time if I was some kind of practice for you. Look at him, full-grown, definitely male. Test your powers. Look, touch, crook a finger. Get what you want. Use him. Then just shoot him when he doesn't turn out to be exactly what you thought.”

He was saying these things to her, bitterly, with his hands still on her.

She closed her fingers around his. Wanting to stop their movement. Wanting to stop wanting him.

He held her more tightly against him. “I really was in love, you know. I didn't want to be. I resisted.”

“Like hell. I wasn't that good, I didn't know what I was doing.”

“You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“You know that's a lie—”

“I know I was your first experiment. You had damned good instincts.”

“You could have said that you were living with someone.”

“We weren't actually living together at the time. We'd had a fight. She'd gone to her sister's.”

“It was hard to tell you'd been fighting when she arrived on the island. The first time I saw her, she had her tongue down your throat. And that wasn't an hour after…”

“An hour after,” he mused, his voice very strange. “An hour after. Everything so perfect, and then…Well, perfect can change quickly, can't it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“If you'd wanted to explain something to her, don't you think it would have been a lot easier if your mouth hadn't been quite so full with her tongue?”

“Right. She comes out here because she's worried about me, she heard about the case and I haven't appeared back home. Before she sets foot on dry land, I'm supposed to shout at her to get away, someone else has entered my life? I knew I was going to hurt her one way or the other. I wanted to be a little gentle about it.”

“A passionate kiss is always gentle.”

“I wasn't kissing her. She was kissing me.”

“But resistance isn't your strong point?”

She thought she'd angered him. He was silent for several seconds. “Sam, other than rather brutally disengaging myself, I couldn't do much at the time. I was hoping to talk to her. And I didn't realize you were there.”

“Obviously.”

He released her suddenly and stepped out of the shower. The water continued to run over Samantha as she still stood there, at a loss. She hadn't meant to push so hard—yes, perhaps she had. She wanted an admission from him. She wanted to hear him say that he had been completely wrong. She was free from guilt.