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“Goddammit, woman.” Dad’s words were barely audible over my pulse thumping in my ears.
Skidding to a stop at the rubber dinghy, I wrapped the precious plate in my dripping wetsuit, carefully folded it, and placed the bundle against the side wall. The folded wetsuit was in plain view, so hopefully, nobody would get curious about it.
I sprinted to my equipment cupboard at the stern and pulled out my underwater scooter. After dragging the scooter down to the edge of the rear dive deck, I returned to the equipment cupboard, grabbed my scuba kit, grateful that I always had at least one ready, and hooked up to a full tank. I filled the buoyancy vest with air and tossed the kit overboard.
I glanced toward Rhino’s front bow. Border Force was fifty yards away.
Snatching my mask off the hook, I sprinted down to the deck, grabbed my fins, and dove overboard. Under the water, I pulled on my fins, then swam to my dive kit, pulled it on, put the regulator in my mouth, and tested the air. Keeping below the edge of the deck, I reached up, and as a shout rang across Rhino’s main deck, I pulled the scooter overboard.
I dumped the air from the buoyancy vest. As I sank below the surface, I turned on my scooter.
The scooter powered through the water. Clutching the handles, I steered it away from the boats so they couldn’t see me. I started the timer on my dive watch. I didn’t plan to be underwater for long, but it was better to be cautious than be dead.
Once I was far enough away, I turned the scooter in the direction of my GPS. I had a rotten feeling that I wouldn’t get to search for Siren’s Lure again today. For months and months, I’ve been monitoring the weather for perfect conditions to dive this site.
But Kane Fucking Devlin was the storm I hadn’t counted on.
I hadn’t seen him for nearly ten years.
His return was fucking annoying, but now that he assumed I was onto something, his return was also dangerous. He had better equipment than me. That boat of his was probably forty years younger than Rhino. If we were racing to find those bottles of Penfolds wine, he would win hands down.
My only option was to beat him to the fortune.
I had the scooter at full throttle, and if I was near the surface, I would create my own swell. Forty feet from the boxy GPS hovering in the water, I aimed the scooter downward, heading for the anchor.
I clamped my jaw so hard it was a wonder I didn’t bite through my mouthpiece. Near the sandy bottom, I set the scooter to hover six feet off the sharp coral branches. As the cool water tugged at my body, my mind was all over the place as I wrestled the GPS anchor free.
On one hand, I could be overreacting, and the rest of my day would continue as I planned.
On the other hand, Kane could make my life hell.
He’d done it once before. The bastard would do it again.
The anchor released, and I tumbled sideways, crashing into a staghorn coral that clawed my bare back.
Focus, Indiana!
Back on my scooter, I headed up for the GPS, retracting the anchor line as I went. If the GPS hadn’t cost me so much money, I would set it adrift, but I needed it. With the anchor fully wound into the GPS, I held it between my knees and hit maximum power on the scooter, returning to Rhino.
At the rear dive deck, I breached the surface.
Two border force officers were waiting for me.
“Hi, Whisper.” I forced a grin. “Hi, Jeff.”
“Indiana, get out of the water.” Jeff’s tone was loaded with authority.
I pushed the scooter toward the deck. “Can you give me a hand?”
As Jeff and Whisper lifted the scooter onboard, I shoved the GPS into a recess at the back of Rhino which had housed towing equipment many moons ago and hooked the anchor onto a bracket beneath the waterline. Praying that they would stay there until we could retrieve it, I removed my dive vest and tank and rolled them up onto the deck.
“You’re in deep shit,” Whisper said as she dragged my equipment back from the edge.
“It was an accident,” I said as I climbed the ladder. “You know I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Accident, my ass,” Jeff said. “You knew what you were doing.”
“I was trying to warn Kane to piss off. I didn’t mean to shoot the flare at him.”
