32. Jezebel

CHAPTER 32

JEZEBEL

C aro 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 the chink, chink, chink echoed 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—that meant “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 was serving 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 the Tide Pod earlier.

“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.”

“Witt…” Dr. Blaylock warned.

“Calm down, it was just a joke.”

“Let’s talk about the plan for the next week,” I suggested, keeping a close eye on Cole as I spread sea-salted butter onto fresh rosemary bread. “We’re not actually going to set foot on Skeleton Cay, are we?”

Dr. Blaylock shook his head as he finished chewing a mouthful. “No, no, the waters around the island are too dangerous for us to land. ”

“Wasn’t it a prison isle? How did the prisoners get there?”

“As I understand it, there’s a natural harbour on the south side of the island, but few captains knew the way in and out through the submerged rocks. They say just getting there was a near death sentence.”

“And it’s haunted,” Clint chimed in.

“You believe in ghosts?”

“Bart said that when he sailed close, he could hear the sounds of the dead screaming.”

Dr. Blaylock chuckled. “I’m not sure I believe that. It was probably a bird, or the wind whistling through the rocks, but one thing is certain—nobody who’s set foot on the island in recent times has come back alive.”

“So people have been there?”

“Well, they’ve tried. Usually tourists and often under the influence of alcohol. That’s one reason the San Gallician government brought in the new law to stop unqualified captains from renting boats. Nobody wanted to head out to that part of the sea to search for the missing. Officers were threatening to quit the coastguard agency, and their superiors brushed the investigations under the carpet.”

“A couple of YouTubers decided to sail there two years ago,” Clint said. “They filmed the island from a distance for their channel, and nobody ever saw them again.”

“Not even their bodies?”

“No, but the coastguard found their yacht floating not too far from here, deserted.”

“It was called the Princess Celeste ,” Jon added. “Like the Mary Celeste , right? You wouldn’t catch me sailing near a haunted island in a boat named Celeste . I heard the YouTubers were nominated for a Darwin Award.”

“Why would someone even go to that island?” Witt asked. “What’s left there? A bunch of skeletons and the remains of a prison. If there was any pirate loot, it’s long gone. The people who ran the prison had years to take it.”

“Good,” Dr. Blaylock said. “The last thing this nation needs is more ill-informed fools digging holes. Look at Treasure Atoll—rumours have persisted for decades, even though nothing of any significance has ever been found. And then there was that idiot on Twitbook. Claimed he found gold coins in the sand, and then every other idiot with a social media account came to join him in digging up the beach.”

“Turned out the coins were fake and the asshole put them there himself,” Cole explained.

“And it happened in turtle nesting season. They were digging up eggs . The hawksbill population around Treasure Atoll hasn’t recovered and might never do so. If any treasure does still exist, it should be left exactly where it is.”

Jon disagreed. “Isn’t that kind of a waste?”

“The world doesn’t need more jewels. Mankind needs to wake up and realise the planet doesn’t revolve around us.”

“What about gold? It’s used in electronics and medicine as well as jewellery.”

“I’d argue that a turtle needs its nesting ground more than a teenager needs a new iPhone, and thankfully, the San Gallician government agrees with me. After the gold coin debacle, they wrote a law that doubled the prison sentence for illegal treasure hunting and ensured any trove found automatically becomes the property of the nation, with just a small finder’s fee given to the person who discovered it. It’s good to see somebody is taking conservation seriously.”

“It’s all lip service,” Cole said as he got up to fetch the next course from the oven, where it had been keeping warm. “The laws are in place, but there aren’t enough cops to enforce them. Burglaries are up, the drug problem on Ilha Grande is out of control, and thank goodness the murder rate is low because detective work is a myth. The police chief just goes for the easy wins.”

“Like the gold-coin guy?” I asked. “Didn’t he get sentenced to work for Habitat for Humanity or whatever it’s called here?”

The story had popped up when I googled San Gallicano during the layover at Miami International. If I recalled correctly, the jackass had tried to turn his “ordeal” into a BuzzHub reality show, only for the judge to confiscate his phone.

Cole chuckled as he clattered about in the galley. “Oh, yeah, his case got assigned to Judge Morgan. That man’s a legend. Rather than tossing convicts in jail, he dreams up punishments that fit their crimes. He said if the guy was so attached to his shovel, then he could make himself useful and dig foundations for new homes.”

“How is that even legal?” Witt muttered as Cole set a platter of crab-crusted snapper with chargrilled broccoli and sweetcorn fritters in front of us.

“Because this is San Gallicano, where judges have leeway in sentencing, and they’re also elected. Judge Morgan wins by a landslide every time.”

“Do you vote for him?” I asked.

“I can’t; I’m not a citizen. But I would if I was.”

Dinner was delicious. Witt didn’t say any other dumb shit, so his teeth stayed intact for him to enjoy the meal, and Dr. Blaylock entertained us with stories from his diving days, such as the time a colleague of his decided to relieve himself underwater, only to remember—too late—that he was wearing a dry suit rather than a wetsuit.

One week of the trip left, and maybe I’d even miss this life when I returned to Vegas.