13. Knox

Knox had never dreamed of becoming a Navy SEAL. When he was four, he wanted to own an ice cream truck. When he was ten, he longed to be a doctor so he could fix his mom. He'd spent his entire childhood wishing she'd leave his dad, hated her sometimes for staying. He realised now that things hadn't been quite so straightforward, but he still wondered how his life would have turned out if that son of a bitch hadn't used his family as a punching bag.

By fourteen, he'd realised that boys like him didn't go to college, and he'd revised his ambitions downward to becoming a rock star. When that fell apart, he'd run away to join the military. He'd quit drinking. Bulked out. Discovered he could be a sneaky motherfucker when the need arose. After tragedy struck for the second time, he'd moved into the private sector and finally found his place in life, but now it looked as if he was going to embark on yet another new role.

As a peacekeeper.

For Pete's sake, couldn't Caro and Luna quit bitching for five damn minutes?

There was something off about Caro Menefee. Yeah, she was hot as the Lut Desert in July, but she wasn't a happy woman.

Her abject dislike of Luna was understandable—firstly, Luna had exploited one of the turtles Caro devoted her life to caring for, and secondly, Luna was a nuisance in general. But the blow-up over the furniture was extreme. Why would someone get so upset over a free couch? Luna and Jubilee weren't going to ship all the shit they'd bought back to the US when they left, and it was good stuff. A pair of velvet couches, one for each bunkhouse, with matching ottomans. Six luxury mattresses. Linen. Cushions. An outdoor dining set with a giant parasol. Vases, a fancy grill, wooden closets. A pair of hammocks. A fucking toilet roll holder. If Knox's worst enemy had offered to furnish his home gratis, he'd have checked the gifts for hidden hazards and then said thanks very much.

But Caro's first instinct had been to complain.

And then there was her general twitchiness. She watched her surroundings constantly, but not in the careful, considered way that Knox and Ryder had been trained to operate. No, she continually turned to check her six, but the manner in which she did it was almost unconscious. An ingrained habit. She clenched her jaw—hard—and then seemed to catch herself and make a conscious effort to relax. Ditto when she chewed the skin around her fingernails. It was looking pretty damn ragged now.

Maybe time away from Luna would help her to relax? And maybe Knox could get some answers about why she was so uptight? The woman lived in paradise, and San Gallicano had that laid-back island vibe, outside of Judge Morgan's courtroom, anyway. Could the arrival of an admittedly irritating singer truly push a woman so close to her snapping point?

"I'm sorry about the furniture," Jubilee said.

"We been needing new mattresses for a while," Baptiste told her as they carried the flat-packed dining table into the clearing by the bunkhouses. "But there's only so much money to go around."

After Knox checked the truck over for unwanted passengers and devices, the driver had pulled it into the parking area outside the bunkhouses. Now they were unloading the contents while Caro got her dive kit ready. Splitting the two women up for a few hours seemed like the best idea. Ryder would keep an eye on Luna while she watched Franklin and Jubilee assemble the furniture—let's face it, she wasn't going to help—and Knox would find out whether Caro acted any calmer away from the sanctuary.

"I've been thinking about that." Jubilee wiped sweat from her brow with a tissue. "The money, I mean. The sanctuary's social media accounts are…not good."

"Like, really bad," Luna added from her perch on the bunkhouse steps. "You haven't posted anything to Insta for six months, your TikTok account is way too serious, and you don't even have a BuzzHub account."

"BuzzHub?"

"It's new."

"We were thinking that we could help to raise the profile of the sanctuary," Jubilee continued. "Turtles are super popular. Luna's turtle post got— Uh, never mind. People love cute animals, and turtles aren't totally cute, but with the right lighting…"

They couldn't even last a week without trolling for likes? "Didn't the judge tell the two of you to stay away from social media?"

"Uh, so technically, he said that Luna couldn't post to her accounts, and she wouldn't be. We'd use the sanctuary's accounts."

Knox saw Ryder roll his eyes in the background, which was usually Luna's thing, so maybe it was contagious? He had spent over an hour watching her on the beach last night. Taking one for the team, he said. But before Ryder could make a suitably sarcastic response, Baptiste broke into a grin.

"You'd do that? Caro usually looks after the computer, but she's been too busy these past few months."

Jubilee mirrored his enthusiasm. "We're great at this stuff."

"There'd be no dressing up the turtles, though."

"I swear, there won't be any sunglasses, not even designer ones. We'll just choose the best angles and lighting, boost the colours, and use the right hashtags."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means the posts will attract more views, and then we can ask for donations. Have you considered a sponsorship scheme?"

"We tried speaking with a couple of the hotels, but tourism isn't real big here in San Gallicano."

"I don't mean corporate sponsors, not at first. They always want to know what's in it for them, and right now, you don't have much to offer. No offence. But individual sponsorships could work. Folks pay fifty bucks to receive a certificate and updates on their turtle. Plus you could do higher tiers with better merch. Plush toys, key rings, stickers, that kind of thing. We can draw up a plan."

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to think about that."

Jubilee beamed at him, and Knox had to concede that it wasn't a terrible idea. The girls were undoubtedly pros when it came to social media, and the sanctuary desperately needed additional income if the current state of repair was anything to go by. And it was a clever move on their part—if they were fucking around with photos and hashtags, they wouldn't have to do so much of the grunt work. Jubilee and Luna Puckett might have been obnoxious, but they weren't bad businesswomen.

But somehow, Knox doubted Caro would be quite as enthusiastic as Baptiste about their scheming. Someone would have to break the news to her. And Knox had a nasty feeling it would end up being him.

* * *

Damn, that woman was hot.

Moving into the private sector had many perks, and one of those was watching Caro Menefee as she squeezed herself into a shortie wetsuit. Under different circumstances, Knox would have been doing everything in his power to charm her out of that outfit. She wore a plain black one-piece bathing suit, possibly the most boring choice on the planet, but even that didn't detract from her curves. She had an ass to die for. And he might just end up six feet under if she caught him looking at it.

Today, they'd be diving at Coconut Cove on the west side of Malavilla. The beach was quiet, the entry was easy, and according to Caro, the currents rarely got strong there. It was a good spot for them to get to know each other. As dive buddies, obviously, not in any other capacity. And so far, Caro seemed competent. She'd assembled her kit, and on the ferry across to the island, she'd briefed Knox on the marine survey they needed to undertake.

First, they'd draw a map of the area on plastic slates, making note of the type of seabed and any cover present—seagrass, sediment, coral, and the like. Then they'd note down any sea life they saw and class each species as rare, occasional, or common. Turtles would get special attention—they had to be counted and photographed. Knox had his own state-of-the-art underwater camera thanks to Blackwood, and Caro carried an older model she kept cursing at because the clips on the housing were stiff, and she didn't want to break what was left of her nails. When Knox offered to help, she just glared at him.

But finally, they were ready for their buddy check. BCD, weights, releases, air, final visual. They were using recreational equipment, so they'd start with two hundred bar in the tank and a maximum operating depth of 130 feet. Knox's gear was top of the line. Caro's pink fins were held together with cable ties.

"A nice beach like this, I thought it would be busier."

A hundred yards of pristine white sand, and there were only a half-dozen sunbathers plus a guy walking a dog at the far end. The track to the tiny parking lot was rutted, but so were most of the roads on Malavilla. And a few bumps never normally stopped tourists. In Knox's home state, folks would drive for miles to visit the "Intergalactic Spaceport," a dirt strip in the middle of nowhere that the city council had designated as a landing site for visitors from Jupiter. Because if little green men had travelled millions of miles to get to Earth, Wyoming was surely where they'd choose to go.

"There're usually divers around, but there was a shark sighting on Wednesday, and usually when that happens, the dive school goes to the other side of the island for a week or two. I figured it would be nice and quiet."

"A shark sighting? Here? And you're only telling me now?"

"It was a blacktip shark. They hardly ever attack humans."

"Are there any other snippets of information you've been holding back?"

"No, I don't think so."

"How about the reason you kept checking behind us the whole way here?"

Her answer? She walked into the water; fit her mask, fins, and regulator; and submerged. Which told Knox everything he needed to know.

He smiled to himself and followed.