16. Caro

"What am I gonna do, Lucky?"

When I first arrived at the sanctuary, I'd kept a backpack next to my bed filled with the essentials—clothes, money, passport—just in case I needed to run again. Over the past couple of years, I'd grown complacent, become secure in my little bubble, but last night, I'd begun packing a bag again.

I didn't want to leave. Where would I even go? I'd once read a romance novel where the heroine, an accountant, offered her skills to a Mafia don in exchange for his protection, and a part of me thought that seemed like a mighty attractive offer. If I'd known how to actually get in touch with the Mafia, I might have given it a try. But I didn't, and now I was stuck on an island with two annoying women; two hot bodyguards, one of whom might have sort of propositioned me last night, I still wasn't sure; Franklin; and several hundred endangered turtles.

Lucky swam up to me and raised her head out of the water. Curious? Or hungry? Or just taking a breath? I tossed her a sardine, and she ate it.

What was I supposed to do about Knox?

He'd said he wasn't a fan of commitment, and if a handsome SEAL had suggested no-strings sex in my pre-Aiden days, I'd have pushed him onto the nearest horizontal surface and ridden him like a cowgirl. But that was then, and this was now. Mom had told me I needed to settle down, that I couldn't be a party girl all my life, and with Aiden, I'd thought I was doing exactly that. He'd been a successful businessman, well-respected in the community, and everyone said we complemented each other perfectly. In public, he used to joke that I had the brains and he had the charisma. In private, he'd called me a stupid slut. The only saving grace was that Mom had died believing I was happy. I'd just graduated from college, and the world was my oyster. It would have broken her heart if she'd found out what a dark place I ended up in.

Today, I'd decided avoidance was the best policy. Our four guests were working in the fifth pool room, building the extra enclosures we'd need for this hatching season, while I monitored Lucky and fed the other residents. I wasn't sure whether Knox had said anything to Jubilee and Luna, but they were being vaguely civil today. Jubilee had brought me a mug of coffee while I was cleaning the pools this morning, and Luna hadn't been her usual whiny self.

Or maybe Ryder had spoken with her? When I was quietly stuffing clothes into my bag late last night with only the moonlight for company, Luna had left the cabin and headed down to the beach. A minute later, I'd seen Ryder's silhouette pass the window, following in her footsteps. Were they having a secret midnight tryst? Knox was full of inappropriate suggestions, so it stood to reason that his colleague was a horny prick too, and judging by the way Luna cavorted around in the photos on her social media, she'd probably be up for a little action with her bodyguard.

My phone rang, and it was Stacey.

"Hey, how are the turtles? Is the one you rescued yesterday okay?"

"She's doing well. Living up to her name."

"Lucky by name, lucky by nature."

"But I hate to think how many other turtles won't be found in time. Looking for those bait lines is like searching for needles in a whole prairie full of haystacks."

There were fourteen independent dive schools in San Gallicano, plus five hotels that offered scuba as part of their guest activities, and I'd emailed all of them this morning, asking them to keep an eye out for any lines and emphasising the safety aspect. Plus I'd added a message in the San Galli Aqua Group asking scuba enthusiasts, skin divers, paddleboarders, and snorkellers to speak up if they saw anything untoward. And I made sure to post in the right group this time. When I first arrived on Valentine Cay, I'd accidentally joined the San Galli Watersports Club, and when I'd asked if anyone would be interested in buddying up on a casual basis, I'd received a whole bunch of enthusiastic but very strange replies. Vince had set me straight over dinner—in between laughing so hard that beer came out of his nose—and that conversation went down in history as one of the most awkward moments of my life.

"I have a theory about the bait lines," Stacey said. "But I'm not familiar enough with the islands to know whether it holds water."

"What's the theory?"

"You mentioned a shark sighting and how it kept the divers away from the cove?"

"That's right. Blacktip sharks hardly ever attack humans, but I don't suppose any dive school wants to risk getting sued if they're the exception."

"Right, and their insurance might deny a claim if they visited a dive site knowing a shark had been spotted there recently. So, I got to wondering, what if the poachers are more willing to take risks? If they deliberately set their traps in locations with shark sightings, knowing they were less likely to be disturbed?"

"That's…that's…" Horrific. Dirty. Disgustingly elegant in its simplicity. The kind of scheme Aiden would have come up with if he weren't too busy scamming money from the IRS. "That's possible."

"I saw something similar in Africa. There'd be an anonymous report of poachers, and when the rangers went haring out to hunt for them, the real poachers would be acting somewhere else."

I felt sick to my stomach. "Did the rangers catch them?"

"Eventually, but not before more elephants died. These people are sneaky. Real sneaky. I spent the morning going through the posts on the San Galli Aqua Group, and there have been shark sightings every couple of weeks for the past year."

"I know, I'm a member."

"Did you ever check who was reporting the sightings?"

"Uh…not really?"

"Ninety percent of the reports come from accounts with three or fewer previous posts. I did reverse lookups on the pictures—both the profile pics and any photos of the alleged sightings—and they're all freely available on the internet. The blacktip shark from Coconut Cove? It was actually seen in the Philippines two years ago."

"So they're…making up sightings to clear the sea for their bait lines?"

"It's just a theory at the moment."

But a theory that made sense. And there was only one way to prove or disprove it—we'd have to wait until the next shark sighting and hotfoot it over to the location. Which meant I'd have to buy a new dive knife and ask Knox for help again.