24. Caro

"Can I come?" Luna asked, and I swallowed a groan.

Knox had asked me to go easy on her, and I'd been trying, but if she came out on the boat with us, there'd be no escape if she got annoying. Unless I tossed her overboard, of course, although that wouldn't go down too well with Ryder. I'd seen the way he looked at Luna. Knox said the two of them were just friends, but if Ryder wasn't gay, I'd have said he was halfway in love with her. Was he definitely gay? Maybe he was bi?

Whatever, he'd been a calming influence. The sponsorship scheme Luna and Jubilee had been working on turned out better than I'd thought it would, plus donations were trickling in through the link on the sanctuary's Instagram account. TikTok was their next task, Jubilee said. I still wouldn't be listening to Luna's music anytime soon, but I didn't want to feed her to the sharks anymore.

Ryder and Luna seemed to come as a pair these days, and the thought of having a Navy SEAL along for the ride when we went to collect turtle eggs was…comforting. Knox was exhausted. He said he wasn't, but I saw the tiredness in his eyes. He needed to sleep this evening.

And I feared someone was watching us.

Nobody had shown up to retrieve the line at No Man's Rock, and the boat was still tied to the jetty outside Manny's. Officer Beattie was hunkered down on the beach, Officer Roy was eating pizza, and Vince was cursing my name. How well do you know Vince? Knox had asked, and the question had shaken me. We'd been friends since I arrived on the island, and he volunteered at the turtle sanctuary when he had the time, although that happened less and less often these days. Vince was always busy. But now I wondered whether he'd had an ulterior motive for those visits, whether his interest in our marine surveys was a cover for something more nefarious.

Knox had laid out the facts—Vince was one of only a handful of people who knew about the bait lines we'd found, and also the cop who never managed to catch any poachers, no matter how much I begged him to act. But Vince was also my friend. We ate dinner together once a month or so, and I looked after his dog when he went on vacation. He was one of the few people who knew I had a psychopath lurking in my background, and he looked out for me.

Now I didn't know who to trust.

The alternative was that a stranger was spying on us, hiding in the darkness and watching our every move.

I wasn't sure which idea I hated the most.

"You can come, but you have to do what I say," I told Luna. "No running around and disturbing the turtles, otherwise we end up with false crawls and we have to do this all over again."

"What's a false crawl?"

"It's where the turtles come onto the beach, but they don't lay any eggs."

"Okay, I'll do whatever. I'm just so bored of sitting around here. I mean, you guys don't even have TV. How do you live without Netflix?"

How did someone go through life being that shallow?

"We have books."

"I don't like reading."

"Well, go stare at a wall or something. We're leaving at seven—don't be late."

* * *

"I thought it would be more…I don't know…eggy?" Luna said, peering at the turtle egg in the palm of her hand.

"It is eggy. It's literally an egg."

"But it feels like leather."

"Not all eggs have hard shells. The texture of turtle eggs varies depending on how much moisture they absorb from the environment."

"That's weird. Can someone take a picture?"

"You're not allowed to post on social media."

"Who said anything about social media?"

"Have you ever taken a picture and not posted it on social media?"

"Like, a million of them. I only post the best ones."

"Fine, give me the damn camera."

Ryder had carried Luna from the boat on his shoulders until they hit shallow water, and then she'd walked the rest of the way. Jubilee was still freaking out about sharks, so she'd stayed on board with Franklin even though I assured her that she'd be perfectly safe. Perhaps it was because I didn't truly believe my own words? What if there was somebody out there? Ryder had checked the hull of our boat for trackers before we left the sanctuary, but I was still on edge. I hadn't felt this unsettled since I left Aiden.

"Anything?" I whispered.

Ryder shook his head. He'd even brought night-vision goggles. "Nope."

"What if a boat followed us?"

"It would have to be hella far away for us not to notice."

"Hey, there's another one!" Luna whispered. A loud whisper, but at least she hadn't yelled.

A hawksbill crawled out of the water and began her slow journey up the beach. Many turtles came back to the beach they were born on to lay their eggs, although nobody was quite sure how they managed such a clever feat. One theory was that they used the Earth's magnetic field to navigate. Meanwhile, I managed to get lost even with satnav, although that didn't much matter now that I no longer owned a car.

Luna already had a camera out, filming the turtle's progress, and I put a hand on her arm.

"No closer."

"Whatever. Jubilee's gonna set the video to music so you can use it for promos."

"Right."

"You should run ads."

"Ads need money."

"Jubilee says that once you dial them in, they pay for themselves. Hey, is that a different kind of turtle? Holy shamoli, it's huge."

"That's because it's a leatherback."

"I think that maybe I won't go near that one."

"Good idea."

It was almost dawn when we finished reburying the eggs in the hatchery at the sanctuary, and Luna even sort of helped. Well, she didn't hinder, and that was good enough.

"Tired?" Ryder asked.

"Shattered. Only six more months of this left."

I headed for the bunkhouse, but he caught my arm. "Just go to Knox. Everyone knows you want to."

"What about you?"

"I'll take the spare bed next to yours."

"The girls would be okay with that?"

"It was Luna's idea."

Oh.

Knox said she was a different person under the irritating exterior, and it was possible that he was a tiny bit right. Maybe.

At least, that was what I thought at the time.

If I'd known what a storm was coming, I'd have followed the turtles back to the ocean and started swimming.