Chapter 38

38

Sucking in a deep breath, Elin slips the snorkel tube out of her mouth and ducks under the water. It's cooler than she'd anticipated, a stark contrast to the humid air. She swims forward a few feet until she's directly above the bag. Pedaling her feet, she tips her body and positions herself near the base of the bag. They were right: it's hooked around a sharp protrusion of rock.

Thrusting out her hand, she grabs the bag's corner, tugs. It barely gives; she's only just got purchase when her fingers slip from the slick surface, the rock it's caught on still refusing to give it up.

Trying to ignore the mounting pressure in her lungs, Elin shifts position, lurches for it again; but this time she feels a resistance.

Not from the bag itself, but her foot.

Something wrapping itself around her ankle.

Only seaweed , she tells herself. Seth's body, still submerged, is several feet away, but for a moment it feels like a desperate hand coming up from the bottom, pulling at her ankle.

As she squirms beneath the water, she feels it again, wrapping tighter.

Panic swells inside her, her chest tight. She's suddenly acutely aware of the water spooling over her lips, nostrils, the sound of her blood beating in her ears.

Her lungs are on fire; burning.

She needs to come up.

Jerking her head, she starts to panic, gestures to Steed, still balanced on the edge of the boat, but his outline is hazy through her mask, the surface of the water.

Starry pinpoints appear behind her eyes.

Move. Do something.

Finally, her body lurches into action. She kicks upward, the leathery rope of seaweed unfurling from around her ankle. Surging through the water, she noisily breaks the surface.

Elin rips off her mask, the water that's collected inside streaming down her face. Legs frantically moving below her, she pulls in deep lungfuls of oxygen.

"Hey, what happened?" Steed's already reaching down to help her back onboard.

"Got a bit panicked. Couldn't get ahold of the bag," she says between gasps, stumbling back on to the boat. It's a lie. She'd been spooked; the same malevolence she'd felt on the island itself, out here, on the water too. What's this place doing to her? She's never been superstitious, but somehow this island is blurring the boundaries between her conscious and subconscious mind, hunting out fears she never even knew she had.

She's struck by the same feeling she had in the shack earlier, as if the island, at every turn, is sending a message: We don't want you here.

Taking a breath, she composes herself. "It's stuck fast. Definitely caught on a rock. Think we need some brute force. Probably better if you and Tom go down. With the diving gear, one of you can go a bit deeper, push it from the bottom. I've got enough photos for evidence purposes, so you're good to go."

Steed nods, still watching her, not quite convinced by her reply. Pulling his mask down over his face, he slips off the edge of the boat with Tom. Seamlessly submerging themselves beneath the water, they make it look easy. No nerves like she has at the bulky equipment, the thought of being totally immersed.

Steed and Tom slowly sink until they're beneath the bag. Their movements are disturbing the water; all she can make out are blurred shapes and shadows.

Pulse still racing, she waits for them to resurface. When they finally do, Steed has the bag in his hand.

"Took a bit of force, as you suspected," he says, hauling himself back on board. "But we got it."

Once Tom is back up, too, Elin pulls on a pair of gloves and tugs the dripping bag toward her. Despite the tough, rip-stop fabric, there are deep scratches to the material, where it had snagged on the rock.

Removing his rig, Steed nods at the bag. "Doesn't look like it's been down there long."

"I agree," she replies, taking some photographs, then puts her phone aside. "Let's see what we've got."

Carefully unrolling the top, she peers inside.

Elin sucks in her breath.

She's imagined a lot of things, but not this.

Lying at the bottom of the bag is a row of plastic packages—five, no, six, packed with precision one against another, contents mummified by a thick, industrial layer of plastic wrap.

She doesn't need to open them to hazard a guess as to the contents.

Drugs.