Madison swam down, estimating that they were in about twenty-five to thirty feet of water. The water was perfect, warm near the surface, cool and pleasant beneath. She shot down deep, touched and stirred up the sand, then kicked to the surface again. She looked to the boat, ready to shout to Jassy to come join her.
But Jassy had moved aft. Madison heard her laughter, Kyle’s deep voice, Carrie Anne’s shrill giggle of delight over something.
Her invitation to her sister died on her lips.
“How’s it going, guys?” she called instead, keeping her distance. The fishing lines would run with the current, and she definitely wasn’t in the mood to catch a hook.
“Mommy!” Carrie Anne cried happily, running to the portside rail to stare down at her. “I just caught a red snapping!”
“Snapper,” Madison corrected automatically. “Great!”
Kyle joined Carrie Anne at the hull, bronze chest glazed in a sheen of sweat, eyes shaded by his glasses. “I was just thinking, Madison, you might want to come up. Jassy was telling me they had a shark attack out here last week.”
She frowned, looking at him. “Kyle, you know that a shark attack is about as common as being struck by lightning. That diver was spearfishing and holding on to the fish he caught by sticking them in his swimsuit. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not carrying any dead fish.”
“But we’re fishing, and Carrie Anne’s snapper is a pretty big guy. He did some heavy-duty wiggling. Lots of distress signals going out in the water.”
“I just want to swim over the reefs for a minute. You can see me. I’ll come back in just a few minutes.”
Kyle shrugged, but didn’t look happy. He wanted her out of the water, but he knew that his argument wasn’t all that strong. Any offsping—or pseudo-offspring—of Jordan Adair had grown up in the water.
As Madison swam from the boat she could feel his eyes on her. She dived beneath the surface, heading toward the reef.
Water was wonderful. It was the one great escape still known to man. Under the surface, there were as yet no cellular phones. It was beautiful; it was freeing; it was a different world.
She surfaced for air, judging that the coral tips were not more than ten feet beneath her trailing toes. She dived again, swimming carefully around the coral, not touching it. A tiny, brilliant yellow tang darted by her; sea fans waved before her. She very carefully skirted a few dusky red-orange stands of fire coral and came upon a monstrous grouper. The fish looked like a plump, outraged British butler.
She surfaced, then dived again, enjoying herself and oblivious now to the fact that Kyle was watching her from the boat.
A shy moray eel moved away from her with such speed that it looked as if he’d been sucked back into the coral. She swam on to the outskirts of the reef and noted something lying in the sand.
Too bad she hadn’t taken the time to put on a mask and snorkel. She couldn’t see the object clearly, and she was running out of air.
She surfaced, then dived again, going straight for the object in the sand.
As she neared it, she felt the all-too-familiar cold settling over her again.
She was somewhere else. Laughing, then not laughing. Laughter turning to fear.
She was in a hotel room. As a very pretty young redhead.
Black phone on the side table, Holy Bible beneath the phone. TV remote by the Bible. She’d come because she wanted to come. She’d been so happy, then…
The flash of steel.
Madison blinked, desperate to free herself from the vision. She had slipped back into her dream, there under the water. She had to surface.
But she had thrown herself to the ground. And as she returned to the present, she could see the object.
It was an arm. Weighed down with a red building brick.
A human arm, from the elbows to the fingers, with the tips missing. Gnawed. She could see bone at the elbow, raw, puffed, bloated flesh.
She started to scream, inhaling as she did so, and then began to choke.
Her vision was clouding again, this time with blackness.
She couldn’t think….
Kick…
Suddenly, someone was with her. Kyle. They were shooting toward the surface. They broke it.
She gasped for breath. Choked. Her lungs and abdomen were killing her. She breathed deeply. And looked at Kyle.
In the water, at least, his glasses were gone. His green eyes were impatient and angry.
“Madison, damn it, I told you to come out, not scare us all to death by disappearing that way. Jesus Christ! Your daughter is in tears up there! What the hell is the matter—”
“Arm!” she managed to croak.
“What?”
“Kyle, there’s an arm in the water. A human arm. A woman’s arm. Elbow to hand. The fingertips are gone.”
“Madison, maybe it was an eel. Things beneath the water are distorted—”
“Damn it, Kyle, do you think I’m an idiot, or that I’m so nearsighted I can’t tell the difference between an arm and a fish? There’s an arm down there!”
“All right, Madison. Get out, throw me a mask and snorkel. And get me some diving gloves and a few of those large freezer bags from the galley.”
She nodded, still so unnerved that it seemed to make sense just to obey him.
She climbed up the ladder at the aft of the Ibis. Jassy was there, her pallor showing that she knew something was very wrong. But Carrie Anne was standing by Jassy, and Madison had to be careful.
“Carrie Anne, go into the cabin and get one of Grandpa’s masks and snorkels, and a pair of gloves, will you, sweetheart? And hurry for me.”
Carrie Anne was a child, but not a fool. She stared at her mother and nodded grimly, then ran off to do as she had been told.
“What is it?” Jassy asked.
“There’s an arm down there.”
“What?”
Madison sighed with exasperation. “There’s an arm down there!”
“Human?”
“Yes, human, what the hell do you think I mean?”
“I’m going down—”
“You don’t need to. The FBI is on the case.”
“Yes, but he’s the FBI. I’m a pathologist, for God’s sake!”
“He’ll bring it to you.”
That wasn’t good enough for Jassy. Carrie Anne retrieved the mask, snorkel and gloves, and Madison tossed them on down to Kyle, who disappeared.
A moment later, Jassy dived over the side of the boat.
“What’s going on, Mommy?” Carrie Anne asked.
She hesitated. “Somebody had an accident. We’re going to have to go back to shore, honey.”
Carrie Anne slipped her arms around Madison’s waist as they stared at the water. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
She glanced at her daughter, surprised. “Hey, sweetie, I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Carrie Anne said, and hugged her tighter.
Watching the surface of the water, Madison wondered uneasily if the man in her sister’s life could be Kyle. They’d both looked so comfortable that morning, sitting at the table with her father.
Kyle had just arrived in south Florida, she reminded herself. But then, Jassy had said that her affair was just beginning. And most of their pseudofamily had visited Kyle through the years, including Jassy.
Madison fought back a wave of sick jealousy, trying to tell herself again that Kyle was no longer a part of her life.
Still…
Jassy had talked about keeping things quiet. About having “reasons.” Madison felt a knot in her stomach.
A few minutes later, the two broke the surface.
“Got it!” Jassy called cheerfully. “Radio in, Madison. We’ve got to get the law out here.”
Jassy. Cute as a button. Smart as they came. Perfect for Kyle? There wasn’t a squeamish bone in her body. Where Madison had nearly panicked at the sight of the severed arm, Jassy found the discovery intriguing.
Madison radioed in, then took Carrie Anne with her to the galley to make coffee.
A Coast Guard cutter arrived. Madison got her first chance to see Mr. FBI in action when a loudmouthed lieutenant started in on Jassy and Kyle for having picked up the arm. In a cool, polite tone, Kyle informed the man of who he was and why he was in Florida. Then he introduced Jassy and informed the man of her position. All very politely. But by the time he was done, he was receiving ingratiating apologies, and he and Jassy were being invited for a dive down to see if any more body parts might be found.