The gap yawned wider. Not only would she have to jump the gap between pier and boat deck but also over a knee-high railing.
She forced herself to turn in a slow circle, to check for movement. The coast was clear.
Don’t trip, she prayed. Then she lunged.
She thudded onto the deck. She took a deep breath, congratulated herself for not falling, and stayed still, listening to the hungry lick of waves against the hull. When her heart ceased drumming in her ears, she sat on a bench seat and pulled on gloves, covered her Keds with protective booties, and readied her light. As if by magnetic pull, the beam lit the metal cage secured to the boat’s side. She walked slowly over, reaching to touch the side, running a finger over the door latch.
A notch was built into the side of the boat so that when the cage was aligned, tourists—three or four at a once—could step right in. Steel handgrips lined the side of the cage, and a viewing window on each side looked large enough for a shark to stick its nose in. The image gave her chill bumps.
She backed away and searched the no-skid deck surface for blood, sweeping the beam of her Maglite back and forth. Maroon droplets near a large cooler along the rail stopped her dead.
Bingo.
She tugged, and with an oof, the cooler lid opened. A vile stench assaulted her nose. The Maglite beam turned black goop contents to blood red.
Chum.
If she had had a proper container, she would take a sample. Damn. She slammed the lid and concluded the droplets were fish blood. She entered the cabin through a skinny unlocked door. The Maglite illuminated a snug room flanked with padded booths. The table of the right booth was messy with papers, a can of V—a New Zealand energy drink—and some sort of bulky black belt. Alexa figured this was Andy Gray’s office. She lifted the belt. What the heck? It weighed ten, twelve pounds. This baby would sink like a stone.
The sea is salty, and salt equals buoyancy, she deduced. People who got lowered in the cages needed to weigh themselves down.
She illuminated the stack of forms. The top one read: DOC Great White Shark Sighting. Date, Time, Location, Vessels in Area, Weather, Description—filled out in cramped scrawl. 23 November, 5:15 p.m., Lee Bay, Strait Up, choppy, four meters length, followed alongside boat thirty minutes. She checked a few more: all shark sightings. Why did Andy Gray have Department of Conservation documents? She set them down and surveyed the rest of the cabin. There was a galley kitchen with everything tucked and secured in nooks, a couple dishes in the tiny sink, and two closed doors: Head and Change Room.
Just a general snoop, she reminded herself.
“Cramped” came to mind when she inspected the bathroom. But functional and clean. A phone booth shower. No blood smear in the drains. When she opened the other door, she almost dropped the light. Lifeless black suits hung from a rack. Frogmen faces stared from a shelf. Jesus.
Wetsuits and dive masks. Her heart drummed in her ears again as she set her tote on the bench and sifted through the suits, checking for moisture. She didn’t like the way the suits undulated from the hangers. She lifted a random dive mask, held it inches from her face, dangled it from the strap, and set it down. Life jackets were stacked on the bench, and underneath were ten pullout storage bins. She checked them, one by one, not sure what she was hoping for. Her reward was mildewing swim trunks.
A clang on deck made her twirl.
She turned off her light and waited. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. No more sound. She cautiously left the cabin area and shone her light on the deck. Yellow eyes reflected back. A jumbo gull squawked from the cage top, spread monstrous wings—was it an albatross?—and flew away. She didn’t want to be stuck in the cabin anymore and began inching her fingers along the gunwales, searching for bullet damage.
Be methodical, she reprimanded herself. Inch by inch. When she crawled adjacent to a spiral staircase, it enticed her to explore the viewing deck. The metal railing was cold and slippery through her thin gloves. She stuffed the Maglite in her pants pocket so she could use both hands to pull upwards in a claustrophobic coil.
Spiral staircases were always cooler to look at than maneuver. She popped up like a bewildered gopher.
With a sweep of the Maglite she saw the top deck had back-to-back benches and waist-high siding. Up front, in a small enclosed area, was where Andy Gray steered the ship. Boat. The high swivel seat looked comfy, and the console was all high-tech screens and gadgetry. The latest in shark detection.
She checked the deck for blood. It looked clean, but some stains on the inner knee wall caught her attention. Next to a nasty spear with a hook at the end—a gaff, she thought—she spotted little dots and bigger blots. Maybe blood. Would they chum from up here? She’d have to come back with the crime kit. Take samples. The three-inch overhang of the rail would protect the samples from rain, unless it came in slantwise. She checked the sky, relieved to see a partial moon peeking from a scudding cloud.
Now on her knees, she felt along the ridge, inch by inch past the stains. Her fingers felt a knothole. She rubbed over it, snagging a glove tip. She pulled back too quickly, felt the latex rip. Crap. It was important not to contaminate the evidence. She shone her light closer to the nick. It was a perfect burrow. She leaned in, could hear her breath. The light glinted back, bouncing off something copper. A stone. No. Her heart raced. An embedded bullet. Andy Gray had been shot here. Her hands shook as she traded flashlight for camera, focused, zoomed, clicked, dazed by flash. Wallace would be glad she had disobeyed him. She stuffed the phone back in her pocket. Maybe…
She heard a clang. Before she could react, a muscular arm clamped across her chest, and hot sour breath rasped in her ear, “Don’t scream.”
Alexa screamed and jabbed her elbow to the man’s gut. The man oofed like the cooler lid, dropped his arm, grabbed the gaff. Alexa, still on her knees, lunged sideways and felt the breeze as the gaff smashed the railing inches from her head. She jumped up as the man raised the gaff again. The hook pierced her cardigan as she jumped ship.