holding a cheeseburger with all the fixings, French fries, and a generous helping of ketchup as he opened the door with the hand that held a beer. Thankfully, he managed to make it out onto the front deck without spilling either the food or the drink. Double D sat with Grace on a curved bench, their plates of food resting on their knees. Alec took an open spot, putting Donovan in the middle.
“Just in time, Galloway.” Double D took a swig from a can of soda. “Gracie and I are comparing our battle wounds.”
“Be prepared to start in Double D’s childhood,” Alec said to her. “He was very accident-prone.”
“I grew too fast, and that made me a bit awkward.” Donovan popped a large fry in his mouth.
Grace smiled then took a bite of her loaded burger, ketchup dripping down her chin before she wiped it away with a napkin.
“Very ladylike,” Alec teased.
“You go first.” Double D nodded in Grace’s direction.
As she chewed her food, she unzipped her windbreaker, careful not to dislodge the plate resting on her knees, and shrugged her shoulders free of the jacket. Twisting, she tugged the back of her t-shirt collar down and let Double D have a peek.
What the hell?
Annoyance blanketed Alec.
“You’ve got a collection going back there,” Donovan remarked.
She nodded, shrugging back into her jacket. “The big one is from a white shark named Bonnie, and you already know about the one on my shoulder from the mako. The scar in the middle of my back was from a bull shark. When I was in college, my sister, Chloe, and I decided to go to the Bahamas one summer and try to be beach bums and live on five dollars a day. We found work with a guy who had conditioned local bull sharks to take food from a spear in a certain area of the reef. Each day he brought tourists out to experience the closeness of the sharks.”
She took a swig of water from a green plastic bottle adorned with a cartoon shark and the words Will you be my chum? below it. “One afternoon,” she continued, “after we’d finished a dive, one of the customers wanted to go back in with his son. The boy had been too scared to go with the rest of us. The man was insistent and offered me a hundred dollars to do it. In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t a good idea, but I needed the money.
“We were out of shark food, but I didn’t think anything of it. I figured the bulls would be full anyway from the earlier feeding, so the three of us went down and got situated on the ocean floor.”
Alec made fast work of his burger while Grace spoke.
She replaced the lid on her water bottle and set it on the deck near her feet. “At first, only one shark appeared, but he was aggressive, swimming in a tight circle around us. That’s when I knew I’d made a huge mistake. Before I could signal that we needed to leave, at least eight more sharks showed up.”
“Sonuvabitch.” Double D enunciated each syllable as he shook his head, then gulped more soda.
Grace popped a French fry in her mouth. “Yeah, it got out-of-hand quickly. The sharks were expecting food. I indicated to the man to put his son between us so we could shoot for the surface, and just before we rose I purged my regulator, hoping the screen of bubbles would deter the sharks. When the dad saw what I was doing, he did it too, so we were able to make it topside. We both tossed his son onto the swimming platform.”
Alec took a drink of his beer, then asked, “Where were the sharks?”
“Swarming, although I didn’t know how bad. I wanted to make sure I saved that kid and then his dad. I yelled at the man to get out of the water, and just as he did, one of the bulls caught me from behind.”
“Jesus,” Double D said, dragging the word out.
“It actually wasn’t too bad, but there was a lot of blood. I doubt that kid will ever swim in the ocean again, which is a shame.”
“How deep is the scar?” Alec asked, since he hadn’t had the chance to gaze down her shirt.
“Not very. Luckily, I didn’t lose any major chunks of flesh or have any nerve damage.” She laughed. “Chloe lucked out. Since I couldn’t swim, she got paid double to handle the remainder of the tours for the summer, and I got to kick back and drink margaritas on the beach.”
“I’m thinking maybe you got the better end of that deal.” Double D stood. “I need something stronger than soda. I hope you girls packed some sauce.”
Grace nodded. “It’s in the galley.”
Donovan scooped up his plate. “Any music requests?”
“Something with a beat,” Grace said.
“The Bee Gees it is, then.” Double D turned his back on them and headed to the salon door. “And when I return,” he added over his shoulder, “I’m gonna tell you about the love bite on my ass.”
Alec moved his empty plate to Dan’s recently vacated spot. “Spoiler alert—it wasn’t from a shark.”
Donovan faced them as he backed through the doorway. “All I’ve got to say is that sea lions can be real peckerheads sometimes.”
Grace laughed as Double D disappeared behind the closing door. “How long have you two been working together?”
“Going on five years now. I met him on a dive in Australia. When I decided to form Galloway Films, he was interested in partnering with me.”
Grace’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “He’s part owner?”
“Yep. I’ve got no hope of getting rid of him now.”
Grace’s forehead smoothed back into place. “He doesn’t act like a boss.”
“I’m pretty sure he’d do this job for free. I learned early on from my dad that if an employee was valuable, you do what you can to hang onto them. Galloway Films wouldn’t be where it is today without Double D.”
Alec leaned back, the boat rocking back and forth from an increasing collection of whitecaps. He glanced at the sun as it dipped toward the west. “We might have a green flash,” he said, referring to the optical phenomenon that sometimes occurred at sunset.
“The perfect ending to our first day at sea, although those clouds on the horizon look a bit ominous.”
Alec agreed with a nod and made a mental note to check with Captain Bellamy about the forecast through the night. “Did you know that my sister, Brynn, and your sister, Chloe, were roommates in college?” he asked.
“Really?” She wiped her fingers on her napkin, then tucked it beneath her thigh so it wouldn’t blow away. The setting sun illuminated Grace’s face in a soft orange glow. “Wait!” Her eyes widened. “I’ve met Brynn. Is she really your sister?”
“Yep.”
“It’s funny we didn’t make that connection sooner,” she said. “Stewart mentioned she was an archaeologist.” She nodded vigorously. “Now I remember. Chloe had two roommates. I think Audrey was an archaeologist or an anthropologist too. How is your sister? What’s she up to?”
He stretched out his right arm and rested it on the back of the bench seat. “She’s good. She’s been spending most of her time lately in Istanbul studying Sumerian tablets.”
“I’ll have to ask Chloe if they still keep in touch.”
Donovan reappeared carrying three red plastic cups. “I didn’t want to drink alone.”
Both Alec and Grace grabbed one before Double D dropped all three on the deck.
Grace took a sip. “A Moscow mule. I’m impressed you knew what to do with our ingredients.”
“You’ll come to see that I’m useful to have around.”
“Night Fever” by the Bee Gees began to play over the outside speakers.
“And you delivered on the tunes, too,” Grace said.
Alec took a sip of the lime-flavored drink. “Not bad. What’s the hard stuff?”
“Vodka,” Grace answered. “So, go easy if the sway of the boat will eventually get to you.”
Missy and Stephie joined them, sporting long sleeves and buffs around their necks, the stretchy nylon tubes of fabric bunching beneath their chins in a splash of vibrant color.
“I think we should nominate Double D for trip bartender,” Missy said, a drink in hand.
Alec picked up his empty plate from the bench and scooted closer to Grace, who took his plate and stacked it onto hers as Missy and Stephie sat in his now-empty spot.
“I can handle giving the ladies drinks.” Donovan let the railing support his weight as he stretched his legs out before him and crossed one foot over the other.
Brad and Fowler appeared from the outer walkway and stepped into the group. Brad sat on a storage bin that likely held life vests and took a drink of his beer. “You ready to deploy the buoys?” he asked Grace.
“I will be. I’ll work on the calibration tomorrow.”
“How did you both come up with the idea for the imaging system?” Fowler asked, looking from Brad to Grace.
Grace’s gaze settled on Brad with the look of a viper considering her prey.
Either Brad hadn’t seen it, or else he chose to ignore it. “We both worked as interns at the Shark Lab in the Bahamas when we were in college. Missy was there, too.”
Missy watched him with an expression of bemused detachment.
The girls seemed to have a different viewpoint but didn’t speak up.
Alec knew of the Shark Lab, the well-known shark research facility at Bimini that was started by Dr. Samuel Gruber.
“You developed the array there?” Alec asked.
“Yep,” Brad answered. “We did preliminary testing on lemon sharks. Then CMI picked up the project and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Grace remained silent, and Missy gave a slight shake of her head.
There was more to the story, but no one seemed inclined to elaborate, so Fowler let it drop, as did Alec.