“Good.” He leaned closer, lightning flashing and illuminating his eyes. “So, we have a plan.” His lips were close to mine. “We’re dating but no one at work needs to know we’re dating.”
“That’s the plan,” I agreed. “I ... .”
“Shh.” I could feel his breath on my face. “No more talking. Just ... hold still.”
He pressed his lips against mine and I completely forgot what we were talking about. The kiss was simple, soft and sultry. It didn’t devolve into a teenage make-out session and there were no wandering hands.
It was still the best kiss of my life and my lips went numb at some point. I think my brain went a little numb, too.
“This will work,” Jack whispered when we finally separated. “We’ll be calm, cool and collected. We’re professionals. How hard could it be?”
Two
I woke late.
The first thing I remembered was the kiss, which made me feel girly and ridiculous, but I basked in the memory.
It didn’t last long because my phone started beeping with an incoming message. It seemed we had a new job and I was expected at the airport. I had to shower, dress and pack for the Florida heat – and do it fast.
My hair was still damp by the time I arrived at the airport. My boss, Chris Biggs, collected my suitcase and loaded it himself. His face was lit with excitement, joy practically oozing from every pore, and he hurried me onto the plane before I could get a question out.
The Legacy Foundation was financed by Chris’s family, so even though the monster-hunting portion of the business was dealt with on the sly, we were well-funded and had a private plane at our disposal.
There was an open seat next to Jack, but remembering our agreement from the previous evening I opted to sit next to Millie Watson. She used to be married to Chris’s uncle Myron and continued working for the company when the relationship fell apart. She was older, often bawdy, and I felt comfortable with her from the moment we’d met.
She was also the only person in the group to know my secret. She witnessed me unleashing my powers and I had no choice but to confide in her. Surprisingly, despite her prominence in the group, she not only embraced my secret but actively encouraged me to test my abilities. While I was still getting used to my place with the foundation and the others in the group, I had faith Millie was someone I could rely on.
“What’s going on?” I asked, fastening my seatbelt. “Why are we in such a hurry?”
Millie, always shrewd, didn’t immediately answer. Instead she took a long time to look me over. “Why are you so shiny?”
The question caught me off guard. “I’m not shiny.”
“You most certainly are.”
“I am not.” My hackles rose. “I’m sweaty. I overslept and had to get ready on the fly. Sweaty is not the same thing as shiny.”
“If you say so.”
I opted to stow the conversation, waiting until we were in the air at cruising altitude and I could remove my seatbelt before speaking again.
“So ... what’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that we have a new job,” Chris replied, rubbing his hands together. The seats were arranged in such a way that we had no problem hearing him. “It’s probably the biggest job we’ve ever had ... and I’m not simply saying that because of the size of the creature we’re hunting.”
Oh, that sounded promising. “We’re going to Florida, right? What kind of creature lives in Florida? Ooh. I’ve read about certain swamp hominids. Are we looking for one of those?”
Chris shook his head. “Think bigger!”
“A crocodile species that dates back to the dinosaurs and is eating people?”
“No, but you’re getting closer.”
Jack made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat when I opened my mouth to offer another guess. “Why don’t you just tell us, Chris? The flight is less than three hours. We need time to discuss things, plan. At this rate, Charlie will still be guessing when we land.”
I shot him an annoyed look. He met my gaze evenly, his expression bland. He clearly wasn’t worried about me being angry. That was par for the course when it came to us working together, so apparently our plan was in full swing.
“Fine. Jack clearly doesn’t want to play this morning.” Chris shot the tempestuous security head a fond look. They had an odd relationship, work brothers who never saw things in the same manner, but they were fairly close. “We’re looking for Carcharocles megalodon.”
I simply stared, dumbfounded. Jack was the first to speak.
“You mean the huge shark that went extinct millions of years ago?” He was flabbergasted. “You can’t be serious.”
Chris straightened his tall frame. “Carcharocles megalodon was a prominent species years ago. We have evidence that it survived, and is roaming the Gulf of Mexico.”
Instead of being impressed, Jack rolled his eyes and smacked his hand to his forehead. “Oh, geez.”
I decided to take pity on Chris. “Why do we think the Megalodon is hanging around the Gulf?” I asked.
“Carcharocles Megalodon,” Chris corrected.
“Honey, I love you, but no one is going to spit that out every time we talk for the next few days,” Millie noted. “I know you like proper names, but let’s go with Megalodon on this one to save everyone some headaches.”
Chris let loose an exaggerated sigh. Even though Millie was no longer his aunt because of the divorce, he loved her all the same. They were unbelievably tight. “Fine. Megalodon.”
“Megalodons are extinct,” Jack barked. “They’ve been dead for years. I don’t care what movies and fiction books say. They’re gone.”
“Unless they’re not.” Chris was back to being excited as he slid a glance to Hannah Silver. She was a brilliant scientist who knew a lot about almost everything and who happened to look like a model. She was also easy to get along with, personable, and could double as an angel if she chose to put on wings and a halo. On paper I should hate her. She was too nice to hate, though. She and Chris had recently admitted their feelings for one another and were in the middle of a very public courtship. They were constantly petting and gazing into each other’s eyes. I had a feeling that was only one of the reasons Jack was so adamant about keeping our relationship secret.
“I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm, sweetie, but I have to side with Jack on this one,” Hannah said. “Megalodons are extinct.”
“Unless they’re not.” Chris clearly wasn’t ready to let it go. “We have evidence to suggest that a Megalodon attacked and killed a woman in the waters off St. Petersburg.”
I wasn’t familiar with Florida geography, so I asked the obvious question. “And that’s on the Gulf side?”
Jack nodded. “Close to Tampa.”
That still didn’t mean anything to me. “How close is that to Disney World?”
Jack sighed. “Hours away.”
“Oh.” That was a bummer. No Mickey Mouse for me. “Well ... why do we think it’s a Megalodon again?”
“We don’t think anything,” Jack cautioned. “Chris is the only one who thinks it’s a Megalodon.”
I didn’t like his tone. “It could be a Megalodon.”
Chris beamed at me. “Thank you, Charlie.”
“Great,” Jack muttered just loud enough for me to make out the words. “Now there are two of you.”
“Yes, it’s fantastic,” I agreed, grinning. “So what happened to make the police think a Megalodon killed this woman?”
“The police don’t think a Megalodon did it,” Chris replied quickly. “They’re calling it a shark attack. The file was flagged, though, because the wound pattern is far too big to belong to any shark that cruises the Gulf.”
“And what types of sharks would those be?” Laura asked. She’d been quiet since takeoff, sucking down coffee and casting the occasional look toward Jack when she thought no one was looking. She wasn’t a big believer either, but she liked the paycheck and travel associat
ed with the gig.
“Bull sharks,” Jack replied quickly. “Tiger sharks, Blacktip sharks, Nurse sharks and Great Hammerhead sharks, too. Bull sharks are the biggies. They’re also more likely to attack humans than most other sharks, including Great Whites.”
I stared at him, confused. “How do you know that?”
Jack shrugged. “I watch Shark Week.”
“Me, too!” I was impressed, and a little giddy. “I watch it every year.”
Jack’s eyes momentarily softened. “Yes, well, it’s great. We can talk about Shark Week later. Right now our concern seems to be Megalodons, which are extinct. There’s no way a Megalodon attacked a woman in the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Unless there is,” Chris pressed. “I present you with Shayne Rivers.” He held up his tablet and displayed a photograph of a young woman, impressively pretty, with big brown eyes and a demure smile. “She’s a romance author who was discovered in the waters directly behind a resort. She was caught in a shark net ... what was left of her, that is.”
I pursed my lips. “Obviously that shark net wasn’t working.”
“Maybe because the shark that went through it was so big it couldn’t hold,” Chris suggested, tapping the side of his nose. He was clearly getting into this. “Shayne was discovered by two fishermen on a pier. They saw something in the water and investigated. That’s when they found her. Evidence of a shark attack was clear.”
I cringed at the words. I had a reoccurring dream of being attacked by sharks. I was both intrigued by and terrified of the creatures. Other than being burned alive, that had to be the worst way to go.
“Okay, I’m calling bull on this one,” Jack started. “Not necessarily bull shark, but bull all the same. Megalodons had a bite radius of about six feet across. Maybe a little smaller, but you get what I’m saying. A Megalodon would’ve eaten her entirely.”
“Unless it was an accident,” Chris argued. “I watch Shark Week, too. Sharks don’t attack people because they taste good. They attack people because they mistake them for something else ... like seals and turtles.”
“I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a turtle,” Millie offered. “I like the idea of carrying your house around on your back and being so ugly you’re cute.”
“That is neat,” I agreed.
Jack scorched me with a look. “If we could come back from Turtle Land, there’s no way a Megalodon mistook a romance writer for a turtle and only ate part of her. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“And yet that’s what we’re dealing with,” Chris said. “I know it’s difficult to hear the details, but they’re necessary. The victim’s bottom half was missing, suggesting the shark ate that. Along her chest, right across this ridge, she had two deep gashes that have been identified as indentations from shark teeth.
“Now, a normal shark’s tooth is about two inches in length,” he continued. “The largest Great White tooth on record is three inches. Would you care to guess how big the wounds on our victim measured?”
I was both fascinated and horrified. “How big?”
“Seven inches.”
“Seven inches isn’t all that big,” Laura drawled, earning a dirty look from Jack for the double entendre. “I prefer nine inches myself.”
Chris, oblivious, barreled forward. “There is no shark in the Gulf big enough to have caused the injuries our victim sustained.” He said it as if it were fact and we should all acquiesce, grab some scuba gear and start looking for a prehistoric shark without further delay.
“Chris, I know you get into this stuff, but I need you to be reasonable.” Jack adopted a pragmatic — and mildly condescending — tone. “A Megalodon wouldn’t go unnoticed. They were, like, sixty feet long and ate everything in sight. The marine population in the Gulf would be decimated if a Megalodon was present.” He was trying to sound reasonable, but I recognized the bite to his words. “There’s no way it was a Megalodon. I might buy that a Great White found its way into the Gulf, though that’s unlikely. Maybe it was a large Great White. Even if it was, I don’t see how this is a case for us.”
“It is if it’s a Megalodon.”
“It’s not!”
“Unless it is.” Chris was like a shark with blood in the water. When he believed something with his whole heart, he refused to concede defeat. He clearly had no intention of letting go of this. “If you don’t want to be part of the team investigating this, Jack, you don’t have to. You can go back on the first flight out if you want to be excused from this assignment.”
Jack’s eyes darted to me, as if silently asking if I wanted to abandon the trip. Even though I wasn’t convinced it was a Megalodon — although, how cool would that be? — I wasn’t ready to abandon ship. A Megalodon was unlikely, but perhaps there was another giant shark out there waiting to be discovered. The possibility was exciting.
“Where will we start when we land?” I asked, my voice small. “Are we staying in the same resort the victim was staying?”
Chris nodded, his eyes still on Jack. “Those staying with the investigation will have rooms there. It’s called the Gulf Winds Lodge. It’s huge, seven different restaurants on the premises, a spa.”
Laura brightened considerably. “You had me at spa.”
“Do we still have you, Jack?” Chris asked pointedly.
Jack nodded, his posture stiff. “I will do my job like I always do.”
“I know you will.” Chris’s easy smile returned. “You always do, even when you think I’m being a loon.”
“Well, since you put it out there, I think you’re definitely being a loon this go-around,” Jack supplied. “In fact, I think anyone embracing this theory is being a loon.”
I felt his gaze on me but refused to make eye contact. “How will we approach things when we land?”
“I have vehicles waiting. It takes about thirty-five minutes to drive from the airport to the resort. We’ll check in and then go from there.”
“What do we know about the victim?” Hannah asked. She was the rational sort. She was a believer, but always looked to science for confirmation.
Chris turned his attention back to his information packet. “She’s a romance author. She’s married and has five kids, all under the age of ten.”
My mouth dropped open. “She looks twenty in that photo you showed us. How can she have five kids?”
“Her age is listed as thirty-one,” Chris replied. “Maybe she simply looks young. That happens.”
“I still get carded,” Hannah offered helpfully.
“That’s because people mistake you for an angel,” I said. “I’m barely old enough to drink and never get carded. I must look old. That’s not good, right?”
Jack cracked a smile and shook his head. “You look fine.” He caught himself quickly. “I mean ... you don’t look old or young. You look like Charlie.”
“Yes, which means you look like a circus freak,” Laura sneered.
This time the look Jack shot her was murderous. “If you don’t have something nice to say, Laura, maybe you shouldn’t speak.”
“I agree.” Chris focused on his file as he chimed in. “Don’t make things difficult, Laura. We’ll have a tough enough time gathering information.”
“Whatever.” Laura petulantly folded her arms over her chest and turned to stare out the window. “This is going to be a stupid trip.”
I rubbed my forehead and glanced at Millie, finding her watching me with a thoughtful gaze. “What?”
“Nothing,” Millie replied hurriedly. “Do you have a headache?”
“Soon.”
Her lips curved. “Well, we’re hunting a Megalodon. You’ll forget all about that headache soon.”
“That would be nice.
“What else do we know about this woman, Chris?” Jack prodded in an effort to get the conversation back on track. “What was she doing at the resort?”
“There’s a writer’s conference there. Fiction Writers Incorporated, I belie
ve. The victim arrived yesterday, but the conference is still going for another few days.”
“So we’re dealing with a bunch of writers,” Jack mused. “That seems like a dramatic group.”
Curious, I leaned forward. “What makes you say that?”
“They’re artistic souls. That means they overreact about everything. Maybe our writer wasn’t killed at all. Maybe she jumped off the pier, cracked her head while falling down, and was eaten because the shark was attracted by the blood. And when I say shark, I mean bull shark.”
“A bull shark could not have made the wound our victim suffered,” Chris persisted. “We’ve been over this.”
“Yeah, well, I want to see the autopsy report myself,” Jack said. “I’m guessing there’s some wiggle room in your interpretation. Not to be insulting or anything.”
“I’m not insulted.” Chris’s smile was easy and quick. “You never believe. That’s why I enjoy having you on my team. When I find proof, your apology will mean the most.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing at the ridiculous look on Jack’s face. Millie shook with silent laughter next to me, and a quick glance at Hannah told me she was fighting the urge to break out into hearty guffaws.
“Well, if that happens I will gladly apologize,” Jack said finally. “Until then, I’m leaning toward accidental death and bull shark scavengers.”
“That’s completely up to you. As for the rest of us, I have photographs and hunches. Let’s get started.”
Three
The Tampa airport was small, which made it easy to navigate. I ended up in a vehicle with Chris, Hannah and Millie. That left Jack, Laura and Bernard Hill, our equipment guru, in the other vehicle. I tried not to dwell on the fact that I was certain Laura would spend the entire drive flirting with Jack and instead focused on the case.
The hotel was beautiful, featuring an ornate lobby with a Starbucks located smack dab in the center of things. I headed that way while Chris sorted out the room situation, ordered an iced green tea, and watched the people milling about the open area.
The Megalodon Mix-Up Page 2