Below the Surface (19 page)

“Bree. Bree! Sweetheart, you're having a nightmare,” the deep voice said. “Wake up, it's Cole.”

It was real. He was here, smoothing her hair away from her face, which was wet with tears.

Yes, she remembered now. She'd called him after she drove back from Ben's. Cole had come over and insisted on sleeping on her sofa. Last time she'd had a nightmare, Amelia had run to her, but this was Cole. Thank God, it was Cole.

He held her until she stopped trembling. “Want to talk about it?” he whispered.

“No, it's too bizarre. I just want it to go away, to forget it, forget everything.”

He wore his shorts but no shirt. His bare chest seemed so broad with its expanse of muscled skin and crisp, curly hair. He felt cool compared to her.

“Running away,” he said, “is not how you've been handling any of this. You know that would never work.”

“I know. I know. I'm so glad you're here.”

“After all this is settled, I'd like us to spend time together of a different kind.”

She hugged him. “Yes.”

“I'm trying really hard not to take advantage of the fact that you need me now. We hardly know each other under normal circumstances.”

She knew he was trying to talk himself out of climbing into bed with her, but she didn't want to make that easy for him. She held him tight. Sure, she was insane, dancing on the edge of the same sort of desire that must have hit Daria so hard she had to hide things. She clung tighter to him.

“Bree, sweetheart, I can hardly breathe.”

“That's the way it was in my nightmare. Sorry.”

She loosened her grip on him slightly and sat up straighter, though they still leaned against each other. Since Bree had heard Ben say Daria was pregnant, nothing had sunk in. Even in explaining it all to Cole, it had not seemed real. The sister she would have sworn she knew seemed to slip further away than even death could take her.

Now Bree fought to clear her head. First thing tomorrow, she had to check the Trade Wreck sea grass meadow, photograph its sorry state one last time before she found the strength to give her report without Daria by her side. But Cole would be with her during the dive and there at the Clear the Gulf Commission. Why couldn't she clear her head and forget the nightmare that clung to her as hard as she had to Cole?

She shifted slightly away from him and swiped at her slick cheeks. He handed her a tissue from the box of them on her bedside table. Nodding her thanks, she blew her nose and wiped her eyes, then took a drink from the glass of water he handed her.

“A part of me,” she admitted, “does want to run away. Take a cruise, drive down to the Keys and sit on the beach, but anywhere I could see the water would haunt me. Maybe I should take Josh and Nikki up on their invitation to have Mark Denton fly me across the state and stare at nothing but boring sugarcane fields, as Nikki put it.”

“Do you mean it?”

“No. I've got to see our sea grass project through, even if it will create a lot of fallout. That turtle grass is in worse shape than I am. For Daria and the future of everything around here, I've got to see it all through. The meadow is dying from toxic pollution—and that means the entire biological chain and this whole paradise are endangered. Sorry. It seems I'm delivering my report already.” She tried to smile through her tears. “I'm sorry I woke you up.”

“You didn't. Despite the hum of the AC, every sound outside jolts me awake.”

“You're too tall for the sofa.”

“I'm fine. You think you can sleep?”

“I've got to. I can't go into that meeting looking like a witch.”

“Not you, not ever, even now. My mermaid is like those beautiful sirens that lured Odysseus's ship right into them.”

“To crash into the rocks, you mean.”

He kissed the top of her mussed head and slid off the bed, reluctantly, she could tell. Yes, she needed him, and she was pretty sure she loved him, too. But had Daria thought that and made some sort of colossal mistake with a man she desired? A fatal error?

I
t seemed strange to dive without Daria, yet so comforting to have Cole with her, and Manny at the helm of the boat. The sea was calm, the water unusually clear. The flowers had washed off the memorial wreath she'd left, but Cole's piece of dark wood still floated in place. Perhaps they should retrieve that and the pelican float before they left. It would be no good to have a boat run into it, nor to have the site marked so that someone else could easily find and potentially damage the struggling sea grass meadow.

As she and Cole descended near the anchor line, Bree held the camera tight, as if she could lose it again. They made a standard safety stop, gazing into each other's eyes through their masks, but even that reminded her of her nightmare again. Had her subconscious been trying to warn her? Against Sam? Against Ben's meddling? When the man with a mask raised the wrench in the dream, it was in the shape of the Hollimans' eternal shells. She'd been confined in a glass coffin, reminiscent of the way Daria had been trapped in the wheelhouse. Some people believed dreams foretold the future, but she would not let herself be trapped as Daria must have been. Never.

She fought to focus, because she had much to do today. Get these final pictures, prepare the rest of the PowerPoint presentation she and Daria had already done some work on. She was tempted to dig up a plug of the sea grass to show everyone, but she couldn't bear to harm the sparse growth that was already suffering below.

Cole reached out and took her free hand in one of his. She nodded she was fine, so they upended and swam down.

As usual, they'd dropped anchor away from the grass so it wouldn't get torn up. Gertie the Grouper greeted them, a good sign this day would go well, Bree thought. The early-morning sunlight slanting through the water gave it a greenish tint. She wondered if it was this bright for Cole, or if it was her extra perceptive sight again. Was that permanent after the lightning strike, a strange gift—or curse—with her increased hearing ability, for surviving all that had happened since that disastrous day?

They swam past the Trade Wreck and headed for the familiar site of the meadow. When the findings were released, the media would hype everything, and both the pro-environment side and the economists who wanted increased business and tourism on shore at any price would be up in arms. The green earth activists would clamor for more stringent pollution and building construction controls, to return the gulf to its once-pristine condition; their opponents would argue that the demands of increasing population were worth temporary setbacks in nature. And she would be in the middle of all that cross fire.

For her presentation this afternoon, she would begin with a slide dedicating the report to Daria's memory, then juxtapose the earlier photos with these latest ones of the declining—

Bree gasped and almost choked. Up ahead—it couldn't be!

She kicked hard to get closer and stared down as Cole joined her. Hovering, she just gaped at first. The grass couldn't have flourished this fast. In one week, after being damaged by that rough-water storm, the meadow had come back from oblivion? It looked green, healthy, hardy. Surely, she wasn't at the wrong site, because the Trade Wreck was right there where it should be. Manny had put them in the same spot as ever.

She shook her head to clear it. Though this was the site she and Daria had tended for months, it was not the same sea grass. Turtle grass, yes, but it must have been planted here. The site had been resodded!

Cole was gesturing, asking her what had happened. She motioned to him that someone must have dug up the old grass and put this in. He shook his head, then pivoted to look all around them as if someone unseen could be lurking.

Slowly, careful not to disturb the bottom and kick up silt or sand, Bree upended again to get her face close to the edge of the sea grass plot. She swam its entire circumference. Then she crisscrossed it, back and forth, while Cole held her camera and just watched.

Too neat, too new, she thought. In a few places someone had tried to make the edges of the meadow look ragged. On the interior, large tufts of turtle grass had been planted with great care in random fashion to make it look more natural. And the bed of grass was a bit smaller than what had been replaced. This must have come from an entirely different area of the gulf, or perhaps even the other side of the state.

Where had it come from? More importantly, who had the know-how, money and nerve to plant it? Who had this much at stake in her report today? Their entire, precious project could become a waste and tarnish Daria's memory, as well as Bree's business and reputation.

She was tempted to defiantly ignore this, because, surely, the ends of her original report would justify the means. Whoever had done this would not dare step forward to challenge her. But all her claims could be easily disproved if someone dived here. Except for Cole, though—and Manny, of course—she wasn't sure who would know the exact coordinates of the site. No, damn, they'd left that memorial wreath on the surface.

Shaking, she took the camera from Cole and began to photograph the grass from many angles, especially the tidy edges of the bed. As ever, she got macrophotography close-ups. With her diving knife, she cut out a six-inch square, which Cole cradled in his hands on the way up.

“Get what you want?” Manny called when they surfaced.

She yelled to him, “Not what I wanted or expected, but more proof that someone has a motive to want our report to be a good one. Practically overnight, that sad bed of sea grass looks as if it has resurrected itself. Whoever hurt Daria must have taken up deep-sea gardening when he couldn't stop me with a wrench.”

Things got even worse back at the shop. “Manny, you haven't been using this computer, have you?” Bree asked as she tried to retrieve her earlier pictures of the turtle grass meadow. She had downloaded the new pictures with no problem, but her photo software seemed to be acting up.

“You know I hate those things. No way. What is it?”

“I can't believe this—or maybe I can. Someone has deleted the pics, even Daria's last shots that I just downloaded five days ago.”

She frantically tried other folders, scanned lists of documents, did a search by keywords. Nothing. Had messing up Daria's room been a diversion for this tampering and theft? She hadn't been able to access Daria's new password, but had someone hacked into this machine—possibly without even being here? Still, the Gator Watering Hole coaster had disappeared, so someone had thought searching Daria's room was important, too.

Though she had no more tears left, Bree felt sick to her stomach. Months of important work gone, her and Daria's legacy to the gulf they loved sabotaged. She leaned back in her chair. Manny hovered over her, speechless for once. Cole had gone home to change for the commission meeting. He wouldn't believe this.
She
couldn't believe this.

Bree ran to her desk to check the bottom drawer where she kept her backup CDs. Gone. Someone had been here in person. She raced upstairs into Daria's room to look in the drawer where her sister had kept her copies of backup CDs for the computer downstairs. Why hadn't she thought to check these before? When she couldn't get into Daria's e-mail, she had abandoned the idea of Daria's computer.

Gone. Not only Daria's SAV backups, but all her others.

Stunned anew, Bree bent over and hit her fists on her knees. Now she was even more afraid. Whoever was behind all this—and, no doubt, Daria's death—was clever, powerful and maybe wealthy. Dom Verdugo, as Cole suspected? He'd want a good gulf report. He had the motive and the manpower to try to stop a bad one.

“What you gonna do?” Manny asked, standing in the hall. His presence and question jolted her.

“I'm tempted to go dive to find some other sick sea grass to show the committee, so they can see what the Trade Wreck meadow actually looked like. But instead, I'm going to try to blow someone out of the water. I'm going to tell the truth, even if that angers someone dangerous very, very much.”

“And now, the report we've all been awaiting,” Marv Godwin, the chairman of the Clear the Gulf Commission and member of the local Visitor and Convention Bureau, announced to the crowded room with a nod toward Bree. She was sitting at the front table with him, nearest the podium. She had been trying not to stare at Cole, even though she felt stronger when she glanced his way.

The rest of the commission members sat in the front row. Looking at Amelia—who seemed so haggard and nervous that Bree was shocked she was even here today—did nothing but make her more upset and uneasy. Ben sat in the chair behind his wife, as if to keep an eye on her.

Sam Travers was here, sitting in the back of the room, flanked by his divers, Ric and Lance. Bree had expected them to be on that job in Sarasota already, but Sam would do anything to help protect the gulf he loved and needed for his work. Josh Austin and Marla Sherborne were in attendance, both managing to sit in range of the cameras. Bree was trying to ignore the hoard of statewide media, with their microphones on poles that they thrust toward the podium. Several cameramen sat cross-legged on the floor in front, as if this were some presidential news conference announcing peace or war. In a way, around here, maybe it was.

“Of course, we are all deeply saddened,” Chairman Godwin went on, “by the tragic loss of Daria Devon, and we continue to extend our condolences to the family. We are grateful Briana can be with us today at this difficult time with her findings on what is essentially the health report of our precious Gulf of Mexico. Briana?”

Applause, no less. She wasn't sure the chairman would be so grateful when he heard her report. Cole and Manny were the only ones who knew what she intended, because she thought Mr. Godwin might completely discount her report or try to stop her. After all, he wanted the outcome to be a healthy gulf that could handle more development and a casino yacht. Speaking of that, as she glanced at the crowd, she saw Dom Verdugo was here.

Standing in front of everyone, she teared up at first, picturing Daria here with her, wishing fervently this would still go well, even after some bastard had tried to pull the sick-sea-grass rug out from under her.

Her hands shook as she put her index cards on the podium and reached for the remote control that would run her now all-too-brief presentation. She put the first slide up on the screen. It was all black with the words in white: This Report Is In Loving Memory Of Daria Claire Devon, 1978–2006.

“Thank you, Mr. Godwin, and all the commission for your support and kind words about my twin sister. As you know, for the last six months, Daria and I have closely monitored and photographed the turtle grass meadow near the Trade Wreck, approximately four miles out in the gulf. Mr. Godwin is now passing around a handout with information on our fifty-eight dives and a chart indicating the health of the grass, a consistently downward trend.

“We used to call this our grassroots project, but later called it SAV for Submerged Aquatic Vegetation. I don't need to remind you that sea grass roots are key to the ecohealth of the entire area. Sea grass roots hold the sea bottom in place, and the grass itself produces oxygen and shelters marine life. Yet our gulf sea grass is dying.”

The occasional camera flash from the media bothered Bree. Even when she wasn't looking directly into the flashes, they bored into her brain. Her own voice over the microphone seemed much too loud, though no one was reacting that way. People were leaning forward, intense, listening to each word. Despite the icy air-conditioning, she felt herself start to sweat, but went on.

“Before I show you some slides, I want to make two major points. First, I want to reiterate that, in the six months Daria and I studied the site, the grass went from bad to much worse. As a result, other marine life is greatly impacted, even endangered. Life on shore suffers, too, and not just because we can catch fewer healthy fish to eat or swim in less clear waters. Secondly, I must tell you something else almost as upsetting to me.”

She cleared her throat and darted a look at Cole. His big body was tensed up; he was frowning. He'd argued at first that she should not throw down the gauntlet, that she would make herself more of a target. She'd convinced him that, in a way, she was buying herself life insurance. How obvious would it look if something strange happened to the second sister who was making a stand against pollution, including that from a casino cruise ship, in this area?

“Someone,” she said, “is out to sabotage the proof of our findings. Only this morning on a last-minute dive, I discovered—along with Cole DeRoca of your commission—that the shrinking, browning and fading sea grass meadow had been dug up and an area of much more flourishing grass put in its place.”

Murmuring. A few gasps. A lot more strobe flashes. Bree gripped the edges of the podium and stared the audience down.

Josh Austin looked stunned. He whispered something to Mark Denton, who was madly taking notes. Mark nodded. Marla Sherborne's mouth had dropped open.

Sam seemed to register no emotion at all. It hit her then. One of the logical recommendations would be the necessity of deeper dredging to make more tidal cuts, which would induce seawater flushing. And Sam's business would profit from that, in a big way.

As for Dom Verdugo, he looked almost smug as he tugged the cuff-linked wrists of his shirtsleeves down under his blazer. Yes, he would want a healthy-looking sea grass meadow so he could insist the gulf was stable and could take the demands of his big boat and the people it would bring in. And he had the money and a jet to bring in more robust grass from across the state or even from the Caribbean.