“What are the chances we’re going to find this on our first dive?” Rafe asked as he checked his tanks.
“Probably pretty good,” Lisa said, examining her own gear. “It’s been down there over one hundred years. This hole has a pretty straight drop thirty meters max before it turns. If Sophia’s father dropped it in, as we think, it should be right there at the bottom, maybe under a light layer of sediment. We’ll fan the sand, but if we don’t see it right away, it’s not there.”
“Tanks are ready,” Shane said.
They’d rigged a rope-and-pulley system around the trunk of a nearby palm so they could lower the tanks into the cave. Lisa and Rafe would rappel in and then dive. A rock ledge along the right side of the pool would give them a place to gather equipment and suit up. Shane wandered to the palm to check the ropes while Lisa and Rafe finished gathering their gear.
Lisa pulled up the zipper of her wet suit. “You know the rule of thirds, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rafe muttered. “Keep two-thirds gas in reserve for the way out. Got it.”
“Are you sure about this? If you’re uncomfortable, I don’t want you going down. Shane can—”
“I’m fine,” he cut in. The woman had been harping about his diving all morning. He was on the verge of telling her
he’d worked Navy salvage in the service. Granted, it hadn’t been in a cave, but he knew a thing or two about diving and he’d been trained in all its aspects. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she didn’t want him to go with her.
He glanced up to tell her to quit being a mother hen, and that’s when he noticed the unease on her face. Was that worry in her eyes? It wasn’t something he was used to seeing.
It was then he remembered the other guy. The one in Mexico she’d taken a second chance on. The one who’d died in a scuba accident.
She was scared.
His frustration ebbed, and he leaned over and kissed her, wanting to clear her head. He didn’t need her worried about him when they were diving. He needed her mind on something else, so she could focus. “You ever think about adoption?”
“What?”
He snapped on his harness and smiled at how one simple question could throw her so off-kilter. “Lotta kids need good homes.”
She looked at him like he had a third eye stuck in the middle of his forehead. “No one’s going to give me a kid, Slick. I’m a thirty-eight-year-old single woman who travels because of her career.”
He shrugged. “Lots of women are having kids later these days. And adoption laws aren’t as strict in Puerto Rico. Especially if you’ve got dual citizenship.”
Her cheeks paled. “Wh-What?”
That did it. Gave her something else to chew on. Rafe’s smile widened. He loved when she went speechless around him. “Come on,
querida.
We need to make tracks.”
Rafe gripped the rope, nodded at Shane to tell him he was ready and started his descent. When he was five feet over the water, he kicked his legs to propel himself to the rocky ledge of the pool.
He unhooked the harness and waited while Lisa made her descent. As she did, he took a look around and breathed in the damp air. The scent of earth was strong down here. Sunlight filtered through the roots and vines near the opening of the cave above, giving the room an eerie dark quality Rafe wasn’t wild about. He figured one good earthquake was all it’d take to bury them alive, and he said a quick prayer that wouldn’t happen while they were down here.
Stalactites hung from the ceiling in the dim space. Sediments created swirling patterns in the massive structures. Lisa probably knew the name of every single cave formation. If he asked her, he could get a crash course in geology.
He decided not to ask. He didn’t want to be down here any longer than necessary.
She landed on the rocks next to him and unhooked her harness. “Off belay,” she called back up to Shane.
“Belay off,” Shane replied. “Look out below.”
Shane lowered the tanks into the cavern. Rafe tugged them to the platform, and Lisa unhooked the ropes. They worked quickly, suiting up and readying for the dive without talking.
Shane’s head popped over the side when they were almost finished. “Sixty minutes. Check your watch and keep an eye on your gauge.”
Lisa frowned up at her brother. “I’ve got it. You just watch for unexpected guests.”
Shane disappeared over the edge, grumbling something they couldn’t hear. Lisa turned toward Rafe. “Are you ready?”
As ready as he’d ever be. He nodded.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, let’s get down so we can get back and celebrate.”
He pulled on his mask and waited while she slipped into the water. She still looked a little uncertain, but there wasn’t a heck of a lot he could do about it at this point. When all but her head was submerged, he followed.
He’d dived in some pretty amazing locations, but nothing prepared him for the underwater view he was getting now. As Lisa flipped on her light, he caught his first glimpse of a world few get to see.
The walls of the hole were magnified by the turquoise water. Stalagmites rose around the edges, surprisingly fragile looking in the eerie light. Below, darkness beckoned, indicating the tunnel went straight down. The water was warmer than he’d expected, and when he looked up, the dim sunlight at the surface glittered like jewels.
Lisa caught his attention, and he shook off the wonder as he gave her the okay signal. She nodded and pointed down. He waited while she secured the guideline that would lead them back to the surface and then followed as she turned for the bottom.
She’d been right again. It was a fairly straight drop with only a few small turns in the cave. His rhythmic breathing calmed him as they dove deeper, enough so he barely noticed the tube growing progressively smaller.
Twenty minutes into the dive Lisa pulled up and signaled they were near the bottom. Rafe checked his equipment, saw his tanks were fine and nodded at her.
The room was small, no more than ten feet by ten feet. Openings on both sides indicated the tunnel veered off in different directions. He’d glimpsed Lisa’s map before they’d come down and knew this cave went on for hundreds of meters below the surface.
Lisa’s light swept over the cave floor. Stalagmites rose from the ground as they had above, and she swam around each one, taking a careful visual exploration before fanning the sand.
Rafe hung back by the guideline and let her explore. He recognized the importance of this moment, that if Tisiphone were really down here, Lisa needed to be the one to find it. She was the expert, he was the novice.
Besides, hanging back gave him the opportunity to watch her work. To see her in her element. And damn, she
was good. She was meticulous and careful, and absolutely gorgeous in her curve-molding wet suit without even intending to be.
She darted out from behind a stalagmite and motioned for him to join her. His adrenaline jumped and thoughts of her sinful centerfold curves slipped to the back of his mind. He swam forward in anticipation.
But when she pointed down, his heart nearly stopped.
Shane checked his watch, glanced at the sinkhole at his right and frowned. Lisa and Rafe had been down going on twenty minutes now. It was too soon to stress, but he couldn’t help it.
Sitting back waiting while someone else put their life on the line wasn’t easy for him. Watching Lisa do it for a piece of rock didn’t sit well with him, either. He felt better being here, but
being here
was a relative term under the circumstances.
He’d set up a beach chair along the edge of the hole, tucked the ropes into a bag underneath his seat and was now wishing like hell he’d remembered his Tic Tacs. A light layer of sand covered the ground. Beach grass grew like weeds everywhere. Flowering shrubs he didn’t have a clue how to identify were littered across the ground and around the edge of the hole.
Part of him wished he was back on the boat with Hailey. Man, she was a looker, blonde and stacked and exactly what he didn’t need. He sure as hell hadn’t expected
her
when he’d hopped a plane to rescue his sister.
They hadn’t seen another soul since they’d left the beach, so when a blonde in a yellow bikini sauntered up wearing dark sunglasses, a beach bag slung over her shoulder, he sat up and withdrew his thoughts from the voluptuous police officer who’d been occupying way too much of his mind lately.
The girl in front of him was long legged and wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat that shielded her face partially from view.
“Now this is a surprise,” she said as she got closer.
Shane stood, thankful for the leather holster pressed against his lower back where he’d concealed his Glock in the waistband of his cargo shorts. People on this small island were friendly, and her presence shouldn’t have thrown him off guard, but ever since Lisa had shown up in Chicago and told him about the Furies, he’d been on edge.
“The beach is that way, handsome.” She pointed over her shoulder and smiled. “You look a little lost.”
His gaze swept the length of her body. She couldn’t possibly be hiding anything in that low-cut bikini. “Looks like that’s where you should be headed.”
Her smile widened. “I was just there. Heat gets unbearable this time of day.” She pointed down the path behind him. “My house is that way.”
“You live here?”
“I wish. A friend of mine has a house I’m visiting for the week. I’m Chris.” She offered her hand. He shook it cautiously. “I haven’t seen you around here.”
“Just got in.” He watched as she tipped her head and looked from his beach chair to the binoculars lying next to his feet, then to him.
She tipped her hat up enough so he could see her face. Pretty, but it didn’t ring any bells. “So, um, you don’t look like a sport fisherman or a surfer. And this far inland, you can’t possibly be scuba diving. So what, if you don’t mind my asking, are you doing out here?”
She couldn’t have been more than thirty, and she had the pink cheeks and red shoulders to prove she’d been out sunbathing on the beach. He couldn’t see her eyes through the dark shades, but he guessed they were as nonthreatening as the rest of her. A bit of his tension uncurled. “Would you buy that I’m catching butterflies?”
She laughed. “No.”
Her voice wasn’t familiar, either. “Okay, then how about that I’m a biologist? I’m doing a bird study for the University of Miami.”
“Really?” she asked as if she didn’t believe him.
He nodded. “Yeah. Specifically watching for the Northern Parula. It’s a small bird with blue, yellow, green and white feathers that migrated from mainland North America. You haven’t seen it, have you? Darn thing keeps dodging me.”
She laughed again. “No. Sorry.”
He reached for the notebook he’d dropped next to his chair in case someone came snooping around. “I have a picture of it somewhere.”
“That’s okay.” At her quick answer, he smiled, thankful Lisa had thought to give him a cover, one guaranteed to bore the socks off anyone. “I’m not big on birds.”
He shrugged, notebook in hand. “Little bugger’s really important to us biologists. Not so important to the rest of the world, I guess.”
“I guess. I know nothing about biology. Flunked it in college. Hey…” Her brow lifted as if she’d just had a thought. “Are you going to be around for a while? Because my friend—the one whose house I’m staying at—he’s having a party tomorrow night. Just a small get-together with some of the locals. He’s lived on the island for about a year. Maybe he or some of his friends have seen this bird you’re looking for.”
Shane tensed when she turned to dig through her shoulder bag. “No. Wait. I—”
“I have his address written in here somewhere.” She stepped closer and pulled the bag from her shoulder to drop it on his chair as if she didn’t hear him.
As a precautionary mea sure, he reached back for his gun.
“Man, I lose everything in this bag. Hold on, I know it’s in here.” She pulled out suntan lotion, a beach blanket, a camera, a paperback. “You’re gonna love him. He’s like all local even though he’s not really from here. He knows everything about this island, too, which could help you. And he makes this kick-ass rum punch.”
Fingers grazing his Glock, Shane stepped to the side as
she bent over to paw through the bag. His gaze drifted to her backside and the cut of her bikini. The faintest tan line was visible when she moved and her bikini bottom slipped ever so slightly. This woman wasn’t anything more than a tourist enjoying her vacation. He dropped his hand, feeling foolish for being paranoid.
“Ah, here it is.” She stood with her back to him. “I know you’re just going to love my friend. He has a soft spot for anyone from Chicago.”
His gaze darted up as she whipped around. He tried to grab his firearm. A jolt shot through his body when the Taser in her hand connected, dropping him to the ground. The gun slipped from his hand. His body twitched uncontrollably, but through hazy vision he could just make out her catlike grin as she leaned over him.
She slipped off her glasses. No, not thirty. Older. Fine lines crinkled the skin around her eyes. Recognition finally dawned.
Christy Swanson. Landau’s gallery manager. The one he’d questioned several times after the Hamilton murder. Only then she’d been a tight-mouthed suit who hadn’t given him more than a cold shoulder every time he’d stepped into her gallery. Now she was a black widow about to devour her prey.
“You should have stayed in the Windy City, Detective.” Her Italian accent was thick now. “My friend is not so happy you’re here.”
Rafe’s heart started again in deep, soul-pounding beats as he stared at the cave floor. A square three-dimensional outline stuck out of the silty sediments. It was too symmetrical to be anything other than a man-made object; didn’t look like anything that would occur naturally.
Lisa’s fingers wrapped around his forearm, and he glanced up at her wide eyes. Slowly, he nodded for her to go for it. Then watched in amazement as she reached down and fanned the sand away from the object.
Sediment swirled through the water. The number three was clearly carved into the bottom right corner. Lisa lifted the square object and flipped it over, and time seemed to stand still as they both stared at the marble relief. It was exactly as Rafe had expected from his research. Tisiphone, with her wings spread wide, floated in the air, looking up toward the heavens. Notches were carved along the right side of the marble relief, a small chip across the top the only evidence it had taken any kind of beating when it had fallen thirty meters below the surface more than a hundred years before.