“Almost as long as your boat, maybe longer, wide as fuck.”
“And yet here you are,” Minnow said, curious.
In her experience, there were two camps of people. Those who let fear shrink their world and those who could quiet, compartmentalize or block out the fear and keep doing what they love. But there were also a rare few who seemed to be missing the fear factor all together. She’d met a couple of those, too, in this business. Not all of them were still alive.
“Surfing keeps me sane, and I don’t like crowds. So, I take my chances,” he said.
“Were you able to tell if it was a tiger shark or a great white?” she asked. When speaking with laypeople, she often reverted to usinggreat white.
“White. Hundred percent. No stripes, and that girth.” Another set rolled in and he eyed it. “Good luck, I have to head in now.”
Sly caught the next wave, smooth as a bird. Once he was out of earshot, she said to Nalu, “Sounds like it could be the same one.”
“Gotta be.”
White shark females were much larger than the males. Even as a young girl in Catalina, MinnowknewLuna was a female, she was so huge. This knowing was something she took for granted. She thought everyone was the same way until her mother began chastising her for saying she heard the kelp singing or the laughter of pelicans as they flew in formation overhead.
“You have quite an imagination, you know that, little fish?” she would say.
“I wasn’t imagining it.”
Her mother would roll her eyes and say, “Sure you were. But imagination is a grand thing. Artists and musicians and writers all need vivid imaginations.”
Minnow didn’t argue. There was no point. She tried to go abouther days, telling herself she was imagining all of these things. The very slow thud she heard as Luna swam past. A shark heartbeat. The whoosh of butterfly breeze against her cheek. Or the purring and grunting of the fish in the reef that no one else seemed to hear. But in her heart she knew they were as real as the ground under her feet.
They continued up the coast, scanning for any signs of a surfboard, but they were hampered by the swell, which smashed against the black lava. Once they passed the Kiawe, the cliffs grew higher and steeper, and they had to stay even farther out because of the backwash. Twenty minutes later, they came upon a larger bay with a black sand beach, small waves on the inside and a thick wall of stout coconut trees and a boat anchored at the far point. It looked empty and calm. No sign of dive flags anywhere. As they neared, Minnow could tell the vessel was expensive just by looking at its lines and the shiny paint job, dark hull.
Nalu whistled. “Nice boat.”
“Looks like a Robalo, top of the line. I see a few of them coming in and out of Santa Barbara.”
“I saw this boat anchored out front of the Kiawe yesterday.”
“I wonder if this is the owner of the hotel’s boat? The one Angela and Zach were on.”
“Nope. That was a Yellowfin.”
He cut the motor about thirty feet away, and they glided close to the boat, Minnow sitting on the gunwale in case they bumped up against it. A shelf of clouds had blotted out the sun, turning the water from iridescent blue to gray. Again, they scanned around for any signs of life but saw nothing.
“Whoever it is, they’re probably in the lagoon. You can’t tell from here, but there’s a narrow inlet you can swim through when the tideis high. It’s a safe haven for turtles, which is why you’ll also find tigers cruising.”
“Is this where you were thinking of surfing?” she asked, surprised at his choice of surf breaks.
“Yeah, on the inside, but it looks like the swell isn’t hitting here. Not enough west in it.”
Minnow did not surf. Put her under the surface, where at least she could see a predator coming and she looked less like a turtle or a seal. For some reason, coming face-to-face with sharks did not scare her. It was the ambush that gave her nightmares and had her waking up in cold sweats, feeling as though she’d just emerged from the inky depths, seawater in her bed.
“Something smells rank,” Nalu commented.
Minnow sniffed the air. “Smells like mackerel. We use it sometimes to draw the whites in for tagging. They love that oily, fishy scent.”
“?Yeah, it’s probably?opelu.”
“What’s?opelu?”
“Mackerel scad. Baitfish.”
They were close enough now to the boat that she could see the fancy navigation and gadgets on the center console. She knew there was money along this coast, and here was the evidence.
