“Ready,” Rex echoed.
Angel handed Kimo and Rex each a dive knife. “You might need these.”
They secured the knives to their BCDs.
Typically, Kimo carried a knife, not only for protection, but to dig for interesting objects in the sand or on the reef. Having one now had an entirely different connotation, giving her a chill down her spine.
Devlin tied a line to the sonar buoy and dropped it into the water.
Kimo, Rex, Leilani and Angel moved to the back of the tour boat and sat to put on their fins and fit the regulators into their mouths.
With their masks fit over their faces, they dropped one by one into the water.
Teller stood on the deck, rifle in hand. “We’ll cover the surface.”
Devlin waved the sonar tracking device. “Check your watches.”
Rex and Angel checked and gave Devlin a thumbs-up.
Kimo held up her hand with the okay sign. Once the other three repeated it, she pushed thoughts of Rex’s kiss to the back of her mind and dove. She led the way to the bottom, where the shipping container had been. Her purpose for being there was to find her camera.
Alana’s life depended on it.
Chapter 10
Rex swam beside Kimo, swinging his head back and forth, keeping his eyes open and his senses on high alert for any signs of danger from man or marine life.
As they neared the ocean floor, he looked around for any sign of a shipping container or the people who had died in it. As far as he could see, nothing indicated that a twenty-foot shipping container had rested in the sand. By now, the indentation would have been smoothed over by current and wave action.
Kimo pointed to Angel and Leilani, then to her right toward the reef.
Leilani nodded, and the two swam away.
Instead of heading for the reef, Kimo hovered over the sand. She pulled out her dive knife and dug in several places.
Rex wasn’t sure what she was doing. It wasn’t like the container could’ve sunk deep enough to be covered by the sand.
Rather than watch and wait, he joined her, digging his knife in a few inches and lifting sand.
A couple of minutes passed. Rex began to think they were wasting time they could be using to search for the BCD and camera. Ready to move on, he dug his knife in one last time. The tip of the knife struck something hard. When he lifted it, a metal crowbar came with the blade.
Kimo grabbed the crowbar and nodded. She motioned like she was jamming the crowbar into something to pry it open.
Rex understood what she was trying to say. This was the crowbar they’d used to open the container. Whether it could be used as evidence or not, she seemed happy to have found the tool. It was as if it proved she hadn’t been hallucinating the existence of the shipping container.
She secured the crowbar to her BCD and motioned toward the reef.
Together, they swam toward the rocky outcropping.
Rex stayed with her, looking all around for the BCD she’d ditched during her escape from the shooters. A large school of shiny fish swam in front of them, their scales flashing like sequins in the sunlight.
They passed long stretches of sand with an occasional, isolated giant rock providing a home for coral and small, colorful fish. Rex tried to imagine how fast she’d had to have been swimming to evade the motorboat bearing down on her from above.
As she neared the reef, Kimo slowed and moved to the left. Rex stayed with her. Not exactly three feet away, but close enough to shield her if someone or something tried to get to her.
She swam several yards, moving in and out of the rocks along the edge.
A bright blue-and-green parrotfish swam around her as if warning her this was its feeding ground. When she swam past, it flipped its tail and went back to its territory.
