Her toes curled in her shoes.Then suddenly, she was back upright and feeling unsteady.Well, the man sure knew how to give a kiss goodbye.
“Have a good day.”He grinned from ear to ear as if he knew what effect he had on her.
“You too.If you don’t mind a bit of a hike, you could head up to the falls.There is a nature park along the way.”
“I’ll be sure to check it out.Thanks.”
“Okay.”The boat.“I have to go.Bye.”Mac didn’t want to leave, but she had a job to do.She waved at him and ran to the boat, feeling a little breathless when she reached it.“Good morning, everyone, sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Well, someone’s in a good mood.”Cindy, one of her grad students, said giving her a cheeky grin as if she knew why Mac was in such a pleasant mood.
“Digrmagifyedaloog?”Burt asked with a toothy grin.
“It’s just a beautiful day, and I want to find the sharks.Burt, I want to head toward the southeast corner of the island,” she explained, looking professional and ignoring his pointed stare, but she could feel her cheeks flame, giving him all the answer he wanted.
Burt squinted at her, knowing why she wanted to head that way.“We cand go der.”
Since Miles had bought the land for the hotel, he’d bought the coastline and out into the waters.They were now banned from going over there, which was a shame because that was where a lot of sharks hung around.“Who’s in charge here?”she challenged, planting her fists on her hips and glaring at Burt in the eye.Miles was hiding something there, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it.
“Who de cabin?”he challenged back.
Mac knew she wasn’t going to win this war.It was a risk taking her whole team to investigate the coastline near Miles’s hotel.They could all get arrested for trespassing.She’d go tomorrow alone.“Fine, we’ll head to the west like we did yesterday,” she conceded.
“Goo choy.”He gave her a mock salute.“Les fin sim harks,” he shouted and headed into the quarterdeck to start the boat.
Mac wanted to look back toward where she’d left Barry to see if he was still there but refrained.She needed to stay focused.She helped unhook the boat, and they started to drift out to sea.
Mac sat at her table and opened her bag to retrieve her laptop.She had a program to track all of the sharks they had tagged.However, the ones that had started to go missing, their tag data turned off, all she had was their last known location.
Lucy was last spotted near the coastline where Miles’s hotel was.It couldn’t be a coincidence.It was time to do some digging.
Chapter 6
Barry watched the boat leave the dock and disappear toward the west.He remembered Mac telling him the hotel was in opposite direction.At least she wasn’t trying to investigate the hotel owner and risk her team.
Barry had seen the bodyguards surrounding the man last night.If Mac got caught snooping around, it wouldn’t end well for her.As for himself, he needed to do some digging on the hotel owner and get his eyes on the land over there.
He headed to his hotel room for a quick shower and change of clothes.Once clean, he opened up his laptop and started doing some searches on Miles Banks.On the surface, there wasn’t a lot of information.
He was a wealthy businessman with his fingers in several pots from hotels, oil, and politics.Odd for someone to be connected to so many different industries.Not much else was known about him other than he was a ladies’ man.
Good thing that with his military clearance, Barry had access to far deeper information.The only problem was that Miles was careful and all of his information was protected by firewalls.Barry was good with computers, but even this was beyond him.
Either the man was that protective of his information, or he had something to protect he didn’t want anyone to know.
Barry didn’t want to call him a shark killer, but he could be dealing in illegal activity.If that was the case and Mac was investigating him, she was in danger.
He couldn’t tell her to leave it to him because she wouldn’t.Mac thought the sharks were hers to protect; she wouldn’t leave this to others.
Barry could offer to help her, but she hadn’t told him about the sharks missing.Without revealing his connection to her sister, he would just have to do things from the shadows.
He was about to leave when his phone rang.Barry checked the caller ID before answering.“Hi, Doc.”
“Hi, Barry, I’m sorry for bugging you,” Dr.Shane greeted, sounding apologetic.
“You’re fine.Everything okay?”
“I actually wanted to ask you that.I know you’re used to this mission stuff, but I’m so worried.”
