Just the steady humming of the pumps and the soft slosh of water moving through pipes.
I preferred it back here, and it just so happened to also be the perfect hiding spot.
I leaned over the small observation tank in front of me, adjusting the flow valve by a fraction. The juvenile lionfish inside flared its fins irritably at the disturbance, its delicate spines spreading like some kind of venomous lace.
“Easy, mister,” I murmured, mostly out of habit. “You’re fine.”
I made a note on the clipboard clipped to the side of the tank and tried not to picture the front gallery.
Tried not to picture the severe, dark-haired man who had just walked through the doors again like he owned the place.
Which, apparently, he kind of did.
The first time I’d noticed him, I thought he was just another donor doing the rich-person-tour thing. Nice suit, expensive shoes, with that lofty, slightly distracted air like he was already halfway to his next meeting.
Except he kept coming back.
Always in a damn suit.
Which wasweird, because no one dressed like that here unless they were the director or someone from corporate, and even then, they usually ditched the jacket after five minutes in the humidity.
Tobias Kelly did not.
No. Tobias Kelly walked through the aquarium as if the climate were personally irrelevant to him.
I’d asked about him after the third time I caught him standing by the shark tank.
“Oh, that’s Tobias Kelly,” Emma had said, like it should’ve been obvious.
She’d been deep in a bucket of squid at the time, handing pieces to me while we prepped for the afternoon feed. Her wavyblonde hair was tied back in a ponytail in an attempt to spare it from squid guts.
“TheTobias Kelly?” I’d asked, recognizing the name from several metal plaques around the building.
Emma shot me a glance. “Yeah?”
“The one who funded the entire coral lab?”
“And the new filtration upgrades,” she added. “And the turtle rehab wing. And like half the research grants we get every year.”
Right.
ThatTobias Kelly.
Which explained why the director practically teleported across the floor every time the man walked in.
“He’s a bit eccentric,” Emma had continued, shrugging. “But harmless. Just really into marine conservation.”
I had hesitated before saying it, but the thought had been sitting under my skin long enough that it came out anyway. “Do you ever get the feeling he’s… watching people?”
Emma had stared at me for a second, then laughed. Not meanly, just like I’d said something absolutely absurd.
“Cove,” she’d said, wiping squid ink off her gloves. “He’s a billionaire philanthropist. I promise you he’s not stalking aquarium workers.”
“I didn’t say stalking.”
“You implied it.”
I’d flushed a little. “I just meant that he looks at people like he’s… studying them.”
