Page 1 of Catch of a Lifetime
PROLOGUE
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, I thought, pressing the phone to my ear.
It isn’t supposed to be like this.
At the other end, the phone rang and rang. “Come on,” I said, as if that would help. “Come on, comeon. Oh my god, pickup. Please pick up.” Finally the ringing stopped. “Jerry?” I said. “Jerry, he’s?—”
“You’ve reached Jerry! Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.” The voicemail beeped.
I hung up, and called again.
And again.
And again.
“Hold on, Dave,” I said. The restless waves curled around us, the lacy, hissing foam tinged a faint but definite pink. I gazed down at where I held his head in my lap, and stroked his hair away from his pale face. “Hold on.”
The voicemail beeped.
I called again.
1
Iwas in the vegetable aisle of Lynwick’s poky little Co-op supermarket, disregarding the lyingRipe and Ready!stickers on the avocados and testing them one by one, when I felt him return that year.
Dave.
He was back.
I dropped the avocados I’d been squeezing, left the half-filled basket in the middle of the aisle, and bolted.
My Toyota Hilux was parked in the tiny carpark at the back of the shop, and driving would be much quicker than running. I beeped the car open while I was still on the move, threw myself into the driver’s seat, and fifteen minutes later—I’d got caught up in traffic on the high street—I made it to my small private beach.
I dumped the Hilux at the side of the narrow, rutted access road, and went slip-sliding down the dunes and onto the loose and shifting sand. I fell to my knees, scrambled up, and kept on running. It got easier the closer I got to the water, where the receding tide had left the sand wet and firmly packed, strewn with mats of cast-up seaweed.
The tide was still on the way out. It would be a while before it turned.
Stopping at the very edge of the glittering sea, I shaded my eyes from the harsh sunlight and scanned the horizon, watching for Dave’s usual showy leap.
Rain was coming.
Thick, sullen clouds massed in the hazy distance and would turn the lovely spring day into a complete washout the moment they hit land. For now, though, it was bright enough to make me squint as the waves tossed out dazzling shards of light.
The wind picked up and I shivered in the thin grey hoodie that was all I wore other than a t-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. I hadn’t bothered to grab my coat from the back of the car, not wanting to wait even as long as it took to lean over to the back seat and snag it. I’d been halfway out the door before I’d even put the handbrake on.
In his merman form, Dave could move astoundingly, terrifyingly fast. He made a mako shark look like a lumbering walrus. I had no way of knowing how far out he was when I’d felt that first deep, unmistakable pulse of his returned presence, when that strangesomethingdeep inside me woke up and reached for him. For all I knew, while I was juggling avocados in the Co-op, he’d been in the middle of the North Sea. He could be miles away yet.
Or perhaps even further.
I paced up and down the water’s edge. There was no sign of him. I sensed him coming, but it was still very faint.
I must be getting better at it, I thought as I watched, smiling and all but bouncing on my toes with impatience.
It didn’t cross my mind that there could be another reason for our connection to be faint.
Why would it?
I knew exactly how the next six months would go, because it always went this way. It wasus.
