Page 10 of Turn the Tide
“Careful. Weather headed our way.”
When his worry warmed her insides instead of sparking a snarkyYes, sir, she’d known she should get out of there. Throwing him a smile and a wave, she’d taken off as fast as she could. Everything about the man said trouble—for her, at least. Oh, he’d always been friendly and respectful, but it was the unspoken stuff that got to her, like the hungry way he eyed her or, much more worrisome, the way that look lit her up inside.
She should have listened to his warning about weather, should have turned around right there and headed back to the mainland. Or, even better, she should have paused there longer, flirted a bit, maybe even screwed up the courage to finally ask him out.
But she hadn’t. And now she was pushing back the panic and slowly working through the eerie calm to the surface, which seemed to be getting farther away with every kick of her fins.
Inhale…stop kicking. Loosen up. Be big. Exhale…
BOOM!
The sound hit her, and she threw up her hands to cover her ears. Less than a second later, the rig’s supports shook, releasing a blinding dust cloud that could mean only one thing—earthquake.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.At fifteen feet below the surface, she fought the desire to head all the way up and counted down the seconds for her three-minute safety stop.
Calm down. I’m better off in the water than on land.
Not if the platform collapsed.
She’d never been scared like this on a dive, never shivered so hard underwater.
BOOM!
Another gray puff billowed from the platform, joining the dust rising from the depths like smoke from a forest fire.
She didn’t have to check her gauge to know she was running low on air.
Yeah, I’m done here.
When she broke the surface by the westernmost leg of the platform, she yanked off her mask and smelled it immediately—some kind of exhaust. Far above, an engine hummed, low and even, with regular metallic clangs.
It took about two seconds for everything to clarify. Not an earthquake.
The relief was palpable…and short-lived.
Zoe strained to peer up at the rusting monstrosity rising above the waves.Crap.Were they recommissioning this rig?No. No way. Not possible.It was too old; the wells were tapped out. The company had given her nonprofit permission to turn the Polaris into a reef. But the drill couldn’t very well power itself.
Had Bob, the missing sea lion, somehow climbed his way up the creaking metal and set something off?
The idea was ridiculous, but Zoe had to investigate. What if he was stuck or hurt? Besides, that made more sense than someone returning to drill an empty well.
Heart beating too fast, she swam back to her boat, dropped off her scuba gear, and returned to the metal leg that provided the only easy way up to the platform. She could hop up a few feet and then climb the ladder, if needed. Bob had made it up to the lowest level once. If he was there now, he could be stuck, sick, or dying. That thought made her move faster, a little frantic.
She pushed up onto her palms, hefted herself onto the low shelf—sharp and spiked with her beloved sea life—and squinted across to the other legs. The metal rumbled under her feet.
No sea lion.
Where was he? She glanced up and got a face full of grime—hard little specks of rust raining down with every angry clang of the machine. Bob wouldhatethis noise. She couldn’t stand the idea of him being around here somewhere, alone, freaking out at this attack on his home.
Zoe set her mouth and wrapped her hands around the rungs. Find Bob, if he was around. Then figure out what the hell was going on up there. She shut her eyes for a few long seconds, working up the courage to climb. Funny how she was perfectly comfortable diving beneath the water, but climbing up high…
She swallowed back a tickle of vertigo that couldn’t possibly be real, since she hadn’t even moved yet.
Okay. Up.Even through gloves and dive boots, the rusty ladder was abrasive.Please don’t tear.Not only would the return climb be a pain with ruined neoprene, but she couldn’t afford to replace her gear, and she wouldn’t let the nonprofit pay for it.
By the time she reached the first level, she was struggling to breathe, from dread as much as from the climb itself. Dizziness threatened to hit. She shut her eyes and pretended not to feel it. There was a reason she’d spent so much time in this place but had never come up here.
The noise was deafening, and—holy crap—the place was huge. Fending off another solid rush of vertigo, Zoe tilted her head back and took in the massive structure rising several stories above. Somehow, from below, the rig had seemed more manageable. Though it was the smallest of the ones claimed by the nonprofit, the sheer size of its underwater structure had told her it was big. But the ocean had a knack for minimizing things. Standing up here, high above the waves, she was keenly aware of the water dripping from her body to the metal grate she stood on. She could picture each drop sliding through the holes before plummeting to the ocean far below.
