Page 11 of Turn the Tide
Needing to look anywhere but down, she wiped her damp face and squinted ahead. Those were lights—on an ostensibly deserted oil rig out in the Pacific. And, despite the slick slide of seagull guano under her feet, there couldn’t be an animal for miles around—not with the racket whoever was on the rig was making.
Since the original owners had decommissioned this place, nobody officially owned it—at least, not the last time Zoe had checked. Nobody should be here besides the Reef Guard crew, and that was just her and Jane and a couple weekend volunteers.
Whoever was here, messing around where they didn’t belong, had frightened Bob and forced millions of creatures from their rightful habitat. No way was she letting them get away with it.
Ignoring the frigid wind trying to cut its way through her wet suit, she straightened her back, set her shoulders, and took off on a hunt for whoever was squatting in the platform she’d come to think of as her own.
Her footsteps inaudible beneath the deafening clang, she took a quick walk around the open-air portions of the platform. The place was a cold, rusted labyrinth of steel girders and piping. The colors—bright reds and yellows and oranges—clearly meant something, though she had no idea what.
The structure swayed beneath her feet, and Zoe scrabbled at the handrail, clinging to it for dear life. After a few deep breaths, she looked toward the dimly lit center of the platform. No way did she want to go in there. Or, worse yet, up. She could get lost in this maze, walking around in circles for hours without getting anywhere.
But the pumps were in there somewhere. She’d seen enough schematics to know that. And so, probably, were the people running them. She couldn’t stop them if she didn’t find them.
I should turn around, she thought.I should go get help. I shouldn’t be here alone.
She’d turned to do just that when a hand covered her mouth. Seconds later, pain bloomed at the side of her head, her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor in silence.
***
Eric waited until full dark before setting off for the Polaris.
Dammit, he’d known something wasn’t right. He’d felt it when he’d cast his first line today and hadn’t gotten immediate interest. Even earlier, when the porpoises hadn’t been there to greet him, he’d wondered what was up. Now, seeing the strange aura in the night sky just past San Elias Island, he knew things weren’t as they should be.
But like the jerk he was, he hadn’t warned Zoe.
Not a jerk—an idiot. Because though the fishing was decent in this spot, that wasn’t what dragged him out here day after day. He was honest enough with himself to admit that what brought him to this isolated place was the possibility of catching a glimpse of her. He wasn’t even sure what it was about her that got to him. The obvious answer was her long-limbed, easy grace, coupled with that insanely wild, flyaway hair—brown, originally, but tinted blond in places—or those dark eyes, somehow sunny and smoldering at the same time. A Southern California siren. Add to that the way she handled a boat, like she’d been born on the water, and the passion she showed for marine life. The whole package was appealing. More than that—magnetic.
Of course, even after all this time, he couldn’t actually bring himself to speak to her beyond a couple words. She was so young and energetic and alive, and he was a dried-up husk of what he’d once been—retired at the ripe old age of forty-one. Every single time she appeared, his interest perked up, but all systems shut down. Useless.
Rather than let himself wallow in self-disgust, he pushed the engine to full capacity.
For some stupid reason, this woman who was probably half his age tied up his tongue and turned his body into a minefield of teenage sense memories. Girls he couldn’t talk to, stupid shit coming out of his mouth, a body he could no more control than the waves beneath him.
Christ. Anything could have happened to her out there, and he’d held back because he didn’t know how to deal with hiscrush?
He’d just begun to circle the island when the lights from the platform blinded him. He pulled back on the throttle, beyond wary now. Squinting against the glare, he scanned the darkness beneath the rig, expecting to see the silhouette of her boat.
Nothing.
He spun in a full circle, checking the island and the horizon beyond it. Had she taken a different route home today? No. He’d have seen her either way.
The angry knot in his gut told him she was still out there, somewhere. And though the sky was low and the wind had picked up, the water was too calm to give her any trouble. So where was her boat? And where the hell wasshe?
That left the platform.
A platform that shouldn’t be occupied, much less lit up like a Christmas tree.
Even from this distance, he could hear that something was going on out there—and he was pretty sure Zoe had nothing to do with it. But what the hell was it? Whoever it was couldn’t be drilling. Cali-Power had tapped the damn oil field out. That well was dry.
Slant drilling, maybe…but no, the platform just wasn’t big enough to merit that. Which meant Zoe was there with whatever pirate crew had taken over.
Cussing like the roughneck he’d once been, Eric pushed his boat toward the rig as fast as it would go. As he got closer, familiar scents assailed him so hard he had to shut his eyes against the memories. Diesel fuel. Probably from a power-generation module providing juice for whatever the hell they were up to. His heartbeat picked up. Smells were funny that way, sending him straight back into the thick of some of the toughest moments of his life. Spices and dust slapped him right back to the Middle East. Diesel exhaust could be any airfield in the world, but mix it with salt water and he’d be back on the rig, drilling for oil.
Yeah, well, different rig, different time, different man.
Caution made him stop a couple hundred yards out, kill the engine, and pull off his shoes, wishing for a wet suit. For a few seconds, he stood there, swaying with the water, while emotions—or were they flashbacks?—slapped him, hard as bullets.
Even after all these years, he felt the adrenaline, the pull of the hunt, the thrill of the unknown. He still missed it. Life on the rig had been one thing, but once a SEAL, always a SEAL.
