Chapter 18
CAMILLE
T he Kogia watched me the way the ocean does when it plans to keep its secrets. No blinking. No flinch. Just that coin-dark eye and the faint lift of skin at her blowhole when a breath chose her.
I adjusted the sling again, checked the line on the IV, touched two fingers to the soft spot behind her eye. My pulse slowed to meet hers. Numbers stacked in my head. Respiration. Pup response. Tone. The litany steadied me the way prayer steadies other people.
History.
That’s what I didn’t have for her. Where she’d been the last forty-eight hours before coming ashore.
What noise she’d swum through. What scraped her flank.
When I don’t have history on an animal, I go find it—fishermen, docks, AIS tracks, somebody’s uncle with a GoPro.
Tamika had been doing exactly that. We never treat a case blind if we can help it.
The thought lifted its head and looked at me.
I didn’t have history for Jacob either.
I heard my father again: a conclusion faster than the facts is a superstition . The word superstition made me bristle. It also made me reach for my phone.
“Keep her blowhole clean,” I told Becca, even though she was already doing it. “Call out any rate change. Two ticks, not one.”
“Copy.”
I stepped to the end of the aisle where the fans didn’t whine and thumbed McGuire’s number. She picked up on the second ring like she’d been holding the phone.
“Allard.”
“I know we don’t know each other well, Lieutenant,” I said, keeping my voice even, “but I need a quiet check.”
A measured inhale. “What do you need, Doctor?”
“There’s a Marine working through Dominion Hall—Marcus called him a liaison.
First name Jacob.” I hated how thin that sounded.
“He was with me last night and this morning. He broke up an incident at a bar. This morning, a woman on the beach accused him of something serious. I don’t have a last name.
I need to confirm who he is before I decide anything.
Discreetly. If I’m wrong about him, I don’t want my mistake to make it worse. ”
Silence followed—professional, not punitive—like she was weighing the ask rather than the asker.
“I can deconflict with Dominion Hall,” she said. “They’ll know exactly who you mean if I ask about your assigned liaison. No paper trail. You’ll get a yes/no and a service history headline. No gossip.”
“Yes.” My chest loosened a hair. “And Leanne?—”
“I know,” she said. “Discreet.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re not the only one asking me for favors today,” she said, voice going dry.
“I’m en route for 1100 with your permit packet and something you’re going to want.
It won’t make you love the Navy, but it should keep you from lighting us up.
The pattern points off our books—outside any U.S.
authorization—and it doesn’t match the usual contractors. ”
“Names?” I asked.
“Not over the phone,” she replied. “But it isn’t the ones you raised yesterday—or anything on your father’s ledger. We’ll talk at eleven.”
I looked at the clock. 10:24. I could feel the minutes like warm coins in my palm.
The radio on my belt crackled. It was our stranding network channel, not the private 7–Delta. The air around me changed the way it does before lightning.
“Charleston Network, this is Sullivan’s Island Fire. We’ve got a small cetacean in the swash at Station Twelve. Alive. Rolling in the break. Crowd gathering.”
I was already moving. “Network copy. This is Allard. Size? Color? Head shape?”
Static, wind, a man who sounded like he’d rather be fighting a kitchen fire. “Small. Gray. Blunt face. No beak. Maybe a baby?”
Kogia again. I felt my stomach drop and level. “Do not roll the animal. Do not put water in the blowhole. Keep dogs back. Keep people back. I’m outbound. Fifteen minutes if traffic behaves.”
“Copy.”
“Becca,” I called, and she was there. “You have incident command on the pen aisle. If Kogia One dips, you call me and we pivot. Tamika, you’re with me. Miguel, load short sling, towels, blowhole shields. Quiet skiff in five.”
“On it,” Tamika said, already jogging.
My father stepped out of the shade of the door like a ship easing from fog. “You need a boat?”
“I need your hands not to slip,” I said, and he smiled once with his eyes, which is a man’s way of saying I’m with you .
We moved. The facility became choreography. Towels. Shade. Radios. The throw bag. Hydration. I turned rules into breath: don’t torque the spine, don’t drown an animal with kindness, don’t promise a crowd a miracle.
As I hit the dock, my phone buzzed in my palm.
McGuire: Per your quiet request, Jacob = Marine Raider. Deployed multiple theaters. Cleared. Assigned as temporary liaison through Dominion Hall. No red flags in personnel. I’ll give you more in person.
Heat crawled up my throat. Relief. Shame. A hundred other things I didn’t want to name. It was good intel, but not gospel. “Cleared” kept doors open. It didn’t certify a heart. “No red flags” meant a file hadn’t screamed. It didn’t mean it had nothing to say.
Promising. Not proof. I could hold that thin bridge, for now.
Me: Thank you.
Her reply landed before my thumb lifted.
McGuire: See you at 1100 .
The radio on my hip crackled with the stranding alert.
Me: Scratch 11—juvenile whale reported north of the lighthouse on Sullivan’s Island. I’m rolling now. Can we slide to 2pm at my facility? I’ll keep 7–Delta up.
McGuire: Copy. 1400 at your facility. I’ll bring what we discussed. Stay safe.
“Doctor,” Miguel called. “Skiff’s ready.”
I slid the phone into my pocket. “Let’s move.”
We pushed off. The quiet motor purred low, not bragging, just competent, and I could feel the hull answer the creek the way a good dance partner answers a lead.
Tamika handled the lines with that particular gentleness she saves for the beginning and the end of hard things.
My father took the bow, a tall shadow watching for debris I wouldn’t see in the glare.
“Seven–Delta from Allard,” I said into the mic. “Request soft perimeter at Station Twelve, Sullivan’s Island. Keep drones down. Minimal cameras.”
Ryker’s voice came back dry. “Already on the road. Two plainclothes on scene in three. We’ll float the idiot line farther back.”
“Bless you,” I said, which made my father snort, because the French atheist in him loves when I sound like my mother.
Traffic on the water was bad and getting worse.
The tide pulled at the marsh edges, petty and insistent.
I threaded between a shrimp boat and a pleasure craft piloted by a man who had never learned to point his bow anywhere useful.
Tamika braced her knee against the console and pointed two fingers to trim.
I adjusted. The skiff lifted and settled, sweet.
My phone buzzed again and I let it vibrate against my thigh until it felt like a heartbeat. I did not check if it was Jacob. I could not check if it was Jacob.
“Breathe,” I told the water, then realized I was telling myself.
Sullivan’s water tower broke the horizon.
The strip of pale sand at Station Twelve grew a crowd.
When they saw the skiff arrow for the swash line, the mass moved as one.
Atlas’s detail did their part. Two men in nondescript shirts became gravity.
The cluster bent around them and re-formed farther back like iron filings finding a magnet’s edge.
The animal lay where the waves turn to hands—small, dark, the head rounded, mouth line low. Not a bottlenose. Kogia, yes. My stomach set and then steadied, because, at least, it was a shape I understood.
I killed the motor before the last set and let the boat kiss the sand. “Tamika, blowhole shield. Papa—sorry, Lucas—sling under on the lift. No heroics.”
“No heroics,” he repeated.
Calls like this lit him up. When the yard ran quiet, he’d wander into my facility, pretending he was only dropping off a bracket until I handed him a job. He loved it when I bossed him—carry this, hold that, stand here—and I’ll admit, I loved that Charleston made room for it.
In Miami, he’d been three states and a lifetime away from my beaches. Here, I could look up and have my father at my shoulder.
That was a plus.
We waded. The first cool slap of water at mid-thigh jolted everything that had been stuck since the dune. I knelt and slid my palm along the animal’s side. Skin warm under the film of sand. Breaths too fast. The little whale made a sound like a dream she wasn’t done having.
“Bonjour, petite,” I murmured. “On va y arriver.”
The next wave broke. We took the rise under the belly and slid the sling into the breathless space before the water fell again. The whale shuddered when the canvas touched her, and then did not fight.
Good girl. Don’t fight me. Fight the rest.
“Rate?” I called without looking.
Tamika glanced, counted, answered. “High but climbing down.” She cut a quick grin at the crowd loud enough to carry. “Don’t be heroes, folks,” she said. “Be helpful and stay back.”
From the corner of my eye I saw a phone begin to rise. One of Atlas’s men drifted across the person’s line of sight, his body like a curtain casually pulled. The phone thought better of itself and dropped.
The radio on my belt chirped. Different tone. McGuire.
“Allard?”
“Go.”
“I know you’re busy on the stranding, but you’ll want this. I’ve confirmed—all U.S. Navy assets are clean for your window. We’re tracking a separate narrow-band source offshore with a non-commercial profile. We’re escalating a joint investigation.”
I closed my eyes a second longer than I should have. The sand under my knees felt honest. The universe tilted toward something that sounded like a plan.
I didn’t want the Navy to be my enemy. I hoped to God that McGuire’s information was accurate.
“Leanne?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “We still have to pry open some boxes that don’t want to be opened.” Her tone softened. “But you don’t have to set us on fire today.”
I hung the radio back and looked down at the little whale. The breath coming from her blowhole misted my wrist. I used my thumb to wipe a grain of sand from the rim.
We waited for the next rise, shifted weight, moved the sling two inches higher at the pectoral.
My father’s forearms flexed. Tamika adjusted her feet to make herself bigger than the water by sheer stubbornness.
The whale settled into our hold the way bodies do when they recognize you’ve decided not to drop them.
A wave lifted my hips and for a blink the world went underwater quiet. The hush wrapped my head, and in it I heard my own voice. Breathe .
A part of me hated that it was his, too. But I loved that it worked.
“On my count,” I said. “Three breaths then we move her into the skiff. One.”
The whale exhaled, ragged but there. Somewhere behind me a child asked if this was a shark. Tamika said, without turning, “No, baby. She’s a little whale who took a wrong turn.”
“Two,” I said. The second breath came cleaner.
A soft scuff on the sand to my left. I thought for a stupid second it would be Jacob, big and sure at my shoulder.
It wasn’t. It was one of Atlas’s men wordlessly offering the stern line toward my father.
The ease of that exchange—a tide passing a fish downstream—tightened something in my chest that wasn’t fear.
“Three,” I said, and we lifted together.
Canvas whispered. Water gave, then tried to take. We answered with angle and patience instead of muscle. In two breaths we had her bow in the skiff. In three we had the weight centered and the blowhole high with the shield settled over the spray. The boat took her like it had been waiting.
“Tamika, ride in,” I said. “Keep her low. Dock in ten. Miguel’s prepping the quiet pen now.”
Tamika nodded, palms flat on the canvas. “Go,” she said back. It’s what we say when we mean I’ve got her. Go do the other thing only you can do.
I stepped back, water wicking off my shorts in little rivers.
My legs shook from more than the surf. The crowd applauded in that human way that makes me want to set something on fire and hug someone at the same time.
The skiff pushed off, my father shoving at the stern and then wading after her to give the transom one last loving slap like a blessing.
My radio chirped. “Seven–Delta, Allard,” a familiar voice said. Ryker. “Quick check—do you have Jacob with you?”
“No,” I said. “Not with me.”
A beat of deliberate silence. “Copy. If he reaches out, ask him to call me. His vehicle’s still at the Folly access. We’re trying to get eyes on him.”
Uh oh.
The words took the cartilage out of my knees. I locked them. “Copy. If he contacts me, I’ll relay.”
“Appreciated.” The channel clicked dead.
I stood with my feet finding grit and tried not to picture an empty horizon. Tried not to picture anything at all.
I tucked the phone back and turned toward the skiff’s fading wake. “Let’s move,” I said, already stepping into the water. “We’ve got work.”