Chapter 1 The Invitation
The Invitation
Huaka?i: trip, voyage, journey, mission
Carpinteria, California
Minnow felt the shark before she saw it. She always did. A prick of her senses and she spun around in the dark water until
she spotted the enormous animal looping around in a wide, exploratory circle. As it closed in, she could sense its agitation.
She glanced around to see where the boat was, but there was no sign of it. The dark edges of panic began closing in . . .
And then she heard a loud, jolting ring.
It had taken her a while to fall asleep, by way of counting octopuses, but she had finally managed to drift off. Without turning
on the light, she fumbled for the phone, knocking it onto the wooden floor in the process. It was probably a wrong number,
and the intrusion annoyed her, cutting into her fiercely guarded sleep time.
“Hello?” she mumbled.
“May I speak with Dr. Minnow Gray, please?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Speaking.”
“Minnow, this is Dr. Joe Eversole from University of Hawai‘i. I’m sorry to call so late in the evening, so I’ll get right
to the point here. I think we have a problem. And I’m hoping you can help.”
Oh shit.
She sat up and switched on the light. “Don’t tell me there’s been another incident.”
A slight pause. “So you’re familiar with our . . . situation.”
The way he said situation caused an itch under her skin. What had been happening in Hawai?i was more than a situation, and it alarmed her on many levels.
“Of course I am. Sharks are my world.”
Anyone with a television or newspaper knew what had gone down in the past few days. A deadly attack and a missing person along
the same rugged stretch of Hawaiian coastline, plus shark sightings galore.
He spoke in rapid fire. “Got it. And yes, there’s been another incident. This one not fatal, but the victim is in bad shape,
and it’s got me worried because this is number three, not to mention the near misses. People are freaked out, and I worry
what’s coming next. It could get nasty.”
“What kind of help are you looking for?”
“Well, I’m short-staffed. Our whole team is in Australia for a symposium, and I could use a white shark expert who knows their
shit. Someone to help me figure out what’s going on—why all in this location. I can’t say for sure yet, but my guess is this
latest is another white shark.” He paused to catch his breath, then added, “I was hoping you might be able to come out to
Hawai‘i for a week or two. Maybe more.”
“What about Doc Finnegan? I’m surprised you didn’t ask him.”
Men were top of the food chain in this field—in all of marine biology, really. Doc Finnegan was a leading white shark researcher with a big ego and territorial tendencies. He was also her mentor. Doc had spent time in Hawai?i, so he seemed like the natural first choice.
“Yeah, I tried to get him, but he’s in Guadalupe for the next few weeks. He’s the one who recommended you.”
Of course. She knew that. But dropping everything and jetting off to Hawai?i was a big deal. Especially now. There were so
many reasons to say no, number one being she had scraped together and earmarked nearly all her savings to finally get a vessel
of her own, and aside from that she had seventy-four dollars to her name. Her new little nonprofit, Sea Trust, wasn’t even
off the ground yet, and she had been planning on writing grant proposals and securing funding and a hundred other things this
week. Not to mention her therapy sessions. Leaving now would derail everything.
She tucked a misbehaving lock of hair behind her ear. “As much as I’d love to, I don’t think I can swing it,” she said.
There was a long pause. “This is a chance of a lifetime. A known great white in Hawai‘i. Could be a game changer for you.”
Somewhere between those words was the unspoken truth of her predicament. A way of letting her know he knew of what had happened
on the Farallon Islands last season. The events that had broken her a thousand ways.
Joe was right, though. It could be just what she needed. A chance to gain a foothold on her own, since there would be no going
back to the Farallones. Not now, not ever.
“If I say yes, could you pay my way there?” she asked.
“I can pay your way and house you.”
Her next words unspooled on their own. “Hold off on the housing, I may have a connection on the coast. When do you need me?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
Yes.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The next morning, she showed up at the airport without a ticket but managed to find a seat on a plane to Honolulu, where she would transfer to a smaller plane headed for the Big Island.
On the five-hour flight over, Minnow took the time to review the few facts she knew about the series of incidents, rereading newspaper clippings and notes she had taken while watching the news.
On top of the now-confirmed two incidents and one missing swimmer, there had also been a kayak bumped by what was reported to be a massive shark, and a surfer knocked off his board by something “big, dark and very strong.”
The first fatal incident occurred five days ago. A twenty-three-year-old man and his father were surfing a remote wave when
the son and his board were thrown out of the water. The father had allegedly witnessed the whole thing. There had been so
much blood that the whole area around them had turned red. They made it to shore alive, but the son died soon after.
Minnow closed her eyes. A hazy picture formed in her mind.
Red water, golden kelp leaves, a beam of sunlight.
Just as fast as it arose, the image disappeared. Whether it was a memory or something conjured by her imagination, she couldn’t
be sure. In the past few months, more of these pictures had begun to appear during waking hours, and it felt like the hypnotherapy
was knocking something loose inside her.
According to the most recent article, the man’s surfboard had not been found, but the search was still on. Bitten boards were
often full of clues indicating the species involved. A shark sometimes left a perfect jaw imprint, better than a dentist could
have taken. And even better if there was a tooth or a tooth fragment lodged in the foam of the board. Right now it sounded
like all the scientists had to go on was the way the flesh was torn and the nature of the encounter to lead them to their
conclusions. She hoped Dr. Eversole could provide more details.
The other death—presumed death, at least—was murkier.
A swimmer had taken off from Niu Bay toward a passing pod of whales.
He’d left his wife and daughter onshore and swam out to sea and up the coast until he disappeared from view.
Visiting from California, and in Hawai?i to train for the IRONMAN Triathlon race, he was reported to be a very strong swimmer.
But he never came back. According to the papers, a helicopter pilot involved in the search had seen a shark “the size of a small whale” in the area.
To be sure, Minnow was not in the business of flying around the country investigating shark attacks. Attacks on humans—especially
fatal ones—were rare events. And when you got down to it, humans killed far more sharks than sharks killed people. Scores
more. In the past year in US waters, there had been only two confirmed deaths by shark, while humans killed two million sharks. The thought caused her a blink of sadness.
Weary from another nightmare-plagued, shitty sleep, she closed her notebook and looked out the window at the cloudless sky.
The situation at hand was unusual. At least a few white sharks migrated to Hawai‘i each year, that was known. Many of the
ones they had tagged ended up venturing out to the central Pacific in late fall and early winter, but they usually weren’t
foraging—scientist speak for “hunting.” So, what was happening here?