Chapter 15
Even through the wetsuit, Mac felt the instant temperature change when she was submerged into the water.
It wasn’t drastically cold but cooler than the surface by several degrees.
She turned to right herself and looked around.
The water was slightly murky from the constant churning of sand from the waves and undertow but not bad enough she couldn’t see a hand in front of her face.
She could see out to the dark blue wall of ocean a hundred feet away from her. She would have to keep her eye out for sharks. They could come upon her without any warning. Sharks had poor vision but a great sense of smell. They also blended in well with the ocean around them.
This was one of the drawbacks to diving solo. No one to watch her back. It was a risk she was willing to take to finally solve the mystery of why the sharks were disappearing in this area.
Mac pumped her legs and thrust her hands forward, diving down to the ocean floor which was twenty-five feet down. With the sun high, she could see straight to the ground and the beautiful white sandy ocean bottom.
Craggy rocks dotted the ground and the occasional coral and seaweed with crustaceans walking amongst them. Nothing obvious stuck out on why the sharks were disappearing from here.
Mac continued forward toward the ocean floor, going diagonal from the coast. She didn’t dare get too close to it and risk getting caught in the current and stuck against the rocks. That was something she would never get out of.
The ground disappeared into a trench. Mac looked over the edge, and all she saw was blackness. There were parts of the Bahamas’ ocean floor that sunk down to over thirteen hundred feet.
Mac wasn’t going to go explore that on her own. She also doubted the answer was down there. Mac checked the gauge on her tank. She still had about forty minutes of air left.
She swam above it, gliding to the right, and was about to crest a small hill when she stopped as she saw something jutting out from a rock.
Mac swam closer to get a better look at it. It was a fish head. She pulled it out from under the rock and studied it. She tucked it into her weight belt for evidence later, though she didn’t know what she was going to do with it.
She couldn’t go to the police with it since she was considered to be trespassing. So any evidence she collected couldn’t be used in court. Mac needed to catch someone in the act of baiting sharks.
Mac pushed off the ground to continue exploring and came over the hill, stopping and gasping in horror at what she saw. “Oh my god,” she whispered and surveyed around her at the devastation to the ocean floor.
She looked in every direction to see deep scratch marks as far as the eye could see. “Oh my god,” she whispered again. Coral was crushed, rock formations turned over, and the sea bed was void of life.
For years she had been studying here, and this area was always teeming with life. Fish were plentiful, coral abundant along with other sea life. There was only one thing she could think of that could cause that—bottom trawling, but it was banned.
Not only did it destroy the ocean floor and all the life that lived there, the nets could catch sea life it wasn’t intended to catch, like sharks. They drowned before the nets were pulled to the surface. It was barbaric and inhumane.
This was more proof of the harm Miles was doing to the area. Who else could do this? Was this why he’d bought the ocean rights here? His own personal fishing? Why would he care about fish?
Mac was debating what to do with this information when a force slammed into her from behind, almost knocking her head into the rock.
She rightened herself to see a shark swimming past her.
By the black lines adorning its back, she knew it was a tiger shark.
They were ambush predators that liked to attack from behind.
Obviously, there were still sharks in the area, and she was alone and with no way to protect herself. Since the sharks were disappearing from here, she’d thought they had left the area and hadn’t thought to bring her stick. It was time to get out of here.
Sharks attacked from below and behind. Mac looked around for the tiger shark but didn’t see it. She stayed low to the ocean floor and swam as fast as she could toward the direction of the boat.
She had been swimming for a while, so she didn’t remember exactly how far away the boat was. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the trench. It wasn’t much further from that. Mac felt something bump into her from behind.
She flipped over as the tiger shark swam right over her. As soon as it passed, it came back around headed straight for her.
Tiger sharks were notoriously known for aggression. Not as aggressive as bull sharks but still mean. But this shark was being more aggressive than normal.
As soon as it got close, Mac reached out and pushed it away at the tip of its snout. It veered to the right, and Mac noticed something metallic sticking out of its mouth. It looked like a hook.
The hook was large and made with heavy metal so it wouldn’t break. It was larger than the palm of her hand and as thick as the width of her thumb.
She didn’t remember ever seeing a tiger shark with a hook like that before. She’d seen plenty with scars and torn dorsal fins but never one with a hook in its mouth.
It must have had a tangle with a fisherman and now didn’t like people. She couldn’t say she blamed him. Mac would hold a grudge if someone hooked her and tried to keep her as a prize.
Occasionally, tuna fishermen caught sharks instead. None of the research teams used hooks. They used bait and a rope to get sharks close enough to the boat to tie them off to tag them.
Whatever the cause, it definitely didn’t like people. Mac looked around for it, but it seemed to have swum off. She didn’t think it was gone for good though. It was staying out of sight and waiting for the right moment to attack her from behind again. She needed to get back on the boat.
Mac pushed off the ocean floor and swam as fast and low as she could, her head constantly on a swivel, looking for the shark and trying to find the anchor.
She caught the dark line of the anchor out of the corner of her right eye.
She veered in that direction and followed the anchor up, silently praying the shark was now far away.
She’d never feared being killed by a shark until now.
Then again, she had never gone diving in this area alone before.
She always had her team with her. Burt stood on the stern with a stick ready in case a shark got too close, and another diver was always in the water so they could assist each other, but right now it was just her.
As she neared the bottom of the boat, she darted for the back where the ladder was. It wasn’t like her normal boat that had a flat landing she could just prop herself up to and roll away from the water. She’d have to remove her flippers before she climbed up the three steps to get out of the water.
Mac broke through the surface of the water and removed her breathing hose. She started to reach down for her flipper when she was grabbed under her armpits and pulled out of the water, immediately deposited onto the boat.
Mac looked up through the goggles into Barry’s angry face. “What the hell were you doing?” he snapped, pulling her closer by the biceps.
Mac pushed out of his arms and sat down in the cushioned chair to her left and started removing her gear. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another boat rocking in the waves next to hers. She hadn’t seen it when she’d been surfacing. It looked like one of Jacques’.
“Making coffee, what do you think? I was diving,” she yelled back defensively. She didn’t have to explain herself to him.
“Right off the coast of the hotel that is owned by Miles Banks?” Barry snorted in disbelief.
“Mere coincidence. There are nice corals here I wanted to check out.” She unzipped her wetsuit and shimmied out of it. Mac caught Barry’s glance to her bikini before he focused back on her face.
“What happened to working?”
She knew lying to him was going to bite her in the ass, and it was too late to backpedal now.
Mac huffed out a harsh breath; she should have known she couldn’t pull off such a big lie that involved multiple people.
“I am working. This used to be a hot spot for sharks. This was where I did a lot of my research. When Miles bought the hotel spot, he banned us from going into this area. Not long after, the sharks started disappearing from here. I wanted to get a look to see what could have caused their disappearance.” Now that she’d answered his question, he could answer hers.
“What are you doing here?” She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Not even Jacques.
“I rented a boat from Jacques.”
“And just happened to be where I was?” She wasn’t buying it.
“Jacques gave me your GPS coordinates.” Of course, Jacques has trackers on the boats so he didn’t lose them.
“But he knew you were coming here anyway.” Damn.
Burt must have warned him. She knew it hadn’t been a good lie to tell him she was seeking corals, but she hadn’t thought he’d rat her out to Barry.
“Since this area is restricted, I didn’t want to risk my team getting arrested.”
“So, you came out here alone.”
Mac shrugged. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. It still was. She’d gotten information she could follow up on now.
A tic worked in Barry’s jaw. He didn’t appear happy with her answer. “What if there had been danger? You were alone and unprotected.”
“I have been diving my whole life. I was never in any danger.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but he didn’t need to know about the shark. Besides, after she’d bopped it, it had left her alone. No harm, no foul.
“Even experienced divers don’t dive alone.”