Chapter 13 #4
“Criminal behavior, Isabel.” Laughter twinkled under his sun-bleached eyelashes.
“Speaking of criminals, I surfaced in a raft of otters today. The bay’s lousy with them.
That’s good for the kelp forest, obviously.
But once you learn what they do to seal pups?
Still, MORI’s going to be happy with my shots.
There were plenty of coralline algae on the rocks, so the abalone population should boom soon.
And the visibility was pea soup. Shit for photos, but that means there’s lots of plankton in the water. I also spotted two other octopuses.”
“Were they—”
“—the weird thing I mentioned? No. Jetting and inking like normal. But I saw what could’ve been the detritus left over from a bait ball close to the beach.”
That was unusual.
“Fish schooling near the shore don’t usually form bait balls.
Not when they can hide in the kelp forests from predators.
” Bait balling was a last-ditch maneuver in open water, where fish had no place to conceal themselves and their sole defense against attack was a confusion in numbers.
Frowning, she spooned more rice and a dollop of beans into her tortilla. “But you saw one by the shore?”
“Murky turbulence and scales? Yes. Except that whatever it was had dissipated by the time I kicked over. Maybe the fish wised up, or maybe some tuna got there first? There was nothing left except for guts in the water. It was oily. I didn’t stick around.
Though it would’ve been interesting to get in the middle of a forming bait ball and capture some images from the interior.
. . No luck today.” Wes signaled to the waiter for their check and leftover boxes.
“There’s still time for something nefarious to surface, but it needs to wait until after my family’s chat tonight. ”
“Right, yes.” She folded her paper napkin, tucked it under her plate, and followed him to the Jeep.
She declined his offer to make an appearance on the Monaghans’ video call, however.
She’d stay in the bedroom. Dark, quiet, safe.
Besides, a glance through her email (scrolling past several new attempts by Chase to get hold of her—breathe—and even a message from Karen Meyer, who was requesting her input on a florist for the first time, likely to prompt Isabel into contact) unearthed legal paperwork sent from the Monterey county clerk. “I’ll review our registration forms.”
She also desperately needed a shower.
“Yell if you need help?”
Isabel nodded. She wouldn’t. After checking the octopus’s tank for security breaches, she stripped off her disgusting jeans, sweatshirt, and damp flannel, and retreated into the bathroom.
Wes’s laughter echoed through the walls and the blasting shower spray when he logged on to his family’s video chat.
She washed a pair of panties and a bra by hand, then filled her hair and ears with shampoo suds.
But she couldn’t help overhearing the intermingled Monaghan news and lighthearted arguments.
Stepping out of the tub, she belted a robe over her sleep chemise—Wes would pass through the bedroom later for a rinse, too—and settled upright against the headboard with her phone.
Three new voicemail notifications from Chase populated the bottom of her screen.
She opened the courthouse forms:
Birthplace. Nationality. Blood type.
“Just a little prick. Keep still! Can someone hold her arm—”
“—and I almost stepped on a washed-up puffer fish when I was exiting the water today. Getting stung by that thing would’ve hurt worse than the moon jellies I swam through on my first dive and—Mom, moon jellies aren’t very venomous. I’m fine. But before you ask, yes: I was wearing sunscreen.”
Answering laughter radiated under the door.
She put her phone down and laced her hands tightly together.
“How’d you deal with the jellyfish stings? Sunscreen wouldn’t help you, but doesn’t—”
“No. Urine’s a myth,” Wes answered his brother with an audible eye roll. “Isabel knew that, so she cleaned me up with vinegar and tweezers. I’m lucky she’s here.”
“You’re both still at the bungalow?” from Erin.
“Yeah.”
“Who’s Isabel?”
“Isabel Wright. She’s a marine biologist, Dad. We got stranded at Erin’s beach house at the same time because of my flight schedule and some really shitty behavior from Ethan’s brother. Again—sorry about this, Frizzy. Now we’re both working for the Monterey Oceanic Research Institute.”
“That poor girl,” an older woman’s voice added. “Erin mentioned something about a situation last Friday in San Francisco. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”
“A situation isn’t exactly how I’d—”
“Anyhow, is she with you this evening?” Was this Wes’s mother? “It would be nice to say hello. To thank Isabel for her help with your jellyfish stings as well.”
“Maybe later. She’s probably deep in a cryptic research project that’ll alter our understanding of animal consciousness.
Or something. She might actually beat Erin and Adrian in a competition for who can stay focused on the most obscure topic the longest. But—speaking of animal consciousness: did I mention that we’ve rescued an octopus?
She’s a beautiful little thing with blue eyespots.
Isabel outfitted an old aquarium for her. I’ll send a photo.”
“Of Isabel?”
“Of the octopus, Mom. I’ll share some highlights off my roll from today’s dive, too.”
The Monaghans’ conversation and focus steered away into a discussion of cormorants and sardines. Everyone wanted to know about Monterey’s resident otters. Adrian had comments about kelp.
“The underwater forests sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Did you know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Scientists estimate that we know more about other planets than we do about the ocean,” Erin chimed in.
“Brainiac,” from Adrian to his sister. He continued, “Kelp forests are blue carbon ecosystems. Globally, they trap as much carbon as the . Plus, plankton remove almost a third of our carbon emissions.”
“Thanks, Ms. Frizzle and Mr. Encyclopedia,” Wes said. The likelihood was high that he was both rolling his eyes again and grinning. “Adrian, how about seeing California’s kelp and plankton in person? Get your feet wet and come diving with me when you visit.”
“Hell no.”
“Suit yourself. Or—don’t. The water’s freezing, but I’m not using neoprene. It affects my balance too much, especially when I’m trying to stabilize my Nikon.”
“Because stability’s always been your strong suit.”
“At least I’m consistent with my sunscreen now!”
More laughter followed. Next came details of Adrian’s urbangreening proposal for the California Academy of Sciences that he’d be pitching soon in San Francisco, then updates on Erin’s electromagnetic quantum-gravity research, marathon training regimen, her plans with Ethan to attend a satellite launch in Cape Canaveral—and their mother’s renovations to the Monaghans’ family room in Grand Arbor, Michigan.
Lori Monaghan was calmly, effectively bullying the builders to finish work before the winter holidays, when her adult children would congregate at home.
“Will Ethan be joining us, sweetheart?”
“Yes. But this time, I’m hiding all the hot-sauce bottles—”
“Thank you.”
“Unless we have someone else new at the house this year,” Adrian jumped in. “Wild guess: what if Isabel also needs somewhere to go in December? She’s already putting up with Wes in close quarters, so that’s a good—”
“No! Mind your own damn business.” Wes snorted. “Isabel’s too smart to fall for any hot-sauce bullshit. She doesn’t need to prove anything to you by surviving them, either.”
Smart?
Despite his shadowing presence at MORI, which she’d identified as his mistrust in her ability to handle herself and her investigation. . . Wes actually thought she was smart?
She doesn’t need to prove anything.
She did, though. She had to prove so much.
But to know that she and Wes disagreed about her need to prove her value to his family, that this—of all things!
—would have made them argue? Swallowing, she reached for her discarded phone.
She had to type in her password to unlock the screen. It didn’t recognize her smile.
*
Wes was in the kitchen again the next morning, mugs and cereal waiting on the counter, leftovers from the Haute Tamale packed for lunch.
They fed the octopus: two sea snails and a shrimp, with a gastropod from yesterday as a snack.
Isabel studied the two-spot, frowning. It was odd that she hadn’t eaten her own leftovers.
Maybe they’d been overfeeding her? (That wasn’t likely with a growing juvenile, though.) They cleaned the tank’s protein skimmer and then drove to the institute for their shifts, where they sifted through the bay’s kelp for wrasse (Wes, yes) and MORI’s supplies for both delousing powder (Isabel, yes) and evil dissection tools (Isabel, no).
They reconvened at noon to stroll past boats bobbing in a tidal bore, up Sandholdt Road toward the harbor.
After fending off a flock of gulls—Wes had packed a squirt bottle filled with hot sauce, which he wielded at both his sandwich and the birds; Isabel failed to contain another smile and to capture the moment on camera, shaking with silent laughter—they walked along the beach to investigate interesting bits of bleached driftwood.
Then they kicked sand from their boots and returned to the octopus.
Along with the cephalopod, Isabel’s napkin list of questions was waiting for them.
When Wes nicked his thumb de-veining shrimp, she fished an adhesive strip from a medical kit that he carried in his duffel and asked about the scar that bisected his right eyebrow.