Karen Harper - Below The Surface

Manny was waiting for them at the Two Mermaids with the door open. Thank heavens, no reporters were in sight. “Let’s go upstairs,” she told the men and, though every muscle of her body ached, she tried to lead them upstairs gracefully.

Her and Daria’s two-bedroom apartment above the shop was a light, airy and pleasant place with white wicker furniture, bright floral pillows and open vistas of the marina, bay and gulf. Without Daria, it seemed oppressive, so she was glad to have their company.

She took the orchid Cole had carried up for her and put it on the glass-topped coffee table, which was cluttered with the books Daria had been studying for her accounting class. They’d finally admitted they’d been too careless with the financial end of their business. Manny had volunteered to handle that, but they’d decided one of them should specialize in it, and Daria had cheerfully volunteered. She’d seemed obsessed with the course work ever since. In college—Dad had insisted they go to his alma mater in Miami—neither of them had taken courses in anything like accounting or business. Bree had studied languages, and Daria was a philosophy major. The truth was, both of them had majored in giving scuba lessons and getting a tan on trendy South Beach.

“Please sit, both of you,” Bree said, and went into the small galley kitchen. When she was certain they couldn’t see her, she grasped the edge of the counter-top and leaned against it, stiff armed, staring at Daria’s latest note—dated last Friday—on the bulletin board over the sink: Don’t worry about me. Going to study w/ friends after class and might be in late.

She could not cry, Bree told herself, could not dissolve in frustration or fear. She must find strength she did not have, courage she did not feel. However hurting and exhausted, she had to get moving.

She gulped a glass of orange juice, then poured Coke into three glasses, dumped a bag of taco chips into a bowl and carried all that in on a tray. She wanted desperately for these men to see her in control. Cole sat on the sofa, and Manny had taken her rocking chair, so she sat in Daria’s. They were talking about how Manny never dived but oversaw the shop, their two boats—the larger of which was now missing—and the heavy equipment. Man, Bree thought as she drank down half of her soda, but she needed this sugar and caffeine to stoke her strength.

“So, what you planning?” Manny asked her. “I know you. Want me to get the coast guard and the air patrol on the phone?”

“I’m going to call them, but I want to talk to both of you first.”

She forced herself to look directly into Cole’s narrowed eyes, because she figured she could get Manny to do what she wanted. Yes, despite the dire situation, the instant arc of energy and tension crackled between them as fiercely as it had the day they’d had that impromptu lunch on the yacht months ago. She had to admit that Cole DeRoca was still the great unknown, deeper than the sea. He had been nothing but kind and caring, but she well knew there could be unknown fathoms beneath. She felt so intensely drawn to the man that she feared her spinning senses could too easily swamp her usually sensible nature. She couldn’t afford a distraction right now when she needed to be self-disciplined. She needed the man to help her and had to shut everything else out.

“To try to find Daria,” she told them, gripping her sweating glass hard in both hands, “I need to figure out if she left the dive site of her own accord or unwillingly.”

“Caramba,” Manny exclaimed, flinging gestures, “for sure, it was unwilling.”

“So you plan to do what?” Cole asked, putting down his glass and leaning forward with his wrists on his knees.

“I need to see if our boat’s anchor is missing from the seabed near the turtle grass meadow. I dived down the anchor line as usual. But when I was ready to go up, I didn’t even look for it and just made the ascent from where I was.”

“Yeah, you done that before,” Manny put in.

“But was the anchor there,” she went on, “and I just didn’t see it in the increasing turbulence and lessening visibility? Is it still there? And if so, was the anchor chain hauled up properly or shoved off in a hurry? We paid good money for that new anchor and chain, because we’ve had them pull loose, and twice our rope was cut on something. If Daria didn’t leave under duress, she would have hauled it in.”

“What you thinking?” Manny demanded. “That more than a storm made her leave you there?”

“Of course it was more than a storm that made her leave me there!” Bree exploded. “That was bad, but it wasn’t a hurricane! Sorry,” she added more quietly, covering her eyes with one hand. “I’m just on edge, and I know you’ve been, too, Manny, trying to handle your mother’s illness, Lucinda’s attitude and everything.”

As she lowered her hand and looked at him, he shook his head. “Lucinda’s craziness nada compared to this,” he said. “Anyhow I can help, I help.”

“Good,” she said. “I’d like you to go down to our slip at the marina and make sure Mermaid I is ready to go and that scuba tanks are filled—for two divers, if Cole will come along. It still stays light pretty late. At least the storms missed us today, so maybe the underwater visibility will be better.”

“You’re going diving now?” Cole demanded. “Look, Briana, I’m sure you know a lot of local divers who could search for—”

“I need to do it! I know the area. Besides, if I could just retrieve my camera, it could have something on it. I had to let it go in the storm.”

“You got photos of something strange?” Manny asked. He clenched both fists. Even with his brown skin, Bree could tell he was flushing. His voice rose as he got up from the couch and took a step toward the door. “You really thinking someone did something dirty?”

“I don’t want to think that, but I know she wouldn’t just leave, storm or not, toothache or not. I know Daria as well as I know myself!”

Manny bent to swig the rest of his soda and went out. She could hear him thudding down the stairs, muttering to himself.

“Briana—”

“You can call me Bree if you want.”

“The thing is,” Cole went on, “even if the doctor cleared you to leave the hospital, that hardly meant you could go diving right away.”

“He didn’t clear me,” she blurted. “I cleared myself and cleared out. I have to do this!”

She jumped up, making Daria’s chair rock back and forth on its own as if a ghost sat there. With a shiver snaking up her spine, she moved to the French doors, which had a view of the bay. The sight of the sunlit marina and the gulf beyond almost blinded her. Pushing the double doors open, she stepped out onto the veranda where they kept a wrought-iron table and two chairs. She grabbed sunglasses Daria had left there and shoved them on to mute the slant of late-afternoon sun. Not only had her heightened perception of light not worn off, but she was certain that, beyond the normal bustle of the marina, she could hear the seductive sounds of the sea.

Bree decided she’d need to start wearing earplugs, not when she dove, but when she was on terra firma. She’d often had to wear them to sleep. Unlike Daria, she couldn’t fall asleep anywhere. On their overnight flight to Greece for their college-graduation gift, Daria had conked out right away and arrived raring to go, while Bree had wasted an entire night’s sleep just being annoyed that Daria was lost in sweet dreams. Daria…lost…in dreams that were really nightmares…

“Bree,” Cole said, following her out and putting his big hands gently on her shoulders from behind, “under ordinary circumstances, I’d tell you you’re nuts. You’ve got a lot of professional people looking for her. Besides, the police have a dive team—though, I suppose, they won’t deploy it until they’re convinced of foul play, even if we ask…” His deep voice trailed off.