Fatal Tide - Iris Johansen [71]
Kelby very carefully and quietly got out of bed and quickly dressed.
He paused at the door. She hadn't stirred. It was unusual for her to sleep this soundly. She was ordinarily up at dawn and moving around with restless vitality. Now she looked like a weary little girl, all tousled and warm, and so goddamn beautiful it made his throat tighten to look at her.
So don't look at her. There were things to do.
He turned and left the cabin.
He found Nicholas on deck. He didn't waste words. “Archer has a man close enough to know we've freed the dolphins. He's threatened to kill them,” Kelby told Nicholas. “We need to know where he is and make sure he doesn't get any closer.”
“It's a big ocean.” Nicholas grinned. “But I'm a big man. You're smart to pick someone so exceptional for the job.” His smile faded. “He called Melis?”
“Last night.”
“Bastard. We've got to do something about that son of a bitch—soon.”
Kelby nodded. “My thought exactly. We not only have to find the sentry, we have to find the mother ship. And as discreetly as possible. I don't want Archer to know we're zeroing in on him.”
“You think he's on the Jolie Fille?”
“It makes sense if he's staking out Melis. Wilson said his ship left Marseilles before we departed from Lontana's Island.”
“And we're going to take out the Jolie Fille?”
“Probably.”
Nicholas smiled. “Thank God for small favors. Now, this is a man's game. I was getting tired of baby-sitting dolphins.”
“We're all baby-sitting the dolphins.” He looked out at Pete, who had just surfaced. “Let's hope they return the favor when Melis and I are forty meters underwater.”
The dolphins were probably only toying with her, Melis thought. At first, they had seemed to have a purpose, but for the past hour they'd been swimming through caves and around rocks and coral reefs. She could swear they were playing hide-and-seek.
Kelby swam up to her and signaled they should surface.
She shook her head and swam after Pete. One more try. The dolphins had led them farther from the ship than ever before in the last three days. The water was murkier here than it had been a short distance away. It was difficult to see Susie, who was swimming ahead of Pete. They disappeared behind a huge rock.
Melis swam around the boulder.
No Pete. No Susie.
Kelby swam in front of her and jerked his thumb upward. He was clearly exasperated.
Well, so was she, but she wasn't giving up until she tried one more time to locate the dolphins. Kelby could just be patient until she had her chance.
She made the universal sign of derision with one finger and swam around him.
Five minutes later she still hadn't caught sight of Pete and Susie.
That was it.
She signaled Kelby she was going up and slowly started the journey toward the surface.
She tensed as something brushed against her leg. She looked down to see a dorsal streaking away from her. Susie?
Kelby was behind her with the shark gun in his hand. He shook his head as if reading her mind. Not a shark. He made a swimming motion with one hand.
A dolphin. But it hadn't been Susie or Pete. Through the cloudy water she could see that this mammal was bigger than either of them, and he was swimming with purpose toward—
My God.
Dolphins, hundreds of them. She had never seen a group this big.
Kelby was signaling her, asking her if she wanted to stay and investigate.
She hesitated and then shook her head. She kept going up. She broke the surface a few minutes later and waved at Nicholas in the tender some distance away. He waved and then sped toward them.
“Where's Kelby?” Nicholas asked as he stopped beside her.
It was what she had been wondering. “I don't know. He was right behind me.”
Kelby didn't come to the surface for another two minutes.
She drew a sigh of relief. “So much for the buddy system,” she said as Nicholas pulled her into the boat.
“I wanted to see them at closer range,” Kelby said as he climbed onto the tender. “They're all big, really big. Aren't males bigger than females? Could they all be males?”
“Not with a group that large. Males do travel in