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Cole turned away. “I can’t watch this. Come find me when it’s over, Annja. We need to talk some things through.”

Annja turned back to the ocean. She didn’t feel particularly compassionate toward Sheila. She’d deceived her and made Annja feel like a fool for trusting her. And now, Sheila was about to get her due. Still, no one deserved such a violent death.

“Not much longer,” Jax said.

The dorsal fin cut through the waves, and seemed to be picking up speed. Annja thought it looked a bit strange. She frowned and had to remind herself that she was about to watch another human being be killed by a shark.

And yet, somehow she didn’t feel anything deep inside her.

Annja frowned. Have I changed? she wondered. Have I grown cold? Have I forgotten what it’s like to feel the fear that Sheila must be feeling right now?

Sheila screamed again as the fin bore down on her.

“God,” Jax said. “Here it comes.”

There was a sudden explosion of movement as the shark’s head reared out of the water. The massive form blocked everything from their view, but then, in an instant, it had clamped down and sunk completely back beneath the waves.

Sheila was gone.

21

Annja found her way to the galley for dinner. Tom was sitting at the nearest table eating toast and water. Annja nudged him. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” he said. “And I hear I’ve been missing out on all the excitement, which pisses me off to no end.”

“Just a few gun battles, a giant shark, that sort of thing,” Annja said. “Nothing you couldn’t experience any day of the week.”

“Thanks for rubbing salt in the wound.”

Annja smiled. “I’m getting dinner. Will it gross you out if I sit with you?”

“What are they serving?”

“Looks like spaghetti and meatballs.”

Tom blanched and bolted from the galley. Annja watched him dart past Cole, who had just entered, and shook her head.

“I’m guessing,” Cole said, “that he’s not actually all that well yet.”

“Doesn’t seem to be,” Annja said. “Listen, sorry about earlier.”

“About what?”

“Sheila and the shark.”

Cole let a small grin play across his face but his voice was grim. “Sounds like a bad sea ditty they’d sing down at a dive bar.”

“It does,” Annja said. “But I don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of bloodthirsty woman out for vengeance.”

“I don’t think that at all. I just couldn’t stay to watch it happen. Maybe because it goes against everything I’ve come to learn about sharks. For me, seeing something like that would cause me to question everything I know.” He shook his head. “It’s crazy, right? I mean, here I am spending all my life studying this incredible fish and then we encounter this one. And it acts like a bad movie prop.”

Annja shrugged. “All I know is it’s big and seems utterly deadly and hell-bent on eating people.”

“That’s the thing,” Cole said. “It’s what I don’t understand. I’ve seen other sharks in action attacking fish and whatnot. I’ve never seen something like this. Even the manner in which it attacked Sheila seemed wrong.”

“I thought you didn’t watch.”

Cole looked sheepish. “My scientific curiosity got the better of me. I peeked from the wheelhouse.”

“And what does your experience tell you about the shark?”

Cole shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I’m not so sure I’m ready to believe it is a shark.”

“Sure looks like one to me.” Annja helped herself to the pasta and then led them over to a table. “I mean, it’s got the dorsal fin, the teeth, and moves like a plane through the water. Isn’t that pretty much it?”

Cole bit into some garlic bread. “Remember when I mentioned to you earlier that something hadn’t clicked with me and I needed to mull it over some more?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I’ve mulled. And what I’ve come up with is going to seem a bit strange to you.”

Annja smirked. “Cole, you really need to spend a lot more time with me before you will succeed in shocking me. I can almost guarantee that anything you say won’t surprise me.”

“Genitals,” Cole said.

Annja shook her head. “Okay, I was wrong. That’s not exactly