She hadn’t realized he was so tall, but he made the reporter look like a shrimp. He wore swim trunks and a black T-shirt that showed how muscular he was. It was obvious he hadn’t shaved or slept. It made Bree mad that the hospital staff had turned him away from seeing her, for she owed him her life. If he could only locate Daria, she’d owe him for both of them.
Cole’s thick, swept-back hair shone dark in the sun, and his narrowed eyes looked almost black under his arched brows. His chiseled features were half-handsome, half-craggy, almost foreboding when he frowned. Bree shifted her legs under the sheet. As weak as she felt, the mere look and thought of him poured adrenaline through her body.
Cole and the reporter were standing on the dock of the Turtle Bay Marina. “I’ve been out with friends looking for Daria Devon and her scuba-dive boat,” he said into the mike thrust at him. “Especially near Keewadin Island, where Briana Devon was swept in, though she evidently swam a long way to get there.”
“Do you consider yourself a hero for saving Briana Devon?”
“She saved herself by managing to swim in during that sudden storm. I’m no hero, just someone deeply concerned and trying to help.”
Bree’s heart went out to him. He was on edge, frustrated and worried, she could tell.
“Quite a guy.” Josh’s voice interrupted her agonizing. “His ex-wife was on my initial feasibility/ exploratory committee. Bree, how are you doing, really?” he asked, turning to her when the coverage ended. He leaned against the edge of the bed and bent down to take her hand in his. “Your inner strength, I mean, your ability to face all this. I know how close you are to Daria.”
“I’ll be all right,” she vowed, blinking back tears and gripping his hand harder than she meant to. “The doctor will be in with a report soon. They think a lightning strike might have scrambled my thinking some, but that’s not true. I’m fine! I’ll be fine if we find her.”
Now he held her hand in both of his. “Just stay out of it and let the authorities do their thing, both of you,” he said, glancing at Amelia. “I promise you, I’ll pull all the strings I can and I’ll stay in touch.” He bent to kiss her cheek again. As he moved away, Bree saw his wife out in the hall, looking in. Before she could tell Josh, he hurried out. The room suddenly seemed silent and small again. Then Josh popped back in, pulling his wife behind him. Obviously, Nikki Austin had more influence getting where she wanted to go in the hospital than Cole did.
Nicole Grann Austin was even more striking in person than on TV, in the newspapers or on the glossy brochures the postal carriers delivered in droves these days. Her long, honey-hued hair framed her heart-shaped face, her teeth looked like an ad for whitening strips, and, even now, she looked dressed to kill.
“Nikki says the press in the lobby are really getting restless,” Josh said. “Bree and Amelia, I don’t believe you’ve met Nikki,” he added, making introductions all around. Nikki whispered something to him. “Yeah, good,” he told her, then turned to Bree again. “Look, we have a friend who does a lot of PR for us and pilots our plane. He’s a triple-threat man, because the truth is, he’s also a bodyguard. With this tough race and in this day and age, you just never know. Mark Denton is out in the hall waiting for us, and I’d be glad to loan him to you for a while to keep the media at bay, if you’d like. We’re staying in town tonight and don’t need him to fly us back to Tallahassee until tomorrow.”
“That’s really kind of you, but that’s okay,” Bree said. “I certainly don’t need a bodyguard.” She thought of Cole again. If he would just be willing to help her…
“You call us, if you do,” Nikki put in. Bree saw that the woman was studying her avidly. Maybe she was curious about what someone who had been hit by lightning looked like. Yet there was an edginess about her, or was that just energy and excitement in her big, blue eyes? “Here,” Nikki went on, “I’m going to write down both of our cell-phone numbers for you in case. And I’m a lot easier to reach than ‘the man’ here, if you need anything at all.”
Bree took the piece of paper from her, despite the fact Amelia also reached for it. With more good wishes and promises of help, they were gone. Bree caught a glimpse of their companion, Mark Denton, who reminded her of those buff, secret-service types who hovered around the president. That joke Josh had made about the White House—she didn’t put it past him or Nikki either.
“Now you just take his advice and get some rest, because I’m sure he’ll help us,” Amelia said as she opened the folded newspaper he’d brought and a glossy You Can Trust Josh Austin brochure spilled out on the bed. “See?” she said, pointing at it. “For once, truth in advertising.”
Finally, Bree was alone. After a detailed, positive report from the Fort Myers’s neuropsychologist about her tests, which had included simple memory quizzes, an IQ and an organizational-ability puzzle, no medical personnel were in the room. Amelia had gone to meet her boys, six-year-old Jordan and eight-year-old James, when they got home from school and take them to a neighbor’s before she came back.
Amelia had washed her salt-water-stiffened hair for her, chattering about how she used to wash her and Daria’s hair when they were little. The dressing on Bree’s wrist burn had been changed and the nurse had taught her how to tape a plastic sleeve around her arm so that she could take a shower, which she’d done before Amelia left. Actually, Bree had lifted several other plastic sleeves off the nurse’s cart, because she was going to need them.
She had to get out of here. Forget this staying in for further observation. She was the one who needed to do observation of the entire gulf if she had to. She was going to get Manny to take her out to the Trade Wreck so she and one of her scuba-diving friends could start to trace Daria.
Bree hated to be sneaking out, but she was certain, except for her strange perceptions of light and sound, that she was all right. Dr. Hawkins had said if she had any ringing in her ears, it would probably lessen, so she expected her other problems would end soon, too. He had insisted she needed at least another day of observation and then several days of rest, so Amelia was determined to have Bree go home with her.
Since she was not only burned but burned-out, Bree knew full well the doctor and Amelia would try to stop her from diving. She’d probably have to lie to Manny and whomever she called to help her dive about being given a clean bill of health, but she would do whatever it took to find her sister. What could they do? Arrest her? Lock her up? Nothing mattered but finding Daria. No way could she wait for the possibility of being released tomorrow. That might be too late; it might already be too late.
Bree had racked her brain for clues to what might have happened to her twin. The first thing she could think of to do was to learn whether the boat’s anchor chain was still planted near the Trade Wreck. Had it been pulled up or thrown over? Second, she had to find and salvage her camera. While Bree suited up, Daria had shot some sample pics off the side of the ship. What if there was some hint on that camera, maybe of another watercraft lurking nearby? And she had to call her civil air patrol friend, Dave Mangold. She needed a clue, any clue!
Even though Sam Travers hated her, she was going to ask him to use his large search-and-salvage vessel to look for Daria. She’d hire him if she had to. The coast guard and the civil air patrol obviously could use the help. Sam had that expensive echo sounder, too. If it could spot schools of fish and find anomalies, even wrecks on the bottom of the gulf…
She covered her face with her hands and sucked in a sob. It horrified her even to consider that Mermaids II might have actually gone down in the storm. It couldn’t be, but she had to try everything, had to get the answers no one else was giving her. Losing Daria would be almost like losing herself.
She got out of bed slowly. A bit light-headed, not really dizzy. Man, she hated these hospital gowns. At least they’d untethered her from those hanging tubes. She’d forced herself to eat lunch, tomato soup and half a grilled cheese sandwich, to get some strength and convince Amelia and the nurses she was recovering physically from her ordeal.