Below The Surface. Karen Harper

be found at any cost.

      Cole was quick. Bree felt him make a grab for her ankle, but she kept kicking. She shot the strobe off repeatedly to see as she swam inside the sunken ship.

      7

      Bree was desperate to find the camera, and it was too narrow and too late to back out now. In and down she swam, headfirst into the rabbit hole of a dangerous wonderland. Everything seemed alien, even when she lit the dimness only by her single shaft of flashlight beam. Each time the blinding strobe flashed, the rust-encrusted depths of the long-sunken ship made it seem as if its metal skin was bleeding. The dizzying whirl of floating particles caught in the weird currents toyed with her equilibrium.

      In this section of the ship, the port-side wall was the floor of the wreck, so the vessel’s ceiling swirled past on her left and its floor on her right, making her feel even more disoriented. She swam over portholes that living souls had once peered out on their fateful voyage. This world—her entire world—had gone topsy-turvy. Had any of the crew’s bones been trapped here like their living cargo’s? Had something or someone sunk Mermaids II?

      Bree saw no more cattle skulls, though several strange sea creatures peered at her and a small lobster scuttled away. But there was no camera. When the corridor turned and she peered beyond to some sort of galley, she maneuvered around to go back out and was amazed to see Cole, so close that she jerked back and clunked her tank into a bulkhead.

      In the small, enclosed space, Cole seized her wrist and pulled her toward him. Out of here and up to the surface, he motioned, shining his light on his gestures. Shadows from his hands leaped across his face mask; with his beam at that sharp angle on his strong, sculpted features, he seemed to wear a fright mask. It made her think she really didn’t know this man, yet she needed him badly.