The Saint Charles arrived at the target destination twenty minutes later. Tony hustled up to the bow and dropped the anchor into the black water, and then joined Jake on the stern, appearing jacked up, ready for the thrill of a night dive. His eyes danced, alert and aware of the danger lurking beneath the surface.

He cracked his knuckles. "How deep is it here?"

"Fifty-three feet."

"Awesome." He glanced at Jake. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

"The dive itself, no, but that monster fish down there concerns me."

Sarah appeared from the wheelhouse, having changed into her wet suit. She clunked a hefty air tank on the deck. "Time to gear up, boys."

The men complied with her command and were ready in less than ten minutes.

Jake took the time to help Sarah hoist an oxygen tank on her back. A harness secured the canister to her buoyancy compensator vest. With the help, she slid her arms through the holes and fastened the three buckles. She returned the favor, and despite a few hiccups, it pleased Jake that her attitude toward him had made a hundred and eighty degree turn in the last twenty-four hours. Maybe she would come around and actually believe he never slept with Rachel?

He stood next to Sarah and stared at the water, his fingers wandering up to the cross around his neck.

"You're scared, aren't you?"

"No." Jake's response flew off his tongue a little too fast.

"I see you still have it."

He noticed his grip on the necklace.

"I know your mom gave it to you when you were young, but do you really think it can protect you from the perils of life?"

"I don't know what I believe, Sarah."

"Nothing personal, I just don't get it."

His tone heated a degree. "My father gave it to her as a gift when she was pregnant with me."

"I know, but―"

"It's nothing," he unhooked the clasp, removed the necklace and turned from her, "just a good luck charm. I didn't have plans to wear it on the dive, anyway." He entered the wheelhouse and hung the keepsake over the throttle handle. For a long moment, he beheld it, wondering what made him keep it all these years. Then he left the cabin and returned to Sarah's side.

She gazed at him, her sapphire eyes glistening in the moonlight. "I was just gonna say—"

"At it again." Tony sized them up. "When are you two going to release some of this tension and make-out all ready?"

"Did that earlier today. Didn't work," Jake said, buckling the final strap on his vest.

The same eyes that looked at him with compassion a minute ago, now burned with fire. Sarah ground her teeth, hesitated like she wanted to strike back, but didn't. "I think we need to get moving."

No one offered an objection, so they hit the water one at a time.

Jake was the last one to leave the boat. The swells lacked the tranquility of clear turquoise as in the daytime. At night, the waves resembled an inky abyss, as if he were staring into the blackness of a mythological underworld. Lunar light bounced off the surface, failing to penetrate the sea. He paused, knowing what was down there, and against his better judgment, dropped over the edge.

He kicked for the bottom, enveloped by darkness. As Jake descended, an eeriness crept over him. He fought an incredible urge to draw his legs to the center of his body. His brain struggled with the simple command to stroke with each arm. The depths pressed in on every side, trying to crush him, but he knew it was in his mind. The dive wasn't deep enough to require a decompression stop, much less to have to worry about the pressure. Despite the anxiety, he pushed through to the bottom in less than a couple of minutes.

Having the ocean floor as a frame of reference calmed his nerves. His breathing slowed and his heart rate leveled out. Still, it took a minute for focus to return.

Tony bellowed over their communication headsets. "I think I found it."

Jake twisted around and spotted the beam of Tony's headlamp twenty feet away. Scissor kicking, he propelled his body, garnering momentum and then allowed himself to drift up to him. He looked back and found Sarah swimming toward them, her dive mask shadowed by the bright beam mounted above her head. Bits of seaweed hung in the glow of her light, surreal, like the debris was trapped in suspended animation.

When she reached them, the three floated above the large object, round circles of light swathing across the structure of the cage.

"The scene of the crime," Tony said.

"What do you make of it, Sarah?" Jake asked while trying to keep a discreet eye on his flanks.

"A trap, as we surmised. Used for fish, but nothing small." She touched the labyrinth of bars. "The cage is made of three-quarter inch steel, and look at the wide gaps."

Jake flashed back to the moment the fish launched itself toward him. The trap door looked crumpled from the impact, and he had a deep bruise below his shoulder blade to show for it.

Something caught his eye. A slender shape attached to one side of the trap. It appeared to be a thin sliver of plastic or ceramic. Jake swam up to inspect the find, which he didn't notice the other day when silt covered the bars. Part of the object must have broken off and had to be lying somewhere in the vicinity. With that in mind, he got to work digging through the sand, filtering it through his fingers.

"What are you looking for?" Sarah said, with Tony swimming up beside her.

He didn't answer at first, but kept searching. This could take all night, but he didn't give up. "I'm looking for the piece that broke off the trap."

Their heads turned in unison to the cage. They studied it briefly.

"Oh," Sarah said. "Good eye."

"We'll help." Tony gave an okay hand signal.

They worked for several minutes, stirring up small clouds of sediment from the bottom. Jake was about to admit defeat when his fingers struck something. He cleared away the sand and held the shape up for everyone to see.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"No idea." Jake rotated the object in his hand and checked both sides for any recognizable markings.

It looked similar to the piece attached to the cage, a white fragment about half the size of a salad plate, shaped like a crescent moon. A trace of blue lined the broken rim. He squinted at the serrated edge. Powerful jaw marks. After a closer examination, he determined the material to be hardened plastic, and it appeared to be part of a sign or insignia. Jake held the fragment up to the cage for comparison. A close fit but—

A streak of silver flashed by above them. He wrenched around as the shape vanished into a void of nothingness.

"Did you see that?"

"What?" Sarah replied.

"That!" Jake pointed a finger at the large body of a mako shark as it finned toward them, teeth jutting out from its mouth. Their headlamps concentrated on the approaching predator. Its long, pointed snout led the way, followed by big round eyes scanning the area, ominous and intimidating. "It's nice to see something besides the monster fish, but no, that wasn't what I saw."

The ten-foot specimen lumbered by in an investigative manner.

Jake started to speak, but a glimmer of scales lured his eyes away.

Out of the dark void, a second fish appeared as if through a curtain. The creature soared toward the mako, a wide set of teeth primed for a bite. Four or five feet longer than the shark, this new predator's reflective sheen glistened under their headlamps. Using its muscular and aerodynamic build, it t-boned its prey and sunk its teeth into the mako's mid-section. In a torrent of water, the fish drove the shark into the shadows and disappeared.

Jake peered at Sarah. "Believe me now?"

"What did I just see?"

"You saw a fish we haven't categorized yet. Maybe a new species, or a mutation. But whatever you label it, I think our next move should be to get back to the boat, posthaste."

"That thing's already had its meal for the night," Tony said, "but you'll get no complaints from me."

"Well, I don't have a death wish," Sarah added. "And like Jake said earlier, there could be more than one of those things."

"So, now you believe me?"

"Drop it, Jake."

"It's a unanimous decision then," Tony cut in.

Jake and Sarah nodded in unison, and without further word, they began the ascent to the surface. The gloom made it impossible to see over ten feet ahead of them with their headlamps. Dread swept over Jake, worse now than before. On his way down, he assumed the creature might still be in the area, but now he knew it was.

He swished his fins with urgency.

Instinctively, he found Sarah and tugged on her arm, trying to assist her on the way up, but she pulled away, driving harder with her legs, passing both men. It seemed like they'd never reach the surface. For a fleeting second, he wondered if he somehow became disoriented. He'd known people who lost their sense of direction on a night dive and if not for the rising bubbles from their breathing regulator, they would've never survived. He grew confident when he realized their carbon dioxide expulsions followed them up at a leisurely pace.

A few minutes later, all three divers broke into the open air.

Tony followed Sarah aboard the Saint Charles via the starboard ladder with Jake on his heels. Once on deck, Jake shed his air tank, dropped the fragment he found, and shuffled into the wheelhouse. He unzipped his wet suit and lowered it to his waist, his breath caught in his throat. He couldn't force it deeper. Just wanted to breathe in and exhale the fear from his lungs so he could feel normal again, like he was before yesterday when he almost died. He returned the cross to his neck, fastening the clasp with trembling fingertips. He'd observed orcas and great whites in their natural environment, been close enough to touch them with his hand. But he'd never come so close to death, as he did with that freakish fish, so close he could almost see the other side.

Jake closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. He concentrated on slow and deep intakes of air, until gradually, the storm subsided.

"Sounds like someone tangled with a fish that wasn't ready to be tamed," Sarah said from behind him.

"What?" He turned and screwed his face up at her, chest bared, hair dripping water down his back.

"This." She held up the piece he'd discovered and ran her finger over the bitten off edge. "It's a clue, an insignia belonging to some organization. It could be a large outfit or just a group of renegade poachers. But poachers wouldn't use insignias."

Her eyes dropped to the cross around Jake's neck and back up again. She didn't comment, only curled her lips into a respectful smile.

"Guess we know what to do next."

"Catch the first flight back to Orlando," Sarah said with determination in her eyes. "And get to the bottom of all this."