Dead Tide by A.J. Scudiere

Author:A.J. Scudiere [Scudiere, A.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Griffyn Ink

42

“Hannah,” Donovan said, pushing his way into the conversation as gently as he could. His hand touching the other woman's forearm was, he hoped, comforting. “We can't take Jason with us. We would like to, but there are plenty of good excuses for him to stay behind. Like losing Allison was just too much. Or he’s not ready to be on the water. Or maybe he can’t travel at the last minute. So, you picked up a new crew.”

In that moment, he wished he had Christina Pines’ ability to push people into thinking what she wanted them to. They had come to get Hannah to first agree to the trip, and then agree to take on a new crew—mainly them. Eleri had already struck out, and Donovan could feel that he was about to, too.

Hannah shook her head. She wasn’t buying any of Donovan’s arguments. “Jason needs the job. He's my right hand. Allison and Neriah are both gone. I have to have someone I trust on board. Honestly, I think the whole thing looks suspicious if I take on a completely new crew.”

She made a compelling argument. But Donovan and Eleri were unable to give their most important response: What if something had to happen that revealed what they really were? There would be nowhere to escape, and no way to hide it from Hannah. . . or Jason.

NightShade was the FBI’s best-kept secret. If they ruined that? Well, Westerfield would have their heads.

“I’m not going out without Jason.”

Where Donovan had thought he would have the upper hand because he wasn't Hannah's friend, he now found he had nothing. Leaning back, he conceded that advantage to Eleri, though it didn’t give her much of an edge.

They left ten minutes later.

“First off,” he said, irritated as they climbed into the hot car. He was certain he would not miss this while they were on the ocean. “What the hell just happened in there?”

“We surrendered.” Eleri shrugged as if to say What could they do?

“I got that. But why?”

“Because Hannah was right. And the harder we fought her, the more it became clear we had something to hide. We’re just going to have to hide things from Hannah. If we're hiding it from her, we can hide it from Jason, too. We can't go out without Hannah.”

Donovan was beginning to think he’d had a really stupid idea in making Hanna retrace her steps. But Eleri was still making her case. “Hannah knows the scenario. She knows where they stopped to get specimens. If anything happened to Hannah, even if she just got a stomach bug, we'd be dead in the water.”

Donovan swallowed hard, disliking Eleri’s choice of words as much as he disliked the new plan. But he conceded, there were no better options. Eleri wasn't wrong.

They had three days before the six of them hit the water. Hannah, Jason, GJ, Noah, and Eleri and Donovan. Everyone but Donovan and GJ would be diving in teams. At least, that was the plan—attempting to figure out where Allison had gone, and what she had seen.

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