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Islid my sunglasses on as we stood around the body of the latest victim. The morning light was painfully bright as the sun rose and glinted across the water. An early morning jogger had found the body of the young female.
“It just doesn’t make sense.” Fynn kneeled in the sand beside the body. “I spent most of the night studying the different wounds on each body. This female only has one wound, the single bite to her neck. There are no other obvious signs of trauma to the body.”
“Does the bite match any of the bites on the other victims?” Eason stepped forward, looking over Fynn’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Fynn replied. “But it’s the one bite that doesn’t match any known species, which means we still don’t know who, or what, killed them.” Fynn rocked back on his heels, a frown on his face.
“I wonder what made this kill different,” Eason mused. “The others were found in the water and had been nibbled on by local sea life. She is the first to be found dry on the shore. If it weren’t for the obvious bite mark, I wouldn’t have guessed she was linked to the other victims.” Eason leaned in for a closer look at that telltale bite, before turning to Kye. “Have we gotten the full backgrounds on each victim?”
“They sent them to us last night, but the files were bare,” Kye replied. “It seems the locals were hesitant to include the full details for each person. I’m guessing there are some small-town politics at play. I put in a call to my guy back at the base, and he’ll be sending backgrounds within the next few hours. By the time he finishes, we’ll know if they so much as jaywalked.”
I nodded at Kye, appreciating the fact he had already taken care of this. My team worked smoothly and efficiently; everyone pulled their weight.
“What can you tell us about the bite, Fynn?”I asked the doctor.
He walked toward me, slipping on his own pair of sunglasses. “The more I study it, the more confused I become. Without doubt, it’s the bite of a predator. It’s strange, closer to a human’s bite mark than the mark of any marine species I’ve studied. Both the canine teeth and the lateral incisors are longer than the other teeth. It also appears that there’s a smaller row of teeth behind the larger teeth.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a shark? They have multiple rows of teeth.” Kye asked the obvious.
“I can’t be positive until I am able to exam the predator myself, but the second row is different than the known shark species. Perhaps it’s a deformed shark, but that wouldn’t explain the clean bite this victim has on her neck. There would be torn flesh, but this is a clean impression. Hopefully the medical examiner can figure out the cause of death.”
My gaze was drawn to the expansive ocean. Waves lapped at the shore, scattering seaweed and shells along the beach.
Suddenly, I was overcome by a strange and powerful urge.
Closer.
The need to move toward the ocean was sudden and demanding. I always felt the call of the ocean when I was near it. I longed to slip on my fins and find peace under the surface. But this was a pull so strong that I moved automatically toward the water. My feet stumbled as I was pulled between the urge to obey and the desire to fight the irrational demand. I was working, this was not the time to enjoy a quick dip.
Eason’s hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Are you okay, man?”
I staggered to a halt. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. It’s probably just jetlag.”
He looked at me with a serious expression. “You feel the urge to swim too, don’t you?” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yes,” I said, frozen in place. “It’s so strong that I am afraid to move at all.” I couldn’t hide the tension in my voice. This wasn’t normal.
A splashing sound to my left startled me from the trance and I snapped my head in the direction of the noise. Kye must have felt it too because he now stood knee deep in the foamy sea. Eason and I covered the ground between us in a few short strides, stopping just shy of soaking our shoes.
“Kye! Kye!”we called.
His eyes were full of longing when he turned his head toward us. “I thought I saw something, or someone, in the water. Maybe it was just sea grass.”
I shook my head in disbelief. What was going on? I couldn’t fight the feeling that we had been watched from the moment we stepped onto the beach, but I didn’t want to worry the guys by mentioning my own paranoia, so I remained silent.
“Is everything okay over here?” An officer walked toward us, eyeing Kye like he was an idiot.
“It’s fine, officer,” I said. “Our colleague thought he saw something and wanted to make sure it wasn’t a piece of evidence.” I turned to Kye in the water, then to Eason. “Let’s head back.”
As we walked back, we saw that the body was being loaded into the back of the coroner’s van. Fynn joined us as we headed toward our rented SUV. It was odd that we had known him for less than twenty-four hours, yet somehow, he seemed to fit into our team like a missing puzzle piece. We had worked with men and women around the world for many years. Their backgrounds had ranged from academia to law enforcement, military to the tough-as-nails working class, and we had managed to do our jobs and work well with them all. But they were outsiders, never part of our team. Until we arrived here and met Fynn.
This case got weirder with every passing hour. The hair on my neck rose and I could feel eyes on me even as I opened my car door, but not from the bystanders outside the tape. No, I was being watched from the ocean.
The sooner we wrapped this up, the better.
* * *
“Doyou think we’ll actually catch the creature in action?” Kye tossed me a water bottle as he spoke.
