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“What if we never get another chance?” she asked, her voicesmall.
“Do you trust me?” heasked.
Shenodded.
“We’ll get another chance.” He took her hand. “Let’sgo.”
They stepped into thedarkness.
22
Julia rose through the water,her breathing regular and even, Ronan’s face, covered by his face mask, a few inches fromhers.
After two weeks of diving, she was finally used to the muffled silence of being underwater, the rhythmic sound of her breath working its way through the hoses attached to the oxygen tank on her back. After her initial panic, she’d even come to look forward to it thanks to the hours she’d spent underwater since they’d arrived inGreece.
She emerged at the surface a moment before Ronan and looked up to see Nick peering over the edge of theboat.
“Good job,” he said. “That was a halfhour.”
She removed her face mask — a specialty mask that allowed them to communicated with each other under water — and grinned. During her first dive, she’d been overcome with claustrophobia, convinced she couldn’t breathe even though her tank had been delivering oxygen to her lungs exactly as it was supposed to. She’d stayed under for less than tenminutes.
It wasn’t enough. She needed to be under for at least a half hour, and she’d spent almost every day practicing with Nick and Ronan while Braden and Nora worked their sources for information about Manifest’s nextmove.
“How’d it feel?” Ronan asked, treading water next toher.
“Good. I think I could have stayed down a littlelonger.”
Nick reached a hand over the side of the boat. She reached for it and let him help her aboard, then started shedding her equipment while Ronan followedsuit.
The boat swayed under her feet as she peeled off her mask and dropped her tank. They were so far out from the beach in Santorini that there was nothing but an azure stretch of sea in every direction, glittering like a blanket of diamonds under the afternoonsun.
She’d been despondent when they’d left Florence without Elise, but the weeks in Greece had been healing. Ronan had figured out that DOS on the sheet she’d found with Elise’s picture in the villa in Florence stood for Date ofSale.
Julia had been sick afterward, the idea of her sister being sold like cattle at an auction striking a new brand of terror in her body. It had made everything real. Elise’s abduction had been intentional, part of a trafficking ring with so much money and power that they were sure they’d be given a freepass.
But it hadn’t taken long for her fear to turn to anger. At least they knew where Elise would be next. The coordinates had pointed to the waters off the tiny Greek island of Kos, and Ronan, Julia, and Nick had promptly left for Nick’s house in Greece while Declan had gone back to Boston to handle the day-to-day running of MIS and to help coordinate information with Clay and histeam.
They assumed the coordinates meant the girls would be brought to one of the many multimillion-dollar yachts that routinely cruised the waters off the coast of Greece, and they’d spent hours on the boat and in the water, preparing Julia for a breach that would require them to dive to the yacht in order to avoiddetection.
It had felt perverse at first — being in such a beautiful place, learning to dive like she was on vacation, walking the beaches with Ronan and wishing Chief was there with them — but she’d reminded herself again and again that it was for Elise, that this time she would not leave without hersister.
“I think I’m ready,” Julia said when Ronan had shed hisgear.
“I think so too.” He bent to kiss her and she tasted salt on his lips. “You didgood.”
She knew what the words cost him, knew he didn’t want to admit it, that he didn’t want her to be ready for what was coming. Somewhere along the way he’d stopped arguing about whether she would come along, understanding that one way or another, she was going to look for hersister.
“Maybe we can go one more time before Saturday,” she said, wanting to reassure him. “Maybe a nightdive?”
His brow furrowed with worry as he unzipped his wetsuit. “Maybe.”
There would be security aboard the boat carrying Elise, although they had no way of knowing how much. They wouldn't even know who the boat was registered to until it appeared at the coordinates listed on the sheet with Elise’spicture.
They would have to breach it after dark, when they had a better shot at getting onboard without detection. It was always darker underwater, but so far they’d dived during the day when at least some of the sunlight managed to turn the water a soft wateryblue.
It would be different the night they staged Elise’s rescue, harder to keep an eye on Ronan and Nick, and on Braden, who would be diving with them while Nora stayed on the boat far enough away to avoid suspicion by the crew of the Manifest yacht but close enough to offer an assist or call in the authorities if it came toit.
They would have to play it by ear once they were on board the yacht, roll with the punches based on the number of guards and the layout of the vessel, which they hoped to get a better idea about once it moved into position. Nora had a satellite cam watching the area, waiting for it to arrive. Once it did, they would fly a drone overhead to try and get moreinformation.
