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  PRAISE FOR ANDREW MAYNE

  THE GIRL BENEATH THE SEA

  “Distinctive characters and a genuinely thrilling finale . . . Readers will look forward to Sloan’s further adventures.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Mayne writes with a clipped narrative style that gives the story rapid-fire propulsion, and he populates the narrative with a rogue’s gallery of engaging characters . . . [A] winning new series with a complicated female protagonist that combines police procedural with adventure story and mixes the styles of Lee Child and Clive Cussler.”

  —Library Journal

  “Sloan McPherson is a great, gutsy, and resourceful character.”

  —Authorlink

  “Sloan McPherson is one heck of a woman . . . The Girl Beneath the Sea is an action-packed mystery that takes you all over Florida in search of answers.”

  —Long and Short Reviews

  “The female lead is a resourceful, powerful woman and we’re already looking forward to hearing more about her in the future Underwater Investigation Unit novels.”

  —Yahoo!

  THE NATURALIST

  “[A] smoothly written suspense novel from Thriller Award finalist Mayne . . . The action builds to [an] . . . exciting confrontation between Cray and his foe, and scientific detail lends verisimilitude.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “With a strong sense of place and palpable suspense that builds to a violent confrontation and resolution, Mayne’s (Angel Killer) series debut will satisfy devotees of outdoors mysteries and intriguing characters.”

  —Library Journal

  “The Naturalist is a suspenseful, tense, and wholly entertaining story . . . Compliments to Andrew Mayne for the brilliant first entry in a fascinating new series.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “An engrossing mix of science, speculation, and suspense, The Naturalist will suck you in.”

  —Omnivoracious

  “A tour de force of a thriller.”

  —Gumshoe Review

  “Mayne is a natural storyteller, and once you start this one, you may find yourself staying up late to finish it . . . It employs everything that makes good thrillers really good . . . The creep factor is high, and the killer, once revealed, will make your skin crawl.”

  —Criminal Element

  “If you enjoy the TV channel Investigation Discovery or shows like Forensic Files, then Andrew Mayne’s The Naturalist is the perfect read for you!”

  —The Suspense Is Thrilling Me

  OTHER TITLES BY ANDREW MAYNE

  THE UNDERWATER INVESTIGATION UNIT SERIES

  The Girl Beneath the Sea

  THE NATURALIST SERIES

  The Naturalist

  Looking Glass

  Murder Theory

  Dark Pattern

  JESSICA BLACKWOOD SERIES

  Angel Killer

  Fire in the Sky

  Name of the Devil

  Black Fall

  THE CHRONOLOGICAL MAN SERIES

  The Monster in the Mist

  The Martian Emperor

  OTHER FICTION TITLES

  Station Breaker

  Public Enemy Zero

  Hollywood Pharaohs

  Knight School

  The Grendel’s Shadow

  NONFICTION

  The Cure for Writer’s Block

  How to Write a Novella in 24 Hours

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Andrew Mayne

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542009645

  ISBN-10: 1542009642

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE BIG BILL

  CHAPTER TWO FREE DIVE

  CHAPTER THREE UIU

  CHAPTER FOUR WRECK

  CHAPTER FIVE SALVAGE

  CHAPTER SIX UNDERCOVER

  CHAPTER SEVEN FINAL REPORT

  CHAPTER EIGHT RELATIONSHIP STATUS

  CHAPTER NINE GOLDEN MERMAID

  CHAPTER TEN SECRETS

  CHAPTER ELEVEN CAITLIN

  CHAPTER TWELVE GRACE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN ADIDAS

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN CAGED

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN LAIR

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN UNDERGROUND

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ELEMENTARY

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN MISFIRE

  CHAPTER NINETEEN RESIDUE

  CHAPTER TWENTY WALL OF SHAME

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE WEIRDOS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO DITCHED

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE DISPLACED

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR FIFTH WHEEL

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE SMOKEY JOE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX RUINS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN PIECES

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT MATERNAL INSTINCTS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE WETLAND

  CHAPTER THIRTY THE MAZE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE ABYSS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO SQUAD GOALS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE STAINED

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR ROGUES’ GALLERY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE NIGHT FISHING

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX SCUM

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN ACCOUNTABILITY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT THE FOG

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE LOW TIDE

  CHAPTER FORTY TIDE POOL

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE MANIFOLD

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO NET

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE RIP CURL

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR ANCHOR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE PIRATE CODE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX SHORELINE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN BARNACLES

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT BOTTOM FEEDER

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE ZINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY MOVIE CLUB

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE THE SCENT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO BAIT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE BREATHING ROOM

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR GASP

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE HIDEAWAY

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  BIG BILL

  Everyone is looking at me funny.

  When I pulled up to the scene of the accident in my truck, all eyes and flashlights were trained on the small lake into which a car had nose-dived after flying off the highway and through a guardrail. Now the police officers, fire rescue crew, and paramedics are staring at me like I’m about to be declared prom queen and have pig blood dripping from me. From the grim look on the face of the Florida Highway Patrol officer walking my way, I’m starting to think public humiliation might be better than what he’s going to tell me.

  I feel the momentary panic I sometimes experience when I arrive at the scene of an accident and fear that the face under the tarp might be my daughter, Jackie; my boyfriend; or someone else I care about.

  But I left Jackie and Run back on the houseboat when the call came in. Of course, I do have my other family members. My nephews are starting to drive, and they possess the McPherson wild-child genes that I’m sure will be causing my brother headaches soon.

  “Detective McPherson?” asks Corporal Finick.

  “Yes?” I reply as I look around the scene. There’s a
paramedic truck parked near the edge of the lake. Three police cruisers and a fire truck wait on the roadway near the twisted guardrail. A set of tire tracks ripped into the grass leads to a rocky embankment and the water below.

  Thirty feet into the lake, I see the faint glow of a taillight from a submerged car. How the hell did it get that far out?

  “Thirty minutes ago, the car went in. One victim was able to swim ashore. There’s a second person trapped in the vehicle, presumably dead.”

  I hurry to the rear of the truck and grab my diving gear. “Presumably?” I echo as he follows me.

  “The rescue crew wasn’t able to get a closer look.”

  I spot the orange raft they use for water rescues at the edge of the water. Two men are in it using poles to probe the water. That’s odd.

  “Has anybody been able to go down there?” I ask.

  “You’re the diver on call. Where’s your backup?”

  “We haven’t hired them yet.” I pull my wet suit over my shorts and top and zip it up. “So you need me to check inside the vehicle and recover the body?”

  “Yes. We also need you to get photos and bag the body as quickly as possible.”

  “Can’t you take photos with a camera on a probe?”

  “We, uh, dropped the underwater camera next to the vehicle.”

  “I guess I’ll get that too.”

  I pull my tank onto my back and check my mask. Another man walks over. He’s got a red beard and a Florida Fish and Wildlife jacket. I remember his name: Chris Kaur.

  “You tell her the situation?” he asks.

  “I was about to,” replies Finick.

  Fish and Wildlife got here fast. Hold on—I look over the mangroves at the far edge of the lake and the lights in the distance. That would be the power station. There’s an outflow pipe that runs straight from the station to the lake, connected by a channel at a narrow junction to the north.

  “Wait. Is this Pond 65?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I was getting to that,” says Finick.

  I glance back at the men on the raft and realize what they’re doing . . .

  They’re not probing the water for the victim. They’re trying to keep the alligators from eating him.

  Pond 65 is a popular spot for our local giant reptiles. They enjoy the warm water of the power station’s outflow and tend to congregate here.

  “It can wait until morning,” says Kaur. “We can try to draw away and tranq any that don’t cooperate. But I’ll need some time.”

  “Right,” replies Finick. “It’s just that . . .”

  I put the pieces together. “The guy who got out alive says he wasn’t the driver, and you think he’s lying, making this a homicide investigation.”

  “Getting the body before . . . before it gets tampered with would be ideal. Bruising can tell us where they were sitting . . . assuming their skin’s still intact.”

  “And not eaten by a gator. Got it. Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” says Finick. “Again, no pressure. This car and the survivor are also suspected in two hit-and-runs. Both fatal.”

  “So he’s a suspected repeat hit-and-runner and getting his passenger’s body out now is what could help you nail him?” I grab my fins and walk to the edge of the water. “No pressure. Got it.”

  “McPherson,” says Kaur, “there’s more to it.”

  “I’ve swum in alligator-infested waters, boys. They don’t bother me; I don’t bother them.” Although I’m usually not trying to yank two hundred pounds of human meat away from them.

  Florida has so many alligators that if you got rid of the humans and only counted them, it’d still have a higher population than many other states. With over a million of them in our waterways, if they were the ferocious man-eaters people thought, then encounters would happen all the time. Instead, attacks are incredibly rare. Gators avoid us as much as possible.

  I call out to the men in the boat, “Keep anything with a tail and teeth away from me.” I point to their spotlight. “And keep the area lit.”

  I give my tank a last-minute check.

  “Sloan!” Kaur calls out. “Hold up, you idiot.”

  “What? Time’s ticking, Chris. You guys got pointy sticks. We’re good. Right?” He shakes his head.

  I glance out at the black water illuminated by spotlights and get a buzzing-bee sensation in my stomach. “Don’t tell me . . . pythons? Piranha? A grouper on the sex-offender list?”

  “Not quite.” He glances at Finick for a moment, then back at me. “Three days ago, we tagged Big Bill five hundred feet from here.”

  “Oh shit.” My mouth is suddenly too dry to make a seal with my regulator.

  There are alligators, and there’s Big Bill. He’s to the species what Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would be to humanity if we were pygmy-size and Johnson were a cannibal.

  Fish and Wildlife estimates that Big Bill is one of the largest gators in the wild, weighing in at approximately one thousand pounds. He’s also nearly thirteen feet long.

  Big Bill runs free because it’s his God-given right and he’s never hurt a person that we know of. Fish and Wildlife has, on the other hand, found carcasses of other gators and even a manatee they suspect Bill took a chunk out of.

  I search the water for any sign of the aquatic T. rex. “Um, any reason to think he’s here?” I ask, trying not to sound nervous—and failing.

  “Other than the fact that there’s a human-size steak in the pond and all this activity’s likely to draw his attention? No, none at all,” replies Kaur.

  While normal alligators keep away from commotion like flashing lights and people splashing in the water, Big Bill is so apex, he doesn’t care.

  One Fish and Wildlife crew spent a whole day trying to track him in a canoe, only to realize that Bill had been following them the entire time . . . watching.

  “We got a bunch of raw chickens delivered from Publix,” says Finick. “We can dump them in the far side of the lake, park the raft at the channel entrance, and keep Bill out.”

  “Unless he’s already in here,” says Kaur.

  “We don’t know that. Is your sorry ass the one going in?” asks Finick.

  “McPherson’s handled worse. Punched sharks and fought off assassins, right?”

  Okay, Sloan. Think this through. They can get the body in the morning—after it’s been gnawed on and dragged away from the vehicle.

  “Your suspect . . . he’s a bad guy?” I ask Finick.

  “Likely. If we can’t nail him on this, he goes free.”

  “And runs somebody else down,” I reply.

  “Not without a car,” says Kaur, pointing to the taillights.

  “You can buy ’em now, I hear,” Finick snarls back. He directs his attention to me. “It’s up to you. If you can’t do it, I understand. We’ll keep our guys out there and try to push the alligators away until Kaur and his people can clear the area.”

  And lose time and evidence.

  What’s my life worth? How much is my ego motivating me? Do I still feel the need to prove I’m not some white trash girl from a dysfunctional family?

  I start to take my air tank off.

  “Good call,” says Kaur.

  “No,” I tell him. “I’m free diving. I’m taking it off for speed.”

  “Oh shit,” he murmurs.

  “Yeah, I know. I need a body pouch and a rope.” I hand him an underwater radio from my bag. “Keep the antenna in the water. If we lose contact, don’t panic. Just wait for me to tug three times on the rope.”

  “How long do we wait for you to come up?”

  “Seven minutes, then pull my corpse up.”

  “Seven minutes?” he replies.

  “Yes, seven in this situation. But I like to keep it down to two. Got it?”

  He rolls his eyes. I can tell what he’s thinking—that I’m an idiot. He’s not wrong. But I’m an idiot who still has something to prove.

  There’s also the fact that if we don’t convict the
driver, the next time I pull up to a scene like this, it may not be my kid, but it will definitely be someone’s child, and I will have failed to prevent it.

  I take a few deep breaths, saturating my lungs, then step into the black water.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FREE DIVE

  Diving headfirst into a Florida pond without knowing what’s down there is like running barefoot through a junkyard; that’s why I never do it. In my years of diving Florida’s waterways, I’ve found everything from department-store mannequins to an entire Airstream trailer in what looked like an empty canal.

  Getting into and out of Pond 65 before Big Bill decides to investigate means moving fast and bending some of my own rules about diving. I already broke the never-dive-alone rule, but there’s not much I can do about that until my law enforcement unit brings another scuba diver onboard.

  Kaur’s people are tossing raw chickens into the far end of the pond. A bit of thrashing begins as the gators respond to the sound and start swimming over to picnic. I take a few more steps into the water, and my booties reach the edge of the shelf where the water gets abruptly deep. The outcropping I’m standing on is exactly the kind of formation that can make for an overhang—the kind of place under which a gator like Bill likes to shove his food for long-term storage.

  I try not to think about it and take a half-hearted leap, hoping I don’t impale myself on a bunch of rusty javelins a high school track team decided to dump into the water.

  Hey, it could happen.

  The tire tracks and rock embankment the car launched from are to my left. I decided not to head directly from there because there’s something funny about the way the car landed in the middle of the lake. It’s possible there’s a submerged concrete block or barrels of toxic waste that the car skidded across. My gut says stay to the right, so I stay to the right.

  I plunge all the way into the water with my hands outstretched. The light mounted to the side of my mask gives me a good two feet of visibility in the murk, which allows me to see almost to my wrists as I put on my fins.

  At least I’ll see Bill before I swim into his gullet—or what kind of rock I’m about to hit before I smash into it.

  I kick hard with my fins, counting my strokes, and head where I remember the car being located. So much of diving happens from memory. You plot a course and keep kicking until you’re pretty sure you’ve reached the spot.