Blood in the Water (12 page)

“What’s the problem?” Monroe asked. “They could be going anywhere.”

“But they’re not,” Spencer said. “There’s nothing back that way but the aquarium and some housing that neither of them would be caught dead in.”

He typed out a text, then he pushed the call button again.

The phone just rang and rang.

Chapter 14

In the back of the large tank, Koenraad treaded water.
 

Brady was below him. The young shifter swam back and forth, the shark equivalent of compulsive pacing.

Koenraad had triple-checked the dosing of the syringe he now held in his hand. He didn’t want to give oral sedatives when Brady was having such a tough time eating. Hell, he didn’t want to drug his son at all, but when he’d arrived at the aquarium that morning, he’d found Brady bloody and battered from ramming his head into the sides of the aquarium. He’d smelled it the moment he walked into the room.

With Koenraad there, Brady had quieted a bit, but he still had outbursts.

Despite everything Brady had done, Koenraad still loved his son. Brady was a child trapped in a body that betrayed him with murderous urges.

And the boy inside the shark must have felt like he’d been dropped into a prison and abandoned.
 

If Koenraad were stronger, Brady wouldn’t be there at all.
 

Koenraad should have ended the shifter’s life the moment he attacked Monroe. If Brady had been anyone but his own son, he could have done it. And he would have.

Shark shifters didn’t necessarily get so attached to their young. On one extreme, there was Victoria, who was cold. She’d seen Brady as a useful tool, something to employ when she wanted to manipulate Koenraad.

Her attitude toward Brady was rare, even among sharks. But not many shifters fought hard for children like Brady. In many ways, the shark mindset reflected a cruel Darwinism, and parents knew to brace themselves for the worst. Better to not get too attached.

Would it be better for Brady if Koenraad put an end to this right now? He wouldn’t even have to rip him apart with his teeth. All he needed to do was up the dosage in the syringe.

Brady would go peacefully.

But Koenraad couldn’t bring himself to do it. If that was a sign of weakness, then he was weak. He couldn’t kill his son. They’d suffered so much to come this far, and Koenraad had to believe the worst was in the past.
 

He heard his phone vibrating in his pants, which were folded on the concrete platform next to the tank, but he didn’t even consider answering. Monroe was with three strong shifters. She couldn’t have been safer in the middle of the Pentagon.

And Brady was here.
 

There was no one else in the world Koenraad cared about at the moment.
 

As he dove toward Brady, he heard the phone vibrating again.
 

Then the water covered the sound.

Koenraad approached Brady cautiously, worried he would bolt. He surely smelled the tranquilizer, and after the trauma of the night before, he most certainly knew what it was.

But to Koenraad’s surprise, Brady didn’t fight him.
 

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he injected the contents.
 

He stayed with his son, stroking him reassuringly, until the boy’s pulse slowed to a calm rhythm.
 

Then, his arms locked around Brady’s body, just below the fragile gills, he pulled his son toward the surface so that he could talk to him.
 

There, he made Brady a promise.

“Tomorrow morning, you and I are heading out to the open ocean,” he said. “No more tanks. No more prisons.”

Maybe it was the tranquilizer taking full effect, but Brady seemed to suddenly relax.

“Just the two of us,” Koenraad said. Because he was going to ask Monroe to come with him, but he doubted she’d be interested in that kind of life.
 

He could tell that Brady was getting tired, and he released the shark, letting him drift groggily to the bottom of the tank so he could position himself in a current.

Koenraad watched for another moment, then he pulled himself out of the water and slicked his wet hair away from his eyes.
 

There was a towel nearby. It was already soaked from previous use, but it was better than nothing. He considered not bothering to get dressed, but Brady seemed much calmer than Koenraad would have hoped for, and if they were going to leave in twenty-four hours, Koenraad had a lot of things to wrap up.

As he was pulling on his shirt, he remembered the calls. He pulled his phone from his pocket.
 

They were all from Spencer.
 

Even though Koenraad knew Monroe was safe, his heart pounded in his throat as he opened the text.

Victoria & Darius heading to aquarium.

He stared at it a moment, but his mind was already spinning. He hadn’t heard anyone enter, but that meant nothing. Huge parts of the building were completely soundproof. Most humans didn’t realize it, but fish made quite a bit of noise, and the penguins, seals, and sea lions weren’t quiet, either.

The shifters who had commissioned this aquarium fifteen years earlier had taken all that into account. As marine biologists, his parents had insisted on making an aquarium the humane way, and they’d taken care to sell it to someone who truly cared about the inhabitants.

His parents’ design had resulted in Tureygua’s aquarium being far larger than others housing similar numbers of animals. Right now, that might work to Koenraad’s advantage; the holding tank was all the way in the rear.

He grabbed the towel and pushed it into a laundry chute on his way down from the platform. He didn’t know why Darius and Victoria would come here looking for him, but he couldn’t let them find Brady.
 

Koenraad just had to hope they’d been in the ocean recently and that their senses were dulled. Exposure to the
sick
would make things a lot easier.

There were metal stairs in the rear of the employee area. Koenraad raced up them three at a time, and he pushed into the closed door at the end of the second level.

His eyes scanned the array of black-and-green screens.
 

There they were.

The good news was that they were near the front of the building, about as far from Koenraad as possible.
 

They seemed to be inspecting a cylindrical tank of jellyfish.

What the hell were they doing there? There was only the one unlocked door, the side entrance. But they were near the front, where visitors entered.

As he stared at the grainy image, he realized that Darius and Victoria had three buckets. He watched as they emptied them into the tank.

“What the hell?” he murmured.
 

They stacked the buckets together.
 

Koenraad turned and ran.

He slowed at the entrance to the long corridor that cut between the network of employee hallways and the main entrance.
 

Darius and Victoria would be returning this way. If they stepped through the door on their end before he got down there, they’d see him.

The longer he waited, the greater the chance that they’d run into him.

He cracked the door open and listened, but it was impossible to hear anything on the other side because of the whirring of the ventilation machines.
 

He, at least, had an excuse for being here. He could say he was looking in on behalf of his parents. It was plausible enough.

But as he jogged down the hallway, something told him he didn’t want to get caught.

Now he heard arguing voices on the other side of the far door. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

There was the sound of plastic banging up against something, and Koenraad was willing to bet that Victoria was carelessly carrying the buckets.

He sensed that the door was going to open moments before it started to swing inward.

There was a little alcove to the side, and he ducked in. There, the sound of the machines was the loudest.

He pressed himself against the large metal column and wedged as much of himself into a corner as would fit.
 

If they looked, they’d see him, but he wouldn’t appear in their peripheral vision.

He hoped.

“I swear I smell Koenraad,” Victoria said.
 

He held his breath. They were still at the other end of the hall.
 

“It’s because he was here,” Darius said. His usual calm, politic manner had turned rough. “I told you I saw him in the car with his mate.”

“Do you think they suspect?” Victoria asked. She didn’t wait for an answer, and Koenraad had the impression it wasn’t the first time she’d posed the question.
 

Darius made a noncommittal sound.

“That human is ridiculous. Those bodyguards aren’t going to keep her safe.”

“You’re a stupid child,” Darius said wearily. “You’ll never see the other side of thirty.”

“You said the same thing about twenty, yet here I am.”

They were getting closer, and Koenraad held his breath. The machine was loud enough that they wouldn’t be able to hear him breathing or the beating of his heart, but he planned to leave as little to chance as possible.

“I smell him like he’s still here,” Victoria said. “And I don’t smell that human. If he was giving her a private tour of the aquarium, her scent would be everywhere, wouldn’t it?”

“Shut up.”

Koenraad could just imagine her face, her chin tilted slightly up, her mouth agape as she inhaled and tasted the air. He hated the image because it reminded him of how damned well he knew her.
 

“Maybe he knows,” she said.

“Did you smell him near the jellyfish?”

“No, but I’m telling you—”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to snap your neck,” Darius growled. “You stupid, weak-willed female. Your obsession with him is blinding you.”

“You’re an ass,” Victoria said, sulking. She didn’t sound the least bit threatened, which Koenraad felt was odd as Darius didn’t lose his temper easily. But then, Darius clearly needed her for something, and Victoria had always been good about knowing just how far she could push someone.

They fell silent, then Koenraad saw them walk past him without slowing.
 

He listened intently to their footfalls, then to the door on the other end of the corridor opening and closing.

It seemed wise to give them another minute, but Koenraad slipped immediately out of his hiding place and jogged after them.

He eased through the door.
 

They were surely heading for the exit. Well, he knew a circuitous route to it, which he took at a sprint. They were up to something, and he hoped to overhear a useful tidbit.

But apparently that sort of thing only happened in the movies.

They went outside without another word that Koenraad heard.
 

The outside door was too large and heavy. He wouldn’t be able to open it unobserved, and he couldn’t hear a damned thing through it.

But then another thought occurred to him. His car was parked outside of the parking lot specifically because he hadn’t wanted anyone to see it and wonder who was in the aquarium and what they were doing.
 

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and slid out.

They were in Darius’s car.
 

And Koenraad realized that Darius’s contingent of bodyguards was nowhere in sight. That was twice now that Darius had gone somewhere without them.
 

Whatever he was doing, he didn’t want witnesses, and he didn’t trust the shifters who were already privy to all his shady dealings.
 

The convertible’s engine started up with a low hum. The moment it turned onto the street, Koenraad was racing across the empty lot, then down the little beach access road he’d parked on.

He swung open the door and turned on the engine. The tires spun on the sandy surface as he floored the accelerator, and the car’s jolting surge forward helped close the door, which he’d left open.

Tailing someone as naturally paranoid as Darius wasn’t easy, but Koenraad had one advantage: no one knew the car he was driving. It was a rental, and it
looked
like a rental: reliable, practical, inexpensive.
 

At all times, he kept several cars between himself and Darius, but the longer they drove, the more the traffic thinned out.

That was fine. By now he knew where they were heading, and he had no desire to return to the compound. It seemed like every time he went there, he got more bad news. In any event, he wasn’t prepared to confront Darius about his activities at the aquarium.
 

Koenraad made a U-turn and headed back toward the secluded house, to Monroe.
 

Now that he wasn’t focused on trying to remain unobserved, it freed up his attention to think about other things.

Like how he was going to break the bad news to his mate.
 

She wasn’t a shifter, so being apart wouldn’t be the agony that it would be for him. She’d miss him the way humans missed people they cared about.

For him, though, having mated and claimed her, it was going to be gut-wrenching. Shifters sometimes went insane when a mate died prematurely.
 

At least he’d only known Monroe a few weeks. Everything he looked at, everything he came across, wouldn’t make him think of her.

On the other hand, living as a shark in the middle of the ocean wasn’t exactly the sort of activity that would be distracting. He loved the ocean, but he loved human civilization, too.

He was really going to miss television. Radio. The internet. Without phone or internet, he’d have no way to stay in touch with Monroe.

Damn, he was going to miss her. Their “honeymoon” on
The Good Life
had been one of the best weeks of his life, even with all the complications and problems dangling over their heads.