She wished there was some way to get some scale, but there was nothing to benchmark it against – the item could be an inch or a foot long. Still, it seemed to have swallowed Buzz whole, and the drone was nearly as round as a manhole cover. She folded her arms, clicking her tongue against her teeth as she weighed up options. Bottom line, she needed to be there. She also needed advice, and knew just the person she should get it from – Jack Douglas Monroe.

She hadn’t spoken to Jack for over three years. He had been her best friend, companion, confidant, and once lover – her face went hot as an image of them intertwined flashed into her mind.

At the time, she thought he was going to be the one. He was supposed to be the one, she thought. But he was never there; being a marine biologist he was forever out on the blue water somewhere. He had often wanted her to go with him, but, well, her own work and ambitions took precedence. She never went, even once. And then she saw the photos in the Spanish newspaper of the latest dive he was on, the new ray species he had found, and of course, next came the pictures of the bikini girl draped all over him. While she thought he was the one, seemed she was probably the one of the many.

She let her mind float her back on a daydream to that last time they had been together. She had invited him over, but not for what he had expected. Jack had turned up at her door with a bottle of wine, and his usual silly grin. She let him in, and he leant to kiss her but she turned away.

“What’s wrong?” he had asked, eyebrows up.

She had been ready, locked and loaded, and she strode to her desk, spinning her computer around that displayed the image of him and the girl on the boat. “Nothing’s wrong… if you think I’m an idiot.”

His face closed down, and he put the bottle on her desk. “That’s Angelina, she’s only a friend. A biologist who was working with me on—”

“I know what she as working on.” Cate quickly pulled up the woman’s Facefriend page, showing her posts about the dates she had with the tall and handsome American marine biologist. Cate spun back to him, folding her arms and feeling her anger rise to volcanic levels.

Jack saw it. “Oh, good grief.” He threw up his hands. “We had a few drinks; that’s all.”

“Bullshit.” Her arms tightened across her chest as though locking her fury in tight.

He shook his head. “No it isn’t, and you know what? I asked you to come, but you never did… in fact, you never do.”

“Lucky for you, it seems.” She loathed his deflections and his lies.