"Hoagie," Michael murmured, his voice throaty with menace. "What do you know about this?"

"I think," admitted Hoagie coolly, "he might have been after me."

"No crap!" said Michael sourly. "I thought maybe Thea, or Carla, or me. Or Romeo. Who'd ever want to kill a solid citizen like you?"

"I said 'might have,' didn't I? For we don't really know that, do we? So let's just make our report."

"I want an answer, Hoagie!"

Hoagie shrugged. "Jealous husband? Angry father? Who can tell? You know us flying types."

"You didn't mention dope, Hoagie," said Michael very softly. "Couldn't possibly be dope?"

"Michael!" protested Carla.

The two men held each other's eyes. "I'll pretend," said Hoagie softly, "I didn't hear that." He opened the car door. "I'll make the report, Michael. If they need you, they can find you where? At the bottom of the sea?"

"Home with my family. Hoping nobody comes looking for you."

Hoagie smiled at Carla. "Rain check on that dinner, then?"

She glared at Michael and said, "We're having it tonight, and you are welcome. Still."

"I think not, luv." He turned and patted Thea on the cheek. "But you and I, we're going flying sometime very soon."

“When?” demanded Thea. "Tomorrow?”

"When the cold front passes." He smiled at Ellen. Something in her flipped. "And you, Ellen..."

"Yes?" She felt her cheeks grow hot.

"I don't attack women every day, and I'll have to show you that."

He was gone, running up the stairs two at a time, and she found herself lonely again.

***

They glided through a residential area full of beautifully landscaped homes, and down a gentle, wooded hill. Below, Ellen could see scalloped coves, piers, and anchored yachts.

"Masthead Point and Masthead Cove," said Michael proudly. "And home sweet home to us."

The house was weather-beaten, rambling, and open to the breeze. It had a mammoth porch, full of Thea's toys. Twenty yards away, where palm trees met with island pines, was Carla's studio, a guest house with a thatched roof. Ellen would stay in a bedroom attached to the studio.

A path, bordered by whitewashed rocks, led down to a ramshackle pier. At the end of it rocked an ancient sailing ketch, with her pilothouse converted to a marine laboratory. She creaked at her lines in the current through Masthead Cut, a channel that led straight to the Atlantic.

As Ellen unpacked in her bedroom off Carla's studio, she looked out the open window at the cove.

So this was where Michael's fascination with the diving had brought him, far from Amity's cold face.

It was strange. After the first shark, fear of the ocean had obsessed Brody but only aroused his older son. With the ocean banned, Michael had conquered his own fears, which were considerable, and learned to surf. Though prohibited from scuba diving, he had sneaked to classes; banned from the depths, he had plunged in, anyway, seduced by forbidden fruit.