She caught a glimpse of her body in the mirror. She stood sidewise, looking for tummy fat. No—if anything, she'd grow skinny before she grew fat. She guessed that she was lucky: trim belly, breasts that still were firm, broad shoulders, narrow waist.

Hooper had lusted after her breasts—and her legs. Brody had cherished them. She felt a wave of longing for her husband.

She climbed into her swimming suit and started down the path to the main house. Thea, holding her hand, said, "The sand castle got all uggy in the rain, and we're going to build it again, okay?"

"I'd rather do that than swim," said Ellen. Mike was approaching from the dock. He looked tired and drawn: Sean's death had hit him harder than he'd admitted, she decided, and they had to have a talk.

Mike picked up Thea and swung her. "Let's..." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm taking everybody to the Golden Shell for conch burgers. Last one to the jeep has to put up the top when it rains."

"I can't go like this," Ellen said, glancing down at her swimsuit. "I'll change."

"You're beautiful," Mike said. He grabbed Thea and lifted her to his shoulders, put one arm around Ellen and another around Carla, and swept them toward the jeep.

"My God," said Carla, "you're kidnapping us! What is this?"

"I'm a terrorist at heart. No, I'm just hungry."

Ellen shot him a sidelong glance.

She knew him to his core. He very, very seldom lied, but she was certain that he was lying to them now.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was a clear, cool day, and wavelets from the steady north wind dappled Masthead Bay. They chopped against the wooden hull of the shabby diving barge.

Mike swung from the broken railing that the shark had carried away and jumped into the Avon dinghy bumping alongside.

Jake and William handed him down the three surplus U.S. Navy sonobuoys, foreign aid to the Bahamian Ministry of Fishing. They used them to triangulate the seasonal march of the conch from shallow to deeper water.

The sonobuoys were bright yellow; long, slender cylinders built to be dropped from aircraft when a sub was lurking below. They floated erect and half submerged, dangling a microphone below.

The mikes could pick up the sound of Jake's BPSTs at a range of half a mile. When they charted each buoy's position, they could tell by comparing their signals where an underwater heartbeat was originating and which way a conch—or a great white shark—was moving.