“That’d be lovely, Fred.” Her mother hugged her. Fred stood stiffly for it, then sneezed when the blanket fuzz tickled her nose.

“Mom. Kleenex.”

“Never mind. Oh, I feel so much better now that the whole story is out! Don’t you feel better, baby?”

“Ecstatic.”

Chapter Four

Before leaving, Fred took a dip in the indoor saltwater pool. She could have jumped in the ocean just outside the back door, but didn’t feel like worrying about tourists. And it comforted her parents when she used it. Finally, it felt better than the ocean—no seaweed ready to entwine in her hair, no nosy codfish following her around, and she knew damn well the mercury levels in her own pool were just fine.

Point of fact, she preferred pools to the open sea.

The ocean was filled with horrors and fish shit. The pool was a controlled environment.

Now if she could just get a handle on those rotten angelfish at work—

That thought eventually propelled her back to her legs, and out of the pool, and into her clothes, and out the door. Her parents were nowhere to be found, meaning they had decamped to their bedroom and were finishing what Fred had interrupted.

Excellent. Well, not excellent, but she disliked good-byes, and her mom always acted like she was hitchhiking across Europe instead of driving to Boston.

With traffic, it was a ninety minute drive to the Quincy T-stop, a twenty minute ride to the Green Line, five minutes to the Blue, and then she popped out of the T at the New England Aquarium stop. It was late enough that she could hopefully slip in the employee entrance and get back to work without anybody—

“Dr. Bimm!”

Fuck.

She turned and beheld her boss, Dr. Barbara Robinson, a short woman with a blonde Valkyrie braid and almond-shaped brown eyes. Dr. Barb had her lab coat buttoned all the way to the top, as usual. Fred didn’t even know where hers was.

Also as usual, Dr. Barb was trotting. Not walking fast, but almost running. She trotted everywhere: meetings, charity functions, feedings, seal shows. Fred couldn’t imagine what the “kind of hurry” was. The fish weren’t going anywhere. Neither were the tourists.

“Hi, Dr. Barb.”

“Dr. Bimm, I’d like you to meet our new water fellow, Dr. Thomas Pearson. Dr. Pearson, this is Dr. Fredrika Bimm.” She looked up at Pearson, blinking rapidly. “Dr. Bimm takes care of Main One for us.”

“Fred,” Fred said, sticking out her hand. “I keep the big fish from chomping on the little fish.” She ignored Dr. Barb’s wince. Dr. Barb liked full titles (yawn) and to make people’s jobs sound more interesting than they were (double yawn). Fred’s job was to jump into the four-story tank, toss dead smelt at the fish, make sure the levels were good, and the sea turtles didn’t bully the sharks (sounded out of type, but it really happened on occasion). That was it. “Main One” indeed. The big freaking tank, that’s what it was.