“I am,” he said, giving her a hug and a kiss. “I know you've got to get ready for your big moment, and I have to make a couple of calls. I just want you to know, I'll be here in the crowd when you take the stage, rooting for you with all I've got.”

“And I want you to listen especially,” she said, staring into his eyes as she grabbed his wrist, “to the last song in our set.”

“The last song?”

She nodded, her green eyes glinting. And as he turned to go into the inn to call Liam, he knew that everything she wanted him to hear and everything he needed to know would be in that song, and he would be sitting right here on the stand he'd just built, listening.

Ghost Hills had all but died down. The only evidence that they had been there at all were the large swells rolling over the reef, the surfers waiting in vain for another killer wave breaking with a sixty-foot drop, the seabirds cruising the skies as if hoping for a resurgence of the rich marine life that had populated these waters this last summer month.

Only two trawlers remained to survey the area. One, operated by Captain Nick Olson out of Galilee, and the other, a rust red vessel from Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia, its nets and trawl doors hauled fast, to prevent any passing Coast Guard vessels or aircraft from suspecting it of fishing outside Canadian waters.

While the two fishing boats drifted hundreds of yards apart, the two skippers drove hard-bottom inflatable dinghies toward each other, to meet in what was basically the middle of the open ocean. Money was exchanged—twenty-five thousand U.S. dollars, in cash.

The two boat captains were nervous, but for different reasons. Captain Gerard Lafarge had a deadline to meet, and he was already several days behind. The big fancy resort was scheduled to open on Labor Day weekend, and he knew that many important people had booked their rooms, that the resort owners were planning to put on a show for them unlike anything they'd ever seen.

Captain Nick Olson was nervous because he had already gotten in trouble with Fish and Wildlife once this summer, and he had the feeling they were watching him. He'd made his crew stay extra vigilant, reporting to him any suspicious activity, or people asking questions about ship business. Not only that, but he wasn't all that thrilled about what Lafarge was doing. The waves rose and fell, and although he had never felt seasick a day in his life, he felt mighty queasy.

“So the place opens in what, a week?” he asked Lafarge.

“Yes. Just think of it, all those rich people having their last holiday of summer, swimming with marine mammals supplied by us.”

“What do they have?” Nick asked. “A big tank with dolphins instead of a pool with a waterslide?”