Rio winced. “Does that happen a lot?”

She nodded. “More than people think. That’s why Dad never drives the boat too fast and is careful not to get close to any of the whales. Luckily, this one wasn’t too badly hurt, and from our point of view, it makes them easy to track.”

She clicked on the screen that showed all the known sightings of the recognizable gray whales. She uploaded her photos and was about to close the laptop, when Rio stopped her.

“Shall we check on White Beak?” he asked. “To see where she is now?”

Marina grinned. “Good idea!”

With his mom more lost than ever, at least he could track her whale. It wasn’t the same. But it was something.

“So, the last sighting was in LA—that’s the blue dot there—but that was a few days ago,” Marina said. “San Diego would usually be where we’d expect to see her next. We often get confirmed sightings when the whales pass by there.” She clicked on a new column and then frowned.

“What is it?”

“No sightings of her in San Diego.”

“Maybe someone missed her?”

“Yes, that’s probably it.” She tapped a few keys. “Let’s check Ensenada—that’s just over the border in Mexico.”

Rio held his breath as Marina pulled up the data. “No,” she said. “Nothing there either.”

“She must have passed, and no one saw her,” replied Rio, something cold and clammy running down his back like ice.

“Maybe,” Marina said, not looking particularly convinced.

“You said yourself you can’t count every whale,” Rio retorted. “Nobody’s spotted her, that’s all.”

“That’s true, but . . . but whales like White Beak are always much easier to spot, especially since there’s so many whale watchers in that area.” She chewed her lip. “It’s just unusual she hasn’t been spotted since LA.”

“Can you check the lagoons?” he asked hurriedly. “She might have arrived by now.”

Marina nodded unconvincingly. Since the lagoons were essentially very large inland shallow ponds, it was far easier to track the whales in them.

She shook her head. “No, she hasn’t arrived. It’s too soon anyway. She wouldn’t have made it there yet.”

“Where is she?” Rio cried. “She can’t just have gone missing!”

At first, he didn’t think Marina was going to answer. The wind howled and rattled the boat, and she rubbed her face wearily.

“The thing is, Rio”—she turned to face him and took a breath—“sometimes the whales don’t make it.”

“Wh-wh-what do you mean?” He swallowed hard, something thick and bulky settling in the pit of his tummy. “Don’t make it?”

“Bad things happen,” Marina said quietly.

“What kind of things?”

“Like that humpback and the way his tail was all damaged. Sometimes . . . sometimes it’s worse than that.”

“How much worse?”

“Ship collisions.” She sighed. “Ghost nets—they’re fishing nets that have been lost or discarded and are just floating around the ocean bed. Plastic, nuclear testing, underground drilling for oil . . . noise pollution.”