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  She should have listened to his warning about weather, should have turned around right there and headed back to the mainland. Or, even better, she should have paused there longer, flirted a bit, maybe even screwed up the courage to finally ask him out.

  But she hadn’t. And now she was pushing back the panic and slowly working through the eerie calm to the surface, which seemed to be getting farther away with every kick of her fins.

  Inhale…stop kicking. Loosen up. Be big. Exhale…

  BOOM!

  The sound hit her, and she threw up her hands to cover her ears. Less than a second later, the rig’s supports shook, releasing a blinding dust cloud that could mean only one thing—earthquake.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. At fifteen feet below the surface, she fought the desire to head all the way up and counted down the seconds for her three-minute safety stop.

  Calm down. I’m better off in the water than on land.

  Not if the platform collapsed.

  She’d never been scared like this on a dive, never shivered so hard underwater.

  BOOM!

  Another gray puff billowed from the platform, joining the dust rising from the depths like smoke from a forest fire.

  She didn’t have to check her gauge to know she was running low on air.

  Yeah, I’m done here.

  When she broke the surface by the westernmost leg of the platform, she yanked off her mask and smelled it immediately—some kind of exhaust. Far above, an engine hummed, low and even, with regular metallic clangs.

  It took about two seconds for everything to clarify. Not an earthquake.

  The relief was palpable…and short-lived.

  Zoe strained to peer up at the rusting monstrosity rising above the waves. Crap. Were they recommissioning this rig? No. No way. Not possible. It was too old; the wells were tapped out. The company had given her nonprofit permission to turn the Polaris into a reef. But the drill couldn’t very well power itself.

  Had Bob, the missing sea lion, somehow climbed his way up the creaking metal and set something off?

  The idea was ridiculous, but Zoe had to investigate. What if he was stuck or hurt? Besides, that made more sense than someone returning to drill an empty well.

  Heart beating too fast, she swam back to her boat, dropped off her scuba gear, and returned to the metal leg that provided the only easy way up to the platform. She could hop up a few feet and then climb the ladder, if needed. Bob had made it up to the lowest level once. If he was there now, he could be stuck, sick, or dying. That thought made her move faster, a little frantic.

  She pushed up onto her palms, hefted herself onto the low shelf—sharp and spiked with her beloved sea life—and squinted across to the other legs. The metal rumbled under her feet.

  No sea lion.

  Where was he? She glanced up and got a face full of grime—hard little specks of rust raining down with every angry clang of the machine. Bob would hate this noise. She couldn’t stand the idea of him being around here somewhere, alone, freaking out at this attack on his home.

  Zoe set her mouth and wrapped her hands around the rungs. Find Bob, if he was around. Then figure out what the hell was going on up there. She shut her eyes for a few long seconds, working up the courage to climb. Funny how she was perfectly comfortable diving beneath the water, but climbing up high…

  She swallowed back a tickle of vertigo that couldn’t possibly be real, since she hadn’t even moved yet.

  Okay. Up. Even through gloves and dive boots, the rusty ladder was abrasive. Please don’t tear. Not only would the return climb be a pain with ruined neoprene, but she couldn’t afford to replace her gear, and she wouldn’t let the nonprofit pay for it.

  By the time she reached the first level, she was struggling to breathe, from dread as much as from the climb itself. Dizziness threatened to hit. She shut her eyes and pretended not to feel it. There was a reason she’d spent so much time in this place but had never come up here.

  The noise was deafening, and—holy crap—the place was huge. Fending off another solid rush of vertigo, Zoe tilted her head back and took in the massive structure rising several stories above. Somehow, from below, the rig had seemed more manageable. Though it was the smallest of the ones claimed by the nonprofit, the sheer size of its underwater structure had told her it was big. But the ocean had a knack for minimizing things. Standing up here, high above the waves, she was keenly aware of the water dripping from her body to the metal grate she stood on. She could picture each drop sliding through the holes before plummeting to the ocean far below.

  Needing to look anywhere but down, she wiped her damp face and squinted ahead. Those were lights—on an ostensibly deserted oil rig out in the Pacific. And, despite the slick slide of seagull guano under her feet, there couldn’t be an animal for miles around—not with the racket whoever was on the rig was making.

  Since the original owners had decommissioned this place, nobody officially owned it—at least, not the last time Zoe had checked. Nobody should be here besides the Reef Guard crew, and that was just her and Jane and a couple weekend volunteers.

  Whoever was here, messing around where they didn’t belong, had frightened Bob and forced millions of creatures from their rightful habitat. No way was she letting them get away with it.

  Ignoring the frigid wind trying to cut its way through her wet suit, she straightened her back, set her shoulders, and took off on a hunt for whoever was squatting in the platform she’d come to think of as her own.

  Her footsteps inaudible beneath the deafening clang, she took a quick walk around the open-air portions of the platform. The place was a cold, rusted labyrinth of steel girders and piping. The colors—bright reds and yellows and oranges—clearly meant something, though she had no idea what.

  The structure swayed beneath her feet, and Zoe scrabbled at the handrail, clinging to it for dear life. After a few deep breaths, she looked toward the dimly lit center of the platform. No way did she want to go in there. Or, worse yet, up. She could get lost in this maze, walking around in circles for hours without getting anywhere.

  But the pumps were in there somewhere. She’d seen enough schematics to know that. And so, probably, were the people running them. She couldn’t stop them if she didn’t find them.

  I should turn around, she thought. I should go get help. I shouldn’t be here alone.

  She’d turned to do just that when a hand covered her mouth. Seconds later, pain bloomed at the side of her head, her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor in silence.

  ***

  Eric waited until full dark before setting off for the Polaris.

  Dammit, he’d known something wasn’t right. He’d felt it when he’d cast his first line today and hadn’t gotten immediate interest. Even earlier, when the porpoises hadn’t been there to greet him, he’d wondered what was up. Now, seeing the strange aura in the night sky just past San Elias Island, he knew things weren’t as they should be.

  But like the jerk he was, he hadn’t warned Zoe.

  Not a jerk—an idiot. Because though the fishing was decent in this spot, that wasn’t what dragged him out here day after day. He was honest enough with himself to admit that what brought him to this isolated place was the possibility of catching a glimpse of her. He wasn’t even sure what it was about her that got to him. The obvious answer was her long-limbed, easy grace, coupled with that insanely wild, flyaway hair—brown, originally, but tinted blond in places—or those dark eyes, somehow sunny and smoldering at the same time. A Southern California siren. Add to that the way she handled a boat, like she’d been born on the water, and the passion she showed for marine life. The whole package was appealing. More than that—magnetic.

  Of course, even after all this time, he couldn’t actually bring himself to speak to her beyond a couple words. She was so young and energetic and alive, and he wa
s a dried-up husk of what he’d once been—retired at the ripe old age of forty-one. Every single time she appeared, his interest perked up, but all systems shut down. Useless.

  Rather than let himself wallow in self-disgust, he pushed the engine to full capacity.

  For some stupid reason, this woman who was probably half his age tied up his tongue and turned his body into a minefield of teenage sense memories. Girls he couldn’t talk to, stupid shit coming out of his mouth, a body he could no more control than the waves beneath him.

  Christ. Anything could have happened to her out there, and he’d held back because he didn’t know how to deal with his crush?

  He’d just begun to circle the island when the lights from the platform blinded him. He pulled back on the throttle, beyond wary now. Squinting against the glare, he scanned the darkness beneath the rig, expecting to see the silhouette of her boat.

  Nothing.

  He spun in a full circle, checking the island and the horizon beyond it. Had she taken a different route home today? No. He’d have seen her either way.

  The angry knot in his gut told him she was still out there, somewhere. And though the sky was low and the wind had picked up, the water was too calm to give her any trouble. So where was her boat? And where the hell was she?

  That left the platform.

  A platform that shouldn’t be occupied, much less lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Even from this distance, he could hear that something was going on out there—and he was pretty sure Zoe had nothing to do with it. But what the hell was it? Whoever it was couldn’t be drilling. Cali-Power had tapped the damn oil field out. That well was dry.

  Slant drilling, maybe…but no, the platform just wasn’t big enough to merit that. Which meant Zoe was there with whatever pirate crew had taken over.

  Cussing like the roughneck he’d once been, Eric pushed his boat toward the rig as fast as it would go. As he got closer, familiar scents assailed him so hard he had to shut his eyes against the memories. Diesel fuel. Probably from a power-generation module providing juice for whatever the hell they were up to. His heartbeat picked up. Smells were funny that way, sending him straight back into the thick of some of the toughest moments of his life. Spices and dust slapped him right back to the Middle East. Diesel exhaust could be any airfield in the world, but mix it with salt water and he’d be back on the rig, drilling for oil.

  Yeah, well, different rig, different time, different man.

  Caution made him stop a couple hundred yards out, kill the engine, and pull off his shoes, wishing for a wet suit. For a few seconds, he stood there, swaying with the water, while emotions—or were they flashbacks?—slapped him, hard as bullets.

  Even after all these years, he felt the adrenaline, the pull of the hunt, the thrill of the unknown. He still missed it. Life on the rig had been one thing, but once a SEAL, always a SEAL.

  He yanked off his T-shirt, sucked in a lungful of memory-laced air, and dropped into the frigid water in just shorts. Without tactical gear and a plan, this was more like BUD/S training than any mission he could recall, but it didn’t matter. He’d been here before. His body knew what to do.

  His long limbs ate up the distance from boat to platform, where he did some quick recon around the platform’s legs. The noise this thing was emitting had scared off every creature with a brain in its head, leaving nothing but sponges, starfish, and empty shells coating concrete and metal. Well, and him. Although the brain was debatable.

  He mounted the ladder to the lower deck, cringing at the sharp edges that bit into his feet. Staying low, he scanned the space for people or cameras—neither of which were apparent.

  The Polaris was significantly smaller than the rig he’d called home for much of his thirties. It didn’t take long to investigate the first deck, along with the two long arms that extended out over the water. Above, he counted three additional levels full of hiding places, not to mention the living quarters he knew had to be in there someplace.

  Beneath his feet, the hull abruptly stopped trembling. As the noise died down, he found himself holding his breath, waiting.

  Whatever was going on, it was wrong. He could sense it in little ways. If they were pumping, where was the fresh oil smell? Where was the goddamned crew? There’d be two dozen guys if this was a rig in full production.

  For the first time since he’d climbed up here, Eric felt the cold. Ignoring his body’s needs was another skill he’d gained through training and necessity. Now that he noticed it, though, the chill crawled over his skin, rousing goose bumps like something alive. He ignored it and moved toward a ladder. Best to check the exterior before facing whatever lay inside.

  For some reason, the quiet was worse than the noise had been. Maybe because he could meld into a ruckus. This silence, though, had the makings of the calm before a storm…and he didn’t trust it.

  When his instinct told him to duck beneath a steel beam, he listened.

  Seconds later, voices sounded from above. Unconcerned, they floated loud on the clear night air.

  “Sampson’s pissed.”

  “She just appeared out of thin air, man.” The second voice was nasal and high.

  Two men. Their hollow footsteps told him they were directly above. He swallowed back the urge to blindly attack, and waited. If he could just figure out who the hell he was up against, he’d know what steps to take.

  “It’s that nonprofit. I told you they’d be a problem.”

  “Fuckin’ hippies.” Eric wanted to choke the laugh out of Nasal Man’s voice. “You know how Sampson feels about tree huggers.”

  “What’re we supposed to do with her?”

  Nasal Man didn’t give an audible response, and Eric had the urge to swing up there and kick the answer out of him. When he blinked, he could see the man’s answer etched into the back of his eyelids. A slicing-across-the-throat movement. Or maybe a gun to the head. Whatever it was, that silence didn’t bode well.

  At the same time, at least the conversation told him that she was alive…for the time being.

  He waited for the footsteps to recede before slipping up the ladder. No more silent exploration. Whatever Zoe had walked into, he had to find her. Now.

  Chapter 2

  Cold. So cold.

  Zoe swallowed. Her mouth tasted bad—metallic and bitter, like blood and…something else.

  She lifted her head and squinted in front of her. Off-white walls—bright, much too bright. A tentative stretch of her neck shot pain up and out the top of her head. She just barely swallowed a wave of nausea as her head dropped back to the soft surface beneath her body. She dragged shaking fingers over it. A mattress.

  So damned cold. She stretched out her hand. Where was the blanket?

  The mattress squished. Wet? She twisted, her face rubbed into the soggy fabric, and—

  She gagged and sat up to escape the stink of ancient, wet mold.

  Sharp fireworks in her brain made her shut her eyes hard with a groan. Oh God, her head hurt. After a brief exploration, her fingers found a lump behind her ear.

  The fear trickling through her veins became a torrent until she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear through the rushing.

  One…two… She counted through several long breaths. Nausea contained, she eased her eyes open again and took in the space around her.

  A pale, overly bright, spartan bedroom of some sort, with a decade-old TV bolted high on the wall across from the bed, a set of drawers built into the room, and pretty much nothing else. Oh, and an empty dartboard on the door, half covering an emergency evacuation sign.

  Slowly, she planted her feet on the floor, then squinted dumbly down at them. Why am I wearing neoprene? Her teeth clattered as her entire body shuddered. No wonder it was so cold.

  And wet.

  Another few dull-witted seconds rattled a memory loose. There was
something wrong at Polaris.

  She got her knees under her and wobbled before making her way to the door. The knob turned, but try as she might, she couldn’t pull the thing open. When pushing yielded no further result, she resisted the urge to pound and scream, and spun in a slow circle instead.

  No window. Nothing. Nothing else.

  Where the hell—

  The platform. Not under it, but in it.

  She swayed as everything else came back in a rush—the eerie quiet, the pounding, and now the sick certainty that something, someone, had attacked her. She leaned against the wall to keep herself from falling and waited for another wave of nausea to pass.

  Okay. Okay, whatever was happening here, she’d sort it out, explain why she’d been on the rig, and—

  Something moved beyond the door and she froze, breath held.

  Footsteps.

  When a frantic look around confirmed that there was nothing more useful than a pillow, she yanked opened the drawers. Empty. No pipe wrenches or crowbars magically appeared. And then her eyes landed on a long drawer hidden under the built-in bunk. She fell to her knees, yanked it open, and found it…empty.

  Devastated, she started to push it back in when something rolled into sight: a flashlight.

  She picked it up and hefted its weight—which was substantial, given that it was one of those metal Maglites. Fast, but less frantic now that she had something in her hands, she stood and hurried to hide behind where she hoped the door opened in.

  Voices sounded, right on the other side of the door. With both hands, she raised the light over her shoulder, ready to swing it like a bat, and listened, breath uncontrollably shaky. She thought she heard two men, but she couldn’t make out their words.

  What were they doing? Please, please open the door. Unlock it, and then go so I don’t have to hit you. She didn’t have to look at her hands to see that she was trembling like a leaf.

  Something metallic scraped, and the door swung in. Zoe didn’t give herself time for doubt. She stepped forward and struck, as hard as she could, cringing at the sound of metal on flesh.