can’t believe anyone would go to those lengths,” came Roger’s voice. “It’s not like she’s the only one studying this. New data are being gathered constantly.”
“Then what happened, Roger?” asked Cara’s dad in an urgent tone. “Where is she?”
Inside the box, Cara saw, was a small piece of rolled-up paper. She uncurled it.
What had he meant, “taken”?
There was some kind of poem on the paper, though she couldn’t focus on it at the moment.
The night of fires beneath the sea …
“Cara? You ready, honey?” came her dad’s voice.
“Sure,” she said hastily, and stuffed paper and box into her shoulder bag. “Coming.”
“Find what you were looking for?” he asked.
They were walking together to the elevator over the slick linoleum.
But he was distracted and not really listening.
“Dad,” she said slowly. “I heard what you guys were saying. Someone hacked into Mom’s computer, right? When you said maybe she was ‘taken,’ did you mean kidnapped?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” said her dad. “No, no. Look. I was just throwing out ideas. The truth is, that’s preposterous. We don’t live inside a great conspiracy theory, after all. I’m just—just trying to figure out our situation. And you’re helping me. Right?”
He clapped her reassuringly on the shoulder, but he seemed to be somewhere else entirely.
Her dad took a walk around the village harbor while she went to find Max and Jax. She went by the Aquarium’s outdoor tank with the seals and through the front doors, stopping only to sign in. She passed the row of tanks holding blue lobsters, the ugly, snaggle-toothed wolffish and the conger eels; the place was practically empty today.
Her brothers were probably upstairs, she thought, where the holding tanks were—the part of the Aquarium the management called “behind the scenes,” though it was open to the public like the rest and really just rougher and messier looking, with more cement and metal and exposed pipes and stuff. She took the stairs up and then stopped.
A few feet away, near the long, shallow tray table that held the animals kids were allowed to touch, stood Jax, gazing into a tank that held a massive turtle.
The leatherback, she guessed.
Opposite him the turtle floated in the tank’s brackish-looking water with its beak almost up to the glass and its large flippers moving slowly. It was huge—almost as big as a person. Cara couldn’t see its eyes; they seemed to blend into its black-and-white-spotted body. It was a strange-looking sea turtle, not like others she’d seen—streamlined and more graceful. It didn’t seem to have a real shell on its back at all, only the dark hide with ridges in it.
It was quiet in the room. All she could hear was the buzzing and bubbling of the tanks’ filters and the constant soft trickling of their water.
A sign on the tank said LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLE. RESCUE ANIMAL BEING REHABILITATED FOR RE-RELEASE. THIS SPECIES IS ROUGHLY 110 MILLION YEARS OLD.
Jax and the sea turtle were face-to-face.
That in itself wasn’t so unbelievable. What was harder to fathom—and Cara was used to mysterious events occurring when Jax was around—was the stream that seemed to flow between them, like a turbulence in the air. If you weren’t watching closely you might not see it, or if you did see it you might just assume it was an optical illusion or some kind of minor air disturbance, an interruption in the atmosphere. It reminded her of heat waves hovering over a long road in the desert—the rippling transparency some people called a mirage.
Cara had caught sight of it once or twice before, when Jax was reading someone and there was an especially strong connection. At first she’d thought it was some kind of mirage herself, until Jax explained it had to do with the signal and was a “thermal perturbation.”
But she’d never seen it between Jax and an animal.
And never this visible or this clear.
As far as she knew, Jax had
“Then what happened, Roger?” asked Cara’s dad in an urgent tone. “Where is she?”
Inside the box, Cara saw, was a small piece of rolled-up paper. She uncurled it.
What had he meant, “taken”?
There was some kind of poem on the paper, though she couldn’t focus on it at the moment.
The night of fires beneath the sea …
“Cara? You ready, honey?” came her dad’s voice.
“Sure,” she said hastily, and stuffed paper and box into her shoulder bag. “Coming.”
“Find what you were looking for?” he asked.
They were walking together to the elevator over the slick linoleum.
But he was distracted and not really listening.
“Dad,” she said slowly. “I heard what you guys were saying. Someone hacked into Mom’s computer, right? When you said maybe she was ‘taken,’ did you mean kidnapped?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” said her dad. “No, no. Look. I was just throwing out ideas. The truth is, that’s preposterous. We don’t live inside a great conspiracy theory, after all. I’m just—just trying to figure out our situation. And you’re helping me. Right?”
He clapped her reassuringly on the shoulder, but he seemed to be somewhere else entirely.
Her dad took a walk around the village harbor while she went to find Max and Jax. She went by the Aquarium’s outdoor tank with the seals and through the front doors, stopping only to sign in. She passed the row of tanks holding blue lobsters, the ugly, snaggle-toothed wolffish and the conger eels; the place was practically empty today.
Her brothers were probably upstairs, she thought, where the holding tanks were—the part of the Aquarium the management called “behind the scenes,” though it was open to the public like the rest and really just rougher and messier looking, with more cement and metal and exposed pipes and stuff. She took the stairs up and then stopped.
A few feet away, near the long, shallow tray table that held the animals kids were allowed to touch, stood Jax, gazing into a tank that held a massive turtle.
The leatherback, she guessed.
Opposite him the turtle floated in the tank’s brackish-looking water with its beak almost up to the glass and its large flippers moving slowly. It was huge—almost as big as a person. Cara couldn’t see its eyes; they seemed to blend into its black-and-white-spotted body. It was a strange-looking sea turtle, not like others she’d seen—streamlined and more graceful. It didn’t seem to have a real shell on its back at all, only the dark hide with ridges in it.
It was quiet in the room. All she could hear was the buzzing and bubbling of the tanks’ filters and the constant soft trickling of their water.
A sign on the tank said LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLE. RESCUE ANIMAL BEING REHABILITATED FOR RE-RELEASE. THIS SPECIES IS ROUGHLY 110 MILLION YEARS OLD.
Jax and the sea turtle were face-to-face.
That in itself wasn’t so unbelievable. What was harder to fathom—and Cara was used to mysterious events occurring when Jax was around—was the stream that seemed to flow between them, like a turbulence in the air. If you weren’t watching closely you might not see it, or if you did see it you might just assume it was an optical illusion or some kind of minor air disturbance, an interruption in the atmosphere. It reminded her of heat waves hovering over a long road in the desert—the rippling transparency some people called a mirage.
Cara had caught sight of it once or twice before, when Jax was reading someone and there was an especially strong connection. At first she’d thought it was some kind of mirage herself, until Jax explained it had to do with the signal and was a “thermal perturbation.”
But she’d never seen it between Jax and an animal.
And never this visible or this clear.
As far as she knew, Jax had
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