“I’ve already promised our help.”
“You want me to fail, is that it?” Her eyes burned, and she fought to keep her composure. “The offer of two months’ trial was just a bone?”
“I can have Jenny take Nani and help Matthews if you’d rather. You could concentrate on the other two dolphins.”
He was boxing her into a corner. “Nani is a free dolphin. She doesn’t have to cooperate.”
“Jenny assured me the dolphin would work with her too.”
He was right. Nani loved Jenny too. She would come if either of them called. Jenny was good, but she wasn’t as attached to Nani as Kaia was. The best chance Kaia had to make sure her dolphin wasn’t injured was to take charge of the project herself.
The words seemed stuck in her throat. She swallowed. “Fine. I’ll just have to work with Nani on my time off. I’ll prove to you she can do it.”
“Don’t act like this is the end of the world, Kaia.”
“How did Jesse get to you? Did he threaten the lab?” She wouldn’t put it past him. He was probably a man who was used to getting his own way.
“Of course not. Not everything is a big conspiracy, Kaia. You probably don’t know this, but my father had a hand in creating the missile defense system that’s under testing right now.” His pride shone through in his smile. “Though Dad is gone, I want to do everything I can to help make sure this system is implemented. My brother’s business is tied to the project as well. I couldn’t refuse their request for help.”
“I bet he was smug.” She could imagine his self-satisfied smirk.
“I imagine he will be happy when he hears.”
“You didn’t talk to him?
Curtis shook his head. “My brother is a friend of his, and he asked on the commander’s behalf.”
“Figures.” How like a military man to go through channels instead of asking right out, though she admitted to herself he had asked her. She’d just turned him down, and he couldn’t take no for an answer.
“This isn’t all bad, Kaia. We’ll have the opportunity to observe Nani using all the skills you’ve worked so hard to hone. The two of you make a heck of a team. You’ll be able to work with her out in the ocean.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who would have to put up with being ordered around by Lieutenant Commander Jesse Matthews.
Jesse surveyed the ransacked office. Files littered the floor, metal drawers stood open, and chairs had been upended. It looked more like the work of vandals than that of a serious saboteur. Generally, spies tried to cover their tracks. If spies had done this, they were either insolent or incompetent.
He turned to his aide. “What’s missing?”
“Some papers on the missile system,” Ensign Masters said.
The shave ice he’d wolfed down sat in his stomach like a lump of cold lava. “How did this happen?”
“Someone came ashore last night, slipped through our defenses. Security detected no breach, but I found this when I opened the door.” Ensign Masters swept his hand over the room.
“Was anyone injured?”
Masters shook his head and pointed to an open window. “Whoever it was came in there and bypassed the guard outside.”
Jesse had no idea how that could be accomplished. “Post a guard inside this room from now on.”
“Yes sir.”
Jesse’s cell phone rang and he answered it.
The man on the other end identified himself as an SP on duty at the entrance. “Your sister is at the front gate, Commander.”
“Jillian?” Their other sister, Livia, was in Africa the last time he heard.
“Yes sir. Jillian Sommers and her daughter are here to see you.” The man’s voice betrayed no emotion.
“I’ll be right there.” He left the ransacked office in Masters’s capable hands and headed to his Jeep. He slung his long legs under the wheel and took off with the wind in his hair. He barely missed a flock of chickens crossing the road. He braked at the entrance and found his sister leaning against a rental car in the pull-off outside the security gate. Heidi was squatting in the sand watching an anthill. Her favorite bear, Boo, was clutched under her arm.
“How’re my girls today?”
Heidi’s head jerked around and she bounded to Jesse, throwing herself into his arms. “Uncle Jesse!”
He swung her around and kissed her soundly on the cheek then turned to his sister. Jillian had lost weight since he’d seen her last. Her high cheekbones were more pronounced, and she was pale beneath her tan, though she still looked younger than her thirty-seven years. Her ashy blond hair lay against her head in wisps without its usual curl and bounce. Jesse wanted to strangle his brother-in-law, Noah. And if he could find him, he would, but Noah had disappeared after he’d broken Jillian’s heart.
“Hi, sis,” he said. He threw his right arm around her and gave her a hug while holding Heidi with the other hand.