There was Miguel. He was standing just inside the double doors that led from the patio back into their bedroom. He looked to be real, flesh and blood. He was there...
Just as quickly as it had ceased to beat, her heart took flight. They’d been wrong. The bone fragments found in the fire had not belonged to Miguel.
Because Miguel was standing right in front of her.
She raced to him, throwing her arms around him. He barely moved in response. She drew back, staring at him. It was Miguel. But...
Something was wrong with him. Something was really wrong.
“Miguel, what—what have they done to you?” she asked.
His eyes were blank as he stared back at her. Then, to her astonishment, he picked her up.
And he walked back out to the balcony without saying a word.
He spoke like Miguel, he smelled like Miguel, he looked like Miguel, but...
She was confused, but her confusion cleared in a split second when she realized his intent, and started to scream.
1
A bottlenose dolphin leaped majestically out of the water, crystal droplets raining down around it in the morning sun. It splashed as it landed, then appeared almost to fly as it raced around the lagoon, thrusting itself out of the water with the power of its fins and flukes, all the while staring straight at Lara Mayhew. The dolphin emitted a chattering sound, something delightfully akin to laughter.
Lara smiled at the sight and sound of the dolphin, a beautiful female estimated to be about ten years old and named Cocoa. Rick Laramie, the head dolphin trainer, had told Lara on an earlier visit that Cocoa was performing for her and “speaking” to her simply because she had chosen to, that she’d decided she liked Lara. That was fine with Lara. She liked Cocoa, too, and was fascinated by her. Cocoa was one of the facility’s rescue dolphins. She’d been attacked by a shark and been near death when she was brought to Sea Life. Now it seemed she knew she owed her life to the facility. She was as friendly as a family pet. Today Rick was taking her for her first dolphin swim and training experience, and she was glad it was going to be with Cocoa.
Rick hadn’t shown up yet, but Lara knew she was early. She was delighted just to be there, enjoying the sunlight beneath a beautiful blue summer sky, feeling the warmth of the day heat her skin. No one at the facility was up yet, in fact. It was just after six thirty. In another half hour the cooks and cashiers who ran the small café would arrive, and a few minutes after that the rest of the staff would come wandering in. The facility opened to the public for seven hours each day, but the crux of the work here was research and education, not entertainment. They didn’t study dolphin disease and physiology, or perform necropsies or anything like that; they focused on training, learning more about dolphin habits and intelligence with each passing season.