Below The Surface. Karen Harper
out—the story of his life since his divorce last year from Jillian. He hadn’t realized until she cut him off from their friends—or those he thought were their friends, but were really hers—that he’d given up too much of his own world for hers. It hadn’t helped his client list to have his social contacts shrink like that. At least it had given him an excuse to quit playing country club games. But what he’d learned most from the biggest mistake of his life was that, after two years of their marriage, Jillian had not really been an integral part of him. He just didn’t miss her. He felt sad and bad their marriage had failed, but he didn’t feel her loss. Strangely, he’d feel worse if Briana were lost, and he’d only spent one lunch months ago and then this horrible day with her.
He was surprised to see Amelia Westcott, a woman he served with on the Clear the Gulf Commission, rush in the double glass doors and head for the triage nurse at the front desk.
“You called and told me to come right in,” Amelia said. She was out of breath, but her voice carried clearly. “I’m Briana Devon’s sister. But is her other sister, her twin Daria, here yet?”
Cole went over. “Amelia, I didn’t know you were Briana’s sister—I mean I don’t know why I would—but I’m the one who found her half-drowned on the beach at Keewadin Island and brought her in—”
“Half-drowned? I’ll bet she was with Daria. She’s always with Daria on some sea search, some underwater mission. I can’t believe they were out in that storm.”
Though he could tell she was concerned, she spoke with an undercurrent of bitterness. The older he got, the more he saw family problems everywhere, though most simmered just below the surface of people’s daily lives. He used to think his messed-up family was unique, but now he knew it was almost normal.
The triage nurse was on the phone, checking on Briana’s status. Finally, some answers, Cole thought. He stuck tight to Amelia while she folded her arms and seemed to collapse within herself. She was a good-looking woman, a platinum blonde with every hair in place and icy blue eyes, in contrast to Briana’s natural auburn hair and gray-green eyes. Even now, Amelia looked perfectly put together, with makeup worthy of a photo shoot, while the few times he’d seen the twins around they’d seemed windblown and often wet—a sexy combination. Amelia was obviously older than the twins and, he guessed, uptight by nature as well as from the situation. Rather than taking a deep breath, even when he urged her to, Amelia narrowed her eyes and breathed out through flared nostrils as if she were a bull waiting to charge. That reminded him about the bull sharks, but he decided not to spring that on her, at least not yet.
It wasn’t long before a thin, balding doctor came out and went straight for Amelia. The man—his badge said Dr. Micah Hawkins—flipped through papers on his clipboard and asked, “Mrs. Westcott, you are next of kin for Briana Devon?”
Cole felt his knees go weak. Had Briana died? She couldn’t have died!
“Yes, her sister—one of them,” Amelia said as the doctor gestured her to walk with him. Cole kept right up.
“She swallowed a lot of water, but worse, we believe she’s been struck by lightning while in the gulf and that can lead to complications. And you are?” Dr. Hawkins asked, squinting at Cole.
“Cole DeRoca, the friend who found her and brought her in. I gave her mouth-to-mouth and got her breathing again. She’s going to be all right?”
“You are to be commended, Mr. DeRoca—you probably saved her life. If Mrs. Westcott doesn’t mind, you can come along. We’ll need to run a battery of tests, call in a neuropsychologist. She keeps slipping in and out of consciousness and asking for Daria.”
“Oh, she would,” Amelia said. “But, you mean Daria hasn’t been found?”
“That’s her twin sister. Briana was evidently out in a boat with her,” Cole explained to the doctor. “But Briana must have fallen in.”
“Dear God, Daria can’t be missing—out there, too,” Amelia cried, gripping Dr. Hawkins’s wrist. “Doctor, call in whatever specialists you need. I’m not sure about Briana’s insurance, but I’ll take care of all that.”
Cole’s dislike for Amelia softened a bit. But when she said nothing else, as he followed the two of them deeper into the maze of curtained cubicles, he asked, “But if Briana was out in the gulf with Daria, where is Daria now?”
Was she dead? Briana wondered. She slitted her eyes open, just barely, trying to keep the bright lights out of her dark brain. She felt loggy, helpless, at the mercy of the sliding, shifting sea. Up, down, all around…But the sky looked whiter now, too bright, one big cloud floating over her with more than one sun in it. Ceiling lights. They hurt her eyes, and even when people spoke across the room, it seemed they shouted at her.
People’s faces, unfamiliar, swam in and out above her. The sharks were gone. Had they been real? Daria, her mirror image, where was she? She didn’t like to dive alone, she wanted Daria, her other self, there when they stepped together through the looking glass into the wonderland of the deep.
Someone forced her eyelids apart and shone a bright light into the depths of her brain. She jerked away. She tried to lift her hands to shield her face, but one of her arms was heavy with tubes and the other was bandaged and hurt like heck. A man—a doctor—leaned over her. Oh, Amelia was standing beside him. Why was Amelia here? And who was the tall, handsome man with dark eyes and black hair, his face so worried as he looked her over? His clothes showed he was not another doctor. Had he been swimming with her?
“What happened?” she tried to ask, but she didn’t sound like herself and no one answered. What was the matter with these people? And where was Daria?
“She sustained no burns except on her left wrist, where she wore a stainless-steel dive watch,” the doctor was telling Amelia and the man. “Actually, it’s probably a skin lesion—an inflammatory response—which may disappear in a few days. I’ve already ordered a CT scan and an MRI, and we’ll have her in a room as soon as possible, so we can monitor her better. We’ll do some functional scans but call in a specialist for that.”
“Functional—function of the brain?” the man asked, his deep voice a soothing whisper compared to the others.
“Precisely. Aftereffects can vary widely. And although her pupils are dilated, I want to assure you that does not necessarily mean brain injury, Mrs. Westcott.” He leaned closer, very close. “Briana, I’m Dr. Hawkins. Can you hear me?”
She could hear him, all right. She heard every sound in this place, even the dripping of that bag above into her tube. “Yes,” she said with great effort, because she didn’t think she had the strength to nod. Her lips felt stiff and cracked. “Where’s Daria?”
The tall man spoke again. “Brianna, can you tell us where you last saw Daria?”
She fought to form her words. They had to help find Daria.
“When I dove—off our boat—at Trade Wreck—before the storm.”
Amelia gasped, a sound that pierced Bree’s eardrums. “You mean she could be lost at sea?” her sister demanded, but the man put his hand on Amelia’s arm to keep her quiet.
“Was she still on the boat when you saw her last?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes!”
“Then she’ll be all right,” Amelia said. “She probably had to ride out the storm, or put in somewhere else.” She squeezed Bree’s shoulder and moved away with the doctor.
No, Bree wanted to scream. Didn’t they know Daria never would have left her? Not of her own accord.
“We’ll look for her and find her,” the tall man said, and put his big hand lightly on her shoulder where Amelia’s had just been. His hand was warm, solid. Where had she seen him before? “Just try to rest now,” he said.
If Amelia and the doctor thought they were whispering when they moved away,