Priceless: A Tropical Authors Novella (Tropical Adventure Series Book 4)

PRICELESS A TROPICAL AUTHORS NOVELLA DEBORAH BROWN NICHOLAS HARVEY DON RICH CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Epilogue About the Author About the Author About the Author Copyright © 2023 by Down Island Publishing, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2023 ISBN-13: 978-1-956026-51-1 Cover design: Harvey Books, LLC Editor: Gretchen Tannert Douglas This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner unless noted otherwise. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. 1 Grand Cayman Nora Sommer eased her tall, lean body through the opening, careful not to drag her scuba tank against the rusting metal of the shipwreck. Playing the beam of her underwater flashlight around the pitch-black room, she watched small fish flit away and hide behind the large marine transmissions which appeared to hang from one wall among a myriad of pipes and other machinery. The USS Kittiwake had sat upright on the sandy seafloor for almost seven years before Tropical Storm Nate had rolled her onto her side and pushed the artificial reef up against a nearby coral bommie. Now, once inside the 251-foot-long wreck, a diver could easily become disoriented by a world tipped over. A second beam of light joined Nora’s as her friend and dive buddy, AJ Bailey, entered the engine room. A dozen years older than Nora, AJ owned her own business on the island, Mermaid Divers, and was more like a big sister than simply a friend. The two experienced divers finned gently around the cramped space, careful not to disturb the fine layer of silt accumulated over every surface. Movement to her right caught Nora’s attention, and she redirected her flashlight, only to catch a small cloud of grayish-brown haze wafting through the water where something had been just moments before. Most likely it had been one of the many squirrelfish, grunts, or even a small grouper, but the young off-duty police constable felt a tingle of caution. With nothing visible beyond the circular beams captured by their lights, Nora constantly felt like she was looking down a narrow tunnel surrounded by darkness. Many a diver had succumbed to the claustrophobia and isolated feeling of being deep inside a sunken ship, but not Nora; she thrived on the tension. With a combination of her Norwegian upbringing and the tragedies she’d endured during the past few years, the twenty-year-old was stoic and determined. Her heart rate remained low, and her movements were precise, yet relaxed. During the day, light penetrated the wreck through a series of hatches, doorways, and cutouts laid open before the artificial reef had been sunk. But at night, the entire ship was shrouded in darkness, inside and out. She felt the water stir to her left as AJ moved alongside, directing her flashlight between the rusted steel hulks of the transmissions. Nora focused on the deeper side of the room, knowing beyond the hull lay the seafloor where the big ship had nestled firmly into the sand. Her beam caught a willowy flutter of color as something dodged below a series of pipes. Slipping the sling spear from the waistband of her buoyancy control device—or BCD as it was usually called—Nora exhaled the air from her lungs in a stream of bubbles and dropped below the warren of pipes. Just as her light found the fish she was hunting, something larger slid by her face. Resisting the urge to bolt, she remained perfectly still until the movement in the water subsided. Instinct urged her to move the light away from her target, knowing a larger predator was lurking close by, but Nora forced her focus to remain on her prey. Slowly, she drew back the spear on the rubber propulsion band. The lionfish before her was the biggest she’d ever seen, its array of scarlet and white fins waving softly as the water stirred around them. Venomous spines seemed to emanate from every angle of the fish’s striped body. Using small changes in breath to adjust her buoyancy and subtle fin movements to guide her path, she eased the three-pronged tip of the spear to within a foot of the invasive fish. Silt billowed as she released the spear and her prey tried to bolt. A dull thud let Nora know her needle-sharp tips had hit metal, but the violent writhing on the end of the fiberglass spear told her she’d hit her target. Lost in a cloud of silt and debris, she pressed the spear against the ship’s hull, pinning the lionfish in place. If she tried to draw the spear back, the fish would wrench itself from the tips and be gone in a flash, hiding somewhere unseen where it would likely die slowly from the wounds. A hand brushed over Nora’s and took hold of the spear. Nora released her grip and fumbled in the hazy darkness, her light beam illuminating nothing more than a thick mass of brown speckles in the water. Finding the spear AJ held in her other hand, Nora took the second weapon and quickly drew back against the band. Careful to avoid AJ, and working by feel, Nora sat the tips against the flailing fish and released the spear. The fish jolted a few times before the resistance faded as it finally expired. They both slowly