Alive at 5 (Entangled Ignite) by Linda Bond Page A

Zack had felt no obligation to fill them in.
    Would he have mentioned it when he made his full confession after the hour she’d promised him at the bar? Maybe. Probably. Who knew? He’d never gotten a chance to find out just how serious he’d been about trusting her. And judging by the look on her face two minutes ago, he would have bet last year’s salary he’d never get another chance.
    Now, he wasn’t so sure.
    The gentle squeeze of her hand made him want to curl up in her arms to watch the video, the possible clue she’d found for him. Embarrassed, he pulled away from her.
    She didn’t reach for him again. Which made him feel even shittier.
    The sound of someone breathing through a regulator drew his attention to the TV screen. A diver descended through the waters of the Orange Grove Sink. The date on the screen indicated the dive had taken place on the day his uncle died. Zack tried to swallow, but the invisible obstruction lodged there would not go down.
    The water and landscape looked much the same as it had on his dive earlier. Bubbles rose up from below through an increasingly darkening pool of water. The diver shooting the video wasn’t alone. Another diver was swimming below him, letting out air bubbles as he breathed. Michael Flint?
    The video had obviously been shot with a helmet cam worn by the first diver. If that man was indeed his uncle, they were now seeing through his Uncle Jackson’s eyes.
    He shuddered, suddenly chilled despite the lack of air-conditioning in the mobile home.
    A second diver moved in front of the main diver’s helmet camera. His pulse picked up speed. “Can you pause the DVD?”
    When Rita did so, he squinted, trying to find something about the new diver that would identify him. The full wet suit, bug eye goggles, and large regulator, along with the murkiness of the deep water, made it impossible to pick out details of a face. He knew what Michael Flint looked like. Flint had been a New York undercover cop, and he’d been investigating Scott Fitzpatrick’s death. It had been such a hush-hush investigation that even the local police didn’t know about it.
    But Zack did. At the time, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had been actively investigating Jackson’s death at Zack’s request. When the FDLE shifted their attention toward Flint’s death, Zack had been taken off the X-Force investigation all together. Too personally involved, they had told him. Well, tough shit. Here he was anyway. And Fitzgerald’s, Jackson’s, and Flint’s cases were still open, unproven, and unresolved.
    The person captured on the video could have been Flint, but he could also have been any one of the vacationers diving that day.
    He blew out air he’d been holding in. “Go ahead and push play.”
    Proof. He needed proof. Or at least a good clue.
    The diver and his dive buddy came upon the familiar sign with the Grim Reaper. The first diver with the camera surged ahead. That was exactly what Jackson would have done. He’d always wanted to be in the lead. At least his uncle, if it was him, was following a guideline that had already been laid down. By now, visibility under the water was severely limited, so all they could see on the screen was what the diver’s headlight revealed.
    Further down the narrow tunnel, the main diver checked his wrist depth monitor. He held out the box-shaped device on his right wrist as if he wanted the camera to pick it up. Zack lurched forward. He drew in a sharp breath. “Pause.”
    “What? What do you see?” Samantha’s voice cracked as Rita froze the picture.
    “Look right above the computer console on the diver’s wrist. See the initials J.H.? Jackson’s initials are on the depth gage. I know that’s his. I was with him the day he bought it. The diver is my uncle.” Fingers of both relief and fear entwined deep in his gut.
    “So, this is a clue.” Samantha’s eyes lit up.
    “Where did his dive buddy go?” George scooted closer, too.