The Voice inside My Head (3 page)

It takes about two minutes of walking to reach a simple wooden building, much like all the others, with a roughly painted sign that announces it’s the Whale Shark Research Center. It was that easy. I stop. Zach stops with me and together we stare at the building. Pat was here less than three weeks ago. She was in that building, talking, laughing and hanging out. I try to picture her here, but I can’t. It’s not that her ending up in a place like this is a huge surprise. It’s exactly the kind of place she dreamed of working in. She has three aquariums at home, all bought with her own money; the biggest cost more than a thousand dollars. She was determined to save the planet, one fish at a time. Maybe I just can’t see her here because I don’t want to.

A chalkboard out front lists the dates of the most recent whale shark sightings. Did she write on that board? I scan it for her handwriting, but the dates don’t go back far enough. The sharks she sighted have been erased. Just like her. I want to shout at someone, demand to know how they can continue with business as usual when my sister is missing.

“That’s where she worked,” whispers Zach reverently.

I turn to him, startled. For a moment, I’d forgotten he was there. His scrawny body is slumped under the weight of his pack and maybe the weight of a mother who doesn’t want him around, not to mention my sister’s recent desertion. I debate whether to set him straight on my sister. It’s not really his business, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who has things go his way very often and I know what that’s like.

“She’s my sister,” I say finally. “Your friend is my sister and she’s not dead.”

I expect him to demand an explanation, but he just gets very still and his face takes on an expression I recognize all too well. I saw the same expression on my parents’ faces when I told them I was going to Utila and bringing Pat home. I hate her for putting me in this position.

“She contacted you?” He interrupts my conversation with Pat, his grin huge.

“Not exactly,” I say slowly. I’m wondering where to begin,
but he doesn’t wait for details. He just throws his arms around me and pulls me into a fierce hug.

I feel the weight of him and wonder if I made a mistake telling him.

“Cosmic,” he hoots, stepping back and holding up his hand for a high five. I slap it and he does a little swaying dance. I smile for the first time in weeks. It’s a relief to have someone share my belief that Pat’s alive without questioning me. My parents don’t count. They want to believe it so badly themselves, I barely had to say a thing to convince them.

“I have to go in there and talk to them.” I nod at the Shark Center.

“Right, let’s go.” He’s rocking on the balls of his feet. I think if he wasn’t anchored by his pack, he might actually float away.

“I need to do it alone,” I say firmly. I don’t want to go into a long explanation of how royally I messed up. He doesn’t need to know it’s my fault Pat came here in the first place. I just hope he’ll accept my desire at face value.

He plumps down flat-footed and stares at his feet.

“I’ll come find you later,” I add quickly. “Where will you be?”

“Bluewater Dive.” He’s still not looking up. I can tell he thinks I’m blowing him off, so I’m relieved when he continues. “There are rooms behind the dive shack. Anyone can show you.… ”

“Okay, then. I’ll come find you.” I want to walk away, but he looks so deflated, I can’t make the move. I try to think of something I can say that will bring back his elation of moments before, but I’ve got nothing.

I wait.

“Right,” he says finally, “I guess I better jet.”

“We’ll meet up later,” I promise again. I really wish he would just leave. I’m sorry he’s upset, but I can’t let him distract me from finding my sister.

We share an awkward silence. I glance back at the Shark Center. He kicks at the sunbaked dirt, stirring up a cloud of dust.

“You’ll come round later,” he confirms, though it’s more question than statement, and he gives me a look at once hopeful and defeated. If there was any part of me doubting whether I’d really make good on my promise, it’s squashed in that moment.

“Definitely.”

He nods, turns away and plods off down the road, dodging vehicles that are moving too fast and townsfolk barely moving at all. I watch till he’s out of sight.

P
AT:
You’ve started something now
.

It’s the first time Pat’s initiated one of our chats. It catches me off guard and I don’t appreciate her tone. I decide to ignore her and go inside the Shark Center. The minute I walk through the door, I remember why I hate Pat’s obsession with sea life.

I don’t like the ocean. I don’t like any natural body of water, not even rivers or lakes. They give me the creeps. The fact is, you never really know what’s down there. But oceans are the worst. With oceans, the unknown isn’t
what’s
down there but
where
. You know there are billions of sharks, eels, octopuses, stingrays, jellyfish, lion fish, sea urchins … I could go on. You know that half of what’s swimming in the ocean will poison you, maim you or kill you, and you know the
other half is just waiting to grow big enough to poison you, maim you or kill you. The only thing you don’t know is whether death is a few feet away or a few inches.

The walls of the Whale Shark Research Center are plastered with huge, graphic, high-res close-up photographs of killing machines of every size, shape and description. Or as my sister would say, “marine life.”

“You want to swim with the sharks?”

I jump and tear my eyes away from the photographs to stare at the sweet-faced girl with short blond pigtails and soft blue eyes who has just voiced my worst nightmare. She smiles expectantly and comes out from behind a long wooden counter at the far end of the room.

“We get people from all over the world coming just for the chance to spend a few minutes in the water with them. The picture says it all, don’t you think?” She stands next to me and we gaze at a four-foot-by-five glossy of a shark whose mouth is twice the length of the full-grown man swimming in front of it.

“It really does,” I agree.

“We usually allow only snorkeling with the sharks,” she explains in an apologetic voice. “Snorkelers are less stressful for them than divers.”

“You certainly wouldn’t want to stress them out,” I say.

“We have a boat going out this afternoon. I could put your name down for it. All the money from the trips goes into protecting the sharks.”

“Protecting the sharks,” I repeat.

“It’s an experience you’ll never forget.” She looks up at me with the passionate intensity of a religious zealot.

“I bet.”

“It’s so amazing,” she prattles on. “We go out in the middle of the ocean. From a long way off, we see the seabirds circling this boil of fish — that’s what we call it — hundreds of tuna in a frenzy of feeding on smaller fish that are madly eating plankton that the whale sharks have corralled. And we sail right up and dive in the middle of it and —”

“You jump into the middle of the feeding frenzy?” I interrupt.

“Exactly! It’s so cool.”

“Does anyone ever get bitten in this feeding frenzy?”

“Of course not.” She giggles. Nervously.

I give her a skeptical look.

“Almost never.”

“Almost never?”

She glances to the back of the shop, where there’s an open doorway behind the counter.

“But people do get bitten,” I prompt.

“Not by the whale sharks.” She folds her arms across her chest and glances back to the door again, like she’s willing someone to walk through it.

“But something attacks them.”

“The ocean is thousands of feet deep,” she says primly. “So obviously there are other things in the water, and if something were to bite, it’d be totally accidental. It could happen anywhere.”

“So you’re saying that if you jump into thousands of feet of water, in the middle of a feeding frenzy, with little fish and big fish and massive sixty-foot sharks, and everyone’s chomping everyone else, it’s a total freak accident if something
chomps you? It’s like walking along the sidewalk and getting swiped by a drunk driver?”

She twists a pigtail around her finger and looks away, frowning.

“I’m looking for Tracy Brandon,” I say.

She whips round to stare at me.

“I’m guessing that’s you.” I try for a friendly smile, which she doesn’t return. I don’t know what her problem is. She was the one who brought up sharks.

“How can I help you?” she asks grumpily.

“I understand you were my sister’s roommate.”

“Oh my God!” She puts her hands to her mouth and then clutches my arm. “You’re Luke Carrington? Oh, wow, I should have realized. You really look like her. Although you’re not much like her, are you?”

“Not much, no.” Her reaction doesn’t surprise me. Pat’s only eleven months older. For years, people mistook us for twins, even teachers who knew Pat was a grade ahead. They just figured I was the dumb one. They weren’t far off. Our physical resemblance is striking, and I definitely am the dumb one, if grades are anything to go by.

“I’m so sorry,” she says earnestly. “About what happened to her, I mean. Tricia and I were best friends, like sisters almost.”

There’s that name again. And another best friend? No wonder Pat never had time to call home. In the six weeks she’d been gone before her disappearance, we’d only heard from her twice, and beyond saying she’d been assigned to share a room with this Tracy chick, she didn’t say a thing about her. She certainly didn’t say they were besties.

“I miss her so much,” Tracy says, tearing up. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” One tear slides down her cheek, followed by another.

“I was hoping I could ask you some questions,” I say, keeping my voice calm. Now I’m the one looking at the door. I know where this is going. After my parents came back with the police report and before I decided to fetch Pat home myself, I spent almost a week with sobbing females; every relative, friend, teacher, random stranger that could claim some connection to my perfect sister turned up in our living room doing exactly what this girl is about to do. She shudders once — and so it begins — throws her arms around my neck and starts heaving loud wet sobs. I put an arm around her, pat her back and wonder if I can ease off my backpack without her noticing. The three flights, two-hour bus ride and life-threatening ocean crossing are catching up with me. Leading her over to a corner set up like a reading nook, I ease her down into a chair. Unfortunately, she doesn’t loosen her death grip on my neck. I use my foot to pull over another chair for myself and sink down with her.

I want to comfort her, but something — I’m not sure what — stops me from sharing my conviction that Pat’s still alive. As unlikely a soulmate as Zach may have been for my sister, I can see her taking him under her wing. But this girl, with her bland prettiness and ability to switch from chirpy to pitiful in under a minute, doesn’t seem like someone Pat would ever befriend.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say, rubbing Tracy’s back, which is sticky with sweat. Of course, there’s no AC, even though
it’s a hundred degrees in here. They wouldn’t want to divert money from protecting the sixty-foot predators.

She sniffles and rubs her face against my chest. I’m pretty sure she just rubbed snot on my shirt, but when she looks up, I’m so relieved to see the fountain is running dry that I give her an encouraging smile. She heaves one last raggedy breath and finally loosens her grip. I drop my arm and gently pull away from her to stand up beside my chair. If there’s one thing I know about crying females, it’s that it’s not over till it’s over, so I don’t walk away just yet.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I should be the one comforting you.”

“No,” I say quickly and glance at the door again. “I’m good.” Is there no one else staffing this damn place?

“You’re so nice.” She stands up and steps toward me. I back up an equal distance and bump into the wall. The shop seems to have shrunk.

“Would you like to see my room?” Her pink skin turns three shades darker. “I mean Tricia’s room?”

“Maybe later.” I take a couple of casual sideways steps along the wall until she’s no longer between me and the exit. “I really just wanted to ask if there’s anything you could tell me about her.”

“There’s so much I could tell you.” Her eyes start filling again.

“Maybe when you’re feeling better,” I say over my shoulder, as I make a break for the door I came in.

“I’d love to talk to you about her.” She’s right behind me. I speed up.

“G’day, shark lover!” We’re both halted in our tracks by a cheerful voice reverberating off the walls. A stocky, completely
bald giant chooses this moment, when I’m less than a yard from freedom, to swagger out from the back door and hustle over to plant himself between me and the exit.

“Have ya signed up for a trip, mate?” he grins, showing a mouthful of strong white teeth in a tanned, leathery face. I get from the accent that he’s Australian. Zach was right about Utila being a hodgepodge of nationalities. I figure Tracy for American.

“Dr. Jake,” says Tracy, moving to stand beside him, “this is Luke, Tricia’s brother.”

“Ah, I see.” He holds out a hand, which I take, and he claps his other hand on my shoulder. “We were all very fond of your sister. It was a bad business, that. I gave your parents the report we got from the police. It seemed pretty cut-and-dried, I’m afraid. They found her clothes on a dock on the outskirts of town. We figure she’d gone out swimming a bit too deep and an undertow took her. She’d been drinking as well, you see.” The bluster that filled him moments before has leaked out, but the hand that grips my shoulder is firm. “I’m sorry, son.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze.

I remember it was this man who sent the first e-mail when Pat didn’t show up for work. At that point, she’d been missing less than twelve hours. My parents made a show of scoffing at the childless man who was so quick to worry about one missed shift.