Deep Beneath: A Psychic Vision Novel Read online

  Deep Beneath

  A Psychic Visions Novel

  Book #15

  Dale Mayer

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Complimentary Download

  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

  Excerpt for From the Ashes

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  This is the 15th Psychic Visions Novel from USA Today Bestselling author Dale Mayer.

  You might think you know what lurks below, … but do you really?

  A kayaking incident off Seattle’s shores sends Whimsy into a coma, where her nightmares are a revolving repeat of her drowning. She wakes to life on an isolated island, involving her strange savior, two dogs with unique identities, and voices, sounds, emotions that aren’t hers alone.

  To a mystery that makes no sense …

  Samson heard the cry to save the woman washed onto his shores, and the dogs were already on the job before he arrived. But he had no idea how much impact this woman would make in his life … and his brother’s.

  However, the mystery is so much bigger than him and her …

  Plus another element is involved. A research group has been illegally conducting tests on the tectonic plates, … with unexpected consequences … deep beneath.

  Sign up to be notified of all Dale’s releases here!

  Your Free Book Awaits!

  KILL OR BE KILLED

  Part of an elite SEAL team, Mason takes on the dangerous jobs no one else wants to do – or can do. When he’s on a mission, he’s focused and dedicated. When he’s not, he plays as hard as he fights.

  Until he meets a woman he can’t have but can’t forget. Software developer, Tesla lost her brother in combat and has no intention of getting close to someone else in the military. Determined to save other US soldiers from a similar fate, she’s created a program that could save lives. But other countries know about the program, and they won’t stop until they get it – and get her.

  Time is running out … For her … For him … For them …

  DOWNLOAD a complimentary copy of MASON? Just tell me where to send it!

  Chapter 1

  Whimsy Connor, or rather Dr. Whimsy Connor, grinning at the reminder of her new title, reached for the skirt of the seagoing kayak and hooked it tight around the edges of the opening. She sat in the shoals, waiting for the rest of her group to join her and to then go ocean kayaking for the day, a reward after getting word she’d completed her PhD. And how great was that? The culmination of her twelve-year journey in marine biology. And here she was, in a seagoing craft for the first time in at least a year. And that was a huge shame. She lived for these outings.

  She was half water rat. Others would laugh and say she was half dolphin, but she didn’t have anywhere near the grace of those majestic animals. She’d spent one of her summers studying them—and, her particular favorite mammal, the misnamed killer whales—off the coast of Costa Rica. But here she was, back again in Seattle, this time getting ready to hit the cold waters of Puget Sound. She wore a dry suit because the water temperatures were too damn cold. She even had on her booties, and those things were to die for.

  Of course she didn’t own any of this gear. It was all on loan from Dr. Berkley. He’d made the offer as a gift for completing her dissertation and getting her PhD. He’d been one of the three professors on her supervisory committee as well. She’d loved working with him. Loved it as much as she’d hated her other professor, Dr. Strauss. Then that feeling was mutual. She’d known both profs for close to six years, and they couldn’t be more different. Still, she’d made it through the grueling years, and this—today—was just one of the many rewards.

  She looked around as the other three members of her party gathered around, seeing them all in various states of readiness. Absentmindedly she checked her life jacket buckles. She picked up her paddle and took a few experimental strokes. In the sound she could see some big tankers, several small pleasure crafts and a couple of the larger ferries plus a cruiser moving on the water.

  It was a hot sunny day in the latter part of June, and it was only nine in the morning. She had all day to splash to her heart’s content. All thanks to Mark Talbot, her fiancé. He’d been the one who’d arranged this treat with Dr. Berkley and had arranged for the pickup of the gear. On one side of her were Sarah and Wallace, both friends, both biologists, both marine-animal nuts, just like her.

  On her other side was Mark. He wasn’t an academic; instead he was a jock and more than happy to spend the day kayaking. She appreciated this treat from him. Not to mention the time together. She’d been so busy she’d had to cancel several planned outings lately, pissing him right off. It had been the biggest issue in their relationship this last year. She was too focused on her goals and didn’t have time for him. And there was a lot of truth to his complaint. So today was a day to mend the rift. Life for them should be much easier going forward, now that her schooling was over.

  She smiled up at him. “Are you doing okay?”

  He laughed. “I’m always doing okay. You know that,” he said in that bright cheerful voice of his.

  And it was true. There was just something so bizarre about a man who was always happy. Up ahead she could see two other kayakers. They came toward her with long heavy strokes. She smiled as they got close. But one guy in the front had a serious expression as he beelined straight for her. She was almost in the way, but, as he came abreast, he hit the brakes hard.

  She watched his braking technique with interest. Obviously he was a racer of some kind. “You handled that craft like you were born into it,” she said brightly.

  He nodded. “Dr. Whimsy Connor, I presume?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “How would you know?” Then she recognized him. “Hey, you’re Patrick McConnel, from campus security?”

  He nodded. “The professor mentioned you were coming today.” His gaze turned to Mark. “And the ever-present boyfriend, Mark Talbot, correct?”

  Mark’s face dimmed. “Yeah, that’s me, but I don’t know you.”

  Patrick shrugged and turned to glance at the man behind him. There was something predatory about the two of them, dangerous even.

  Whimsy started to feel a little uncertain. “Can we help you with something?”

  Patrick stared at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “No, we’re fine, but thanks,” he said. “Where are you guys going?”

  “Anywhere out there.” She pointed to the ocean ahead, her normal sunny nature returning. “It’s my day to play hooky, and I’m desperately in need of a chance to reconnect with the reason I went to school in the first place.”

  “The water?”

  She laughed. “I guess it’s not too hard to guess, considering where I’m sitting.” She picked up her paddle and gently stroked away from him. “Have a nice day.”

  She did a wide curve away
from the other two men. And stroked smoothly and rhythmically, her paddle dipping into the water, pulling back, making a little bit of white foam and a splash before pulling again. She didn’t look back as she knew the others would fall in line.

  There was a rhythm to kayaking that seemed as old as time. It took her a bit to get into that rhythm, but, once she was there, she lost track of everything around her—people could talk; people could even hit her, and she wouldn’t have a clue. She was one with the water, which was where she’d always been in her heart. There was just something about those waves, something about trailing her fingers in the cold water, feeling the vast depths of darkness beneath it. For some people that was scary. For Whimsy it was an all-encompassing mystery she wanted desperately to investigate further, but it never seemed to happen. Then she had a connection to it most wouldn’t understand …

  Hell, she didn’t either, but she welcomed it. “And today she welcomes a chance to be out here and to reconnect …” she said out loud, laughing. “Dr. Whimsy Connor is going to play for a change.”

  Her real name was Whimsical. Her mom had been a fantasy painter. So she had thought Whimsical was a great name. It hadn’t taken long for it to shorten down to Whimsy. And that had caused no end of hell growing up. She was only five foot four, maybe one hundred pounds soaking wet. Thankfully, butting up against thirty, she no longer had to shop in the children’s section of department stores. Surely she was almost too old to even have a name like Whimsy and would feel pretty stupid by the time she reached forty and fifty. Maybe by the time she hit eighty, it’d be funny again. She didn’t know. But it was such a massive pain to change her name, so she hadn’t bothered. Besides, she didn’t mind her nickname with her friends.

  Behind her she could hear Mark calling her. She turned her head to see him coming up behind her, his strokes strong and sure. He was a bodybuilder, a bit of an egotist when it came to his physical form. But, when it came to sports, he was pure magic. No matter what sport it was, whether on snow or ice or water, he could just make his body sing in a way she could only admire. She held no envy because it was so far away from anything she could possibly do that it never bothered her. He was just damn good at what he did. There were a lot of other differences between them too. He loved things, going places. She loved space, preferably empty space.

  He crested beside her and stopped stroking so he could soar in the water between her and the closest ship’s route. “You took off so fast. Did that guy upset you?”

  Her laughter trilled out. “Nope, not at all. I don’t know what he was doing, but we were wasting time,” she said. “I was just so anxious to get out here. Where are the other two?”

  He glanced behind him. “Sarah and Wallace are coming up behind us.”

  She nodded. “Good. I’m hoping for quite a few hours out on the water.”

  “But we’re not going too far away in case you can’t make the trip back,” he warned. “You have a tendency to be overenthusiastic on the way out and underestimate your strength for coming home again.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. But an awful lot of boat life is going on around here. It would be nice to get out a little farther before we’re racked by the waves from the tankers.”

  “Not out into the main current,” he warned. “Pulling against that coming home will not be fun.”

  Obediently she nodded. “I promise I’ll follow your lead.”

  And that was what they did. An hour and a half later she stopped for a breath. Settling into the rhythm had been great, but her shoulders were starting to feel it and, hating to admit it, so were her legs. She had a tendency to tighten up her legs and calves as she pulled forward, and then they would cramp on the underside. If she could just learn to relax and tighten her core on her pulls, she could power forward that much more. She had to remember all these little things, but all she wanted to do was just find that rhythm and go.

  Mark caught up to her again. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  She smiled, took several deep breaths of fresh sea air and cried out, “I’m doing great!” She pulled the kayak around so she could watch Sarah and Wallace as they approached. Both showed fatigue. “But it looks like they’re getting tired.”

  Mark frowned and pivoted so he faced the two coming up.

  Wallace smiled. “We’re done. By the time we get back again, it’ll be all we can do to beach up and wait for you guys.”

  Torn because she didn’t want to head back quite so soon, Whimsy asked, “Do you mind if we keep going for a bit?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Go, go, go. This is all about everybody doing what they need to do. It was fun to be with you guys for a while, but we’re turning around because I’m at the end of my strength. Just don’t overdo it,” she cautioned them.

  Whimsy laughed, her voice exuberant and joyful as it crested over the waves. “As long as the weather holds, we’ll be fine.”

  Mark nodded. “A squall is threatening to come down from the north, but, with any luck, it’ll pass us. We’ll stay close to shore anyway. And then, if we do run into bad weather, we can always beach down here and get a ride back.”

  “You got your cell phones?” Wallace asked as he turned around.

  “Got it in a plastic bag in my pocket,” Whimsy said, patting her chest. “We’ll see you in a couple hours.”

  Whimsy paddled her kayak forward again across the water. She loved the way the waves lapped over the front of the bow and came up along the side. She couldn’t resist stopping her strokes and dragging her fingers through the cold water. She stared into the blackness underneath. That was one thing about the deep ocean water. You never knew what floated just beneath the kayak. It could be a whale; it could be a shark, or it could be a million different schools of small fish, depending on where you were. It was fascinating. A lot of marine life populated this area, but she hadn’t been lucky enough to see any today yet. She glanced at Mark, feeling a heavy gust of cold wind biting at her face. The squall Mark had mentioned earlier. She studied the skies, then the path they had to travel back and frowned.

  “You still up for this, Whimsy?” Mark asked. “We have a ways to go if you want to reach the spots you were looking forward to. But, with the weather turning ugly, we won’t have much time.”

  She was beginning to have some misgivings about this trip. She could see Sarah and Wallace, now small figures in the distance, and realized that maybe she and Mark should have turned back with them. Studying the nearing squall, she said, “That is coming our way and building.”

  “Yes, it is,” Mark said calmly. “Let’s get closer to the shore. Then we can reconsider.”

  She nodded.

  He turned and struck out strongly.

  The trouble was, by the time she turned and followed him, the squall was almost upon them. “Wow, that came up fast,” she said, pulling hard on her paddle and examining her every stroke.

  They paddled hard toward the shore, where the waves should be a little bit calmer. Instead, the current waves broke on the beach with an exuberance that normally she would have loved. But fighting those waves in this kayak wouldn’t be much fun. She stared back out at the deep water. “Maybe we should go back out there, out of the reach of the storm,” she shouted. “I’m not making much progress.”

  “The tide will be too strong,” he yelled back at her over the waves. “We need to go in closer …”

  She put her back into her strokes.

  But the waves and winds stole her breath and her strength. If she could just make it to shore, … they could always camp out and wait for the squall to pass, then get back in their kayaks and paddle home again.

  She put her head down and focused on moving one arm and then the other. The rain started, pounding on her head and her shoulders, adding a gray sleet to the horizon around her. The bad weather had come up so damn fast and had overtaken her world. She could barely make out the shore ahead, yet the force of the current pulled her farther and farther out into the sound.
/>   Mark was closer to the shore and still fighting the elements. But he was stronger and in better shape. And getting farther away from her …

  She angled her kayak’s nose toward the shore, but almost immediately the waves turned her kayak away. She couldn’t keep it on a steady course.

  Panic roiled inside her. Memories of her earlier trauma surfaced. She glanced around for any possible way to get to shore, to get out of this until the weather calmed down. No boats were on the water as far as she could see—which wasn’t very far in this squall. Those boaters had been smart to stay away from this harsh element of Mother Nature.

  It would only get harder from here on out until the storm died down or turned off in another direction. Meanwhile, she was in for the fight of her life. She kept paddling, but the storm pulled her right back out, deeper and deeper into the churning water.

  She was at a point of no return. Each kayaker was paired up, and each pair carried a megaphone with them in case they got caught up in fog or whatever, but Whimsy and Mark’s megaphone and flare gun were in Mark’s kayak, not hers. She had her cell phone—doubted she could get reception out here though—but that was it. She preferred to travel light. She didn’t even have the thermos of coffee. Mark had that too.

  As she peered through the sleeting rain, the dark clouds whirled around her. If she weren’t so intent on her imminent survival, she could make some curious shapes out of the blackness crowding in on her. With a shake of her head to get that fanciful notion out of her mind, she focused on finding her kayaking partner. She could barely see Mark now. He was farther ahead and still paddling, his head down, fighting his own battle against the waves. He couldn’t reach her now. If nothing else, he could blast over those waves and beach himself safely.

  And that was what she was determined to do as well. Keeping her focus in check and her panic at bay, she once again turned so she directly faced the shore and gave it her all.

  When the lightning lit the clouds, and the thunder cracked overhead, she barely heard anything. Not so odd as she was drowning in the pounding rain with the heavy waves slashing at her and at her kayak. The latest swell swamped her vessel. If she hadn’t had a proper rubber skirt, she’d have already abandoned her sunken kayak and been floating alone in the sound. As it was, the waves kept breaking over her again and again. Paddling at this point was almost impossible. Yet, if she didn’t paddle, she would be taken farther out into the sound.