LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      THE LUXURY CATAMARAN had first appeared two days ago, bobbing in the sea off Nancy’s Point.

      Lurking.

      Except Mila Nakano couldn’t, in all fairness, call it lurking since it stood out like a flashing white beacon against the otherwise empty blue expanse of ocean. Whatever its crew were doing out there, they weren’t trying to be secretive about it, which probably meant they had permission to be moored on the outer fringes of the reef. And a vessel with all the appropriate authorisation was no business of a Wildlife Officer with somewhere else to be.

      Vessels came and went daily on the edge of the Marine Park off Coral Bay—mostly research boats, often charters and occasionally private yachts there to enjoy the World Heritage reefs. This one had ‘private’ written all over it. If she had the kind of money that bought luxury catamarans she’d probably spend it visiting places of wonder too.

      Mila peeled her wetsuit down to its waist and let her eyes flutter shut as the coastal air against her sweat-damp skin tinkled like tiny, bouncing ball bearings. Most days, she liked to snorkel in just a bikini to revel in the symphony of water against her bare flesh. Some days, though, she just needed to get things done and a wetsuit was as good as noise-cancelling headphones to someone with synaesthesia—or ‘superpower’ as her brothers had always referred to her cross-sensed condition—because she couldn’t hear the physical sensation of swimming over the reef when it was muted by thick neoprene. Not that her condition was conveniently limited to just the single jumbled sensation; no, that would be too pedestrian for Mila Nakano. She felt colours. She tasted emotion. And she attributed random personality traits to things. It might make no sense to anyone else but it made total sense to her.

      Of course it did; she’d been born that way.

      But today she could do without the distraction. Her tour-for-one was due any minute and she still needed to cross the rest of the bay and clamber up to Nancy’s Point to meet him, because she’d drifted further than she meant while snorkelling the reef. A tour-for-one was the perfect number. One made it possible for her to do her job without ending up with a thumping headache—complete with harmonic foghorns. With larger groups, she couldn’t control how shouty their body spray was, what mood the colours they wore would leave her in, or how exhausting they were just to be around. They would have a fantastic time out on the reef, but the cost to her was sometimes too great. It could take her three days to rebalance after a big group.

      But one... That was doable.

      Her

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