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her grandfather. Wolfe had hired Yvonne to train the dolphins aboard the Coelacanth . Little did her uncle know that the woman was a spy who worked for Noah Blackwood. Along with Butch, she had been instrumental in kidnapping the hatchlings, and would have kidnapped Grace if Grace hadn’t chosen to come with them voluntarily. Grace was convinced that Butch would have shot Laurel Lee if she hadn’t broken the standoff by climbing into her grandfather’s helicopter. But that was not the only reason Grace had volunteered.
    “How are they doing?” Grace asked as she observed the hatchlings.
    “As you can see, they are doing just fine,” Yvonne answered with a cheerful voice but cold eyes. She glanced at her watch. “Just like they were when you were here two hours ago.”
    “Oh,” Grace said, just as cheerfully. “I hope I’m not getting in your way by coming here so often.”
    “Not at all,” Yvonne said. “You are welcome to visit as often as you like. I love having you.”
    Nothing could be further from the truth, and they both knew it.
    “Any word about when they’ll be put on display?” Grace asked.
    “Again, not since you asked me two hours ago,” Yvonne answered with the same fake cheerfulness. “Or yesterday. I thought you were going to ask your grandfather? The decision lies with him. I just work here.”
    “He’s so busy,” Grace said. “I hate to bother him.” Actually, Grace had been very careful not to ask her grandfather anything about the hatchlings, or anything else. But she hoped that was about to change.
    “He is busy,” Yvonne agreed. “But I’m sure he’d tell you if you asked.”
    “How’s the training going?” Grace asked, changing the subject.
    Yvonne tossed a couple more chunks of meat, which were snapped up and swallowed with single gulps, followed by belches and an explosion of loud noxious gas in stereo.
    “I’m still establishing a behavioral baseline,” Yvonne answered. “As you can see, the hatchlings have a healthy appetite, or what we trainers call a good food drive. By manipulating it, I’ll be able to train them to do whatever they are physically capable of. Operant conditioning, it’s called. It’s how all animals are trained.”
    Or controlled , Grace thought. The person who controls the food controls the animal. The night before, she had spent several hours in Noah’s library reading about operant conditioning. But food was not the only way to control behavior.
    “My grandfather was talking about you this morning at breakfast,” she said.
    “Really?” Yvonne’s cold eyes showed some genuine interest.
    There it is , Grace thought. Like the operant conditioning books said. Desire. Just a tiny glint, but it was there. Yvonne wanted to know what Noah had said about her.
    “He said that he was lucky you were here taking care of the hatchlings,” Grace lied. “That you were doing a fabulous job.”
    The truth was that Noah hadn’t even mentioned Yvonne’s name. Like any other morning when he joined her for breakfast, he had spent the entire time tapping on his smartphone and iPad. She had asked him for an iPad of her own. When she returned to her bedroom later that morning, a brand-new iPad was sitting on her bed. Just like the case of Moleskine journals she had requested the first day they arrived at the Ark. It seemed that her grandfather would give her anything she wanted except the truth. And an all-access key card.
    “He said that?” Yvonne asked.
    Grace nodded. “He also said there were a lot of things you could teach me and suggested I spend as much time with you as I could.”
    This wasn’t true, either, but judging by Yvonne’s pleased expression, it was exactly what she wanted to hear.
    “Grab some meat,” she said with a smile. “I could use some help feeding these two.”
    “I’ll wait outside,” Butch groused.
    Grace tugged on a pair of disposable gloves and dug in.
     • • • 
    Noah Blackwood slipped into his