Read MEG: Nightstalkers for Free Online Page A

floor. He walked past rows of vacant desks to the executive suites. The office manager—a petite blue-eyed blonde in her early forties—was seated before a computer screen, her newborn son, Kyle, swaddled in a blanket in her lap.
    Patricia Mackreides looked up at her husband. “The authorities on San Juan Island couldn’t contain the story; it went viral about twenty minutes ago. Are you packed?”
    “The gear’s in the chopper.”
    “Mac, what are you doing?”
    “My job.”
    “You’re sixty-five years old. Do you really need to be chasing after sea monsters?”
    “Hey, I’m a spry sixty-five. My loins just sprouted a kid.”
    “My loins did the sprouting; yours couldn’t make it out of bed for his four a.m. feeding. And your pal Jonas is in worse shape, hobbling around on two bad knees. Terry said he was up all night again with his acid reflux.”
    “The sisters will do that to you. This is the life we’ve chosen.”
    “Don’t give me that GodfatherII bullshit; you’re not in the Mafia. Sell the institute and walk away from this nightmare while you still can.”
    “You don’t think I want to? I spent two hours last night meeting with Tom Cubit. According to our lawyer, we’re liable for any damages inflicted by Bela and Lizzy, even though they’re no longer under our care.”
    “I don’t understand. It was that radical animal rights group that broke in and released the sharks; the institute had no intention of letting them go.”
    “Technically, Virgil Carmen was still employed as the institute’s assistant director of husbandry. As for the shark lovers at R.A.W., they don’t have a pot to piss in. Cubit’s right; the victim’s family will come after us.” Mac offered her his best Michael Corleone imitation, “Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”
    “This isn’t a joke. I didn’t marry you to be widowed before our first anniversary. Don’t you want to enjoy your son growing up? Look at what Jonas and Terry are going through with David. Is that Kyle’s destiny … to be hunting these prehistoric monsters until one kills him?”
    Mac remained silent, watching his sleeping child.
    “Terry’s had it, Mac. She’s ready to leave Jonas. So I’m asking you again; what are you doing?”
    *   *   *
    The bay windows of Jonas Taylor’s office looked out onto the man-made lagoon, the western bleachers, and the blue waters of the Pacific. Jonas adjusted the venetian blinds to filter out the reflecting rays of sunlight while he waited for the overseas call.
    Like Jonas, Dr. Zachary Wallace was a marine biologist who had resolved the demons of his past by proving to the world that an ancient creature—in his case the Loch Ness monster—actually did exist. The two had met in San Francisco seven years ago while Zach was on a world tour promoting his autobiography, The Loch . They had become close friends and it was actually the Scottish intellect who had convinced Jonas to pen his own memoir—one of many projects he had never finished.
    Three years later Angel had returned from her eighteen-year hiatus and the institute was back in business. With money to burn, the Taylors invested in a start-up alternative energy company founded by Wallace that his friend promised would one day manufacture clean energy machines designed to replace fossil fuels. Why a world-famous marine biologist like Zachary Wallace would walk away from his career to develop zero-point energy generators remained a mystery to Jonas, but he backed the brilliant inventor with $14 million in start-up costs without asking any questions—even after he refused to go public with his first line of prototypes, three of which were now being tested on the institute’s second generation of Manta submersibles.
    Jonas’s iPhone chimed, chasing away his thoughts. “Zach, thanks for getting back to me.”
    “No problem. I jist read about the attack in British Columbia. Whit are ye going tae do? Nothing crazy, I