Firefly Beach (40 page)

This. Who could believe Sam was diving with his big brother on a big-league wreck with major treasure? Sam had grown up idolizing Joe. He made no bones about it. Sam had never been good at hiding any feeling—not one—that he’d ever had. That Yale stuff, for example. Sam had been so disappointed when Joe had said he wasn’t even considering the job. He had tried to act as if he didn’t care, but Joe could see that he did. Sam had really blown it that time.

Just thinking about Yale made Sam’s breathing go crazy. A year they could finally spend near each other, down the drain. Like all the other times Sam would show up and Joe would leave.
Don’t take it personally,
he told himself.
That’s just the way Joe is
. Sam’s chest hurt. He pushed Yale away, straight out of his danger zone. Exhaling a long stream of bubbles, he narrowed his eyes. He peered through the dark water; ahead he could see the spars of the
Cambria.

The wreck was a magic forest of broken timber. The divers swam in a line along the reef, circling around to swim the length of the old ship. She lay on her side, wide and austere as a great dead whale. The ribs of her black wooden belly curved out, the bow and stern tapered in. The masts had snapped off; they spiked out of the sand connected to the ship with evil loops of wire. Blackfish and cunners swam in and out.

Joe turned to face Sam. He gestured for Sam to stay put. Sam nodded assent even though he wanted to swim into the wreck behind Joe, watch the operation up close. But he wasn’t in Joe’s league as a diver. Sam’s work off Canada’s Maritimes didn’t require much scuba action, and Sam knew he was present by his brother’s grace alone.

In the precarious cave of the wreck, Sam would be in the way.

Joe was saying something. Sam squinted, looking through the celadon water. Air bubbles were flowing out of Joe’s mouth. Mask to mask with Joe, Sam read his lips:
Black Hall.

No way. Joe couldn’t be saying what Sam thought he was. Sam himself had mouthed the same words a few dives back, teasing Joe, wanting to tempt him to stay in the area, sign on at Yale, move into the town where Caroline Renwick lived. Sam had watched the way Joe changed when he was around her.

Black Hall.
Sure as hell, that’s what Joe seemed to be saying. But he couldn’t be. Sam grinned, letting a whole passel of air out and shrugged to indicate he wasn’t getting the message. Reading the word was wishful thinking on Sam’s part. Sam’s brother was a loner, a pirate, a treasure hunter. He’d never let anything like a woman or a brother hold him back.

Turning, Joe grabbed the cable. It ran from the winch on board the
Meteor
straight down to the wreck. Joe and Dan would attach it to the reinforced chest, bolstered by support and wrapped in straps, and they’d pull the gold out. Joe swam into the wreck. One by one the other divers followed. Engineers, geophysicists, archaeologists, professional salvage guys, they belonged in there, carrying out the delicate business of easing a chest of gold from the delicate labyrinth of old wood.

Sam had a different place in the sea. He was a biologist. He studied sea plants, ocean creatures. Once they got the gold, he’d hop a plane and return to his post up north. The cetaceans of Newfoundland needed to be counted. Seals needed to be observed. Herring stocks assessed. In the murky depths of Moonstone Reef, he tried to forget his dream of him and Joe at Yale.

Trying to remain patient, Sam Trevor saw a school of menhaden. The tiny fish flashed outward like an explosion of silver. Behind them came the bluefish, pewter torpedoes, eating machines. They pursued the bait fish, mouths open. The biologist hung back, observing the fish and tried to stop wondering whether his brother had actually been saying
Black Hall.

In her studio at Firefly Hill, Skye worked on her sculpture of the three sisters. She wore a black ballet top and faded overalls, and she was covered from head to toe with a thin film of clay. Beside her was a bottle of Absolut and a crystal glass. The glass was full.

She couldn’t stand her feelings.

She had just destroyed her mother. She pictured her mother’s face, shadowed with despair. She could sculpt it, the bust of a woman who had just seen into the depths of her youngest daughter’s empty soul. Old news, but it had shocked Augusta. Skye had seen it in her eyes. Vodka was the fastest way out. She sipped her drink and felt everything grow distant.

But her new piece was filled with love. Although the sisters did not have faces, Skye knew which one was Caroline, which was Clea, and which was Skye. All three had their heads tipped back just slightly, gazing at the sky with exuberance and gratitude. That’s how Skye wanted to feel someday.

Exuberant and grateful. Skye raised the glass again and drained it.

The Renwicks had made secret-keeping and lie-telling an art form. What was the alternative? It they had told the truth, they would have fallen apart. Her parents would have gotten divorced, Skye was sure. She wished she could hold on to her picture of them as a couple in love, the way the stories made it sound. They had traveled the world together, always with their children, renting houses in beautiful places for Hugh to paint. They had made a fantasy world, and now it was finally disintegrating.

Skye’s name came from the place where she had been conceived, the storied Isle of Skye in the west of Scotland. When she was old enough, her parents would hold her tight and tell her about the tiny cottage, just big enough for a couple and their two little girls, with a peat fire burning all day and night. It had been a blissful time, a place where Augusta and the girls walked the sea path while Hugh fished for salmon and painted every day.

Christmas—nine months later—her father went off with another woman. That woman’s husband came to Firefly Hill with the thought of killing the whole family, and that just about summed up the way of the Renwicks.

Hearing someone coming up the stairs, she turned to face the door. Simon stood just out of sight. She could see his lanky shadow thrown by the hall light, and she felt relieved it wasn’t her mother. He paused out there for a long while, and she could almost feel him summoning up his courage. She heard him take a deep breath.

He entered her studio holding one red rose. Apology in his eyes. He wore black jeans, a green tee-shirt, and scuffed work boots. Very slowly, he walked across the big space, his footsteps echoing. When he got to Skye, he knelt before her and handed her the rose.

“This is for you,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. She held the rose to her nose and breathed its sweet scent, trying to be unmoved.

“I picked it on my way in,” he said with disarming truthfulness. “From the garden outside.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to prove I belong here, that I’m part of the family. I am, you know,” he said, burying his head in her lap. Her hands were covered with clay, but she laid them gently on his hair.

“Your father made mistakes, Skye, and your mother took him back.”

“Maybe she shouldn’t have.”

“Didn’t you tell me he planted those roses outside as a symbol? He wanted to undo his mistakes, make things up to her. I’ll be better to you.”

Again, she smelled the rose. It was musky and sexy, like love and the end of summer. Skye thought of Caroline and Clea; for some reason, she felt tears hot behind her eyelids. She felt herself slipping away. She wanted to believe Simon. More than anything, she wanted to click into love and forget Redhawk and the blue ribbon and
Swan Lake
and the look in her mother’s eyes.

“This is wrong,” she said, pushing him away. “I have to be alone right now.”

“Make love to me,” he said.

“Simon, no.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You were never like this before.”

“I’m tired. I want to sculpt,” she said, the two lies colliding head-on. She wanted to get rid of Simon as quickly as possible so she could get plastered on vodka and sleep the rest of the afternoon away.

“Which is it?” he asked, grinning as he caught her.

“The truth is, I need to be alone,” she said, thinking fast. “I had an amazing dream last night, a major inspiration for a new piece, and I really feel like working.” Her desire for isolation made the lie as easy as breathing.

“Sex,” Simon said, sliding his tongue down her neck, his finger down her jeans. “You need to relax.”

“Stop,” she said, flinching. She pushed his hand away.

“I don’t feel like stopping,” he said, his breath hot on her neck.

The panic came over her. Feeling Simon’s hand on her breasts, his mouth on her throat made her skin crawl.

“No, Simon. I said no!”

“You bitch,” he said.

Skye took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, but only for an instant. She wanted to be completely present, right there for what was happening. She didn’t want to escape into her imagination, into a momentary lapse of reality. Her husband had a vicious look on his face, and he had just called her a bitch. It was almost a relief.

“If you don’t leave right now,” she said, standing, “I’m going to call the police.”

“What do you think the police will do?” Simon asked, smacking her so hard across the face that she saw stars. “You’re my wife.”

“Simon!”

“You don’t want to make love? Fine. Then we’ll fuck.”

Shocked, Skye touched her eye, her mouth. The left side of her face stung; she could almost feel it throbbing in the shape of Simon’s hand. He grabbed her by the collar, tearing her shirt. She felt her brain explode, as her eyes went wide with terror.

The fish were feeding. Caroline stood on deck, her hands on the starboard rail, watching the activity. Bluefish lunged into a school of menhaden, sending the baitfish flying like pellets into the sky. It was a full-blown feeding frenzy, with teeth snapping and half-eaten fish making a slick of oils and blood trailing the currents straight out to sea.

Caroline wondered what was happening below. A few crew members had stayed on deck to work the winch and stay in radio contact with Joe and the others below. Every so often they would pay out a little more cable. Take a turn on the winch. Crank up the engine. Check the
Meteor
’s position over the wreck, and back a few meters in reverse.

She watched the fish, trying to forget the pit in her stomach. The men on deck were talking about Greece, about diving for a treasure off Mykonos, about the warmth of the water and the beauty of the women there.

“They have it!” the winch operator yelled. “They’ve secured the chest!”

All the guys converged on deck. The big winch held a spool of wire like a giant’s fishing line. The wire ran through a long, pivoted beam that swung out over the water down to the wreck below.

“Is this very dangerous?” Caroline asked one of the men.

“Shit, yeah,” he said. “Once we start pulling, you know how much tension will be on that wire?”

“Picture the wreck as a house of cards,” said an older man, a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and the tattoo of a battleship on his arm. “The gold is sitting smack inside. We gotta thread the wire through the structure, keep it from touching anything, then wrap it around the chest. We touch one card, the whole house goes down.”

“It won’t happen,” the operator said. “Joe knows his stuff. We do this all the time.”

“Gonna do it in Greece next month,” someone else said.

The operator spoke into the mike. He pressed a finger against the earpiece, trying to hear better. He spoke again, and Caroline heard him say “Roger. Starting the winch.” He punched buttons on the control panel.

Caroline watched the wire go taut. It was pulling the chest. Thinking of the house of cards, her stomach flipped. She gazed away, out toward the thrashing bluefish. They had moved closer. Something dark was swimming toward them.

The thing was a shark.

Inside the wreck, darkness was total. No sun penetrated from the surface. Light shimmered from lanterns illuminating the chest, and Joe tried to see as he and Dan wrapped the case in cable. They had rigged up a series of metal arches, guiding the wire through the old ship. Designed to keep the cable from chafing and collapsing the wreck, the arches seemed to be holding.