The Last Treasure (23 page)

When the boat was at a good clip, Curtis waved them toward the cabin. “Come on down. Buck's got us chasing a little sparkle today.”

A heavyset man with a gray ponytail and a matching goatee was hunched over a chart. He glanced up and scowled at Whit. “Definitely keep the mermaid, but throw the other one back.”

Curtis pointed behind them. “You and Pretty Livy help yourselves to a cold one, Whitty.”

“Thought you'd never offer.” Whit reached down to flip up
the top of the cooler and tugged out a pair of cans. He handed her one. “When in Rome, Red.”

She took a quick sip, then a longer one, the blast of cold carbonation startling and delicious.

Whit leaned in to see the map the two men were scanning. “What's on the hook today?”

“Coins,” Curtis said, sliding his index finger up and down a stretch of the chart. “Spanish. We pulled up a few yesterday.”

“Merchant ship?” Whit asked.

Curtis shrugged. “Could be a galleon. Hard to say. Figured we'd come back with the metal detector and take another look before we start sending up flares.”

Liv had read plenty about galleons, the many Spanish merchant ships that had sailed—and sometimes wrecked—along the Carolina coast, their holds flush with unimaginable treasure.

The power was cut and the boat quieted.

Curtis elbowed Whit. “You game for a peek down below?”

“You know it.” Whit winked at Liv. “But first the mermaid needs her fins.”

•   •   •

L
iv had never realized how long it actually took to get ready to dive. Watching Sam and Whit suit up, she'd sworn their equipment checks had taken just minutes, but it seemed as if Whit had been checking her gear for an eternity—and not gently either. Between all the yanking and tightening and pulling, she was amazed her teeth remained in her gums.

“Now I know how a roaster feels,” she said.

Whit grinned. “Some women actually enjoy getting poked and prodded by me, you know.” He came behind her and gave the straps on her buoyancy compensator vest a last, hard tug. “Does that feel tight enough?”

“That depends—am I supposed to be able to breathe?”

Her mask fitting came next. Satisfied with the grip, he handed her a pair of fins. “Don't put them on until we're almost in or you'll face-plant.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“A few other things you should know. Things are magnified underwater. Something about light transmission—hell if I know—but it's freaky if you aren't used to it.”

Her impatience was building behind her ribs like an engine warming up. Was there a reason he wasn't telling her all this
in
the water?

“Everything's bigger,” she said. “Got it.”

“And it'll be loud, but only at first.”

“Loud. Right.”

“And watch for the hand signals I showed you—they're important.”

“When exactly are we going in the water?”

“Christ, I thought I was impatient.” He directed her to put on her mask. “Don't forget to rub a little spit in there first, keep it from fogging up.” He secured his own and gave her a hard look through the lens. “Where's your inhaler?”

“It's in my bag.” The high, pinched sound of her voice from the pressure of the mask on her nose made her want to laugh. “Now who's stalling?” she teased.

“Come on,” he said, pointing them to the ladder. “We'll climb down.”

Disappointment burned under her wet suit. Climb down like some terrified child who has to take the steps into the deep end of the pool?

“No way,” she said. “I want to take my giant stride off the platform, like everyone else.”

“Red . . .”

“Either you come with me or I go by myself. But I've dreamed of this moment for too long and I am going off that platform, dammit.”

A chuckle came from behind them. “Attagirl,” said Curtis, coiling rope into a pile. “About time you found a woman who could stand up to you, Whitty.”

Whit sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But don't get too far away from me once we're in.”

•   •   •

A
s if she could. No sooner had she landed in a startling froth of cold and salt, and sprung back to the surface, than his big hands were around her vest and drawing her close to him. They practiced using her regulator so her body wouldn't balk at the unnatural effort of breathing underwater. Only after Whit was certain she'd practiced enough, they descended.

Liv had been underwater before, had let herself sink in pools and lakes as a child, but this stillness was larger than any she'd ever experienced. The muffled sound of her breath was instant and otherworldly, womblike. The water was silty, not as clear
as she'd always imagined, but she could see Whit clearly enough through the necklace of bubbles that spilled out of her breathing apparatus. She reached out her arm, sure he was just in front of her, but her fingers didn't touch. She smiled around her regulator. Magnification. Just as he'd warned.

Whit had told her to expect volume, a lack of quiet, and yet there was a tremendous peace in all the strange sounds. The even rhythm of air in, bubbles out. She'd been worried she'd feel afraid, unsure, but suspended in the filmy water, she felt a startling calm. No one could find her here, could need her. Not her father. Not even Sam, wherever he was in Chicago. She floated, weightless, willing her thoughts to follow. The current pulled her gently and she let it. The bottom was a whirl of shapes beneath her, the distance equally blurry. She kicked toward it.

Entering the water in a wet suit had felt strange at first, the protection sparing her from that initial burst of cold, but now the temperature was starting to reach her skin. What if a person was cast out in this water without a barrier? How long could someone last?

Was this what it had been like for Theodosia? If she had been cast into the water, had she had time to put on anything substantial, or, as some of the legends claimed, had she gone in wearing nothing but a thin nightshirt? If she'd been made to walk the plank and drop into the depths in just a layer of cotton, the shock would have been unimaginable. A thousand needles piercing her skin. Winter sea. Her skirt growing heavy with it. Pulling her down. The chill below, the slap of the bitter air above. Which agony would have been worse?

And as Theo's mind had been seized with panic and the freezing ocean, had she tried to wait out the waves or had she found the strength to swim? Had she time to think of her father waiting for her? Her husband? That they might never know where she'd gone.

“I can't lose you too, Livy.”

Liv pointed her fins to find the bottom, and alarm scampered up her spine. Her feet couldn't touch. How far out had she drifted? Turning, she sought the shape of Whit in the murky water, but the window of her mask was so small. She looked up, sure the surface was right there, but when she began to climb, it only moved farther away. Was it her weight belts? Was she supposed to abandon them to rise?

Think. Think.

Ice plowed through her veins. What if the current had pulled her too far out? She spun around, her heartbeat louder than her breathing. She couldn't see anything. Not Whit, not the anchor line, not even the hull of the boat.

Don't panic. Whatever you do,
don't panic!

She touched her mask, resisting the urge to bite down harder on her regulator. Were there supposed to be so many bubbles? Once the stream had been a thing of grace and beauty. Now the ribbon of bubbles was a dangerous screen; she could barely see beyond them. As she waved her hands to clear her view, her hand caught her regulator and knocked it from her mouth. She flailed her arms, churning the water, praying Whit was close enough to see her struggle. But even as water filled her mask, her brain screamed for her to slow, to calm. Then she felt hands close around her waist and tug her hard, tug her
up. She felt air on her face, the heat of the sun, her legs banging against metal rungs, and then her body lowered to the wet, grimy deck.

Whit's voice. Her chest tightening with a familiar squeeze.

Don't panic, don't panic
.

“Hold on, Red!”

She could hear him yelling for her bag, hear the rush of feet nearing, the clatter of knees and equipment landing beside her. She blinked up into the sun, the shine of wet rubber. Then she felt the familiar round of her inhaler shoved into her mouth and Whit's hand guiding hers around it, pressing hard until she managed to depress the top, and then—

Air.

Air.

Air
 . . .

As the calm of her breath returned, she let her gaze drift over the crowd that had gathered around her.

Whit's face came over hers, drops of water sliding down his nose, dripping from the ends of his hair. Her mouth open, she caught several drops, seawater startling against her dry lips.

Whit's eyes. Silver-blue pools. Beautiful. She blinked up at them, finding her anchor.

“Easy, Red.” He smoothed her hair from her forehead. “Easy . . .”

The coppery taste of blood sizzled against her cheeks. “It was like I was in her head, Whit,” she whispered. “Like I was her and I got confused and then I panicked—”

“Shh. Just relax.”

“What if she drowned? What if she didn't get away?”

Whit bent closer, the slick, warm wetness of his jaw brushing her cheek. “Don't talk. Just breathe.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed, needing moisture.

Her thoughts swam toward silence, closing in. Then a single spark of dread.

Sam.

She couldn't tell Sam.

•   •   •

“I
'm going to regret this, aren't I?”

Sam cast a wary look at Liv over the top of the tumbler Whit had just handed him. It was late April, and they were on Whit's porch—“the poop deck,” as Whit was fond of calling it—braving an unusually sultry Sunday morning to toast the midpoint of the semester. It had been a cold, wet spring, but summer was finally in sight. Crepe myrtles were blooming and daffodils were stubbornly poking up out of still-brown grass. To celebrate, Whit had made—
burned
—a stack of pancakes and an obscene amount of bacon—also burned—which they'd eaten with their fingers while Whit disappeared to concoct his purportedly infamous Bloody Whits. He'd emerged with a trio of tumblers, stuffed with leafy stalks of celery and gnarled pepper strips.

Sam winced as he swallowed and set down the glass. “Jesus, that's awful.”

“I think it's delicious,” Liv said, taking another spicy sip.

Whit pointed his glass at her and raised it. “Now, there's a woman who knows a real drink.”

She smiled and lifted hers in return, overcome with a sense of calm and joy. Maybe it was the day, bright and steamy and spread out wide in front of them. Sam wanted to take her to the movies, but Whit had his heart set on a road trip to the waterfront where a team was examining Castle Harbor for submerged wrecks. He had promised crab legs on the dock. Whit always promised something, Sam pointed out.

Whit drained his glass. “Who wants seconds?”

Sam balked. “One of us needs to drive to Washington.”

“Fine by me—so long as I don't have to steer the boat. And this time, Red, you can teach
me
to dive.”

Even outside with the generous breeze, Liv felt certain all the air in the universe had come to a complete standstill.

Sam stared at her. “You dived?”

Whit looked between her and Sam for several long seconds, confused. “You didn't tell him?”

Liv could feel Sam's eyes on her as surely as heat from the sun. She turned to him slowly. “It was just a quick trip, Sam. A friend of Whit's had a boat—”

“When?” Hurt twisted his features.

“While you were in Chicago. It wasn't deep. And it wasn't even for very long.”

“Unfortunately,” Whit said. “Or fortunately, really.”

Liv cast a warning look at Whit to plead for him to shut up, but Sam had already caught on.

“Something happened?” Sam's eyes darted between them. “What happened?”

“I was fine—I
am
fine,” Liv said, just wishing Sam would stop looking at her as if she'd burned down someone's house.
“I let the current pull me out too far, that's all, and I got scared and I had a little . . .”

“A little what?”

“An attack,” she said. “But I had my inhaler right there. Really, it wasn't a big deal.”

“Jesus Christ.” Sam's face flushed. He set down his drink and pushed past her for the steps, taking them hard enough to rattle the railing's loose spindles. Liv shot Whit a worried look, then hurried after Sam.

“Sam, wait!”

When he wouldn't, she rushed around him, forcing him to stop.

“You said you couldn't dive, Liv.”

“Because that's what I'd always been told,” she said.

“By people who know better.” He cast an accusing look toward the porch, but Whit had gone inside. “It was his idea, wasn't it? He bullied you into going, didn't he?”

“No! I asked
him
.”

“Why didn't you wait for me?”

“Because I knew you'd try to talk me out of it.”

“Which, clearly, would have been a bad idea, right?”

She took his hand. “Let's go back inside.”

“Absolutely not.” He pulled free. “I'm not going back in there. Honestly I need a break from Crosby. We both do.”

Back in the truck, Sam snapped on the radio, filling the cab with sound. Liv knew the music was a mask to cloak his anger, albeit short-lived. As soon as they were back at his apartment, the silence simmered with it. For the rest of the day, Liv caught Sam studying her strangely.

By dinner, she was ready to jump out of her skin.

“Please stop looking at me like that,” she said.