The Last Treasure (32 page)

“Maybe it still could be.” He sits beside her and pulls out a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. She takes it. The bridge lights cast a strong beam. Liv knows from the ivory color that it must be old.

She unfolds it carefully, the thick paper soft from age and damp.

“I found it in Kitty Hawk,” he says. “From the collection of the guy you and Sam saw that weekend about the letters. Barnacles and Brass, remember?”

“We never ended up going,” she whispers as she lays the
page in her lap and smooths it gently with her fingertips. She looks up at him, suddenly so nervous she can barely swallow. “What is this, Whit?”

He shrugs. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.” He nods to it. “Read for yourself.”

February 3, 1813

Ivan,

By the time this letter reaches you, I will be gone.

Brother, you know I am not a foolish man. I have suffered too much heartbreak to entertain fancy of any kind, and yet, five weeks ago, I found myself bewitched by a love that cannot be, and yet cannot be denied either.

Maybe if she hadn't looked so out of place on that bustling dock, I might never have approached her, might never have asked how I could help. She claimed to have stepped off a ship, a schooner detained—so many are during this unstable time. When I asked why she did not get back on when the ship was cleared, she told me I wouldn't understand. When the weather turned, and she had nowhere to go, I offered her shelter. And perhaps even as I laid my coat over her trembling shoulders, I knew our paths were meant to cross. Twenty years on the water,
a man is a fool not to heed its warnings. Tides and currents are the only true compasses we have in this world. Losing Lucy and Nicholas taught me that.

I have labored with grief for too long now, brother. To be given a seed with which to grow salvation and harvest joy, however impossible, is a gift I cannot refuse. I know in my heart you and Sally will not begrudge me this chance for happiness, wherever I may find it.

I should like to take my love away. I am telling you of my plans, dear brother, because I am sure there will be gossip of my departure, conjecture that I've done something drastic and perhaps even sinful. I would not wish for you to think it true. After all of your faithful counsel, I could not bear your scorn or disappointment.

I know of a spit of land, a strip of abandoned shore. I have heard there is still a structure there, bleak and needing care, but I think it could suffice. Love can compensate for many things.

Brother, forgive me but I ask that you and Sally make no mention of this letter, nor that you seek to find me. For reasons I cannot explain, my beloved too wishes to start over, to be freed from the anguish of loss and the burdens of duty, and so we hope to do so together.

Farewell, dearest brother. Let our arms embrace each other again in heaven and may our journeys be ever kind on the way.

Simon

Simon
.

Liv raises her head slowly and finds Whit's eyes fixed on her.

It's not possible. That it could be the same Simon from the diary? The same Lucy and Nicholas? The odds that Whit had found something . . .

Looking down at the letter again, she feels her breath catch. On either side of the yellowed paper, her bare thighs are pebbly with gooseflesh.

“There's no way to prove it's the same Simon,” she whispers. “Or that the woman is Theo.”

“No. . . .” Whit smiles. “But there's no way to prove it
isn't
.”

Liv stands and walks numbly to the edge of the canal, holding the letter against her chest. This would explain why the entries felt false, why Theodosia had miscounted the windows. She'd made up the story of her capture. But if Theodosia got off the
Patriot
when she was detained by British troops, then what happened to the ship?

And at this very moment, divers are heading out to search where they believe the
Patriot
sank.

Liv stares at the water. “But she loved her father more than anything.”

Whit comes beside her. “Or maybe after all her heartbreak, after taking care of everyone else, she just wanted to be free. Like the letter says, to start over.”

“But her guilt would have been unimaginable.”

“Which is why she had to fake her death,” Whit says. “Because she knew the only way she could live with the guilt of leaving her father and her husband was if they believed her dead.”

May this record provide you with some comfort, and most of all, the proof that I must surely be gone, for otherwise we would be together, Papa . . .

Liv raises her eyes to Whit's and finds him smiling tenderly.

“You're not Theo, baby. You don't have to start over to be free.”

Her eyes well. “I don't want to start over,” she says. “I want to keep going just like this.”

“So let's keep going,” he says.

“How, Whit? We're broke.”

“Aye, lass. Broke, but not broken.”

She turns away from him and walks to the stern. Whit follows her.

“Livy, I know I can't make this right in a day—”

“No.” She spins to cut him off. “You can't.”

“But I can promise you I won't quit trying. Starting now.” He pulls a napkin from his pants pocket, a few jagged, blurry pen lines. As scant as it is, she recognizes the curves. “Oak Island,” he says. “It's a good lead, Red. A great one. I promised you one more dive, and I plan to keep that promise too.” He searches her eyes. “You do want one more dive, don't you?”

She snatches the napkin out of his hand, crumples it up,
and casts it high into the air where it uncurls on its way down, floating to the canal like a feather.

She is crying as she says, “I don't want treasure and I don't want deep dives. I just want you, dammit. I want
us
.”

He takes her face into his hands, planting the pads of his thumbs on either side of her lips and holding them there. She was right that night, to think he was the sort of man whose kiss—whose very heart—could swallow a woman whole.

“If it wasn't Sam who told you about Simon, then who?” she says. “The museum hasn't released the entries yet.”

He grins as he searches her eyes. “It turns out Beth Henson doesn't hate me nearly as much as she used to.”

Liv stares at him. Anyone else and she might have doubted the claim.

“I think even Felder's coming around,” he says. “The only person I'm not sure about is my wife.”

Tears sting the corners of her eyes. She swallows to stay them, but they rise and spill.

“I could never hate you,” she whispers.

“But you tried, didn't you?”

“God, yes.”

He smiles. “Good girl.”

Then he leans in and inhales her at last, filling her mouth, maybe even her lungs, with his breath, because she has forgotten how to breathe for a moment, but it's only a moment, and there are so many more.

 

DIARY DISCOVERED IN BEACH HOUSE ATTIC SOLVES CENTURIES-OLD MYSTERY OF LOST SHIP

HATTERAS—Over two hundred years after the schooner
Patriot
disappeared without a trace on its way to New York, a diary written by her most famous passenger has been discovered in a Hatteras beach house. The entries, written by Theodosia Burr Alston, in the blank pages of a lightkeeper's logbook, detail the
Patriot
's harrowing capture at the hands of infamous pirates, the “Carolina Bankers,” and puts to rest over two centuries of speculation and local lore of what happened to the schooner when she left her port in Georgetown, South Carolina, on December 31, 1812.

“This is a monumental discovery,” said Beth Henson, director of the Outer Banks Shipwreck Museum in Nags Head. “The disappearance of the
Patriot
has been one of the nation's most enduring nautical mysteries. This diary not only sheds light on the events of the ship's capture, but also provides tremendous insight into Theodosia Alston Burr. For historians and shipwreck enthusiasts, this is an exciting day.”

The daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr, whose infamous duel with Alexander Hamilton resulted in Hamilton's death and Burr's subsequent trial, Theodosia was highly regarded for her academic and social
accomplishments in an era when women were not allowed opportunities for advanced education. An unwavering champion of her father after the death of her mother when Theodosia was ten, Theodosia (often referred to as Theo) remained devoted to Burr even in the wake of his many scandals, and after the tragic loss of her only child, a son, Aaron, who died at ten from malaria. She was on her way to reunite with Burr after his return to the States when the schooner disappeared without a trace near the Outer Banks.

Details of the entries have not yet been released—the museum plans to display them in an upcoming exhibit—but Henson says, “The passages are expertly written and read with all the intrigue, suspense, and romance of any bestselling novel.” She says also, “They prove once again that Theodosia lived her life in the face of peril as she did before her capture: with grace, wisdom, and an enduring devotion to her
father.”

While there has been much recorded about Theodosia Burr Alston's life, there is little known about how she and the
Patriot
disappeared after they left Georgetown. The exact location of the schooner's wreckage, as well as the details of her demise, remains a mystery. But the theories and legends are boundless, and I made use of as much of the lore as I could in this novel. Some details are not myth. The “Nags Head” portrait, whether a portrait of Theodosia or not, is indeed a real painting that is in the collection of the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut. I have also woven existing shipwrecks into the novel, such as the pirate ship
Whydah
, which lies off Cape Cod; others I have imagined for the sake of the story, such as the
Bella Donna
, which I modeled after galleons found and excavated off the Florida Keys. I found great insight and inspiration in the following sources: Bob Brooke's
Shipwrecks and Lost Treasures: Outer Banks: Legends and Lore, Pirates and More!
; Kevin P. Duffus's
Shipwrecks of the Outer Banks
; David Stick's
Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina
Coast;
and
Treasure Hunter: Diving for Gold on North America's Death Coast
by Robert MacKinnon with Dallas Murphy.

On the subject of maritime and salvage laws, I have endeavored to be as accurate as possible in this novel. However, the rules and regulations, especially state by state, change often—and for the sake of my story, I sometimes simplified aspects of the process.

Even though this novel presents a wholly fictionalized final chapter of Theodosia's life in my imagining of what might have happened to her on her journey to be reunited with her father, I wanted to be as true to Theodosia's character as possible in my conjecture. She was renowned for her great intellect and charm, as well as her scholarly accomplishments during a time when women weren't allowed, let alone encouraged, to seek proficiency in advanced studies. But my depiction is hardly exhaustive, so I very much hope that if you find Theodosia as compelling as I do, you'll research her history further.

Most of all, I hope that my work of fiction inspires a deep passion for the wonder and marvels of the sea. May her mysteries never cease to amaze and her beauty be protected for generations of treasure seekers to come. This story has been in my heart for many years, and I am grateful to have had the courtesy of your company while finally sharing it.

With each book I write, I am more and more indebted to the generosity and talents of so many others in helping my stories come to light. . . .

I am tremendously fortunate to work with such an amazing team at Penguin. Thank you to Sarah Blumenstock; to my publicist, Danielle Dill; to copy editor Dan Larsen; and to Sarah Oberrender for giving my novel such a breathtaking cover. To my editor, Danielle Perez, for her incredible insight once again in helping me dig deeper into characters I often loved too much to set truly free—this novel is so very much richer for your expertise. To my agent, Rebecca Gradinger, whose guidance and support strengthen everything I write—seven years in, I hope she knows how grateful I am for our partnership. To Veronica Goldstein, for her help and her cheer. To the members of the PB Literary Society, whose friendships are treasures to me. To Harrison Bell, who kindly and patiently gave of his vast knowledge of scuba
diving—any errors or omissions on the subject are mine alone. To my little mermaids, my heart, Evie and Murray, you are all that is right and beautiful in this world. And to Ian, the steel to my magnet, the love of my life. The compass of us is everything.

 

A Conversation Between
Erika Marks and Her Editor

Editor:
What made you center a novel around a shipwreck? How did you come to use the story of Theodosia Burr Alston and the
Patriot
in this novel? Was it a part of the novel from the outset?

Erika:
I have long been fascinated with shipwrecks. I grew up near the ocean, so sailing history and the legends of the many ships lost along Maine's rocky coastline buried themselves in my imagination from an early age. When I was researching lighthouses for
The Mermaid Collector
, I knew I would eventually thread a shipwreck into a later novel—the only question was how.

While I had always planned to have Liv, Whit, and Sam pursue a mysterious shipwreck, I assumed I would have to imagine one for the story. Then, as so often happens in writing, remarkable narrative roads intersected and provided me with something different. While doing research on the Outer Banks, I discovered the history of the
Patriot
and her most famous passenger, Theodosia Burr Alston, who, upon further investigation, proved as fascinating a subject as the ship she disappeared with. Curiously enough, Theodosia, like my present-day character Liv, had a complicated and deeply dependent relationship with her father, Aaron Burr. The parallels between the two women were too remarkable to ignore—so how could I not bring the
Patriot
and Theodosia into my story?

Editor:
The Last Treasure
features a love triangle—something you explored in previous novels, such as
Little Gale Gumbo
and
The Guest House
. What about this concept interests you?

Erika:
I think there is something fundamentally exciting and fascinating about watching two men vie for a woman's love. I remember seeing a performance of
Camelot
when I was young and being fascinated by the dynamic of Arthur and Lancelot vying for the attention of Guenevere—not who would choose her, but who would
she
choose, and why? Whose love was right for her, and how did she balance that choice in her heart? And when the three people are all close friends, does that strain affect their unit as a whole? Love and desire change us at our core—and the ripples of our feelings spread far out into the pond of our lives. In
The Guest House
, Edie, who is a fiercely unconventional young woman, finds herself smitten with a charming summer visitor and yet also confused by her growing feelings for a man she has always considered a bossy, older-brother type. The reader follows her journey to discover which suitor is ultimately the one her heart craves, and the road getting there is, of course, bumpy and full of unexpected turns.

For
The Last Treasure
, I wanted to explore the dynamics of two very different men in one woman's heart. Whit and Sam came easily to me—especially Whit, whom I loved deeply from the very start. Despite his messiness and his reckless ways, his love for Liv is unwavering, and that level of unabashed desire and certainty is, to me, the sexiest quality in a leading man. So often the “bad boy” is patently unfaithful, his lothario ways somehow romanticized, which I think is a fatal flaw. I can forgive a man most anything in a novel, if his heart remains faithful to the woman he loves, and Whit's always does—even when his actions suggest he can't get out of his own way at times.

With Sam, I wanted to explore the man who
appears
to be the total package on the surface—attractive, responsible, faithful, dependable—but over time, he reveals himself to be someone very different. All of us grow through relationships—or hope to—and what we think makes sense in a partner isn't always right for us, and it can take a long time to understand that distinction. I wanted to explore Liv's evolution of listening to her heart, to see her finally breaking away from familiar patterns of her past—her father's control, her fears of taking risks and of being alone—to find her happiness.

I loved Liv's duplicity—sometimes she is fiercely defiant; other times she is terrifically fragile—and I wanted to watch how she would reveal herself in the company of men who spoke differently to those contrasting personality traits—and ultimately, which one would allow her to be her most honest self, which I think is the measure of true love.

When the novel opens, Liv is on the threshold of possibility—her marriage is strained to the breaking point and her old lover comes back into her life. What would a woman do when faced with that opportunity to revisit—and possibly rework—the past? Would she find her heart's mind changed by nostalgia or would it be a chance to be reminded of all that is right in her marriage? I knew Whit would have to work to win her back—and I wanted very much to see him succeed, but I also wanted the readers to be waiting for that mystery to be solved, just as they were for the mystery of the
Patriot
.

Editor:
What intrigues you about writing stories that have a contemporary/present story as well as a past story? Why do you enjoy writing about people at various points/periods of their lives? What does that enable you to do as a writer with the story?

Erika:
I love this question because I have often asked myself this when I begin a novel and find myself invariably drawn to the structure of moving back and forth in time with my characters. I myself tend to hyperanalyze most everything in my life (don't we all?), so I'm always drawn to characters who are at a place in their lives where they are facing a crisis of some kind that requires them to dig deep into their pasts in order to move toward their futures. So often we rewrite our histories to suit our emotional needs, which is all well and good—until someone enters that story and reminds us that maybe what we've been telling ourselves for so long isn't the reality.

In the case of Liv, when the reader meets her, she is vulnerable and torn. She loves Whit desperately but is forced to consider whether she can continue to stay married to him. During this, she is reunited with Sam—the ex-boyfriend who was once everything stable and safe in her life. How can she not reconsider the choice she made to leave their relationship?

Structuring the novel by moving between the present and the past allowed me to explore the evolution of these characters as individuals, as pairs, and as a trio. It also allowed me to show the reader the foundation that Liv's marriage—and her relationship with Sam—is built upon. Not only that, but looking back allows Liv the opportunity to revisit the truth of her history with both men—and to be honest with herself and her heart at a time when she might easily rewrite her past to suit her present.

It is that moment of indecision, that gripping flash of consideration, that intrigues me as a writer; a pivotal instant in a person's story that has been building up for years and years. In life, we rarely have the opportunity for leisurely reflection in the midst of emotional distress—in fiction, we can grant our characters that
gift.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. While the end of the novel indicates that the mystery of the
   Patriot
   was solved by the discovery of Theodosia's diary, Whit brings Liv possible proof of an alternate solution. Which do you believe is the real story? Do you believe Theodosia wished to have absolution by writing the diary to her father? Do you like to imagine the diary was eventually delivered to him?
   
2. Though they lived nearly two hundred years apart, in what ways are Liv and Theodosia similar? Why do you believe Liv is so devoted to solving the mystery of what happened to Theodosia, and why is she attached to the theory that Theodosia ultimately escaped from the ship? Do you think Liv sees herself in Theodosia? How?
   
3. At one point, Liv's mother claims that “People aren't always who you think they are” in reference to Liv's father. To whom else in the novel could this statement apply?
   
4. Throughout the novel, feeling at odds with her marriage, Liv is given the opportunity to revisit her past with both Sam and Whit—and possibly be given a chance to make a different choice in her present. Do you feel the choice she makes at the novel's end is the best for her? Was it the choice you'd hoped she'd make?
   
5. Sam claims he isn't sure why he took the chart when he broke up with Liv. Why do you think he did it?
   
6. The novel's nautical themes of “wrecks” and “salvage” could also relate to the emotional journey of each of the main characters, who all act in ways that derail their happiness at one point or another. Did you find yourself rooting for one character's redemption more than another's? Were you satisfied that each character grew through his or her mistakes by the end of the novel and emerged as more emotionally healthy people? Who did, and who didn't?
   
7. Just as Whit and Sam are two very different men, Liv acts differently around each one. Which man brings out her most authentic self? Which one ultimately gives her what she wants? What about what she
   needs
   ?
   
8. The reader senses Whit's attraction to Liv (as does Sam) long before Liv will admit to it herself—why do you suppose that is? Do you believe her attraction to Whit was there all
   along? If not, when do you think Liv first became aware she had feelings for Whit beyond friendship?
   
9. Did Sam's later confession regarding what happened after leaving Zephyr's Restaurant surprise or shock you? Why, or why not?
   
10. What did you think of the final scene between Whit and Sam? Do you believe the men came to a place of peace—or do you think that isn't in the cards for
    them?