The Reef

  the ambushing moray darted from his cave to clamp his jaws over the unwary grouper.

  She didn’t flinch from her up-close seat of instant death, but studied it. And he had to admit she was a good diver. Strong, skilled, sensible. She didn’t like working with him, but she held up her end.

  He knew that most amateurs became discouraged if they didn’t stumble across some stray coin or artifact within an hour. But she was systematic and apparently tireless. Two other traits he appreciated in a diving partner.

  If they were going to be stuck with each other, at least for a couple of months, he might as well make the best of it.

  In what he considered a gesture of truce, he swam over, tapped her shoulder. She glanced over, her eyes bland behind her mask. Matthew pointed behind them and watched those eyes brighten with appreciation when she spotted the school of tiny silver-tipped minnows. In a glinting wave, they veered as a mass barely six inches from Tate’s outstretched hand, and vanished.

  She was still grinning when she saw the barracuda.

  It was perhaps a yard off, hovering motionless with its toothy grin and staring eyes. This time she pointed. When Matthew noted that she was amused rather than afraid, he resumed his search.

  Tate glanced back occasionally to be certain their movements didn’t attract their audience. But the barracuda remained placidly at a distance. Sometime later when she looked back, he was gone.

  She saw the conglomerate just as Matthew’s hand closed over it. Disgusted, and certain only her inattention had kept her from finding it first, she swam another few yards to the north.

  It irritated her the way he seemed to work in her pocket. If she didn’t keep her eye on him, he was practically at her shoulder. In a gesture of dismissal, she kicked away, damned if she’d let him think his misshapen hunk of rock interested her, however promising its pebbly surface.

  And that’s when she found the coin.

  The small spread of darkened sand drew her closer. She fanned more from habit than enthusiasm, imagining she’d probably unearth someone’s pocket change or a rusted tin can tossed from a passing boat. But the blackened disk was barely an inch under the silt. She knew the moment she plucked it up that she was holding a legend.

  Pieces of eight, she thought, giddy with discovery. A pirate’s chant, a buccaneer’s booty.

  Realizing she was holding her breath, a dangerous mistake, she began to breathe slowly as she rubbed at the discoloration with her thumb. There was the dull sheen of silver at the corner of the irregularly shaped coin.

  With a cautious glance over her shoulder to be certain Matthew was occupied, she tucked it into the sleeve of her wet suit. Smug now, she began to search for more signs.

  When a check of her gauge and her watch indicated their time was up, she noted her position, and turned toward her partner. He nodded, jerked a thumb. They began to swim east, ascending slowly.

  His goody bag was laden with conglomerate, which he pointed out to her before gesturing to her own empty one. She gave him the equivalent of a shrug and broke the surface just ahead of him.

  “Bad luck, Red.”

  She suffered his superior smile as they headed in. “Maybe.” Gripping the ladder of the Adventure, she tossed her flippers up to where her father waited. “Maybe not.”

  “How’d it go?” Once his daughter was on deck, Ray relieved her of her weight belt and tanks. Noting her empty bag, he struggled to mask disappointment. “Nothing worth bringing up, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Matthew commented. He handed Buck his full bag before unzipping his suit. Water dripped from his hair, pooled at his feet. “Might be something worthwhile once we chip away at it.”

  “The boy’s got a sixth sense about these things.” Buck set the bag on a bench. His fingers were already itching to start hammering at the conglomerate.

  “I’ll work on it,” Marla offered. She was wearing her flowered sun hat and a sundress of canary yellow that set off her flame-colored hair. “I just want to get some videos first. Tate, you and Matthew have a nice cold drink and something to eat. I know these two want to go down and try their luck.”

  “Sure.” Tate pushed her wet hair back from her face. “Oh, and speaking of luck.” She pulled the wrists of her wet suit. A half dozen coins fell jingling to the deck. “I had a little myself.”

  “Sonofabitch.” Matthew crouched down. He knew by the weight and the shape what she’d found. While the others erupted with excitement, he rubbed a coin between his fingers and looked up coolly into Tate’s self-satisfied smile.

  He didn’t begrudge her the find. But he sure as hell hated that she’d managed to make him look like a fool.

  “Where’d you find them?”

  “A couple of yards north of where you were harvesting your rocks.” She decided the way annoyance narrowed his eyes almost made up for the sword. “You were so busy I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

  “Yeah. I bet.”

  “Spanish.” Ray stared down at the coin nestled in his palm. “Seventeen thirty-three. This could be it. The date’s right.”

  “Could be from the other ships,” Matthew responded. “Time, current, storms—they spread things out.”

  “They could just as easily be from the Isabella or Santa Marguerite.” There was a fever in Buck’s eyes. “Ray and me, we’ll concentrate on the area where you found these.” He rose from his crouched position, held out a coin to Tate. “These’ll go in the kitty. But I figure you ought to keep one, for yourself. That sit right with you, Matthew?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged his shoulders before turning to the ice chest. “No big deal.”

  “It is to me,” Tate murmured as she accepted the coin from Buck. “It’s the first time I’ve ever found coins. Pieces of eight.” She laughed and leaned forward to give Buck an impulsive kiss. “What a feeling.”

  His ruddy cheeks darkened. Women had always remained a mystery to him and mostly at a distance. “You hold on to it—that feeling. Sometimes it’s a long stretch before you have it again.” He slapped Ray on the back. “Let’s suit up, partner.”

  Within thirty minutes, the second team was under way. Marla had spread out a drop cloth and was busily chipping away at the conglomerate. Tate postponed lunch to clean the silver coins.

  Nearby, Matthew sat on the deck and polished off his second BLT. “I tell you, Marla, I might just shanghai you. You sure have a way of putting food together.”

  “Anybody can make a sandwich.” Her hammer rang in counterpoint to her molasses-drenched voice. “You’ll have to have dinner with us, Matthew. Then you’ll see what cooking’s all about.”

  He was sure he heard Tate’s teeth gnash. “Love to. I can run over to Saint Kitts for you if you need any supplies.”

  “That’s very sweet.” She’d changed into work shorts and an oversized shirt, and was sweating. Somehow she still managed to look like a Southern belle planning a tea party. “I could use a little fresh milk to make biscuits.”

  “Biscuits? Marla, for homemade biscuits, I’d swim back from the island with the whole cow.”

  He was rewarded by her quick, infectious laughter. “Just a gallon will do me. Oh, not this minute,” she said, waving him back when he started to rise. “Plenty of time. You enjoy your lunch and the sunshine.”

  “Stop trying to charm my mother,” Tate said under her breath.

  Matthew scooted closer. “I like your mother. You’ve got her hair,” he murmured. “Her eyes, too.” He picked up another section of sandwich, bit in. “Too bad you don’t take after her otherwise.”

  “I also have her delicate bone structure,” Tate said with a clench-toothed smile.

  Matthew took his time with his study. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

  Suddenly uncomfortable, she shifted back an inch. “You’re crowding me,” she complained. “Just like you do on a dive.”

  “Here, take a bite.” He held out the sandwich, nearly plowing it into her mouth so that she had little choi
ce but to accept. “I’ve decided you’re my good-luck charm.”

  Rather than choke, she swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”

  “There’s a nice Southern flow to the way you say that,” he observed. “Just a hint of ice under the honey. My good-luck charm,” he repeated. “Because you were around when I found the sword.”

  “You were around when I found it.”

  “Whatever. There are a couple of things I don’t turn my back on. A man with greed in his eyes, a woman with fire in hers.” He offered Tate more of the sandwich. “And luck. Good or bad.”

  “I’d think it would be smarter to walk away from bad luck.”

  “Facing it’s better. Usually quicker. Lassiters have had a long run of the bad.” With a shrug, he finished the sandwich himself. “Seems to me you’ve brought me some of the good.”

  “I’m the one who found the coins.”

  “Maybe I’m bringing you some, too.”

  “I’ve got something,” Marla sang out. “Come and see.”

  Matthew rose, and after a moment’s hesitation, held out a hand. With matching wariness, Tate took it and let him haul her to her feet.

  “Nails,” Marla said, gesturing with one hand as she dabbed a handkerchief over her damp face with the other. “They look old. And this . . .” She picked up a small disk from amid the rubble. “Looks like some sort of button. Copper or bronze perhaps.”

  With a grunt, Matthew crouched down. There were two iron spikes, a pile of pottery shards, a broken piece of metal that might have been a buckle or pin of some sort. But it was the nails that interested him most.

  Marla was right. They were old. He picked one up, turned it in his fingers, imagining it once being hammered into planks that were doomed to storms and sea worms.

  “Brass,” Tate announced with delight as she worked off the corrosion with solvent and a rag. “It is a button. It’s got some etching on it, a flower. A little rose. It was probably on a dress of a female passenger.”

  The thought made her sad. The woman, unlike the button, hadn’t survived.

  “Maybe.” Matthew spared the button a glance. “Odds are we hit a bounce site.”

  Tate reached for her own sunglasses to cut the glare. “What’s a bounce site?”

  “Just what it sounds like. We probably found the spot where a ship hit while it was being driven in by waves. The wreck’s somewhere else.” He lifted his gaze, scanned the sea to the horizon. “Somewhere else,” he repeated.

  But Tate shook her head. “You’re not going to discourage me after this. We haven’t come up empty-handed, Matthew. One full dive and we have all this. Coins and nails—”

  “Broken pottery and a brass button.” Matthew tossed the nail he held back into the pile. “Chump change, Red. Even for an amateur.”

  She reached out and took hold of the coin that dangled around his neck. “Where there’s some, there’s more. My father believes we have a chance at a major find. So do I.”

  She was ready to quiver with anger, he noted. Her chin thrust up, sharp as the spikes at their feet, eyes hard and hot.

  Christ, why did she have to be a college girl?

  He moved his shoulder, and deliberately gave her a light, insulting pat on the cheek. “Well, it’ll keep us entertained. But it’s more often true that where there’s some, that’s all.” He brushed off his hands and rose. “I’ll clean this up for you, Marla.”

  “You’re a real upbeat kind of guy, Lassiter.” Tate tugged off her T-shirt. For some reason, the way he’d looked at her, just for an instant, had heated her skin. “I’m going for a swim.” Moving to the rail, she dove off the side.

  “She’s her father’s daughter,” Marla said with a quiet smile. “Always sure hard work, perseverence and a good heart will pay off. Life’s harder on them than it is for those of us who know those things aren’t always enough.” She patted Matthew’s arm. “I’ll tidy up here, Matthew. I have my own little system. You go on and get me that milk.”

  CHAPTER 3

  T ATE FOUND PESSIMISM cowardly. It seemed to her that it was simply an excuse never to face disappointment.

  It was even worse when pessimism won out.

  After two weeks of dawn-to-dusk double-team diving, they found nothing but a few more scraps of corroded metal. She told herself she wasn’t discouraged and hunted on her shift with more care and more enthusiasm than was warranted.

  At night, she took to poring over her father’s charts, the copies he’d made from his research. The more cavalier Matthew became, the more determined she was to prove him wrong. She wanted the wreck now, passionately. If only to beat him.

  She had to admit the weeks weren’t a total loss. The weather was beautiful, the diving spectacular. The time she spent on the island when her mother insisted on a break was filled with souvenir shopping, exploring, picnics on the beach. She hunted through cemeteries and old churches, hoping she might find another clue to the secret of the wrecks of 1733.

  But most of all, she enjoyed watching her father with Buck. They were an odd pair—one squat and round and cue-ball bald, the other aristocratically lean with a mane of silvering blond hair.

  Her father spoke with the slow, sweet drawl of coastal Carolina while Buck’s conversation was peppershot with oaths delivered with Yankee quickness. Yet they merged together like old friends reunited.

  Often when they surfaced after a dive, they were laughing like boys fresh from some misdemeanor. And one always seemed to have a tale to tell on the other.

  It was illuminating for Tate to watch the friendship bloom and grow so rapidly. On land, her father’s companions were businessmen, a suit-and-tie brigade of success, moderate wealth and staunch Southern heritage.

  Here she watched him bronzing in the sun with Buck, sharing a beer and dreams of fortune.

  Marla would snap their picture or pull out her ubiquitous video camera and call them two old salts.

  As Tate prepared for her morning dive, she watched them arguing baseball over coffee and croissants.

  “What Buck knows about baseball you could swallow in one gulp,” Matthew commented. “He’s been boning up so he can fight with Ray.”

  Tate sat down to pull on her flippers. “I think it’s nice.”

  “Didn’t say it wasn’t.”

  “You never say anything’s nice.”

  He sat beside her. “Okay, it’s nice. Hanging with your father’s been good for Buck. He’s had a rough time the last few years. I haven’t seen him enjoy himself so much since . . . for a long time.”

  Tate let out a long sigh. It was difficult to work up any annoyance with straight sincerity. “I know you care about him.”

  “Sure I do. He’s always been there for me. I’d do anything for Buck.” Matthew pressed a securing hand to his mask. “Hell, I’m diving with you, aren’t I?” With that, he rolled into the water.

  Instead of being insulted, she grinned, and rolled in after him.

  They followed the marker down. They had been moving the search steadily northward. Each time they tried new territory, Tate felt that quickening surge of anticipation. Each time they went down, she told herself today could be the day.

  The water was pleasantly cool on the exposed skin of her hands and face. She enjoyed the way it streamed through her hair on her descent.

  The fish had grown used to them. It wasn’t unusual for a curious grouper or angelfish to peer into her mask. She’d gotten into the habit of bringing a plastic bag of crackers or bread crumbs with her, and took a few minutes at the start of every dive to feed them, and have them swirl around her.

  Invariably the barracuda they’d dubbed “Smiley” came to call, always keeping his distance, always watching. As a mascot, he wasn’t particularly lively, but he was loyal.

  She and Matthew developed an easy routine. They worked in sight of each other, rarely crossing the invisible line both recognized as separating their territories. Still, they shared their glimpses of sea life. A hand signal, a tap on
the tank to point out a school of fish, a burrowing ray.

  He was, Tate decided, easier to tolerate in the silence of the sea than above it. Now and again that silence was broken by the blurred roar of a tourist boat above them. Tate had even heard the eerie echo of music from a blasting portable radio with Tina Turner’s raw-throated voice wanting to know what love had to do with it.

  Singing in her head, Tate aimed for an odd formation of coral. She startled a grouper, who gave her one baleful glance before gliding off. Amused, she glanced over her shoulder. Matthew was swimming west, but was still in her line of vision. She flipped north toward the pretty soft reds and browns of the formation.

  Tate was on top of it before she realized it wasn’t coral, but rocks. Bubbles burst from her mouthpiece. If she had been above the water rather than below, she might have babbled.

  Ballast rocks. Surely they had to be ballast rocks. From her studies she knew the color meant galleon. Schooners had used the brittle gray egg rock. The ballast of a galleon, she thought with a dreamy sense of unreality. That had been lost, forgotten. And now found.