by Patti Larsen
I heaved off my equipment with Anja’s help, envying the ease in which she divested herself of her own gear and helped her stow the now empty tanks while Wanda guided the boat onward to the next location.
“Well done, Fee,” Anja said, clearly back to her bright and sunny self, smiling at me with her green eyes sparkling. She brushed at her bangs clinging to her forehead. “Refreshing, wasn’t it?”
She could say that. I shivered inside my wetsuit, tucking a heavy towel around me as I huddled onto the bench seat.
“Is the ocean this cold?” My nose twitched, tickle warning a sneeze or four was coming. Great. I’d better not be getting sick.
FEE. STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
Anja shrugged as she toweled off, crouching next to me, the boat’s rocking doing nothing to budge her amazing balance. “Go deep enough,” she said, “and every body of water is.”
I guess.
“Disappointed?” Anja’s clear gaze locked on mine.
Was that why I was grumpy? “A little,” I said. “I guess I wanted to be the one to find the treasure.” I laughed, then. “Silly, right?”
She laughed too, patted my knee before joining me on the bench with a deep, contented sigh, eyes locked on the water, smile on her face. “It’s what we live for, Fee,” she said. “And the dive. So it’s a Catch-22. We want to find what we’re looking for, but we never want to leave the water.”
If she said so. “Do you think we’ll find it?” I hope I didn’t sound too plaintive.
If I did, Anja wasn’t judging me for it, at least not openly. I had a feeling she wasn’t the type to anyway. “Whether we do or we don’t,” she said, “at least we’re trying.” Her sunny smile made me feel better.
That was until we pulled up to the second buoy and the pair that waited for us boarded. I blinked in confusion at the sight of my husband, his face creased in anger, as he returned to the boat, turning on Chantal with what was clearly an on-going argument bubbling inside him.
Before he opened his mouth, my own mind made the connection to his unhappiness. And I got to speak what he clearly was about to say, if in the form of a question instead of an outburst of dissatisfaction.
“Where’s MC?”
Crew frowned at me while Chantal took Anja’s silent assistance in removing her gear, not meeting my eyes, her own face expressionless but in that flat and empty way that said she was wearing a mask of discontent.
“Where do you think?” Crew tossed his gloves with enough force they thudded against the hull of the boat.
Chantal didn’t comment, Anja’s unhappiness returned. I realized I could have prodded my husband for more information, but it was pretty clear what happened while we headed out to the middle of the lake for the final buoy.
Gregg had wanted to dive with MC, and, despite the fact things weren’t supposed to go his way, he got what he wanted. Story of his life? Seemed that way. Wondered what it would take to shake up that belief system.
I was willing to give it ago.
Crew sat, staring at his hands, frowning deeply enough I let him be. He didn’t look up as we stopped at the final buoy, didn’t say a word to anyone while MC and Martin climbed on board, a jubilant Gregg the last one to return to the safety of the vessel.
“We’re on the right track!” Only when he spoke did I realize Martin still had the camera running, had been filming all along, the awkward way he’d entered the boat due to his careful framing of his boss who held up something shining in his gloved fingers.
It was bitter sweet, seeing that round, gold coin in the hands of Gregg Brown. I knew what it was immediately, had been studying the one Grandmother Iris left me for years now, knew it was a doubloon even before Gregg lowered his hand and laid it in his palm, turning slowly toward Martin and the camera.
On the one hand, this was proof. More proof. Maybe the ultimate. And, on the other… he had to be the one to find it, right? Crew’s dark expression wasn’t hard to read, though I admit, it was me making the assumption my husband was furious the treasure hunter had scooped Crew’s chance to find the coin.
I should have known better. The former sheriff instead confronted Gregg, angry face tight, tall, broad body shaking when he faced off with the treasure hunter.
“Stupid and dangerous and if you pull something like that again, Gregg, I swear to God, contract or no contract, I will beach you permanently.” So it wasn’t the find that my husband was angry about?
Gregg’s expression flattened out, empty hand on my husband’s chest as he firmly pushed Crew away. “My call,” he snapped.
“Not yours,” Crew bit back. “MC was in command of the teams. She made the pairings. Our dive plans were designed around those pairings.” My normally calm husband was losing it for the second time today and there wasn’t much I could do about it. “You’re last minute decision to run the show put everyone at risk.”
“Dial it back, cowboy,” Gregg snarled.
“I won’t,” Crew said, now cold, quiet and far more dangerous in my estimation. Yelling Crew was scary to me. Intensely still and collected Crew?
Yeah. Look out.
“Crew’s right,” MC said, sounding tired, rubbing at her face with both hands. “It was stupid, Gregg. Selfish. Next time, dive where I assign you or don’t dive.”
He shrugged, smirk back. “And yet,” he said, “amidst all your complaining, who was it that found what we were looking for?” He didn’t even seem to realize he’d missed the point, turning toward the camera once again, brandishing the coin like the prize it was. “Success!” Gregg’s mood shifted instantly to self-satisfied smugness as he spun on my husband. “You’re welcome.”
I had to hold Crew back. Literally had to grab him and use every ounce of my strength to contain the fury I knew welled in the gorgeous man I loved. I’d never seen this side of him, not really. Sure, I’d seen him angry, pissed off at me, irritated, scared. But never flat-out furious. Dare I say murderous? And twice in one day?
Maybe we really did need to leave Reading.
Crew resisted me only a moment before turning his back on Gregg, resuming his seat on the bench, his stare at his hands, silent and fuming. I joined him, one hand on his lower back, just sitting with him while the others talked over the find.
By the time we reached shore, Crew had pulled himself together enough that he held me back, the two of us the last to leave the boat as the dive team lugged the empty tanks and other equipment to the shed for refills.
“That idiot,” he said, voice low, for me alone. He was shaking, and not from the cold. “We got to the second dive site and he refused to dive. Practically pushed me in. I had to finish gearing up under water, Fee.” No wonder he was so angry. “I’ll tell you one thing, he might be good at finding treasure, but he’s a menace to himself and everyone else he dives with.”
“So we pull the plug?” I have to admit, I almost didn’t say it. Sure, I wished otherwise, too. But Gregg found a doubloon. The truth of that was finally sinking in.
My husband shook his head, dark hair drying in the breeze, forming curls around his ears and the nape of his neck. I wanted to run my fingers through it, to kiss him and make it better, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“No,” he said. “We follow through. But I’m keeping my eye on him. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let either of us dive with him, Fee. Ever.”
Since I had no desire to go in the water with Gregg, that suited me down to the ground.
By the time we joined the others, their excitement had won out over the disagreement on the boat and, while Crew might still have been furious, apparently his decision to keep both of us out of harm’s way by any means possible—out of Gregg’s way, that was—seemed to have released the truly frightening tension in him.
I sat at the picnic table next to Chantal, Crew on my other side, Anja joining us from a short trip to the dive shed. Chantal left me then, Anja taking her place, her own trip to the storage building meaning she missed the arrival of the ne
xt best part of the day as lunch arrived.
Mom took a moment to kiss my cheek and hug Crew before depositing hampers of soup, fresh biscuits and a deliciously hot lasagna on the table she first draped with a cloth. I almost laughed at her attempt to keep it smooth in the remaining breeze, but this was my mother we were talking about. Like wind was going to win out over the indomitable Lucy Fleming.
I was already warming thinking about her amazing cooking, knowing everything in those hampers would hit the spot. Her delight over the doubloon brightened things further, the gold coin rolling over and over in her hands while we served ourselves like starving street urchins who’d never seen food before—diving was hard work!—and dug in.
“How beautiful,” she said.
“Thank you,” Gregg answered with a wink around a mouthful of biscuit.
Mom’s empty, rather chill expression in return, while she handed off the prize to my husband, told me she wasn’t a fan herself, for whatever reason. My mother didn’t suffer fools lightly and had years as a high school principal to back her confidence when dealing with those she deemed worthy of her more pointed attention. Case in point. With slow deliberation, she looked down at Crew and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Well done, dear,” she said.
I honestly thought Gregg was going to split in half and combust on the spot. Meanwhile, the Woman of the Year, my shero and all around Amazing Lucy Fleming beamed a smile at the rest of the team.
“Good job, all of you,” she said. “Have a wonderful dive this afternoon and keep us posted.”
No one said a word as Mom left, while I hid a giant grin behind one hand and Chantal choked on a bite of pasta, her lips twitching.
Gregg ate in sullen silence from then on, the rest of the team chattering in happy supposition. Even Crew let out a chuckle or two, the coin in front of him gleaming a promise of more to come.
Were we really going to find the Reading hoard? It hit me suddenly, breathlessly, in a wave of massive surprise so overwhelming I clutched at my husband’s bicep and leaned into him.
“Crew,” I whispered, knowing I was being an idiot for finally getting it. Finally letting it in.
He looked down at me, grinned. “I know,” he said. And kissed the tip of my nose.
Real. Oh my god.
“Okay,” Anja said, brushing crumbs from her lap, leaning toward Martin. “Let’s see it.”
He hastily swallowed the bite he was chewing before retrieving his ever present camera, setting it on the table. The small viewer was still big enough for all of us to crowd around and watch as, through a haze of murk thinner than what I’d dealt with but still present, Gregg spotted and then retrieved the doubloon.
We watched it twice, first Chantal, then MC, asking for another viewing and Martin didn’t argue. It was while we were starting our fourth review of the footage that the sound of a car door slamming interrupted, Hannah Brown joining us. She pointedly ignored MC, leaning in to kiss her husband’s cheek, an act he seemed disgusted by.
“Any luck today?” His wife was obviously trying. MC said something incoherent and left the picnic table, heading for the dive shed while Chantal answered.
“Some,” she said. Um, finding the doubloon was some luck?
“What are you doing here?” Gregg didn’t even look at her, asking the question a moment before he grinned and jabbed Martin in the rib for the fourth time—the same point every viewing as his hand on the screen closed over the coin and brought it up from the lake bed. “There’s the money shot!” Again, for the fourth time. Seriously.
Hannah hesitated, clearly sensing she wasn’t welcome and my heart went out to her. I should have done something, said something, but everyone ignored her from that moment on, even my husband, chatter returning to the video and the discovery and, with a downcast expression, she finally left, though I noted she stopped off in the dive shed before exiting a few minutes later, climbing in her car and leaving.
Weird. She had no reason to be in there.
Lunch devoured, I headed for the yacht club proper and the washroom, returning from the still 70’sesque and in bad need of a renovation interior to the delightful show of the sun on the exterior. It finally won against the clouds, the blue sky overhead making me dread less getting in the water once again. Surely this was an excellent sign?
I headed for the others, noting Martin entering the dive shed alone. I followed him on impulse, wanting to congratulate him. After all, he’d taken some amazing footage in really difficult circumstances and despite my dislike for Gregg, the treasure hunter was right. From what I’d seen, the discovery of the doubloon was the money shot, all right, and Martin had captured it in breathtaking fashion.
As I entered the shed, the dimness making me blink now that the sun had returned in full force, I almost missed the small man hunched over a set of tanks. I froze, realizing they weren’t his and, as he registered I was there, caught the tell-tale flash of guilt on his face while he lurched away from the set clearly marked with MC’s name across the front.
***
Chapter Thirteen
I was about to call him on it when he blurted out his excuse.
“I thought it was Gregg’s.” He glanced down at the clearly marked tanks and blushed. “I always check his gear before his dive.”
From the gauges, someone had already refilled all the tanks. “Nice of you,” I said.
A shadow fell over us, MC entering the shed and, in that same moment, Martin hurried to the door. He glanced at me in a hasty and nervous way before exiting, the dive leader not even noticing, head down, focused on the afternoon ahead, likely.
“MC.” I had to say something, didn’t I? Even if I was just being paranoid. She glanced at me, arched an eyebrow in question while she reached for her regulator and began to examine it, her pre-check on her mind. “I don’t know if it’s relevant.” I stopped, didn’t know if I should go on. Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. Surely Martin didn’t wish her harm. She stopped what she was doing, waited for me to speak, patient and watchful. “I caught Martin doing something to your tanks. I thought you should know.” The right thing to do. So why then did I feel like a tattle-tale?
MC inhaled sharply, spun and crouched, examining the gauge, the connections. “Did you see what he was doing?”
“No,” I said, miserable now. “I’m sorry, it was probably nothing.”
She stood slowly, met my eyes. “Thanks, Fee,” she said. “For having my back. I’ll check everything over.”
Okay, so it was the right thing to do. I nodded in return and stumbled out of the shack in to the sunlight, fighting the urge to apologize to someone. No one in particular as I rejoined the others at the table, Martin not looking at me at all, his color still high. Wait a second, why was I feeling bad about warning MC he might have been up to shenanigans? The last thing I wanted was another dead body on my hands and, innocent or not, I refused to beat myself up for looking out for the people around me.
It took pulling myself back from the brink of guilt to realize my husband was gone. I looked around, noticed the SUV was missing from the parking lot, while Anja leaned in.
“Crew got a call,” she said. “He’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Huh. Must have been some call to make him leave. Had to have been Liz, since Dad was still out of town. Or Jill? Whatever the reason for his departure, it would have had to be pressing to drag him away from the club.
My questioning text received an instant answer. Be right back. Don’t sail without me.
One thing was assured. Gregg Brown’s attitude or not, we were not leaving dock without my husband on board.
True to his guestimate, fifteen minutes later, as the annoying treasure hunter huffed over the delay (that was really barely a delay, putting us off by hardly any time at all), Crew’s SUV returned and, silent and with that blank expression that told me his unhappiness had returned, he joined us.
“Well, finally,” Gregg snapped, pushing past my husband.
“Who’s ready to find a treasure?”
The others followed, Crew holding back but when I tried to ask him what was up, he shook his head.
“Leave it, Fee,” he said, blue eyes dark and snapping with anger. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
No, it wasn’t okay, but, well.
Okay.
The ride out wasn’t quite so rough, the afternoon warm, breeze dying out at last. Though I knew the water would still be low visibility, the thought of going under again wasn’t quite so daunting this time. I admitted quietly to myself part of my issue this morning had been nerves, the whininess just a symptom of hating this feeling of being way behind everyone else in experience. At least we’d all be diving close together this time. The area where Gregg found the doubloon was a deep pocket surrounded by shallower water.
“Chantal, you’re diving with Fee.” I glanced her way as MC made the assignment, worried she might be disappointed not to be going deep, but her grin and okay gesture told me otherwise.
“Easier to spot gold closer to the surface,” she said.
Grateful, I grinned back.
Wanda anchored the boat near the morning’s discovery, where she’d left the last buoy in the water as a marker. “Have a great dive, kids,” she said. “Find that treasure, won’t you?”
“That’s the plan.” Gregg stood, Martin assisting with his tanks. “MC, you’re with me.” Not a question and definitely not up to him. But Crew didn’t argue and the dive leader didn’t either.
Instead, my husband fist-bumped Anja who enthusiastically returned the gesture. And then I realized, from here on in, it was a competition. Which team would find the next piece of the puzzle or, even better, the hull of the Darkling Dragon and Reading’s hoard?
Okay, even I was getting excited, spine-tingling, heartbeat elevating as the tension and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours was devoured by the return of that drive I’d felt from the moment I’d discovered the treasure might be real. I waited my turn to leave the boat, Crew and Anja going first, sinking beneath the surface before Gregg and MC, Martin with his camera rolling, sat on the edge.