Night Diver: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Upper. Class. Sod,” Farnsworth said, hitting Holden with each word.

  Then Farnsworth shoved the other man off him and scrambled to his knees, swaying. He tried to bring the gun up to Holden’s face with both hands, but his left was useless, slippery with blood from the knife wounds on his wrist.

  Kate swung the hammer at the back of Farnsworth’s head.

  At the last instant, Farnsworth realized the new danger and rolled himself aside. Her blow connected, but only with his shoulder.

  My God, he’s fast, she thought.

  The roll turned into something close to a somersault until he was out of reach and far enough away that he would be able to aim the gun at either one of them. He chose Holden.

  “Drop whatever you’re holding,” Farnsworth said to her.

  The hammer fell to the cement, but the sound that drew Farnsworth’s attention was that of the aluminum case full of gems skidding and sliding toward him, driven by the wind.

  That son of a bitch is shot through with luck, Kate thought bitterly, watching the case come to him like a dog to his master.

  The case waltzed past Farnsworth, just out of reach.

  Automatically he stepped after it, landed on his bad foot, and yelped. But even as she turned to run, he pointed the gun at her.

  She froze.

  “You’re smarter than you look,” Farnsworth said.

  Kate watched him and waited for another chance. Rain came down on her like water from a hose, but she barely noticed it. All that mattered was separating Farnsworth from his gun.

  Just out of Farnsworth’s reach, the case picked up speed over the watery apron. The wind was powerful enough that standing upright was a struggle. Kate barely noticed, letting her body shift and rebalance like she was on the deck of a ship. Her whole focus was on the gun Farnsworth held on Holden. Using the wind as an excuse, she allowed herself to inch closer. Lucky or not, Farnsworth was bruised, bloodied, and barely able to stand. All that was keeping him going was adrenaline.

  She would wait, watch, and be ready for the moment he lost concentration.

  From his position on the pavement, Holden saw Kate glide closer to Farnsworth and wanted to howl in frustration. Even battered, Farnsworth was more than a match for her.

  “You two really should have gone down with the ship,” Farnsworth said, dividing his attention among the sliding case and the two people. “This will require a bit more explaining than I planned.”

  Holden rolled onto his side and groaned to divert Farnsworth’s attention from Kate.

  “No farther, Cameron.” The gun leveled at him.

  She inched closer.

  Farnsworth backed away from both of them, nearly fell, but recovered with the help of the wind. His eyes were glazed and glittering in the random flashes of lightning. His glance jumped between the case, which had snagged on a piece of debris, and his two prisoners. But it was the case that drew him most, the wealth of centuries waiting just out of reach.

  The suitcase jumped like it had been kicked, pulling free from the debris and slowly spinning down the concrete.

  “No!” Farnsworth yelled.

  The case kept going.

  “Get it!” Kate urged. “It’s not too late. You can grab it before the police come.”

  “And who are they going to bloody believe?” Farnsworth asked, watching the case from the corner of his eye as the case inched down the runway, farther and farther away. “An upstanding agent of the British government like me or a man in a diving suit who was stopped in the process of absconding with a treasure of incalculable value? And let’s not forget the thief’s American slut, the one who got him onto a good thing through her grandfather and brother.”

  “They won’t believe you,” she said.

  “I’ll be the only one alive to talk.”

  Kate watched the gun barrel swing toward her until it seemed so big it swallowed the storm. Nothing existed but the jutting piece of metal and that terrifying black circle at the center of it.

  “To the victor and all that,” he said, grinning.

  With a savage roar Holden hit Farnsworth like an avalanche, knocking his feet out from under him. She lunged for the gun to make sure it was pointed anywhere but at them. Her weight bent Farnsworth’s arm back and made him fall on it awkwardly. The sound of snapping bone was thicker than the rattle of debris on concrete.

  Holden crawled to his hands and knees. Distantly he realized that he was in pain, but he didn’t care. Somebody was screaming.

  Farnsworth.

  Airborne debris whipped by, sometimes missing them, sometimes connecting. Everything that the wind could lift, it did, then whirled it about with casual power. Holden ignored the pelting and buffeting as he yanked the pistol from Farnsworth’s fingers, causing him to scream again. With an automatic motion, Holden popped out the magazine and hurled it down the runway, where the wind took it like a new toy and skipped away with it into darkness.

  Holden turned to Kate and touched her face gently. “Where are you hurt?”

  “Everywhere, but nothing vital. What about your thigh?”

  “Still there.”

  She sat up and got to her feet. “I’ll get the case. You watch the snake.”

  Even as she headed for it, the case retreated into the darkness. Branches lashed sky and ground alike as the wind strengthened even more. It smashed against the island now, raking claws into the ground and lifting away anything that hadn’t been torn free yet. The gun scraped, metal on concrete, before being whipped up and into the swirling sky.

  “The case!” she cried.

  It moved away from her, gaining momentum. She reached for it but the wind pushed her down. Even years of living on an unstable ocean couldn’t prepare her for the strength of the storm now. It was all but sucking the breath from her lungs. She staggered and scrambled after the case as it bounced along. Lightning bleached everything to white until thunder and darkness and wind consumed the world.

  Half blind, she went on hands and knees after the faint, mocking shimmer of the case bouncing away from her like a misshapen ball.

  Everything that Larry and Grandpa stole for, that my parents died for, that Farnsworth killed for, that Bloody Green let a sea of blood over . . .

  Part of Kate wanted to laugh and sob and let the storm take the treasure.

  A bigger part of her wanted to see Farnsworth hang.

  The case stopped just beyond the side of the runway, caught by grass and a shrub too tough for the storm to beat it flat. She fell on the case and lay there, panting. Sirens whooped off in the night. With a groan, she slowly struggled to her feet with the case. Leaning into the wind she half crawled, half lunged back to Holden.

  When she all but fell until his lap, he wrapped his arms around her. Both of them ignored Farnsworth moaning nearby.

  “Your grandpa will be proud of you,” Holden said when he saw the case.

  “I didn’t do it for my family. I just wanted to make sure there was enough evidence to hang Farnsworth.”

  “Bloodthirsty.” Holden’s teeth gleamed. “I do enjoy that in a woman.”

  Sirens whooped, closer with every second.

  “I used Farnsworth’s phone to make a few calls,” Holden said.

  Several official-looking vehicles rushed onto the apron, lights flashing.

  “I hope they’re on our side,” she said.

  “Either way, it will be a long night.”

  She looked over at the pale shape that was Farnsworth and shook her head. “At first he seemed so nice.”

  “They always do.”

  The winds shook the pillars of the world, making the ground itself tremble, and the rain tasted of brine. Clinging to one another, Holden and Kate waited for the officers to arrive and the questions to begin.

  CHAPTER 26

  KATE AWOKE TO the feel of Holden’s morning arousal nudging her hip and his hands caressing her breasts. She smiled and rolled over to face him. Her teeth closed lightly against
his chin.

  “Somebody is an early riser,” she said, snuggling close.

  “Somebody,” he said wryly, “spends most of the time around you aroused.”

  Laughing softly, she tasted the curve where his neck met his muscular shoulder. The past week locked in one wing of a private home with Holden had been a revelation to her. Despite the polite, squared-away men who shared the residence with them, the accommodations were excellent—good food, daily linen service, and responsive staff.

  The fact that Holden and Kate couldn’t leave without an escort was irritating but understandable.

  Larry and Grandpa were stuck in the hospital with equally polite, out-of-uniform military men to assure that neither Donnelly suddenly decided to leave. Communications with her family had been limited and monitored while British and Vincentian authorities tried to sort out accusations and counteraccusations.

  Malcolm Farnsworth was in the same hospital as Grandpa and Larry, with attentive guards at his bedside.

  Kate wished Farnsworth was behind bars. A medieval dungeon, for instance, complete with rats and screams.

  “You’re thinking too hard,” Holden said, nuzzling her ear, then nibbling on the random freckles on her shoulder. “Breathe, love. Breathe me.”

  She arched into his caress and smiled, letting go of everything but him. “Have I told you what a really fine night diver you are? Morning, too. And the afternoons are—”

  The room phone rang.

  Holden began speaking in Pashto.

  “Taylor, no doubt,” she said, sighing. “After a week, you would think he would have run out of questions.”

  “You would be wrong. The British bureaucracy has raised repetition to a fine art, particularly where a man of Chatham’s lineage is concerned.”

  The phone vibrated with impatience.

  “Really?” she said, admiring the blue-green-gold gleam of Holden’s eyes in the light pouring through the big bedroom window. “I’ve heard the English are avid dog breeders, but their tender concern for Chatham’s bloodlines is tiresome.”

  Holden gave a crack of laughter. “I’ll be sure to tell Taylor. He doesn’t like Chatham any more than we do. His superiors, however, are another matter.”

  The phone kept ringing as Holden gave her a lingering kiss.

  “Bugger,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.”

  “I guess Taylor hasn’t read Rumi.”

  “The thought of Harrison Taylor and love poetry boggles.” Still lying on his side, Holden picked up the phone. “What is it that couldn’t wait until a civilized hour?”

  She propped her chin on Holden’s naked hip and looked out the window while he tried to talk Taylor out of an immediate meeting.

  The second-story room gave her a view of the beach, where there was still a tangle of debris marking the highest margin of the storm surge. If not for that, the memory of torrents of rain and occasional hurricane-force winds would have seemed impossible, a wild nightmare. Now the sea was calm, transparent in the shallows before going through every tint and tone of blue out to the depths. Fair-weather clouds sailed lazily across an endlessly blue sky. The sun ruled over everything, making the air brilliant and the sand blinding.

  Holden hung up.

  “Now what do they want?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t informed.”

  “Do they ever?”

  He ran his fingertips down her silky cheek. “Only when protocol requires it.”

  She nuzzled his hand. “What time?”

  “They will graciously permit us to dress.”

  “The difference between this and jail would be what?”

  “We’re together,” he said.

  “Good answer.” She got up and walked to her suitcase. “I’m not sure I’m going to be civil. I’m tired of giving variations of the same answers to variations of the same questions.”

  “As am I. Taylor seems heartily sick of it, too. Yet certain formalities are required when investigating murder, massive theft of Crown properties by a very distant cousin to royalty, and the like.”

  “Ah, yes. Gotta love those doggy bloodlines.” She pulled on underwear and lightweight clothes. “At least Larry is well again. The doctor said he has gained five kilos, slept most of the early days and all of the nights, and shows no lingering effects of oxygen poisoning.”

  “And your grandfather is as salty as ever. I do believe the nurses will be relieved to see him ushered from the hospital.”

  Kate laughed. Despite the uncertain future, she had been doing a lot more laughing lately. “You’re good for me, Holden.”

  “It is very mutual.”

  She turned and found him right behind her. Dressed, unfortunately.

  “Onward to slay British dragons with American slang,” she said.

  He laughed and gave her a hug. “You’re good to be with, in and out of bed, diving, walking, swimming, breathing, just being.” He could see the worry in her eyes and in the subtle tightness of her body. “Whatever happens, I love you.”

  She clung to him and murmured her love against his mouth.

  The knock on the door was a reminder that their time wasn’t their own.

  She looked at her rather rumpled self in the mirror and shrugged. When she had packed for the trip, she hadn’t known she would be spending so much time as a coddled guest of the British authorities.

  Taylor waited just outside the large dining room with its extraordinary view of the beach. Medium height, muscular, with the carriage of a former military man and the intensity of a ferret on the hunt, Taylor nodded to her. Surprisingly, he smiled at Holden.

  “Thank you for your promptness, sir,” Taylor said. “You have been a gentleman in a situation in which many of your peers would have sulked and pouted.”

  Black eyebrows rose. “Does that mean I may call you by your given name?”

  “As long as it isn’t Stinky, yes.”

  Holden laughed and exchanged a warm handshake with Taylor. “Please give my best to your aunt and uncle.”

  Kate tried not to stare, but she did feel like she had taken a header down a particularly odd rabbit hole. Holden and Taylor had never given any indication that they knew each other.

  “Apologies,” Taylor said. “Circumstances required that certain procedures and appearances must be maintained.”

  “Understood and accepted. I take it that circumstances have changed?” Holden asked.

  “Quite. As the pearl-fondling MP kept saying, this is a frightful embarrassment, but now it has resolved. We just need one further thing from you.”

  One of the squared-away men stepped out of the dining room. “Ready, sir.”

  “Please,” Taylor said, nodding to Kate.

  Still feeling more than a little unreal, she stepped into the dining room. Instead of the meal she had expected on the damask-covered table, she saw a stunning array of gems and gold. She walked closer, started to touch a shimmering mound of loose jewels, then snatched her hand back.

  “Go ahead,” Taylor said. “Touch as you please. As I have repeatedly stated to Chatham’s solicitors and less formal advocates, if you had stolen this material in the first place, you never would have handed it over to us. It would have been quite easy to stash it somewhere during the storm and retrieve it at your leisure.”

  “It was my only proof that Farnsworth is a lying, murderous son of a bitch,” she said.

  Taylor laughed. “I see why Holden is so taken with you. Your American candor is as delightful as your beauty.”

  Her head turned toward Taylor so swiftly that her hair shimmered and rippled like flame. “I—thank you?”

  “Does she always say that as a question?” Taylor asked Holden.

  “Only when confronted by a surprising flirt.”

  “I am married, not blind,” Taylor said, winking at Kate. “I know the circumstances under which you first viewed the treasure were less than ideal, but can you positively identify any of the pieces as ones you saw aboard the
Golden Bough?”

  She blinked and realized that the social niceties were over. “There were gems lining the bottom of the case, yet I can’t swear that these are the same ones. The gold chains are as anonymous in their way as a stack of dollars. But this”—her voice dropped as she touched a necklace spread against the white damask—“is unforgettable. Not simply the rainbow beauty of the jewels, but the extraordinary workmanship.”

  “You said that your mother had a drawing of a similar piece?”

  “Nearly identical. She was fascinated by the combination of the modern—for the times—use of gems and the nod to a past when workmanship was prized above gems.”

  “Do you still have the drawing?” Taylor asked.

  “You would have to ask my grandfather or my brother.”

  Taylor nodded and waited expectantly.

  “The gold mask is the same as I remember,” she said. “I wanted to smash it into Farnsworth’s smug face.”

  Taylor muffled laughter with a cough. “I understand the impulse. He is a piece of work.”

  “The crown with the emerald tears is a bit more bent than I remember, but otherwise the same. He panicked at the end and just smashed the lid down and ran.”

  “Farnsworth is a swine,” Holden said, remembering the gyrating deck and the thunderous wash of water over the slowly dying ship. “No matter what happens to him, he deserves worse.”

  “Amen,” Kate said below her breath. “That’s all I really recognize. The gorgeous cross set with emeralds, the tight geometry of that big ruby brooch, that knife hilt inlaid with sapphires and diamonds . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t remember them.”

  Taylor smiled. “Excellent. Those were borrowed from various collections.”

  “I told you she had a keen eye,” Holden said.

  “Can you identify any other pieces?” Taylor asked.

  She gave a last, lingering look at the treasure that had lured her parents to their deaths and nearly killed the rest of the Donnelly family. And Holden, who was worth more to her than she had believed possible.

  “Not with certainty,” she said.

  She didn’t say anything about the emerald-encrusted frog that now lay at the bottom of the ocean. If it would have saved their lives, she would have thrown every bit of treasure back to the hungry sea.