by Diane Noble
She raised her chin. “What if, at the end, no one else knows? Then all will be lost.”
Chapter One
The Professor
Off the Coast of North Carolina
Huge gray swells marched toward the Black Watch like an army of humpback whales, only larger. Outriders of severe weather, they stood tall, growing taller, wider, blowing more wind-whipped froth as they came.
Dr. Maxwell Haverhill, dean of Southern Highlands University’s history and social science departments, braced himself against the railing just seconds before a frothy swell lifted the ninety-one-ton salvage ship, took it on a glide along its crest, and then dropped it into the wind-driven chop.
His stomach lurched as the ship shuddered and rose again. He tightened his grip on the rail. Wrapped his fingers around its slick wet surface for support. Waited for the inevitable drop.
It came too soon. The ship groaned as it slammed into the water.
Max, still wearing his wet suit from an earlier dive, glanced up at the bridge. Captain Brady Donnegan looked agitated. His second in command, Rob Marconi, stood next to him, eyes fixed on his instruments, phone to his ear, likely talking to the diving crew about the men in the water.
Saltwater spray stung Max’s face. As head of SHU’s Semester at Sea program, he was responsible for the fifteen students and three faculty members on board. Dr. Fletcher, a new faculty member, had taken over his duties this morning since he’d been gone on the first dive. The students, curious about the storm, and seemingly unfazed by the danger, were clustered near the dive station. The faculty apparently had better sense; he didn’t spot anyone over thirty from SHU. Even Dr. Fletcher was missing.
The winds had come up fast. Too fast. It was early in the hurricane season, and though Donnegan had paid close attention to the marine VHF weather reports, the sudden ferocity of the wind seemed to take even this seasoned seaman by surprise. As late as this morning, VHF predicted the storm would miss North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Something had changed.
Now they were in the storm’s path.
And they had kids in the water. Divers. Dirk and MacFie, working under his supervision and in partnership with Brady Donnegan’s Oceanic Recovery and Salvage. Experts at what they did, but the conditions were deteriorating fast. They were also former students at the university, and he cared about them. And though they were now married with families of their own, he still thought of them as his kids.
The thought of anything happening to them hit him in the gut. He was no expert, but he’d spent enough time on Brady’s ship to know when danger lurked. A sudden storm. Divers in deep water. Not a good combination. They could only ascend at a rate of fifteen feet every thirty seconds, and if they hadn’t yet started for the surface …
Max looked out at the building storm clouds. The Black Watch creaked and rocked as the wind kicked up again. Marine VHF had predicted the collision of two fronts—one warm, from the south, the other cold, from the northwest—but no one had expected the resulting superstorm to spin this close to the Outer Banks. Or to come up this fast.
He glanced up to see Captain Donnegan striding toward him. “We’re pulling up anchor as soon as the divers are out.” His friend looked grim.
“I expected it. We’ve got the coordinates. We’ll come back another time.” After all these years, he was certain they’d found the figurehead, and now this. He didn’t show his disappointment to the captain.
“But we’ve got another problem. The divers aren’t ascending as ordered. They’re still trying to dig out that container. They insist on bringing it up.” Brady shook his head. “Look, Max. I know what this means to you—so do those kids. But we’ve got to get out of here.
“You’ve gotta talk to them, Max. They’re doing it for you, you know.” The captain frowned, the lines on his weathered face showing more than usual. “And they’re putting everyone on board in peril.”
Max barely heard the captain’s last sentence. He was already halfway to the diving platform and the surface Aquacom.
The crane loomed tall on the far side of the platform. It seemed rock solid, but it swayed in the powerful wind gusts, creaking as if ready to break. It was the lifeline between the divers and the ship. In normal circumstances, the divers would ascend on their own, but in this weather and turbulent waters, they would be safer in the cage, letting the crane bring them up.
He’d just reached the diving platform when Tom Hardy, the dive team member operating the Aquacom, called out that the divers had the pod in the cage. “They’re both in the shark cage,” he yelled, “with the container—ready to be hoisted up.” He signaled the crane operator to start pulling up the shark cage.
Max watched the crane sway once more, and a strange sense of foreboding twisted his gut. The ship rocked violently as another huge swell lifted it. Anything that wasn’t battened down rolled, slammed, or slid.
The blast of the ship’s alarm startled him.
“All passengers to quarters!” Captain Donnegan ordered over the loudspeakers. He repeated the words three times. The alarm blasted again.
Voices rose as the students trooped to the center of the ship to make their descent. He did a mental count as they passed. Though the winds lashed and his stomach roiled, he tried to tamp down his fear.
A spit of rain hit his face. Then another. In the eastern green-black sky, blasts of lightning lit the storm clouds. The storm seemed to grow to monster-like proportions as it surged toward the salvage ship.
He glanced at the swaying crane for an instant, and then, making a split-second decision, headed to the gear room, grabbed his fins, mask, and scuba tank from his locker. He strapped on the tank as he headed back out to the deck.
The sense of urgency grew stronger. He put his head down against the wind, found the rope ladder, and climbed down.
Whitecaps topped the swells. Clinging to the last rung of the ladder with a one-handed death grip, he slid on his fins, and then put on his mask.
The wind flipped the ladder. He clung to it, gauging his time, watching the crane.
The squalls had closed in on them, darkening the skies. The rain came down in sheets a short distance away, and it was moving toward them.
A huge swell several yards out caught his attention. It grew as if alive, white foam capping its peak.
The closer it came, the higher it rose, in seconds towering above the ship. The captain gunned the engines to turn the bow into the huge wave. As Max put in his mouthpiece, the winds ripped the ladder out from under him. He fell, hit the water. Tried to breathe, but something was wrong. He got a mouthful of saltwater. Sucked it into his windpipe.
The wave grabbed him and dragged him down. He fought to get away, but it was too strong. It carried him in its jaws, pulling him under, holding him, tossing him like a toy. The raging water was as dark as ink. His lungs felt as if they were about to explode. If he couldn’t get to the surface fast, he wouldn’t make it. Finally, he felt a surge moving upward. He snapped his legs into a scissors kick and shot to the surface.
He broke through, gasping for air. Regurgitating the saltwater he’d inhaled. His heart thudded frantically, from exertion, from fear. Unable to draw in oxygen, he paddled to the ship and grabbed hold of the rope ladder. He coughed. Regurgitated again. Tried to draw in air. He’d always dismissed the notion that a person could drown in an inch of water. Now he knew better.
He’d probably inhaled only a tablespoonful of saltwater from the broken line, but it had almost killed him. He coughed again, spewing saltwater from his lungs. Gasping, he finally pulled air into his lungs. He clung to the rope with one hand, breathing hard, his heart still pounding.
He unlatched the belt that held the tanks in place and examined the hoses. Both the main hose and the secondary hose had been sliced through. It hit him with stark, cold clarity. Someone had just set him up to die.
Above t
he sounds of the storm, he heard shouting but couldn’t make out the words. The ship had taken a direct hit by the wave that pulled him under. A flash of lightning gave him a glimpse of some of the crew looking overboard, yelling and gesturing. He swam a few feet away from the ladder and looked up through the sheets of rain.
The section of deck housing the crane was barely visible. He strained to see through the heavy rain. Jagged lightning flashed. The crane was gone. And with it the cable that tethered the men to the ship. Worse, the divers, still in the cage and tethered to the crane, were being sent straight to a deep underwater canyon.
Max screamed above the wind for someone to throw him a tank. Someone heard him and tossed it overboard. He grabbed it, struggled into it, and tested the oxygen mix.
Another jagged lightning strike gave him light, enough to see the evidence of bubbles and an oil slick. Every second counted. He had to get to his kids. And fast.
He adjusted his headlamp, adjusted the settings on his gear, put in his mouthpiece, and dove deep.
Hit again by the surge of waves and swirling waters, he fought to move through the water, to descend.
He touched his cross and kicked harder. Finally, a glow of light appeared in the murky distance. It blinked a distress signal. He sent a message back with his strobe, swimming hard against the current. It took another two minutes to reach the men. He gave them a hand signal, then swept his light over the cage. It had come to a rest on a shallow ledge about fifty feet below the surface. Still tethered to the crane, which was somewhere below, the cable connecting them was dangerously taut. If the crane moved or shifted with the current, the plunge downward would be fatal.
Fatigue set in, made worse by the strong currents that threatened to sweep him away from the men. He tied his belt to the cage, pulled his diving knife from its sheath, and began to work on the cable.
Chapter Two
Mrs. Littlefield
I couldn’t help doing a little dance step and raising my fist in an air punch with a resounding “Yes!” as I read the front-page headline: LOCAL PROFESSOR FINDS PRICELESS HISTORICAL TREASURE.
I grabbed my coffee and reading glasses and headed to the kitchen table where I slipped into the nearest chair.
Dr. Maxwell Haverhill, local celebrity adventurer, professor of history, and chair of Southern Highlands University’s Department of Social Sciences, confirmed at a press conference yesterday that he and his team of researchers, divers, and graduate students have located a rare nineteenth-century artifact. Rumors of the artifact, a figure of a woman originally carved for a ship’s figurehead in 1862, have circulated for decades. He said the entire team will reunite here in Eden’s Bridge to celebrate their find during the professor’s retirement party later this week. With this news, the guest list has nearly tripled, according to our sources at the university.
The guest list had tripled? The sip of coffee I’d just swallowed caught in my windpipe. I choked, coughed, and spewed liquid across the paper.
What sources? Why wasn’t I told? I’m the caterer, for heaven’s sakes. It’s Wednesday. The party’s Friday. Three hundred, not one hundred? My brain went into a spin as I considered what that meant.
My name is Elaine Littlefield, but my friends call me El. I’m a woman of a certain age and a widow, if you must know. My husband, Herb, passed away back in California thirteen years ago, right after he asked to be buried with someone named Carmen, but that’s another story.
I stand five-two and three-quarters, providing I hike up my shoulders and suck in my stomach. I weigh around one hundred ten unless I have access to chocolate. I keep my silver hair cut short because I like to race about with the top down on my vintage Karmann Ghia.
I’m a full-time foodie—at least that’s what my best friend, Hyacinth Gilvertin, calls me—and part-time amateur sleuth, running my investigative services out of the back of The Butler Did It catering company van. Nothing big, I just look into the odd case that comes my way from time to time.
Lately, I hadn’t had many clients. Mainly because I’d landed the biggest gig in The Butler’s history, Dr. Maxwell Haverhill’s retirement party.
I did a couple of deep-breathing exercises to calm my inner self. It didn’t help. I went back to the article.
The figurehead, known as Lady with a Scarf, survived three shipwrecks, only to be rediscovered in Paris during World War II and shipped to the States in 1945, its destination a Boston museum near the shop where the piece was carved. The ship capsized in rough seas during a hurricane, and the figurehead, it is said, was thrown overboard by superstitious sailors.
When asked the whereabouts of the figurehead now, the professor refused to say. He did confirm that it has undergone extensive testing, including X-ray analysis and an MRI, to make sure the wood has not deteriorated. “It’s in pristine condition,” he said. “One of the most beautifully carved ship’s figureheads I’ve seen. A world treasure that will be talked about for years.”
Haverhill did not comment when asked for further detail. Neither would he confirm this intriguing artifact is on its way to the maritime museum in Boston. One team member, however, speaking anonymously during a follow-up interview, said it might go to Washington, DC. “Much of the initial testing was done under lock and key in our nation’s capital,” she told this reporter, “but no one knows why.”
World treasure? Washington for testing? Under lock and key?
I stared at the headshot next to the article. The great Dr. Maxwell Haverhill himself. At first glance he looked exactly as one might expect: tweed vest and coat, a bow tie—of all things—and a hat like the one worn by Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
But beneath the turned-down hat brim shone eyes that intrigued me. This was no pointy-headed, dull professor. That spark spoke louder than any faculty photo. Something more than lectures in History 101 was going on behind those eyes. He had something up his tweedy sleeve.
I stopped to consider it again. One of the biggest nights of his career just days away. And he’d recently made what might be the most important discovery in his life. Combine those two events, and what do you get?
I grinned at the photo as a possibility—no, make that probability—came to me. I grabbed my handbag, and headed for the front door. I knew exactly where to look for some answers. Who else but the woman who put together the university’s special collections? Southern Highland University archivist Hyacinth Gilvertin had been my best friend since first grade. Now all these decades later, we’d landed in the same university town, a continent away from California where we’d been raised.
It wasn’t by happenstance, believe me. Hyacinth landed a plum job at SHU right after she graduated from Berkeley with a doctorate in library science. She loved the South, lived alone following a messy divorce, and encouraged my daughter, Katie, to begin a new life here after her husband, Sandy, left her. For another woman, I might add, but don’t get me started. He left my Katie and their precious baby girl. Just walked out on them. Long story short, I wasn’t about to let my girls move across the continent without me. Especially given that my BFF already lived here too.
That was seven years ago.
Phone in hand, I hopped into my creamy beige Karmann Ghia, gave the dashboard a pat, and then punched in Hyacinth’s number.
She picked up on the first ring. “I thought we weren’t getting together until noon.”
“Too panicked to wait.” I leaned back in the seat, waiting to crank the engine. Hyacinth’s voice was of a booming nature, but not loud enough to overcome the noise made by my decades-old Ghia, especially with the top down. “Over-the-top anxious unless you tell me we don’t really have two hundred extra guests to feed Friday night.”
She laughed. “You must have read the Chronicle article. I was going to call you later.”
“Cinth, that’s not the sort of thing you wait on. Those are huge numbers.”
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“I wanted to confirm with the powers that be. Which I just now did. We have an edict or two from on high.” Though Hyacinth wasn’t a partner in my business, she was my self-appointed sous chef and claimed each new dish she came up with brought us more customers. I’d never had the heart to tell her I had to adjust the overabundance of seasonings before daring to serve them. Just like Hyacinth herself, the dishes were flashy and spicy. She especially loved cayenne.
“The admin folks are thrilled with the media explosion over this figurehead. It’s putting Southern Highlands on the academic map. They’ve gotten a rash of late RSVPs in the last few days.”
I let out a long sigh. “They may be thrilled, but think about what The Butler’s got to do. Hire extra crew, buy more supplies, food, oh me, and order more centerpieces …” My to-do list burgeoned by the nanosecond.
“The committee discussed the extra help you’ll need. They said they’ll get the culinary arts students to fill in.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve already hired the sharpest cutlery in the block, so to speak,” I said. “I don’t have time to train the others.”
“I’ve seen them serve at faculty luncheons. They’ll do great.”
“And uniforms,” I said. “What will they wear?” I pictured kitchen chaos in T-shirts and jeans. “Oh my.”
Hyacinth read my mind. “The students have a dress code. They’ll stick to it.” She laughed, and then added, “There will be compensation, you know.”
She had my attention. “As in moola?” I quickly calculated what I would need and gave her a figure.
“You’re good.”
I chuckled. “I have to be.”
She confirmed my quote.
Even so, I breathed, “Holy cannoli.”
I could almost hear her grin. “Exactly,” she said.
“The figurehead will be here. Don’t tell me it’s not.” She tried to interrupt, but I was on a roll. “It will be on exhibit in the new wing. Word’s gotten out, and that’s why all these folks are descending on Eden’s Bridge.”