Not that it mattered. If a large tiger shark decided you were food, it would try very hard to eat you. Bad luck happened, but a diver was in more danger from his own mistakes than from any shadow lurking where blue shelved off steeply into water so deep it looked black.
He found his designated grid and went to work. For all the hours a diver spent in the water, only a few included actually working the wreck. The dive computer was a relentless machine, recording elapsed minutes and water pressure and computing how much time the diver would require to decompress.
The ascent will be a right bitch, Holden thought, looking up to the quicksilver shimmer of the surface. So few feet. Such a long time.
And his thigh would make him pay for every centimeter.
He accepted it as he had accepted the other factors limiting his dive capability. His body had closed off the last bits of the thigh injury with a cyst, but the interior of that cyst was still subject to the same laws of physics as the rest of him, just more slowly. Until the exterior and interior pressures equalized inside the cyst there was pain. Period.
A silver swirl of fish flashed in the sunlight far above, gathering around the thick siphon hose. Then Holden focused on the blue world around him instead of on his thigh. The bumpy, always-changing coral growths gave way to the geometric grid. He settled in to work very carefully, slowly, creating currents by hand that lifted the sand away and reaching with equal deliberation for anything of interest beneath the sand.
Whether intended or not, every motion he made created a temporary swirl of current. So instead of touching interesting bits he spotted, he touched the water around them. Every motion had to be deliberately planned and executed with careful restraint. The simple act of closing a hand around a piece of debris became a carefully synchronized ballet. A good diver didn’t rush anything.
Hours of the careful dance yielded what appeared to be a handful of grapeshot, a hunk of iron so rusted he couldn’t guess at its original function, random bits of waterlogged wood, half of a teacup, and a mangled circle that could have been a gold ring. From what he could hear over his radio, the siphon wasn’t coming up with much of value, either.
If this is a good part of the wreck, Holden thought, I’d hate to work a bad part.
Yet that could change in the next second, the next thin layer of sand lifting to reveal a cache of gold or gems or coins. Treasure salvage was like gambling, and like gambling it could be addictive.
Holden’s dive computer told him it was time to head up. Depending on how closely Larry shaved safety margins, he should be heading up too.
I’m staying within my margins, Holden thought. It was stupid not to.
He signaled Larry, received a curt “Five minutes,” and began to fin slowly up the dive line. At the first decompression stop marked on the line, he checked with his own dive computer and waited with a diver’s patience for the signal to continue. By the time he reached the second stop, his past experience with his injured thigh was confirmed.
Decompression was a right bitch.
When he finally surfaced and got unsuited, the first thing he discovered was that Kate was still ashore.
Trolling dive bars.
Alone.
CHAPTER 14
AS HOURS WENT by and Kate visited dive hangout after dive bar after dive café, including a strip club, she began to admit that she was wasting her time. The later the afternoon, the more divers filtered in from various jobs, and the more they drank. The last bar had been peppered with drunks who were way too proud of and anxious to demonstrate body parts she had zero interest in hearing about, much less seeing. Bartenders and bouncers had become her new best friends.
No one had seen Mingo recently.
No one wanted to dive for Moon Rose Limited.
Everyone had heard bad things about the Golden Bough.
Kate looked at the circles she had drawn on the map. Most had been crossed out. She glanced around an area that probably looked a lot better at night and decided she would try one more place before she went to the cottage and washed the smell of smoke out of her hair and clothes; the enduring mystery of divers was how many of them smoked.
She looked around carefully, choosing where to go. There were always more bars to check, but once the sun went down, a woman alone in some of those bars would be assumed to be looking for more than alcohol. In the end, she selected a bar that was on the wrong side of the line between seedy and disreputable. But it was the closest bar on the map and daylight was wasting.
The sign above the place said MCNAMARA’S TAVERN and was decorated with a weathered painting of a red-haired, bushy-bearded, and thoroughly dissolute mariner, head tilted back in laughter. The wind had increased to the point that it rocked the sign on its chains, making it shimmy and swing, lending an air of drunken revelry to what was otherwise an outright shabby, no-tourists-wanted divers’ dive.
I’ll bet Grandpa used to drink in places like this. Probably still does when he’s ashore. Larry, too.
Not that either had helped her to compile her list of dive hangouts. She had done that the hard way, one bartender or waitress at a time, asking after Mingo and divers looking for work, and settling for the names of other dive hangouts.
A man who looked like he had posed for the McNamara’s sign in his youth—and had been a friend of henna ever since—stood at the till, waiting for something to happen.
Must be the infamous McNamara, she decided.
Since he looked about as friendly as razor wire, she glanced toward the bar. Another man, younger and much fitter, was tending bar. His mixed heritage resulted in cinnamon skin and wildly curly, red-streaked brown hair. He smiled and chatted up patrons, poured refills, and nixed a request from a man who was wobbling on the bar stool.
“Slow down, Javier,” he said easily, pouring tonic with lime for the man, no gin. “If your lover come back to you tonight, you have nothing left.” A wink and a sympathetic smile. “Man want to be ready for his lover, yes?”
Javier drank the tonic down in a few gulps, frowned, but didn’t object when more tonic came as a refill, also without gin.
Kate gave the people in the bar a discreet once-over. As she had expected, the men defied racial and political boundaries, mixing with the camaraderie of alcohol and shared experiences underwater. Gradually she realized that this bar had a different vibe. Not bad, just different. It smelled like gin and pulsed with Lady Gaga.
And more than one man looked surprised to see Kate.
It’s a gay hangout, she realized. Thank God. I don’t need to worry about drunks hitting on me.
She made her way over to the long bar, hoping the smiling young man with the mop of hair wouldn’t mind answering a question or three, especially if she put some currency on the bar while she talked.
The bartender did a double take and gave Kate a slow smile that had her rethinking her conclusion about the patrons of the tavern. Or at least this man.
“Are you lost, pretty lady?” he asked.
He watched her with appreciation and a silent promise of restraint that made her feel like an exotic butterfly that had landed on a tiger’s paw.
“Not yet,” she said. “I’m looking for a diver called Mingo. Has he been in here recently?”
The bartender shook his head. “We been expecting him, but . . .” A shrug said Mingo hadn’t come yet.
“How about the men in here now? Are they divers?”
His grin widened. “Nothing but. McNamara’s is best dive bar on the whole damn island. Most tourists take one look and leave.”
“I’m not a tourist,” she said, returning his easy smile. “Anybody looking for salvage work?”
The bartender hollered out, “Any of you looking for salvage work?”
“Which ship?” called a man from the back table.
“The Golden Bough,” Kate called back.
A murmur went through the room and the patrons went back to their drinks and gossip. The refusal was as clear as it was final
.
“Sorry, miss,” the bartender said.
“So am I. I can’t even find where those rumors came from.”
The fact that the bartender didn’t ask which rumors told Kate it was as bad as she’d feared.
“The sea, she whispers to her men,” the bartender said. “Smart ones listen.”
“Thanks, anyway,” she said, pushing some money toward him.
“Drink?”
She realized she was thirsty. “Have any iced tea?”
He reached below the bar, came up with a pitcher beaded with cold drops of water, and poured her a glass.
“Thank you,” she said, pulling more money from her shorts pocket.
He shook his head in gentle refusal of the cash and went down the bar where a patron had knocked his knuckles on the wood, signaling he wanted another round.
Kate sipped her tea and enjoyed being out of the hazy heat and humidity of the day.
Behind her the entrance door opened and closed. The fact that nobody hollered a greeting told her that whoever had come in wasn’t a regular. She took a final long drink of tea, stood, turned around—and almost stepped on Holden Cameron.
“Hi,” she said. “I was just going to go back to the cottage after I picked up dinner.”
He hesitated, seeming to choose his words carefully. “What in bloody hell are you doing trolling dives in the wrong section of town?”
She blinked. “It isn’t dark yet. I was looking for information about Mingo and any divers who wanted to work.”
“Not dark yet,” he repeated, looking like a man trying something’s taste and finding it unpleasant. “Did you know that men don’t need darkness to want to shag a pretty woman, and bugger whether she’s willing or not?”
Kate realized that underneath his calm exterior, Holden was furious. “Let’s talk outside,” she said.
“Bloody good idea.”
She waved good-bye to the bartender. “Thanks again.”
The bartender smiled at both of them. “You ever looking for a third, I’m your man. Ask anyone. They tell you I’m amazing.”
“Er, thanks,” she said. The open sexuality of the islands was something she hadn’t quite gotten used to, much less all the variations on the theme of sex.
Ruthlessly Holden herded her to the exit. She ducked her head, knowing her cheeks were on fire.
“Any more sewers on your to-do list?” Holden asked.
“I thought it was a gay bar. Safe enough.”
“Some men shag both ways.”
“I’m shocked,” she said. “Tell me you’re not one of them.”
He gave her a sideways look. “Cocky, aren’t you?”
“I leave all things cocky to you.”
He laughed in spite of his earlier fear for her, fear that had flared into anger the instant he saw her in what was obviously a locals-only dive. “Cheeky, then.”
“So I’m told.” Then, more seriously, she said, “If it helps, I was prepared to run. If that didn’t work, the men in my family taught me some dirty tricks when I began growing breasts.”
“Eyes, nose, throat, and balls?”
“Among others.”
“Ever used them?” Holden asked.
“A few dates thought that dinner included a blow job and insisted on collecting what I ‘owed’ before taking me home.”
He winced. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen. I learned fast how to be a better judge of whether a man wanted a date with the hope of sex or just expected sex for the price of a hamburger and fries.”
“You’ll have to show me what you know.”
“Why? Are you into pain?”
Holden laughed again and realized that he had done more laughing with Kate than he had with anyone except the munchkins who crawled all over him when he visited family. She was far from a child, but she relaxed him just the same. Made him hard, too. An excellent side benefit.
By silent consent, they walked toward a nearby open-air market. They didn’t talk about the problems plaguing the dive, or Mingo, or anything about business, including Kate’s latest attempts to find divers willing to work for her family. Instead, they simply strolled through the market stalls that were still open and argued amiably over whether to buy a whole chicken or some wicked-looking blackened chicken pieces, or to settle for fresh eggs and whichever vegetables went best with spicy rice.
While he bargained over the price of chicken and if the shrimp really had come off the boat this afternoon, she selected fruit and piled it on the merchant’s table. When she spotted the only remaining loaf of bread from a local French bakery, she pounced on it and carried off her prize to the counter.
By the time the sun was sliding into the ocean, they had walked to the marina, where the truck waited like an oven left to preheat. In minutes they were bumping down the ruts to the cottage. Kate was disappointed when she saw Farnsworth’s racy little speedboat tied off on the dock. He was stowing something aboard and didn’t notice them at first.
“Well, it was nice while it lasted,” she said.
“Perhaps he’ll already have eaten supper.”
She smiled, glad that she wasn’t the only one who had been looking forward to another meal alone with Holden.
“Maybe he has news,” she said.
Holden simply carried the food inside.
When Farnsworth emerged from the cockpit of his boat, he was as surprised to see them as they had been to discover the speedboat.
“I didn’t think anyone was here,” he said to Kate. “Where’s the workboat?”
“Tied up at the marina.”
He looked puzzled.
“Long story short,” Holden said as he reappeared, “Kate took some crew ashore, Larry dropped me later at the fuel dock, and I helped Kate look for Mingo.”
“We didn’t find him,” she added.
Glancing at his watch, Farnsworth frowned. “Did you try the Buddy Bar? I heard Luis and Mingo talking about it a few times when I was listening in the dive center during their decompression stages.”
Holden looked at Kate. She pulled the rumpled map from her shorts pocket and smoothed the paper flat against her thigh.
“It was on my list, but I didn’t get there,” she said, carefully not looking at Holden.
“Just as well,” Farnsworth said. “It’s not the kind of place I’d want my sister popping into for a pint.” He grabbed a few pieces of fresh fruit. “I’m heading back to the warehouse after I leave my laundry off with my friend. Unless you need something from me here?”
“No,” Holden and Kate said simultaneously.
Then she added, “I’m going to check out the Buddy Bar before it gets into the wild hours. Can I drop you somewhere in town?”
“Are you going with her?” Farnsworth asked Holden.
“Count on it.”
“Would you like any help?”
“Thank you, but no,” Holden said. “Kind of you to offer.” Especially when the other man hardly looked the type to seek out a brawl.
Farnsworth nodded. “Then I’ll be off. Unless something comes up at the warehouse, I’ll see you just after dawn on the Golden Bough.”
Kate hurried to the bedroom to change into long pants and a bright, long-sleeved shirt. The steadily increasing breeze was almost cool. When she found Holden, he was finishing off what looked like a blackened chicken sandwich.
“Just a bit to hold me until supper—dinner,” he said. “Ready?”
She grabbed a few of the tiny, sweet bananas that had been part of their purchases earlier. “Ready.”
Holden fed her bites of banana while she drove the familiar road to town. When the trees gave way to buildings and lights, she thought again how different everything looked after dark. The tourist centers at the beach had colorful crowds out to enjoy the carefully sanitized nightlife that catered to outsiders with money. Beyond that shoreline strip, the small shops and markets were shuttered. The dark patches came more often, and when there were li
ghts, they tended to be neon liquor signs flickering in bar windows.
Though Buddy Bar was only four streets up off the industrial area of the beach, and a block over from McNamara’s, the bar looked like a down-and-dirty dive where men went to brawl as often as to drink. Kate would have hesitated to go during daylight. Even with company, she wasn’t exactly eager.
“Okay. Glad you’re here,” she said.
“Why don’t you wait in the truck?”
“If Mingo is in there, he’ll talk to me quicker than he will talk to you.”
“Right. Good job you covered up those sexy legs,” Holden said. “Stay behind me. If the place is too rank, neither one of us is going two steps from the front door.”
She didn’t argue.
Smoke and music from speakers poured out as Holden opened the door. He scanned the place hard and fast and decided that the atmosphere was rough but not vicious. As an ABCD, he’d seen some really savage bars. This wasn’t one of them.
“Stay close to me,” he said quietly to Kate.
“The corner on the left,” she said, tiptoeing to reach his ear. “Isn’t that Luis?”
“Yes. And Raul.”
The two men were playing dominoes at a table as gloomy as their faces. When Holden saw what they were drinking, he signaled the bartender for another round. Experience had taught him that a paying customer was much more welcome than a stranger who kept his money in his pocket.
Holden carried the two beers over and set one in front of each man while Kate slid into one of the two empty seats.
“Thanks,” Luis said.
He didn’t smile, but no one took it personally. He and Raul looked like they were at a wake rather than a party. As Luis shifted to study his dominoes, the wrapped hilt of his dive knife knocked against the chair.
Kate was surprised by the knife.
Holden wasn’t.
Luis matched a five with a five on a free domino and waited for Raul to make a move.
A tear slid down Raul’s cheek.
Both men ignored it.
When Kate would have said something to Raul, Holden’s hand clamped around her thigh in silent warning.
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