The Reef

by Nora Roberts

  He swore again, viciously. Then again, quietly. Leaving the letter and the mug where they were, he headed out to the radio room. He needed to make some calls.

  Tate entered the room the crew had dubbed “Ground Zero.” It was crammed with computers, keyboards, monitors. The sonar dial glowed green as the needle swept. Remotes for the cameras that took stereophotos were easily at hand.

  At the moment, however, the area was more of a rec room for adolescents than a scientific lab.

  Dart was in a corner with Bowers, relieving tedium by trouncing the computer at a game of Mortal Combat.

  It was late, nearly midnight, and she’d have been better off in her cabin, getting a good night’s sleep or working on her dissertation. But she was restless, and Lorraine had been edgy. The cabin had seemed too small for both of them.

  Taking a handful of Dart’s candy, she settled down to watch the monitor that showed the sweep of the seafloor.

  It was so dark, she mused. Cold. Tiny luminescent fish hunted food. They moved slowly, surrounded by points of phosphorescence that resembled stars. The soft, even sediments of the sea plane were featureless. Yet there was life. She saw a sea worm, hardly more than a primitive stomach, glide by the camera’s range. The huge eyes of a cystosoma made her smile.

  It was, in its own way, a kind of fairy land, she thought. Hardly the wasteland a number of oceanographers had once thought. And certainly not the dumping ground certain industries chose to regard it as. It was colorless, true, but those magically transparent, pulsing fish and animals turned it into an eerie wonder.

  Tate was comforted by it, the continuity, the antiquity. The monitor lulled her like an old late-night movie until she was nearly dozing in the chair.

  Then she was blinking, her subconscious struggling to transmit to her eyes what she was viewing.

  Coral crabs. They would colonize any handy structure. And they were busily doing so. It was wood, she realized, leaning forward. It was the hull of a ship, encrusted with life of the deep sea.

  “Bowers.”

  “Just a minute, Tate, I gotta finish ragging on this boy.”

  “Bowers, now!”

  “What’s the hurry?” Forehead furrowed, he swiveled back to her. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Holy hell.” Staring at the monitor, he slipped his chair forward, hitting the necessary controls to stop the camera’s sweep.

  But for the beep of the equipment, the room was silent as the three of them stared at the screen.

  “It could be her.” Tate’s voice was thin with excitement.

  “Could be,” Bowers replied and got to work. “Handle the digitals, Dart. Tate, signal the bridge for full stop.”

  They didn’t speak again for several moments. While the tapes ran, Bowers zoomed in closer and sent the camera on a slow sweep.

  The wreck was teaming with life. Tate imagined that Litz and the other biologists on board would soon be singing hosannahs. With her lips pressed together, she held her breath. Then let it out on an explosive puff.

  “Oh Christ, look! Do you see it?”

  Dart’s answer was a nervous giggle. “It’s the wheel. Look at that honey lying there, just waiting for us to come along and find her. She’s a side-wheeler, Bowers. It’s the goddamn beautiful Justine.”

  Bowers halted the camera. “Children,” he said and got shakily to his feet. “At a moment like this, I believe I should say something profound.” He laid a hand on his heart. “We’ve done did it.”

  With one wild hoot, he grabbed Tate and did a fast boogie. Laughter and excitement had tears rushing to her eyes.

  “Let’s wake up the ship,” she decided and dashed off.

  She raced to her own cabin first to rouse a cranky Lorraine. “Get down to Ground Zero, now.”

  “What? Are we sinking? Go away, Tate. I’m busy being seduced by Harrison Ford.”

  “He’ll wait. Get down there.” To ensure obedience, Tate ripped the sheet off Lorraine’s curled, naked body. “But for God’s sake put a robe on first.”

  Leaving Lorraine swearing at her, she dashed down the corridor to Hayden’s cabin. “Hayden?” Struggling with giggles, she pounded on his door. “Come on, Hayden, red alert, all hands on deck, get the lead out.”

  “What is it?” His eyes owlishly wide without his glasses, his hair sticking straight up and a blanket held modestly around his waist, he blinked at Tate. “Is somebody hurt?”

  “No, everybody’s wonderful.” In that moment, she was sure he was quite simply the sweetest man she had ever met. Following impulse, she threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him down, and kissed him. “Oh, Hayden, I can’t wait to—”

  The first shock of his mouth closing hungrily over hers had her going still. She knew desire when she tasted it on a man’s lips, knew need when she felt it trembling in a man’s arms.

  For both of them, she relaxed, lifting a hand gently to his cheek until the kiss played out.

  “Hayden—”

  “I’m sorry.” Appalled, he stepped stiffly back. “You caught me off guard, Tate. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It’s all right.” She smiled, laid both hands on his shoulders. “Really it’s all right, Hayden. I’d say we caught each other off guard, and it was nice.”

  “As associates,” he began, terrified he might stammer. “As your superior, I had no right to make an advance.”

  She suppressed a sigh. “Hayden, it was only a kiss. And I kissed you first. I don’t think you’re going to fire me over it.”

  “No, of course not. I only meant—”

  “You meant you wanted to kiss me, you did, and it was nice.” Patiently, she took his hand. “Let’s not go crazy over it. Especially since we’ve got a lot more to go crazy over. You want to know why I beat on your door, dragged you out of bed and threw myself at you?”

  “Well, I . . .” He pushed at glasses he wasn’t wearing and poked himself in the nose. “Yes.”

  “Hayden, we found the Justine. Now hold onto yourself,” she warned, “because I’m going to kiss you again.”

  CHAPTER 12

  T HE DROID DID the work. And that was the problem. A week into the excavation of the Justine, Tate found herself struggling with a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

  It was everything they’d hoped for. The wreck was rich. There were gold coins, gold bars—some of them a full sixty pounds. Artifacts were transferred to the surface in abundance. The droid worked busily, digging, lifting, shifting booty with Bowers and Dart working the controls at Ground Zero.

  Now and again Tate took a break from her own work to watch the monitor and observe how the machine would haul a heavy load in its mechanical arms, or snag a sea sponge delicately with its pincers for the biologists to study.

  The expedition was a complete success.

  Tate was suffering through a profound sense of envy for an ugly metal robot.

  At her station in a forward cabin, she photographed, examined and catalogued the bits and pieces of mid-nineteenth-century life. A cameo brooch, bits of crockery, spoons, a pewter inkwell, a child’s worm-eaten wooden top. And, of course, the coins. Both silver and gold were stacked on her worktable. They glittered, thanks to Lorraine’s work in the lab, as though they were freshly minted.

  Tate picked up a five-dollar gold piece, a beautiful little disk dated 1857, the year the Justine sank. How many hands had it passed through? she wondered. Perhaps only a few. It might have been tucked into a lady’s purse or a gentleman’s pocket. Maybe it had paid for a bottle of wine or a Cuban cigar. A new hat. Or maybe it had never been used, only held in anticipation of some small treat it could buy at the end of the journey.

  Now it was in her hand, part of so many lost treasures.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Lorraine came in. She carried a tray of artifacts newly decalcified and cleaned in her lab.

  “Yeah.” Tate replaced the coin, logged it in her computer. “There’s enough work here for a year.”

  “You sound real happy ab
out it.” Curious, Lorraine tilted her head. “Scientists are supposed to be pleased when they have themselves steady field work.”

  “I am pleased.” Tate meticulously logged the brooch, set it aside in a tray. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m involved in one of the most exciting finds of my career, part of a team of top scientists. I have the very best equipment, better-than-average working and living conditions.” She picked up the child’s toy. “I’d be crazy not to be pleased.”

  “So why don’t you tell me why you’re crazy?”

  Lips pursed, Tate gave the toy a quick spin. “You’ve never dived. It’s hard to explain to someone who’s never gone down, never seen it.”

  Lorraine sat down, tipped her feet up on the edge of the table. A tattoo of a unicorn rode colorfully over the inside of her ankle. “I’ve got some time. Why don’t you try?”

  “This isn’t hunting for treasure,” she began, her voice sharp with annoyance fully self-directed. “It’s computers and machines and robotics, and it’s marvelous in its way. We’d never have found the Justine or been able to study her without the equipment, obviously.”

  A fresh wave of restlessness had her pushing back from her worktable, pacing to the porthole that was her miserly view of the sea. “It couldn’t be excavated or studied without it. The pressure and temperature at that depth make diving impossible. It’s basic biology, basic physics. I know it. But damn it, Lorraine, I want to go down. I want to touch it. I want to fan away the sand and find some piece of yesterday. Bowers’s droid’s having all the fun.”

  “Yeah, he’s always bragging about it.”

  “I know it sounds stupid.” Because it did, Tate was able to smile as she turned back. “But diving a wreck, being there, is an incredible high. And this is all so sterile. I didn’t know I’d feel this way, but every time I come in here to work, I remember what it was like. My first dive, my first wreck, working the airlift, hauling up conglomerate. All the fish, the coral, the mud and sand. The work, Lorraine, the physical strain of it. You feel like you’re part of it.” She spread her arms, let them fall. “This seems so removed, so cold and intrusive somehow.”

  “So scientific?” Lorraine put in.

  “Science without participation, for me, anyway. I remember when I found my first coin, a silver piece of eight. We had a virgin wreck in the West Indies.” She sighed, sat again. “I was twenty. It was a very eventful summer for me. We found a Spanish galleon, and lost it. I fell in love and had my heart broken. I’ve never been that involved with anything or anyone again. I haven’t wanted to be.”

  “Because of the ship or the man?”

  “Both. In a few weeks, I experienced absolute joy and absolute grief. A difficult ride at twenty. I went back to college that fall with my goals very well defined. I would get my degree and be the very best in my field. I would do exactly what I’m doing now and keep a logical, professional distance. And here I am, eight years later, wondering if I’ve made some terrible mistake.”

  Lorraine cocked a brow. “You don’t like your work?”

  “I love my work. I’m just having a hard time letting machines do the best part of it for me. Keeping me at that logical, professional distance.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a crisis to me, Tate. It just sounds like you need to strap on your tanks and have a little fun.” She studied the nails she’d recently manicured. “If that’s the way you define fun. When’s the last time you took a vacation?”

  “Oh, let’s see . . .” Tate leaned back, closed her eyes. “That would have been about eight years ago, unless we count a couple of quick weekends and Christmases at home.”

  “We don’t,” Lorraine said definitely. “Doctor Lorraine’s prescription is very simple. What you’ve got here is a case of the blues. Take a month off when we’re done here, go someplace with lots of palm trees and spend lots of time with fish.”

  Lorraine developed a sudden avid interest in her manicure and studied the coral-pink enamel. “If you wanted company, Hayden would jump at the chance to go with you.”

  “Hayden?”

  “To use a technical term, the man’s nuts about you.”

  “Hayden?”

  “Yes, Hayden.” Lorraine jerked back so that her feet slapped on the floor. “Christ, Tate, pay attention. He’s been mooning over you for weeks.”

  “Hay—” Tate began before she caught herself. “We’re friends, Lorraine, associates.” Then she remembered the way he’d kissed her the night they’d found the Justine. “Well, hell.”

  “He’s a terrific man.”

  “Of course he is.” Baffled, Tate dragged a hand through her hair. “I just never thought about him that way.”

  “He’s thinking about you that way.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” Tate murmured. “It’s not a good idea to get involved with someone you’re working with. I know.”

  “Your choice,” Lorraine said carelessly. “I just thought it was time somebody gave the guy a break and let you know. I’m also supposed to let you know that some reps from SeaSearch and Poseidon are coming to examine and transport some of the loot. And they’re bringing a film crew.”

  “A film crew.” Automatically, Tate filed the problem of Hayden in the back of her mind. “I thought we were doing our own video records.”

  “They’ll use ours as well. We’re going to be a cable documentary, so don’t forget your mascara and lipstick.”

  “When are they due?”

  “They’re on their way.”

  Hardly realizing it, Tate picked up the wooden top, cupped it possessively in her hands. “They’re not moving anything I haven’t finished studying and cataloguing.”

  “You be sure to tell them that, champ.” Lorraine headed for the door. “But remember, we’re just the hired help.”

  The hired help, Tate thought and set the top carefully aside. Maybe that was the crux of it. Somehow she’d gone from being an independent woman looking for adventure to a competent drone who worked for a faceless corporation.

  It made her work possible, she reminded herself. Scientists were always beggars. And yet . . .

  There were a lot of “and yets” in her life, she realized. She was going to have to take some time and decide which ones mattered.

  Matthew decided he had lost his mind. He’d quit his job. A job he’d hated, but one that had paid the bills and left enough to spare to keep a couple of small dreams from dying. Without the job, the boat he’d been building bit by bit over the years would never be completed, his uncle would be forced to live on subsidies and he would be lucky to be able to afford a decent meal in six months’ time.

  Not only had he quit his job, but he’d been maneuvered into taking LaRue along with him. The man had simply packed up and shipped out with him with no encouragement at all. As Matthew saw it, he was now stuck with two dependents, two men who spent most of their time arguing with each other and pointing out his flaws.

  So here he sat, outside a trailer in southern Florida wondering when he had gone mad.

  It was the letter from the Beaumonts that had started it. The mention of Tate, of VanDyke, and of course, the Isabella. It had brought back too many memories, too many failures and too much hope. Before he’d let himself think through the consequences, he’d been packing his gear.

  Now that his bridges were burning at his back, Matthew had plenty of time to think. What the hell was he going to do with Buck? The man’s drinking was out of hand again.

  Big surprise, Matthew thought. Every year, he came back to Florida and spent his month on shore struggling to get his uncle dry. And every year he went back to sea, hampered with guilt, regrets and the grief that he would never be able to make a difference.

  Even now, he could hear Buck’s voice lifted in drunken bitterness. Despite the rain that was falling in steady, sodden sheets, Matthew remained outside under the rusted, leaking awning.

  “What is this slop?” Buck demanded, clattering into the tiny kitchen.

&nb
sp; LaRue didn’t bother to glance up from the book he was reading. “It is bouillabaisse. A family recipe.”

  “Slop,” Buck said again. “French slop.” Unshaven, wearing the clothes he’d slept in, Buck slammed open a cabinet door in search of a bottle. “I don’t want it smelling up my house.”

  In answer, LaRue turned a page.

  “Where the fuck’s my whiskey?” Buck stabbed his hand into the cupboard, knocking over and scattering the meager supplies. “I had a bottle in here, goddamn it.”