The Reef

by Nora Roberts

  them fight it out, honey,” she murmured. “Looks like it’s been simmering awhile.”

  “You want me to try to stop you? Okay.” Letting temper lead, Matthew grabbed the tanks out of her hands and heaved them overboard. “That ought to do it.”

  For a moment, all Tate could manage was an open-mouthed gape. “You idiot. You ignorant son of a bitch. You’d better get your butt in there and haul my tanks in.”

  “Get them yourself, you’re so anxious to dive.”

  It was a small mistake, turning his back on her. And he paid for it. She launched herself at him. At the last instant, he realized her intent. In an effort to save himself, he shifted. But she dodged. The ensuing crash sent them both over the side.

  “Shouldn’t we do something, Marla?” Ray asked, as they stood at the rail.

  “I think they’re doing fine. Oh, look, she almost caught him with that punch. And with her bad hand, too.”

  Matthew jerked back from the jab at the last moment. But he didn’t quite avoid the fist to his midsection. Even slowed by the water, it earned a grunt.

  “Cut it out,” he warned, snagging her injured hand by the wrist. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “We’ll see who gets hurt. Go get my tanks.”

  “You’re not going down until we’re sure you don’t have a reaction to the bite.”

  “I’ll show you my reaction,” she promised and popped him on the chin.

  “Okay, that does it.” He dunked her once, then hauled her up with an arm under her chin in a not-so-gentle rescue position. Every time she clawed or cursed at him, he shoved her under again. By the time they reached the ladder, she was wheezing. “Had enough?”

  “Bastard.”

  “I guess one more good dunk—”

  “Ahoy the Adventure!”

  Matthew shifted his grip on her as Buck hailed from the Mermaid. She was coming in a good clip from her position to the southeast, where Buck and LaRue had been hunting with the sensor.

  “Ahoy,” Buck shouted again from the bridge. LaRue leaned smugly on the rail at the bow. “We got something.”

  “Get aboard,” Matthew muttered to Tate and all but carried her up the ladder.

  Buck piloted the Mermaid neatly alongside, cut her engines. “Sensors picked up a pile of metal down there. Depth finder shows something, too. Marked it with a buoy—southeast, thirty degrees. Jesus, I think we might’ve found her.”

  Tate took a deep breath. “I want my tanks, Matthew.” Her eyes glittered as she turned to him. “Don’t even think about stopping me from going down now.”

  CHAPTER 19

  T HERE WERE SEVERAL ways to range a wreck for return to site. Standard methods included angular measurements taken from three fixed objects with a sextant, compass bearings with a nine-degree spread or simply ranging the wreck by using distant objects as gunsights. Matthew had used them all.

  Though Buck had employed a simple buoy marker as a practical target, Matthew knew that had its drawbacks. A buoy could sink or drag. Or more important in this case, a buoy could be seen by other interested parties. For the sake of secrecy, he logged the compass bearings, targeted the distant Mount Nevis as a gunsight, then ordered Buck to move the buoy well away from the estimated position of the wreck.

  “We’ll keep the buoy on line with that group of trees on that point of the island,” he told Ray, passing over binoculars so that his partner could verify position by the point on Nevis.

  They stood on the deck of the New Adventure, Matthew in his gear, Ray in cotton slacks and polarized glasses. Ray was already busy with his compass, marking the position for his ship’s daily log.

  “We’re not going to moor here.” Matthew swept his gaze over the sea, noting the pretty catamaran carrying tourists on a snorkeling cruise from Nevis to St. Kitts. The cheerful sound of the ondeck band carried festively across the water. “We’ll use the buoy as a line and move inshore toward Mount Nevis.”

  While Ray nodded and scribbled the marks, Matthew continued. “Tate can make sketches of the bottom, and we can read them as we go.”

  Ray slung the binoculars around his neck and studied Matthew’s determined face. “You’re thinking of VanDyke.”

  “Damn right. If he gets wind of us, he’s not going to be able to drop right down on the wreck. He won’t know the distances or the landmarks we select, or even if we’re diving inshore or offshore of the buoy. That gives him plenty of possibilities to work through.”

  “And buys us time,” Ray agreed. “If this isn’t the Isabella—”

  “We’ll soon find out,” Matthew interrupted. He didn’t want to speculate. He wanted to know. “One way or the other, we take precautions.” He pulled on his flippers as he spoke. “Come on, Red, let’s move.”

  “I needed to reload my camera.”

  “Forget the camera. We’re not developing any film.”

  “But—”

  “Look, all it takes is one clerk passing the word along. Take all the pictures you want, but no film gets sent off until we’re finished here. Got the board and graphite pencil?”

  “Yes.” Assuming a nonchalantly professional pose, she patted her goody bag.

  “Let’s dive.”

  Before she’d adjusted her mask, he was in the water. “Impatient, isn’t he?” She sent a quick smile toward her parents that revealed only a portion of the excitement humming through her. “Keep your fingers crossed,” she told them, and splashed into the sea.

  Following his trail of bubbles, she dived deep. Her inner sensor told her when she’d passed thirty feet, then forty. She began to make note of the landscape of the seafloor, knowing her assignment was to sketch it carefully. Every bed of sea grass, every twist of coral.

  With her graphite pencil, she began to reproduce them, meticulously keeping to scale, marking distances in degrees, resisting the urge to add artistic flourishes. Science was exacting, she reminded herself even as she watched the dance of an angelfish duet.

  She saw Matthew signal, and waved back querulously at the interruption. Efficient sketches took time and care, and since he was the one who’d insisted on them rather than photographs, he could damn well wait. When the clang of his knife on his tank intruded again, she cursed him mildly then stowed her board and pencil.

  Just like a man, she thought. Always come here, and make it now. Once they surfaced, she’d tell him just what she thought of the arrangement. And then . . .

  Her thoughts trailed off, went limp as her suddenly numb fingers, as she saw what he was investigating.

  The cannon was the lovely pale green of corrosion and alive with colonizing animals. She snatched her camera and recorded it, with Matthew at the mouth. But that didn’t make it real. Not until she had touched it with her own hand, felt the solid iron beneath her exploring fingers, did it become real.

  Her breath exploded in bubbles when he grabbed her, swung her around. Tate prepared herself for an exuberant embrace, but he was only pointing her toward the rest of the find.

  More cannon. This was what the magnetometer had recorded. As Matthew towed her along, she counted four, then six, then eight, spread over the sandy floor in a rough semicircle. Her heart spun into her throat. She knew that cannon often literally pointed to a wreck.

  They found her nearly fifty feet south, crushed, battered, and smothered by the drifting sand.

  She’d been proud once, Tate thought as she plunged her hand into the sand and felt the soft give of worm-eaten wood. Even regal like the queen she’d been named for. For so long, she’d been lost, a victim of the sea that had come to be a part of its continuity.

  Broken, what was left of Isabella—for Tate never doubted it was the Isabella—was spread over more than a hundred feet of seabed, buried, encrusted. And waiting.

  Her hand was steady enough as she began to sketch again. Matthew was already fanning, so she alternated her drawing with quick snapshots while he stuffed small finds into his lobster bag.

  She ran
out of boards, worked her pencils down to nubs and used every frame of film. And still, her heart thrummed and jittered.

  Once in a lifetime, she thought with an ache in her throat, had become twice.

  When he headed back toward her, she smiled, delighted that he would think to bring her a token. He gestured for her to hold out her hand, close her eyes. She rolled them first, but obeyed, only to have them spring open again when a heavy disk was dropped into her palm.

  Heavy only because she’d been expecting a coin or a button, she realized. The round, biscuit-shaped object weighed no more than two pounds at her educated guess. But her eyes went wider still at that unmistakable and stunning flash of pure and glorious gold.

  He winked at her, signaled for her to put the ingot into her bag, then jerked a thumb toward the surface. She started to object. How could they leave when they had just begun?

  But of course, there were others waiting. It jabbed her conscience a bit to realize she’d forgotten everything and everyone but what was here. Matthew’s hand closed over hers as they kicked to the surface.

  “You’re supposed to throw yourself at me now,” he told her with a wicked laugh in his eyes that was more triumph than humor. “That’s what you did eight years ago.”

  “I’m much more jaded now.” But she laughed and did exactly what he’d hoped by throwing her arms around him. “It’s her, Matthew. I know it.”

  “Yeah, it’s her.” He had felt it, known it, as if he had seen the Isabella whole, flags flying, as in his dream. “She’s ours now.” He had time to give Tate only a quick kiss before they were hailed. “We’d better go give them the news. You haven’t forgotten how to work an airlift, have you?”

  Her lips were still tingling from his. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

  The routine was so familiar. Diving, digging, gathering. Onboard the Mermaid, Buck and Marla pounded away at conglomerate, separating pieces of treasure for Tate to examine and record. Each find, from a gold button set with a pink conch pearl to a gold bar a foot long, was meticulously tagged, sketched, photographed and then logged in her portable computer.

  Tate put her education and experience to use preserving their finds. She knew that in the fairly shallow Caribbean, a wreck rotted, was further damaged by storm and wave action. The wood would be eaten by teredo worms.

  She also knew that the history of the wreck could be read in the very damage it had sustained.

  This time, she would see that every scrap brought up was protected. Her responsibility, she felt, toward the past, and the future.

  Small, fragile items were stored in water-filled jars to keep them from drying out. Larger pieces would be photographed and sketched under water, then stockpiled on the bottom. She had cushioned boxes for the fragile, such as onion-skinned bottles she hoped to find. Wooden specimens would be left in a bath to cushion against warping in the small tank she’d rigged on the boat deck.

  Tate delegated Marla to the position of apprentice chemist. They worked together, with daughter instructing mother. Even artifacts that resisted chemical change were soaked thoroughly in freshwater, then dried. Marla painstakingly sealed everything with a coat of wax. Only gold and silver required no special handling.

  It was time-consuming work, but never, to Tate’s mind, tedious. This was what she had missed and pined for aboard the Nomad. The intimacy, the propriety, and surprise of it all. Every spike and spar was a clue, and a gift from the past.

  Ordinance marks on cannonballs corroborated their hopes that they’d found the Isabella. Tate added to her log all the information she had on the ship, its voyage, cargo and its fate. Painstakingly, she checked and rechecked the manifests, cross-referencing with each new discovery.

  Meanwhile, the airlift was vacuuming off enough sediment to disclose the tattered hull. They dug. She drew. They hauled buckets filled with conglomerate to the surface. Matthew’s sonar located the ballast stones before they found them by sight and hand. While Tate worked in the deckhouse and boat deck of the New Adventure, her father and LaRue were laboriously searching the ballast for artifacts.

  “Honey?” Marla poked her head in. “Don’t you want to take a break? I’ve finished the waxing.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Tate continued to add details to her sketch of a set of jet Rosary beads. “I can’t believe how fast it’s going. It’s been barely two weeks, and we just keep finding more. Look at this, Mom. Look at the detail on this crucifix.”

  “You’ve cleaned it. I’d have done that.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t wait.”

  Fascinated, Marla leaned over her daughter’s shoulder to run a finger on the heavy, carved silver depiction of Christ on the cross. “It’s stunning. You can see the sinew in his arms and legs, count each wound.”

  “It’s too fine to have belonged to a servant. You see, each decade is perfectly matched, and the silver work is first rate. It’s masculine,” she mused. “A man’s piece. One of the officers, perhaps, or maybe a rich priest on his way back to Cuba. I wonder if he held it, prayed with it as the ship went down.”

  “Why aren’t you happy, Tate?”

  “Hmm.” She’d been dreaming again, Tate realized. Brooding. “Oh, I was thinking of the Santa Marguerite. She was salvageable. I mean the wreck itself could have been preserved with enough time and effort. She was nearly intact. I’d hoped, if we did find the Isabella, she would be in a similar state, but she’s ruined.”

  “But we have so much of her.”

  “I know. I’m greedy.” Tate shrugged off the gloom and set her sketch aside. “I had this wild notion we could raise her, the way my team raised the Phoenician ship a few years ago. Now, I have to be content with the pieces the storm and time have left behind.” She toyed with her pencil and tried not to think about the amulet.

  No one spoke of it now. Superstition, she supposed. Angelique’s Curse was on everyone’s mind, as VanDyke was. Sooner or later, she was afraid both would have to be dealt with.

  “I’ll let you get back to work, dear. I’m heading over to the Mermaid to work with Buck.” Marla smiled.

  “I’ll swim over later and see what you’ve come up with.”

  Tate turned back to her keyboard to log in the Rosary. Within twenty minutes, she was lost in an examination of a gold necklace. Its bird in flight pendant had survived the centuries, the tossing waves, the abrasive sand. She estimated the relic to be worth easily fifty thousand dollars, and efficiently noted it down and began her sketch.

  Matthew watched her for a moment, the competent and graceful way she moved pencil over paper. The way the sun was slanting he could make out her ghostly profile in the reflection of her monitor.

  He wanted to press his lips to that spot just at the nape of her neck. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to have her lean back into him, relaxed, easy and just a little eager for his touch.

  But he’d been cautious for the last few weeks. Hoping to move her toward him without tugging. Patience was costing him dozens of restless nights. It seemed only when they were beneath the sea that they moved in concert.

  Every part of him was aching for more.

  “They sent up a couple of wine jugs. One’s intact.”

  “Oh.” Startled, she looked around. “I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you were on the Mermaid.”

  “I was.” But all he’d been able to think about was that she was here, alone. “Looks like you’re keeping up with the haul.”

  “I get antsy if I fall behind.” She brushed her braid off her shoulder, hardly aware she’d inched away when he sat beside her. But he was aware, and irritated. “I can usually get in several hours in the evening, when everyone’s turned in.”

  He’d seen the light in the deckhouse every night when he’d restlessly paced his own deck. “Is that why you never come over to the Mermaid?”

  “It’s easier for me to work in one spot.” Much easier not to risk sitting in the moonlight with him on his own turf. “By my calculations,
we’re well ahead of where we were in the same amount of time in our excavation of the Marguerite. And we haven’t hit the mother lode.”

  He leaned over to pick up the gold bird, but was more interested in the way her shoulder stiffened when his brushed it. “How much?”

  Her brow creased. It was no more than expected, she supposed, that he could look at such a fabulous relic and think in dollars and cents. “At least fifty thousand, conservatively.”

  “Yeah.” With his eyes on hers, he jiggled the necklace in his hand. “That ought to keep us afloat.”

  “That’s hardly the issue.” Possessively, she took the necklace back, laid it gently on the padded cloth she had covering her worktable.

  “What is the issue, Red?”