The Reef

by Nora Roberts

  He turned her hand over, pressed his lips to the palm in a way that made her eyes film. “I don’t want to be without you, either.”

  All this time, VanDyke thought. All these years, the Lassiters had played him for a fool. It was all clear now.

  Unwilling to waste time with sleep, he pored over the papers LaRue had sent him, reading over the words again and again until he all but knew them by rote. He had underestimated them, he decided, and blamed himself for so careless a mistake.

  Too many mistakes, he thought, carefully dabbing at the sweat that beaded above his lip. All because the amulet remained out of reach.

  James Lassiter had known where to find Angelique’s Curse, and had likely died laughing at his murderer. VanDyke was not a man to be laughed at.

  Curling a fist around a jeweled letter opener, he viciously and mindlessly hacked through the creamy upholstery of a Queen Anne occasional chair. Brocade ripped like flesh, sounding like tiny screams as horsehair vomited out. The oval mirror on the wall reflected his face, wild and white, as he stabbed and tore.

  His fingers were cramped and aching when the lovely little seat was no more than rags. His breath heaved in and out, sobbing on the air over the sounds of Mozart from the recessed speakers.

  Shuddering once, he let the antique weapon drop onto the carpet, stumbled back from his latest work. It was only a chair, he thought as the sweat dried calmly on his skin. Only a thing, easily replaced. To help settle his uneasy stomach, he poured a soothing brandy.

  That was better, he assured himself. It was natural for a man to let his temper out, especially a strong man. Holding it in only caused ulcers and headaches and self-doubt.

  That’s what his father had done, VanDyke recalled. Rather than making him strong, it had weakened him. It seemed he was thinking of his father, and his mother, more and more lately. Remembering how flawed they were, finding comfort in the fact that he had escaped all their weaknesses. No, no, had triumphed over the weaknesses of mind and body.

  His mother’s brain had betrayed her; his father’s heart had killed him. But their son had learned to keep both strong.

  Yes, it was better, much better to vent. Sipping, he took a calming turn around his office aboard the Triumphant.

  Momentary physical release was sometimes necessary, he told himself, pursing his lips as he studied the rags of silken material that were scattered over the floor. It purged the blood.

  But a cool head was imperative. And, of course, he rarely lost his.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, he admitted, he had been a bit impulsive when he’d killed James Lassiter. But he’d been younger then, less mature. And he really had hated the bastard so.

  Yet now to know that even in death James had tricked him . . . Fury clawed through him again, so ferociously that VanDyke had to close his eyes, struggle through his deep-breathing exercises to prevent himself from hurling the snifter and shattering the lovely Baccarat.

  No, the Lassiters would cost him nothing more, he promised himself. Not even the price of a glass of brandy. Settled again, he walked out on deck to let the balm of the night air caress him.

  The yacht moved swiftly through the Pacific, Costa Rica to the east.

  He’d nearly taken his jet to the West Indies before he’d controlled the impatience. The time it would take to get there by sea would be put to very good use. His plans were already formulating, and with his own man part of Lassiter’s team, it was almost like being there himself.

  Of course, LaRue was a bit of a nuisance with his periodic demands for bonuses. VanDyke smiled to himself and swirled brandy. Then again, he, too, would be dealt with, after his usefulness had passed.

  The ultimate termination of an employee, he thought with a low, long chuckle. And that would be a small but sweet pleasure.

  The man had no ties, no family, just as VanDyke preferred his tools. No one would miss a middle-aged French Canadian ship’s cook.

  Ah, but that little diversion was for later. The real joy would come from disposing of the Lassiters, and their partners. He would use them first, let them dig and dive and work. The effort would give them a sense of satisfaction, the belief that they were deceiving him would delight them.

  Oh, he could imagine their laughter, their excited meetings discussing their cleverness. They would be so smug and self-congratulatory that they had had the patience to wait so long when they had known just where to strike.

  Matthew had worked eight years, VanDyke mused, in bone-chilling water, doing the kind of salvage work true treasure hunters scoffed at, certain his nemesis would lose interest. To be fair, VanDyke had to admire him for his efforts and long-range view of the prize.

  But the prize would never belong to anyone but Silas VanDyke. It was his legacy, his property, his triumph. The owning of it would shove every possession he’d ever had into the shadows.

  Once they had the amulet, held the prize in their trembling hands, were filled with the elation of success, it would be so much more satisfying to destroy them.

  Chuckling to himself, VanDyke polished off his brandy. In one sharp strike, he shattered the delicate crystal on the rail and let the shards tumble glittering into the water. Not because he was angry, not because he was violent, he mused.

  Simply because he could.

  The storm came in hard, with sheeting rain and howling wind. Ten-foot seas buffeted both boats and made diving impossible. After a debate and vote, the Lassiter-Beaumont team opted to ride it out. Once she’d accustomed herself to the movement of the boat, Tate settled down with her computer and a jug of hot tea.

  There would be no midnight rendezvous tonight, she mused. It surprised her how much the lack disappointed her. Perhaps the storm was a lucky break, she decided. Without realizing it, she’d let herself get entirely too used to having Matthew beside her.

  It wasn’t wise to become used to anything that included Matthew.

  After a great deal of internal debate, she’d convinced herself it was all right, at least safe, to care about him. Affection and attraction didn’t have to be a dangerous combination. However much they clashed, however much he tended to irritate her, she liked him. They had too much in common to remain truly at odds.

  At least her heart was her own this time around. For that, she was grateful. To care and to want were a far cry from being in love. Logically, practically, sex was more satisfying when a woman felt affection, even friendship for her lover. Just as logically, practically, only a fool loved when the end had already been written.

  Matthew would take his share of the Isabella and go. Just as she would take hers. It was a pity that what they wanted from that long doomed ship was so diverse. Still, it didn’t matter as long as neither interfered with the other’s goals.

  Frowning, she switched documents so that the article she was drafting out on Angelique’s Curse popped on screen.

  Legends such as the one surrounding the Maunoir amulet, also known as Angelique’s Curse, often have their roots in fact. Though it is illogical to ascribe mystical powers to an object, the legend itself has life. Angelique Maunoir lived in Brittany and was known as the village wise woman, or healer. She did indeed own a jeweled necklace such as described above, a gift from her husband, Etienne, the youngest son of the Count DuTashe. Documentation indicates that she was arrested, charged with witchcraft and executed in October of 1553.

  Excerpts from her personal journal relate her story and her intimate thoughts on the eve of her execution. On October the tenth of that year, she was burned at the stake as a witch. Limited available data indicates she was sixteen. It is not indicated that, as was often done to show mercy, she was strangled first rather than burned alive.

  On reading her words written the night before her execution, one can speculate on how the legend of Angelique’s Curse grew and spread.

  NOTE: transcribe last portion of diary.

  A deathbed curse, from a woman distraught and desperate? An innocent woman grieving over the loss of her belov
ed husband, betrayed by her father-in-law and facing a horrible death. Not only her own, but her unborn child’s. Such truths lead to myth.

  Dissatisfied with her own take on the matter, Tate leaned back and reread. When she reached for her thermos of tea, she saw Buck in the doorway.

  “Well, hi. I thought you were battened down with Matthew and LaRue on the Mermaid.”

  “Damn Canuk makes me nuts,” Buck grumbled. His yellow slicker ran with water, his thick lenses were fogged with it. “Thought I’d come over and hang out with Ray.”

  “He and Mom are up in the bridge, I think, listening to the weather reports.” Tate poured the tea, held up the half filled lid of the thermos. She could see that it wasn’t just LaRue that had Buck nervous. “The last I heard, the storm was blowing herself out. We should be clear by midday tomorrow.”

  “Maybe.” Buck took the tea, then set it down without tasting it.

  Reading him well, Tate pushed back from the monitor. “Take that wet thing off, Buck, and sit down, will you? I could really use the break and the company.”

  “Don’t want to mess up your work.”

  “Please.” With a laugh, she rose to get another cup from the galley. “Please mess up my work, just for a few minutes.”

  Reassured, he stripped off his dripping slicker. “I was thinking maybe Ray’d be up for some cards or something. Don’t seem to have a lot to do with my time.” He slipped onto the settee, drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Feeling restless?” she murmured.

  “I know I’m letting the boy down,” he burst out, then flushed and picked up the tea he didn’t want.

  “That’s just not true.” She hoped her basic psych course in college, and her understanding of the man beside her, would guide her instincts. No one spoke of the fact that he didn’t dive. Perhaps it was time someone did. “None of us could get along without you, Buck. Not diving doesn’t mean you’re not productive or an essential part of the team.”

  “Checking equipment, filling tanks, hammering rocks.” He winced. “Taking videos.”

  “Yes.” She leaned forward to lay a hand over his restless one. “That’s as important as going down.”

  “I can’t go down, Tate. Just can’t.” He stared miserably at the table. “And when I watch the boy go, it dries up the spit in my mouth. I start thinking about taking a drink. Just one.”

  “But you don’t, do you?”

  “Guess I figured out just one’d be the end of me. But it doesn’t stop the wanting.” He glanced up. “I was gonna talk to Ray about this. Didn’t mean to hit you with it.”

  “I’m glad you did. It gives me the chance to tell you how proud I am of the way you’ve pulled yourself together. And that I know you’re doing it more for Matthew than for anyone else, even yourself.”

  “At one time, all we had was each other. Some wouldn’t think so, but there were good times. Then I cut him off, or tried to. But he stuck by me. He’s like his dad was. He’s got loyalty. He’s stubborn, and he keeps too much inside. That’s the pride working there. James always figured he could handle whatever came, that he could do it on his own. And it killed him.”

  He lifted his eyes again. “I’m afraid the boy’s heading the same way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s got his teeth in this, nothing’s going to shake him loose. What he brings up day after day, oh, it’s exciting for him. But he’s waiting and wanting just one thing.”

  “The amulet.”

  “It’s got hold of him, Tate, just like it got hold of James. It scares me. The closer we get, the more it scares me.”

  “Because if he finds it, he’ll use it against VanDyke.”

  “Fuck VanDyke. Sorry.” He cleared his throat, sipped at the tea. “I ain’t worried about that sonofabitch. That the boy can handle just fine. It’s the curse.”

  “Oh, Buck.”

  “I’m telling you,” he said stubbornly. “I feel it. It’s close.” He looked out the window at the lashing rain. “We’re close. Could be this storm’s a warning.”

  Struggling not to laugh, Tate folded her hands. “Now listen to me, I understand the seafaring superstitions, but the reality here is that we’re excavating a wreck. This amulet is very likely an artifact of that wreck. With luck and hard work, we’ll find it. I’ll sketch it and tag it and catalogue it just the way I do every other piece we bring up. It’s metal and stone, Buck, with a fascinating and tragic story attached. But that’s all it is.”

  “Nobody who ever owned it lived to see a happy old age.”

  “People often died young, violently and tragically during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” She gave his hand a squeeze and tried another tack. “Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that the amulet does hold some sort of power. Why would it have to be evil? Buck, have you read Angelique’s diary? The part your brother copied down?”

  “Yeah. She was a witch, and she put a curse on the necklace.”

  “She was a sad, grieving and angry woman. She was facing a terrible death, convicted of witchcraft and of murdering her husband, a man she loved. An innocent woman, Buck, helpless to change her fate.” Seeing he was far from convinced, she blew out a breath. “Damn it, if she’d been a witch, why didn’t she just disappear in a puff of smoke or turn her jailers into toads?”

  “Don’t work that way,” he said stubbornly.

  “Fine, it doesn’t work that way. So she put a spell or whatever on the necklace. If I read correctly, she cursed those who condemned her, those who would take her last link with her husband through greed. Well, Matthew didn’t condemn her, Buck, and he didn’t take her necklace. What he may do is find it again, that’s all.”

  “And when he does, what’ll it do to him?” Desperate concern made his eyes glossy and dark. “That’s what eats at me, Tate. What’ll it do to him?”

  A shiver raced through her. “I can’t answer that.” Surprised at how uneasy she’d become, she picked up her cup and tried to warm her suddenly chilly hands. “But whatever happens, it will be Matthew’s doing, his choosing, not an ancient curse on a piece of jewelry.”

  CHAPTER 22

  L ONG AFTER B UCK had gone off to find her father, his words and his worries haunted Tate. She couldn’t dismiss them as absurd or mildly hysterical. She understood that the belief itself, the reality of it was what created legends.

  And she’d believed once. When she’d been young and softhearted and ready to dream, she’d believed in the possibility of magic and myth and mystery. She’d believed in a great many things.

  Annoyed with herself, she poured more tea, tepid now as she’d forgotten to close the thermos. It was foolish to regret a loss of naïveté. Like childhood games, it was something that was set aside with time and knowledge and experience.

  She’d learned the reasons behind such legends as Angelique’s Curse. Indeed that was part of her fascination for her work. The whys and hows and whos were as important to her as the weight and date and fashion of any artifact she had ever held in her hands.

  Innocence and wide eyes were lost perhaps, but her education hadn’t diminished her curiosity or her imagination. It had only enhanced it, and given it a channel.

  Over the years she, too, had gathered information on Angelique’s Curse. Bits and pieces of research she had eventually filed away on disk. More, or so she had thought, out of a sense of organization than curiosity.

  It didn’t have the renown of the Hope Diamond, or the cache of the philosopher’s stone, yet its story and travels were interesting. Following the trail of any artifact gave a scientist facts, dates and a glimpse of the humanity of history.

  From Angelique Maunoir to the count who had condemned her, from the count after his death to his eldest daughter, who had fallen from her horse and broken her neck on the way to a tryst with a lover.

  Nearly a century had passed before it had turned up again in verified documentation. In Italy, Tate mused, where it survived a fi
re that had destroyed its owner’s villa and left him a widower. Eventually it had been sold, and traveled to Britain. The merchant who purchased it committed suicide. It came into the hands of a young duchess who apparently wore it happily for thirty years. But when her son inherited the necklace, along with her estate, he drank and gambled away his fortune and died penniless and insane.

  And so the necklace had been purchased by Minnefield, who had lost his life on the great Australia reef. The necklace had been assumed lost there, buried in sand and coral.

  Until Ray Beaumont had found an old, tattered book and had read of a sailor and an unknown Spanish lady who faced a hurricane aboard the galleon Isabella.

  Those were the facts, Tate thought now. Death was always cruel, but rarely mysterious. Accidents, fires, illnesses, even poor luck were simply part of the cycle of living. Stones and metal could neither cause nor change it.

  But despite all the facts, the scientific data, Buck’s fears had translated to her, and had that well-groomed imagination working in overdrive.