When I Wake

by Rachel Lee

  As far as she could tell, nothing at all had changed. Tam was still fishing over the side, Dugan was still sprawled on the bench drinking cola from a can, and the boat was still out there.

  “No change,” Dugan said to her.

  “I can see that. What are we going to do? Pull up anchor and go home? That would be stupid. If they do know what we’re doing, they’ll just move in and try to steal things. We have to get back to work.”

  Dugan sat up straight. “Not yet.”

  “How long is not yet?”

  “Until I say so.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Just who is paying for this expedition?”

  “You are. But hiring me doesn’t require me to do anything I consider foolish.”

  “Look, if those people out there meant us any ill, they’d have already done something, wouldn’t they? Tried to get closer? Talked to us? Threatened us? They’re just sitting there, doing nothing at all. They’re probably doing exactly what we’re doing. Fishing over the side.”

  “I don’t see any fishing poles. Look, Veronica, just say they do know what we’re doing out here. Maybe they just want to keep an eye on us until we bring up something really spectacular. Or maybe they’re watching us to determine how many of us there are, or whether there’s another boat working with us.”

  “But we haven’t even told a soul that we’ve found anything! They might know we’re looking, but they won’t know we’ve found anything.”

  “Exactly. And I suggest we keep it that way.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  Tam said something that sounded disgusted, and reeled in his line. Then he set his rod down with a thud and disappeared below.

  Veronica watched him go, then turned to Dugan. “What’s his beef?”

  “He says he’s tired of listening to us argue.”

  Stifling a sigh, she sat down in the director’s chair again. “This is insane. We can’t stay paralyzed like this.”

  “Just for a while.”

  “Could you please be more definite?”

  “Unfortunately, no. This is one of those times you could do with a little beach-bum mentality. Relax, Veronica.”

  “Relax.” She blew a frustrated sigh between her lips. “Relax, he says. My entire life is on the line, and I’m supposed to relax.”

  “Yeah. Enjoy the sun, the water, the beautiful day. We’ll wait them out. And if they’re up to something, and we don’t do anything at all, eventually they’ll have to show their hand.”

  “When?”

  He shrugged.

  She didn’t say another word for a while. The heat was getting to her, and despite her desire to remain irritated with Dugan, she found herself growing drowsy. As the sun changed position, she shifted her chair, keeping her back to it. A little shade would have been useful just about then, but the only shade on deck was in the covered cockpit.

  “We could move,” she said finally.

  “Move?”

  “Sure. To another place in our search area.”

  “Hmm.” He seemed to be thinking about that. “See if they follow us, you mean?”

  “Yes. We were thinking about changing our position in the morning anyway.”

  He nodded slowly. Then he picked up the binoculars and looked toward the other boat. “Uh- oh,” he said.

  That was perfectly understandable to Veronica, even though he wasn’t facing her. “What’s wrong?”

  He faced her. “There’s a launch headed this way.”

  She turned, squinting into the sun, and saw a speck of white on the water heading toward them. “Is this bad?”

  When she looked at him again, he asked, “Do I look like a mind reader? Tam? Tam, get your butt up here now.”

  There was a muffled answer from below, then Tam bounded up the ladder. “What’s . . . oh.” He shaded his eyes and peered toward the launch, which was growing rapidly larger. He said something else.

  “What?” demanded Veronica. Suddenly she was very impatient with her hearing loss, more impatient than she had been in weeks, with Dugan buffering her against the world.

  Dugan turned to her. “Tam asked if they radioed for permission to come over. They didn’t.”

  “That’s bad?”

  “At sea, it’s bad form.” He reached for the drybag and pulled out the Glock, checking the load.

  “What’s that for?” Veronica asked.

  “Emergencies.”

  To Veronica it seemed as if the day had suddenly turned cold. The sun was still shining, and its light was still sparkling off the water like diamonds, but she couldn’t feel the heat anymore. Goose bumps rose along her arms.

  She tried to tell herself that Dugan was overreacting, but she didn’t believe it. She found herself remembering how her mother had died, and her father’s persistent suspicion that she had been killed. Had it happened just like this? Somebody approaching in a launch, with a friendly face, getting aboard, maybe chatting for a few minutes before hitting her over the head?

  Unconsciously, she moved closer to Dugan. He was holding a gun, and that gun suddenly looked like a nice thing to be near. He put his left arm around her shoulder.

  The launch pulled up alongside. There was only one man in it, a small man wearing a sort of sailor’s uniform.

  He called to them, but Veronica couldn’t read his lips. She heard Dugan answer, but didn’t know what he was saying because she couldn’t tear her eyes from the launch long enough to read him.

  Her deafness closed around her like a muffling cloak, cutting her off from the world. And with the cutting off came a fear, a fear that she had felt intensely during the first months of the accident, but one which she hadn’t felt as much since Dugan had become her anchor.

  It crept through her, reaching every cell in her being, reminding her just how helpless she was in a hearing world. That man could be making all kinds of threats, and she wouldn’t even know it.

  It was a panicky, sickening sensation, making her feel as if she were somehow cut loose and in free fall. Mouths were moving, voices sounding in her hearing aids, but all she could make out was a stutter of vowel sounds and tonalities. Nobody sounded upset, she realized. Dugan, his side against hers, his arm around her shoulders, didn’t seem tense. He even seemed more relaxed than he had just been a minute ago. She told herself she was imagining threats simply because she couldn’t make out the words that were flying back and forth. Her panic eased a little, but not her essential fear. How was she ever going to get through life like this? For the moment she was leaning on Dugan, letting him shelter her from the world of misunderstandings that she would experience except for him and his patience. But what was going to happen to her when she no longer had Dugan at her side?

  How would she be coping with this problem if Dugan weren’t with her? She wouldn’t be able to understand the man on the boat at all. And having to tell people she was deaf . . . that always made her feel stripped naked and vulnerable. It was knowledge about her that could be used against her, and she was painfully aware of it.

  She heard the launch’s motor rev, then it pulled away and headed back to the yacht. She looked up at Dugan, pulling on his shirtfront as if she were a child trying to get his attention.

  He looked down at her. “We’ve been invited over for dinner.”

  Tam said something explosive behind them, and they both turned. Dugan dropped his arm from Veronica’s shoulder, and she found herself missing his touch as if some part of her had been torn away.

  Dugan said something. Tam spoke again, his voice tense.

  “Jesus Christ!” Dugan snapped.

  Veronica understood that from the angry tone and the vowels. Unnerved, she stepped away from Dugan. “What’s going on?”

  He looked at her. “Let’s go below. I don’t know how much they may be able to see over there, but I don’t want to give anything away.”

  “Give what away?”

  “Let’s go below. Tam
, too.”

  So they all descended to the galley and sat in the lounge on the bench around the table. Veronica could see the two men’s faces clearly, but that wouldn’t help her to understand Tam. “Why don’t you shave your mustache,” she said. “It’ll grow back. But I can never understand what you’re saying.”

  He shook his head, putting a protective hand over his mouth.

  “Veronica,” Dugan said to get her attention.

  She looked at him. “What happened up there?”

  “We’ve been invited for dinner on the yacht.”

  “I got that part.”

  “Tam says we shouldn’t go.”

  She looked at Tam. “Why not?”

  “Veronica.” Dugan drew her attention back to him. “Tam says . . . Tam says . . . You remember that guy who came by the dock asking about what we were doing. That Luis guy?”

  She nodded. “Is he on that boat?” The thought made the back of her neck prickle. “Is he?”

  “I don’t know. But Tam said the guy paid him for information.”

  The news struck her like a bomb. It exploded inside her head, and for several seconds there was nothing but a whiteness in her mind, and a hot-cold feeling in her body. Anger swelled in her until she wanted to scream. When her vision cleared, she looked at Tam, speaking through her teeth.

  “You sold information about what we’re doing?”

  Tam nodded slowly. He said something rapidly and Dugan spoke again.

  “The guy told Tam if he didn’t give him the information, he’d arrange an accident so we’d have to take on another diver.”

  Veronica could scarcely believe what she was hearing. Her mind rebelled, refusing to accept this as truth. They had to be kidding. But as she searched their faces, she knew they weren’t.

  “My God,” she whispered. “My God, I trusted you. And Dugan told me I could.” Something very close to hatred began to seethe in her. Betrayed again. By a man. Naturally. She should have known better than to trust any man. Ever. About anything.

  “I trusted him, too,” Dugan said. “And right now I’d like to rip his head off and feed his entrails to the sharks. But that’s illegal. So.” He passed a hand over his face. “Keeping in mind that this guy has already threatened an ‘accident,’ Tam thinks it would be a big mistake to go over to that yacht tonight.”

  “But we don’t even know if they’re associated with that creep Tam is consorting with.”

  Tam said something protestingly. Dugan told him to shut up. “He says he wasn’t consorting with the guy, just trying to keep his legs from being broken.”

  “Well, big hairy deal,” Veronica said acidly. “Look at us now. We all might have broken legs by midnight, thanks to you and your big mouth. Why didn’t you just come to Dugan or me and tell one of us what was going on?”

  Tam said something heatedly.

  Dugan translated. “He said he figured that then he’d be dead.”

  “God Almighty.” She was past knowing what to say. “So now we have thugs breathing down our necks? How fucking wonderful.”

  Unable to breathe the same air with Tam, she got up and left the galley, heading back to her cabin, where she closed the door with more force than usual.

  What the hell was she going to do? If people were threatening to break Tam’s legs just to find out what she was doing, what might they do now that she had found the wreck? Millions of dollars in gold bars, which didn’t interest her at all, were for some people sufficient motivation to commit murder.

  And those might be the people on the boat anchored a short distance away.

  But would murderers invite them to dinner? Well, yes, now that she thought about it. It would be far easier to kill them over there on the other boat. Or poison their food.

  The extremity of her own thoughts caught her, snapping her back from her worry just long enough that she realized the utter absurdity of what she was thinking. They had no proof that the people on the other boat were anything but wealthy vacationers who might be looking for a change of pace in their dinner companionship. They might just be eccentric but harmless.

  But she didn’t quite believe it. Not when she was floating thirty feet above a treasure trove. It was just too unlikely.

  There was a knock on the door. Reluctantly, she called, “Come in.”

  Dugan entered, closing the door behind him. “I’m tempted to sail back to Key West right now and dump Tam.”

  “What good will that do? The damage has been done. How much did he tell this guy?”

  “That we found a cannon and a couple of coins.”

  She nodded, then waved in the general direction of the boat. “And a week later we have a boat anchored a quarter mile away. Coincidence?”

  Dugan shook his head. He started to perch on the edge of the bunk, apparently thought better of it and sat on the chair. Veronica took the bunk.

  “I was thinking about radioing for the Coast Guard,” he told her. “Two problems.”

  “What are they?”

  “First, I don’t really have a problem. What am I going to do? Tell them a strange boat has anchored five hundred yards away and the owners invited us to dinner? That’ll get them out here really fast.”

  “But maybe if you tell them what we’re doing?”

  He shook his head. “That’s the other problem. If I radio, the other boat might hear it. And if they’re here to make trouble, the Coasties couldn’t get here fast enough.”

  She nodded slowly, her head feeling heavy, her neck aching with tension. “And maybe they’re just perfectly innocent travelers.”

  “I can’t quite believe it.”

  “Me neither. So what are we going to do?”

  “I’d suggest running for shore, except I don’t think we can outrun them if they decide they don’t want us to. From the looks of that boat, I’d be willing to bet he’s got some really powerful engines. We’d be tacking, which would lengthen the distance . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “No, I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “Besides, if we leave the site, they might start salvaging it. Making a mess of it.” Her hands curled into fists on her lap. “They could ruin everything.”

  “I suppose so. Well, I guess that leaves only one option.”

  “Which is?”

  He looked ruefully at her. “You and Tam stay here. He can handle the boat and get you home if necessary. I’ll go over for dinner tonight, claim you two are sick with something, and see what’s going on.”

  “No.” She was unable to restrain the hand that reached out and gripped his arm. “No, Dugan. If they’re up to something, you’ll be all alone.”

  He shrugged. “Somebody has to go. I’m sure as hell not going to send Tam because I can’t trust him. And we can’t all go together because that would make it too easy if they want to pull something.”

  He didn’t define “pull something,” and she didn’t ask. Her imagination was already vivid enough. “Then I’ll go,” she said. “This is my expedition. I can’t let you risk your neck in my place.”

  He just looked at her. He didn’t say a word, just looked. And she knew what he was thinking. She was deaf. She couldn’t go over there and be sure of having a conversation she could understand.

  Her heart sank, killing her anger and fear, and replacing it with despair. She’d been living in a fool’s paradise this last couple of months, feeling capable and in charge, mostly thanks to Dugan. But now, faced with a crisis, she was totally incapable of dealing with it because she couldn’t hear.

  The black cloud she had left behind months ago when her father had awakened her interest with his story of the mask descended on her again, suffocating her. She was handicapped. She was disabled. She was incapable. Someone else would have to front for her because she couldn’t do such a simple thing: have a conversation with a stranger.

  Oh, she might be able to understand the people on the boat. If they didn’t have strange accents. If they didn’t have face hair. If they
were sure to look at her when they spoke. But Dugan wasn’t willing to trust that. Wasn’t willing to trust her.

  And when she came right down to it, she wasn’t willing to trust herself.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, her mouth feeling heavy, her lips and tongue unwilling to form the words as depression enveloped her. Turning from Dugan, she twisted around and lay down on the bunk with her back to him.

  What was the point, she wondered dismally. She should have just stayed in her rocking chair at home and watched the seasons pass outside the window. Because here she was, trying to do something that mattered more to her than almost anything else in the world, and she wasn’t even able to deal with a potentially serious threat because she couldn’t hear.

  Instinctively, her hands went to her belly, pressing where her baby had once been growing. She hadn’t been able to do that right, either. Hell, she hadn’t even been able to do marriage right. She was a dismal failure at everything.

  She ought to take her hearing aids out and throw them overboard. When push came to shove, they didn’t do her any good at all, and just then they were irritating her. Irritating her because she could hear Dugan every time he shifted in his chair. Irritated her because when she was above deck, the wind in them was sometimes so loud that she couldn’t hear anything else. Irritated that they didn’t help her hearing enough to go have a conversation with a stranger.

  All they were was ugly, flesh-colored plastic blobs that irrevocably marked her as defective.

  Turning over, she pulled her aids out of her ears, gripped them in her right hand, and started to throw them.

  Before she had even completed the swing, Dugan caught her hand, stopping her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He shook his head, then gently pried the devices from her hand and set them on the desk.

  Then, utterly amazing her, he stretched out beside her on the bunk and drew her into a warm embrace. He murmured things she couldn’t understand, couldn’t even hear, but that didn’t matter. All she needed was his hug. His fingers combed gently through her wind-knotted hair and rubbed her scalp, working out the tension that had it screamingly tight.