“So we need enough air to be gone all day, right? That’s what I got us at the dive shop because I guessed it’ll be a pretty long trip.”
“Yes, there’s no telling how long it will take. If we find things, we might need to stick around underwater longer. Better to be prepared.”
“Say we do find something. What does our situation look like then?”
Kelsey seemed to be weighing her options. “I would say it depends on the scale of what we find. If there’s a reason to notify the police immediately, we can call them from the boat and wait until they arrive. If we find something small, or something that just seems strange or out of place, we can go home and do some research.”
“You don’t think you’ll get any kind of reprimand?”
She laughed. “For what? I’m not an officer, Sawyer. I’m just a private citizen, who’s planning a day of scuba diving off public shores.”
“You know it’s more than that.”
She shrugged. “Sure. You’re right. But I also know we aren’t doing anything even tending toward ethically wrong.”
“I just hope this goes well.”
“It will.” Kelsey said it with a smile, and Sawyer did all he could to believe her as he put the car in Park at the restaurant.
Stepping into the Stephens Crossing was like coming home—more so than returning to his parents’ cavernous house had been.
He looked over at Kelsey and the smile on her face said she felt it, too.
“I love it here,” she said with a deep inhale of the air, which was saturated with the smell of biscuits, butter and bacon. “Do you think I could just stay here while we finish investigating? I’m sure I could make a bed in a booth and just eat this food every day...”
Sawyer laughed. “You go ahead and ask them. Let me know how it goes.”
* * *
To Sawyer’s surprise, breakfast hadn’t been the least bit uncomfortable. After that odd exchange in the car, he’d been a little nervous about the possible turns the conversation could take.
But Kelsey steered their conversation clear of anything too personal. That woman was socially adept, for sure. He didn’t understand why she’d chosen a job that limited her interactions with people so much, even if she was good with antiques. It seemed a bit odd, but he didn’t really know her well enough to ask her about something so personal. After all, when Sawyer hadn’t wanted to talk any more about his career choices earlier, Kelsey had respected that. He owed her the same courtesy.
Kelsey’s phone rang just as they reached the truck and were preparing to unload their gear and carry it the hundred yards between downtown and his boat, which was at Treasure Point’s main dock.
“Hello?” she answered, walking away a little as she did so.
“Really?” she said, a minute later.
She was too far away to hear now, so Sawyer worked on unloading the scuba gear and tried to keep a close eye on her. He’d like to think no one would attack her downtown in broad daylight, but stranger things had happened.
Kelsey walked back, phone in her hand. “That was Shiloh. She says I can come get my stuff back anytime.”
“Do you need to do that and get back to work?” He wasn’t sure how deadlines worked in jobs like hers.
“We need to do this and we’re ready and my gear is rented, so we may as well go ahead.” She said it without hesitation. “Even though it does feel a little bit like playing hooky.”
Sawyer understood that. The sky was bright blue, the sun was shining and it would be so easy to forget everything that had been happening and just enjoy the summer day.
Except the threat against Kelsey’s life was like a storm cloud closing in on them, one that it would be foolish to ignore.
“Which boat is yours?” Kelsey asked as they walked toward the docks.
He watched her scan the boat slips, and wondered what she was thinking, which one she was assuming was his. He’d guess she’d pegged one of the larger ones, but instead he led her to a modest diving boat. At twenty-six feet, it wasn’t small, but it wasn’t fancy. It did the job well and would serve him well when he got a job.
“I like it.” She turned to him with a smile and he tried to ignore the burst of warmth he felt at her approval.
They climbed onto the boat, the familiar back and forth of the craft on the ocean swells making Sawyer more at ease immediately. He’d always felt like this on the ocean, like he finally fit somewhere. It was what had drawn him to marine biology initially—the desire to find a legitimate career that would allow him to spend most of his days on the water.
Too bad he still hadn’t managed to sell his dad on the idea. At least he knew where he stood, knew there was no point in trying to make him proud on a professional level.
On a personal level, though, Sawyer still held out hope. Obviously, or he wouldn’t be in Treasure Point right now.
He pulled in the buoys, untied the boat from the dock cleats and tossed the loose ends of the ropes onto the deck of the boat. He then maneuvered out of his slip and onto the waters of the Atlantic.
He said nothing as they headed due east to the open ocean. The swells increased in height as they drew farther from the shore.
“It’s cooler out here on the water,” Kelsey commented.
Sawyer nodded. “It is. It’s another world out here.” Usually that brought him comfort, but today he had an odd feeling of uncertainty, the ocean not offering its usual solace. Sawyer couldn’t get the threat against Kelsey’s life off his mind. Wasn’t she safer out here? No one could hide and try to shoot at her, no one could come on their boat without his knowing...could they?
Why can’t I shake this, God? Help me to calm down and trust if I’m supposed to. Otherwise, help me figure out how to keep her safe.
It wasn’t long before they reached the first set of coordinates they planned to investigate.
He stopped the boat.
Kelsey shook her head. “Not here.”
“Why?”
“This is the site closest to Treasure Point. I think there’s a bigger chance that if anyone already knows about these wrecks and has explored them, they would have started with the most secluded first.”
Sawyer sat back down. “Are you sure?” He eyed the clouds gathering in the distance, threatening from far away across the mostly blue sky. “We probably won’t be able to spend all day out.”
Kelsey frowned. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Hey, you’re in charge. We’ll go with whatever you think.”
The way she hesitated made it seem like she was fighting a bigger battle than he could see. It shouldn’t be a big deal, should it? Either she trusted her first instinct or not. But she seemed to be wrestling with whether or not she should.
“No, let’s stay here.”
“All right.” Sawyer went through the familiar motions of suiting up for the dive and Kelsey did the same. The easy way she prepared showed she’d been scuba diving more than she’d let on.
They both dropped into the water a few minutes later and started to swim.
Visibility was worse than Sawyer had anticipated at the surface, a fact that he hoped wouldn’t stop them from finding some useful information for Kelsey. She was counting on today to turn the tables in their favor, he could tell. And in a way, he felt responsible for the day’s success, since he was the one with the boat, the one who’d arbitrarily chosen this first dive location.
He could only hope he hadn’t chosen wrong. Kelsey wasn’t the only one second-guessing instincts.
He motioned to Kelsey to stay close and she nodded. Scuba diving was always safer with a buddy—you never knew what could go wrong underwater, and there were too many scenarios to take the chance of being alone if anything happened.
Sawyer gently took himself deeper int
o the ocean and Kelsey followed. Visibility improved the deeper they got, since the water wasn’t being churned by the wind. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was nothing directly under them. It made sense that there wasn’t—they’d randomly picked coordinates in the middle of the shaded zone on the map, so it was logical that a little work would be required to find anything—provided there was something there at all. But...
They might have picked a good random spot. Off in the distance, not too many yards away, he could vaguely make out a large dark shape that must have been a downed ship. He motioned to Kelsey and they swam toward it. When they got there, they discovered that there truly was a boat resting on the ocean floor. He could vaguely make out the letters of the name on the side. This one was The Determination. He’d read about it when he’d done some research on the rumored sunken ships last night. The Determination was a cargo ship that had been taken over by pirates and then used up and down the Eastern Seaboard until it sank in 1709, just a few years before Blackbeard had sunk his own most prized ship off the coast of North Carolina.
Kelsey tapped his arm, motioned to the ship. Sawyer hesitated. He didn’t mind getting closer to it, but if Kelsey was hoping to explore the dilapidated rooms of the ship to see if any artifacts were still there, he’d prefer to have better visibility. Apparently he’d gotten spoiled in all the trips he’s taken to Florida, where the water was crystal clear in so many places.
Here in Georgia, the peculiar dark green hue of the water was only broken up by the limited yellow rays of the sun still visible this far down. The sun provided enough light to get around, but to see details, they’d need Sawyer’s LED flashlight. Sawyer moved the flashlight’s beam from left to right, scanning the back of the ship the best that he could. It had become an artificial reef, as many wrecks did. Growth on the ship itself had softened it, made it part of the ocean landscape, and there were plenty of animals using it as a home.
They circled the wreck carefully, with Sawyer taking mental notes of what he saw. One loggerhead turtle swam away off the starboard side of the boat and Sawyer wished he had his underwater camera with him, even though this wasn’t a pleasure expedition. As soon as the thought crossed his mind he was frustrated with himself for not thinking of it earlier. Of course they should have brought a camera. It was a big detail that had slipped his mind.
Like she could read his mind, Kelsey held up a camera and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Sawyer exhaled his relief, then reminded himself again to be conscious about keeping his breathing steady. They should have plenty of oxygen for this dive, but it was never a good idea to get careless and start breathing too abnormally.
They finished their circle of the wreck, admiring the fish and the one nurse shark they saw. Nothing on the outside implied anyone had been here. As far as Sawyer could tell, the wreck was untouched by anything except time and marine life.
There was nothing left to do here but go inside. Sawyer motioned to the opening to Kelsey and she nodded. She headed that direction, and Sawyer followed. He hadn’t done any diving inside shipwrecks before, but he imagined that the skills and cautions were the same as those used in cave diving, which he’d done plenty of in the last few years. Had Kelsey? He hadn’t thought to ask her earlier, although he probably should have. The way she moved underwater, though, he was fairly certain she had plenty of experience. Everyone had a specific style when they swam and dove, and Kelsey’s was boldness with some grace about it. It was so Kelsey that he smiled.
Keeping his breathing even and steady, he followed her inside the ship. The risk inherent in this whole expedition hit him again—diving well took time, and there was a chance they’d spend their entire day at this wreck and not find anything useful to their case. Would it still be helpful to their investigation? Sawyer wasn’t sure, but they were here now, so they might as well explore. Kelsey apparently agreed with his unvoiced decision. She kept swimming in front of him, clearly hopeful that they’d manage to find something—or better yet, find a lack of objects that should have been with the ship—to indicate whether or not someone had been plundering here or not.
They entered the wreck through a broken spot on the side and came into a room that was empty. There seemed to be nothing inside except for some fish swimming around. Kelsey snapped a picture.
They continued through the wreck, finding much of the same—lots of marine life, but no artifacts. Was it possible that all of the smaller articles had been dispersed by the ocean over time, that they’d been lost to currents and the natural process of decay, and not to plunderers?
Kelsey stopped on the edge of another cabin, then carefully used her arms to sink lower, almost to the floor of the wreck. She snapped a picture of something, then motioned to Sawyer to come closer. A modern, untarnished dive knife lay on the sand.
They weren’t the first ones to find this wreck.
It still didn’t say for sure that anyone had stolen things from it, but it could mean that. It was more evidence than they’d had up until this point.
They finished their exploration of the ship and headed back toward the outside. Sawyer had started to feel claustrophobic, but he was encouraged by what they’d found today, even if it wasn’t much. Kelsey was holding the camera in one hand, the dive knife in the other.
They’d just exited the ship when Kelsey’s swimming pattern changed. First she paddled harder in the water, looking almost...frantic? The things she’d been holding fell from her hands, but she made no move to swim after them, instead making frantic motions toward her pressure gauge.
Sawyer looked at the gauge.
It was squarely in the red zone.
How?
It didn’t matter how. They had to surface—but despite the urgency, they couldn’t go up too quickly. Ascending required significantly more time than descending into the water, because if a diver rose too fast, they could die from the bends.
He handed her his extra regulator from the octopus rig on his back and she inhaled. Exhaled. He wasn’t surprised to note that she was breathing too fast, panic did that. He held up a hand, motioned for her to calm down. Her breathing slowed. They swam slowly to the surface. She should be okay.
Thirty feet.
Twenty feet.
Ten feet. They should be okay.
Five feet.
And Kelsey went limp in his arms.
THIRTEEN
Kelsey opened her eyes in a room with a bad nineties’ wallpaper border that made her cringe for a moment before she noted the rich, abundant supply of oxygen. The border could be as ugly as it wanted—all she cared about was taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes again, just with the sheer pleasure of being able to breathe.
“I’m alive,” she said after another deep breath. Even as she said it, she was running over the incident in her memory. She’d started to feel low on air, checked her regulator and found it dangerously low...too low for the short amount of time they’d spent underwater. Then the headache she’d had since they’d started the dive had started to intensify, almost exponentially, and even Sawyer sharing his air with her hadn’t stopped her from passing out.
Everything was disjointed from there, fuzzy. She’d passed out, she was pretty sure. She almost remembered Sawyer’s arms around her, but not nearly enough to appreciate it.
Although, in theory, she didn’t dislike the concept of his arms around her...
She usually would have pushed the thought away. But now...now she shoved it only slightly aside, let it linger in the corner of her mind, though not in the forefront.
This whole time, she’d been chasing this dream of her career with such purpose, more than happy to let any ideas of romance fall to the side. It was the plan she’d had since high school career class, when they’d learned how to make budgets, how to plan for their career goals and achieve them. Kelsey might have had to work longer a
nd harder than almost anyone she knew, but she was close now, so close to being able to attain those goals she’d set so long ago.
And now she was wondering...
Why did it matter so much if she rose in the world of antiques insurance?
At the time, it had seemed like a prestigious career, and Kelsey had loved history and antiques, so she’d chosen it. When she considered it as her ultimate career choice after high school, while she was working at the police department to make money for college, she’d loved the idea of this job because it didn’t involve as much guesswork as law enforcement tended to.
She wouldn’t say she felt the same rush working with the Harlowe Company as she had the last few days of investigating. And while it was tempting to say that her job wasn’t as dangerous as law enforcement, which was true for the most part. But she wasn’t law enforcement right now, and still she’d faced dangers, both from the killer coming after her and just from activities like scuba diving. No, she was an antiques insurance agent, and she was still caught up in something dangerous. So there went that argument...
“You’re awake.”
She looked up and met Sawyer’s eyes, her cheeks heating slightly as her thoughts about earlier, about him holding her, came to mind.
“I am, thanks to you, I’m guessing.” She gestured to the hospital room. “You brought me here?”
“I called the police department and the ambulance from the boat and met them at the docks. They brought you in.”
“Yeah, but you dragged me out of the water, I’m guessing. Thank you.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome. You scared me, Kelsey.”
“I haven’t been diving in a while, but I didn’t think it had been that long that I didn’t remember how to dive safely...” Whatever mistake she’d made, she wasn’t sure what it was yet, but Kelsey couldn’t believe she’d made it.
“What do you mean?”
“To let my oxygen get so low so fast...” She shook her head.
Perilous Homecoming Page 13
