Free Night Diver: A Novel by Elizabeth Lowell

titled blood was sold to untitled riches,” Larry said around a yawn. “The part of the tale that my parents loved was that in order to keep the girl and get back into the good graces of the Crown, Bloody Green sacked and pillaged until he had her weight in jewelry and gems. And the bounty coins. Bet he laughed his ass off when he took them. Then he offered everything to the girl’s father for his daughter. The father accepted, the Crown took its cut, and Bloody Green was a citizen in good standing again.”
    Holden listened carefully. Larry’s tone was that of someone retelling a story he had heard so often it had become part of him.
    “The happy lovers and the treasure set sail for London on the pirate ship called Moon Rose, ” said the elder Donnelly. “It vanished, as did the Cross of Madrid, a merchant ship Green was sailing with. Have we covered the high points?”
    “Admirably. My superiors assumed from the name of your company that you were familiar with the legend.”
    The old man shrugged. “Around here, everyone knows it.”
    “But everyone doesn’t name their company after a pirate ship.”
    “Mom and Dad did,” Larry said. “They left a whole trunk of maps and speculation on the location of those ships when they went down. It used to be a family game to trace possible storm tracks and old records and currents.”
    “My daughter-in-law was very fond of Bloody Green’s story.”
    Holden looked at the old man whose eyes had seen more of the sea and sorrow than most.
    And treasure.
    “My parents died looking for the wreck of Moon Rose, ” Kate said flatly. “It’s not my favorite story. Are you telling me that we’re parked over that hulk now?”
    Silence followed her words.
    Grandpa Donnelly shifted his pipe and looked unhappy.
    “It is a possibility,” Holden said carefully. “Experts in London have decided that the ribs of the ship down there aren’t big enough to belong to a merchant ship such as the Cross of Madrid .”
    The thought that she might be anchored on her mother’s unmarked grave had Kate on her feet and out the salon door, fighting for breath every step of the way. She grabbed the deck rail and hung on, forcing herself to breathe through the panic attack.
    I can’t be here anymore. The sea took too much from me that day.
    The only reason it didn’t take Larry and Grandpa was they were ashore while Grandpa had a bad appendix taken out. If they had been there, the sea would have eaten them too.
    Don’t they understand that?
    Don’t they know that the sea is still hungry?
    The door opened and closed behind her as someone came out.
    “Hey,” Larry said. “Are you still having panic attacks? It was years ago, Kitty.”
    Not for me. It’s as fresh as my next nightmare. And she would be having one tonight, no doubt.
    It didn’t make her look forward to sleeping.
    “Hey,” he said softly. “You should be glad it might be a rich wreck. Even with that lousy contract, we’d come out ahead.”
    “Assuming we’re in the right place and not just finding occasional scattered pieces,” she said stiffly.
    “We’re not,” Larry said. “I have a feeling about this one. This is the big one we’ve looked for all our lives.”
    “Every treasure diver gets that feeling and then they follow it too far down,” she said. “It’s a sickness.”
    “I know you’re thinking about Mom and Dad,” Larry said. “But you can’t blame them for following their dream.”
    “I can. Especially when their dream turned into my nightmare.”
    Even as Kate spoke, she knew she was wrong. Yet that was how she felt. That hadn’t changed since she was almost eighteen and found out that everything could be taken away without warning. The sea she had once loved was unpredictable and treacherous.
    “They were my parents, too,” Larry said. “Do you ever think of that?”
    She let out a careful breath. “I know I’m not being fair. But damn it, you were a man when they died. I was