Free Night Diver: A Novel by Elizabeth Lowell Page A

seventeen, had basically lived on board all my life. Just a child in some ways. Important ways.” And at night, I still am. Panic and terror and screaming. “I’ve done enough for today,” she said abruptly. “Too much. Being out here is making me crazy.”
    “You’re making yourself crazy.”
    “Because I realize that when I’m out here, I’m at the mercy of a sea that has none?”
    “Okay, okay, go back to the rental. Just don’t run off. We need you. Most of the time you’re all brains and common sense. You know that between Grandpa and me, we don’t have enough of either to fill a coffee cup.”
    A ghostly smile flickered over her lips. “That’s the truth.”
    “There’s my Kitty Kat,” he said. The pinched lines around his eyes and mouth relaxed. “You ready to go back in there before Grandpa does something stupid, like throw a punch at the Brit?”
    The child in Kate wanted to pitch a screaming fit. The adult in her knew she had to find a better way to live with the past, took a deep breath, and headed back inside. It quickly became obvious that she was indeed needed. Grandpa was standing up, pointing his pipe stem at Holden.
    Which meant that Grandpa was about to lose his temper.
    “I didn’t ask for the captain’s cabin,” Holden said in a reasonable tone of voice. “I simply want a place to sleep aboard. It’s difficult to oversee a dive from shore.”
    “We don’t dive at night,” Larry said. “On the wages your AO demands, we’re lucky to find enough men to dive during the day. Kate can taxi you back and forth from the rental along with supplies.”
    “I don’t have time to be shopping for—” began Kate.
    “There’s no room aboard,” Larry cut in with the irritation of the sleep deprived. “You saw the crew quarters on the way to the dive center. Men are doubled up as it is. We’re doing all we can and more just to keep the Brits off our backs.”
    Holden supposed the mess he had seen through open doors could be the result of crowding, but he was much more interested in the fact that no one wanted him aboard. “The contract—” he began.
    “Says we house and feed our overseers,” Grandpa cut in. “Doesn’t say where. We rented the house for the geek out of our lousy expense allowance, and that’s where you’re staying. If you don’t like it, whine to your bosses.”
    “Bugger,” Holden snarled. Then he looked quickly at Kate. “Apologies.”
    She shrugged. “Why? It’s rather refreshing.”
    Larry snickered. “You can double up with the geek. Mingo’s brother is onto a cache of broken pottery found near the gold chain. Malcolm will be doing pictures and measurements and log entries aboard until sunrise.”
    “Where does he sleep?” Holden asked blandly.
    “In a cubbyhole the size of a coffin, with his feet propped on his desk and his chair tipped back against the door. You’d rather be ashore and so would he.”
    Leaving the argument behind her, Kate walked out to the work boat and got in. The craft rolled in the gentle afternoon swell. She fired up the engines on the second try and then let them roar, signaling just how out of patience she was.
    “This water taxi leaves in one minute,” she yelled above the noise.
    Holden made a command decision and scrambled down into the workboat.
    The ride back to the rental was swift and silent but for the engines. Behind his sunglasses, Holden thought about how eager the Donnellys had been to see him off.
    Could be hiding something.
    Could be responding to my persistent lack of charm.
    At the moment, the possibilities were about even, but his orders hadn’t changed. If anything, the Antiquities Office was more eager than ever to pursue the salvage. The cynical side of Holden kept coming back to the oh-so-terribly convenient find just after he came aboard. The rest of him kept pointing out that coincidences happened. That was why the English language had a word for it.
    Any pursuit of answers would have to wait