Free The Last Treasure by Erika Marks Page B

did their first go-round. Now the boat waits for them. Just a cup of coffee and Liv will be ready. There’s some left in the pot, enough to get her started, and she empties it into a mug, then opens the fridge for cream. As she hunts, she hears movement in the foyer, the rush of air of the door opening and someone marching in. Whit, no doubt—having forgotten something.
    She smiles as she turns. “What did you—? Oh.”
    â€œMorning.” Sam motions behind her. “I just came back for waters.”
    â€œOf course.” She steps aside to let him at the fridge. A memory flashes—their old apartment, making cappuccino on lazy Sunday mornings that were seconds away from becoming afternoons, the cloud of foam he could always coax from the machine for her, whipped and slightly shiny like meringue. How she’d loved the sound of the growing froth, hollow and even.
    He nods toward the window and the view of supper’s carnage. “I bet you’re hoping the cleaning fairies will come and get rid of all that while we’re gone, huh?”
    â€œHow did you know?”
    â€œWild guess.”
    He’s pulling at that part of her that used to crave order, that cleaned and neatened obsessively. When she and Sam lived together, she never went to bed with dishes in the sink. Now she wakes to a house in chaos.
    Sam grabs a pair of tall bottles, wedges them under his arm, and smiles. “At least this time we won’t be late.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    B y seven, they are on the water, speeding out into the Atlantic in the taxi boat to where the
Aqua Blue
waits for them. Whit seems unusually restless, Liv thinks as she watches him pace the crowded deck. It isn’t like him. This part of the mission is usually when her husband shines brightest, infecting the crew with his fierce optimism, like a footballcoach rallying his team in the locker room before the big game. Instead Whit seems distracted, detached. She wonders if Sam has noticed.
    The
Aqua Blue
is an older boat, spacious and a little creaky, but still Liv swears her pulse syncs itself with the rhythm of her engines, the hum of her propellers, when they finally board. Their captain is a wiry man in his fifties named JT who wants to give them an orientation tour as soon as they are settled. They chartered a much larger salvage vessel when they excavated the
Bella Donna
, but Liv prefers this scale. Too big scares her. Not unlike the house Whit has rented for them.
    They convene in the cockpit, where Whit is preparing the map they will use to chart the debris field, cataloging where they find artifacts. Sam suggests they dig first before sending divers down, but Whit is adamant they all get to the bottom right away. The current is already kicking, he says.
    Following the safety briefing, they suit up. They’ll go in two groups, Sam decides, and begin to map the site by setting grid lines around the wreck, marking north, south, east, and west. Once the ropes are set, the survey can begin. He tells Liv that she will go in the second group, a plan that fills her with much-needed calm. As confident as she is in her diving, she likes knowing Whit will be below if anything should happen. Not that anything
will
happen.
    Her wet suit on, she goes to find Whit. He’s alone outside the bridge, slugging coffee as if it’s last call at the pub.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” she says.
    Whit turns and looks startled, as if he’s been foundsleepwalking. “We should have been down a half hour ago,” he says. “I don’t like wasting time.”
    â€œSafety checks aren’t wasting time.”
    â€œI’m not talking about safety checks.”
    â€œWhat, then?” But she knows. “This is why we asked Sam, Whit. Because he does things the way they should be done—”
    â€œBy the book. I know, I know.” He bites his lip and stares hard at the men on deck.