The Last Treasure (26 page)

“Next one, Liv,” Sam said. “I promise.”

A half hour later, they were anchored and taking their giant strides off the platform.

•   •   •

T
he only one to find anything worth bringing up was Shannon. Out of her wet suit and touring the boat in a turquoise bikini and sunglasses, she rushed to show off her treasure: a musket ball. “Is it valuable?”

Liv smiled, remembering when Lou had handed her the concretion on her first treasure hunt, the key Whit had unearthed for her, and that she still kept in her purse for luck.

Surely she'd worn that same hopeful expression too.

“Whit saw some timbers,” Shannon said. “They looked big to me.”

Headed back to the marina, Liv found Whit on the flybridge with a beer, his wet suit unzipped, the top wrapped
around his waist, his tanned chest bare. Some days the golden color of his skin made her feel deeply self-conscious, as if she'd walked in on him in the shower or in bed.

Today was one of those days.

“How'd they do down there?” she asked cheerfully, feigning interest in a passing pelican.

“Not bad. A hell of a lot better than those investment bankers who came through last week.”

“Shannon certainly enjoyed her time with you.”

Whit grinned. “Don't be a troublemaker. You know I never mix business with pleasure.”

“She said you found some ribs.”

Whit's mouth slid into a knowing smile. “I knew you didn't come over to talk about our customers.” Liv suspected the hope was bald on her face. Any mention of found timbers and her heart galloped with possibility that it might be the wreckage of the
Patriot
.

She stared expectantly at Whit, waiting for him to confirm her excitement as he took a long swig. “And?” she said.

He swallowed. “It's not her.”

“How can you be sure? Ribs could mean—”

“They were small, Red. Too small.”

“Oh.” The bloom of hope in her belly deflated. She smiled ruefully. “You know Sam would freak if he saw you drinking that with clients on board.”

“Then you better help me finish it so we can get rid of the evidence.” He held out the can.

She came beside him and took a small sip. “She's still all I think about, you know. Every time we go down, every time
we check a chart. My brain knows the ship probably didn't sink this far south, but my heart can't help thinking, What if?”

“Storms and currents have been known to spread wreckage out over tens of miles,” Whit said. “But I know what you mean.” He gave her thigh a tender pat. “I still want to find her too, Red.”

The heat of his palm startled her. She handed the can back, so quickly it knocked against his arm and sprayed a few beads of beer on his wrist.

They looked out at the water a moment in silence.

“I heard you and Sam talking about moving your dad,” Whit said.

“I don't know, Whit. I promised him I'd never put him in a place like that.”

“We can't always keep our promises, Red. We do the best we can at the time. But you can't beat yourself up over something you can't control.”

Couldn't she? Sunset Hills. God. Just the name evoked dreadful images. Herds of elderly people marching down life's final slope. Vultures circling.

She closed her eyes.

“It's not wrong of you to want to have a life.” Whit leaned against her shoulder and gave her a gentle push. His bare skin was still cool from the water. A charge plunged deep down her stomach and she stood, feeling suddenly guilty, afraid Sam might find them there.

“I should check on the group,” she said.

“Livy?”

On her way to the ladder, she stopped and turned, startled to hear him call her something other than his favorite nickname.

He grinned. “If it ever gets too bad, you can always run away with me.”

“Very funny,” she said.

•   •   •

T
hree hours later, home and showered, Liv made a twist of her wet hair and padded downstairs through a tangy cloud of ginger and lemon to find Sam at the counter mixing up a marinade with Jack Johnson's smooth, upbeat voice on the CD player.

She had just poured herself a glass of red when her cell rang.

“Ma'am, this is Officer Cook with the Greenville Police.”

Liv set down her wine, watching Sam at the stove.

“We picked your father up in town and we're holding him here at the station.”

She swallowed. “Of course,” she said evenly, quickly. “I'll be right there.”

“Everything okay?” Sam asked without turning, and Liv was grateful he couldn't see the panicked flush that had surely spread across her face.

“It was one of the maintenance guys from the condo,” she said, already reaching for her purse. “They want to inspect the fuse box.”

“At this hour?” Sam wiped his hands on a dish towel. “Give me a second to clean up and I'll come with you.”

“No,” she said, so forcefully that he looked startled. “Really, stay. My dad just wants some company. I'm sure it's nothing.”

But it wasn't nothing, of course. And her legs felt boneless as she pushed her feet into her flip-flops and hurried out the door.

•   •   •

“S
omeone called from their car. He was walking up and down the median.” A woman with a graying ponytail handed Liv a clipboard and a pen. “Sign on the
X
's for me and you can take him home.”

Liv forced her eyes off the man in the plastic chair long enough to scribble her name. It was like seeing a stranger. There was no way this person, head bent and body hunched under a blanket, was Francis Connelly. Her father.

“If you need help, there are people you can call.” The woman returned with a packet of pamphlets and gave them to Liv. “It's not easy, hon. Don't be afraid to reach out.” Her smile was patient and kind. How to explain that it wasn't the reaching out Liv feared. Only the ease with which she worried she would be able to do so.

The air in the car was stifling, choked with remorse and dread.

Liv sent her window down all the way, afraid she'd be sick if she didn't fill her lungs with something fresher.

Her father rubbed his knees, as if he were working out invisible stains. “I tried to explain to them that I just got confused, Livy. They changed the front of the store and it just got me all mixed up. Everyone gets turned around in the dark. I
really don't see why they had to bring me in there. Had to bring
you
there. It was just so unnecessary.”

She pulled into the parking lot of his condo and turned off the car. The terrible truth of what was coming next hung between them, the knowledge that the night's event had brought them to a place they could never go back from.

Her father released his seat belt but didn't move to get out.

He stared out the windshield at his front door. “I'm scared, Livy.”

“Me too, Poppy.”

She chewed the side of her cheek, trying to stem the tears that had been threatening since the woman with the clipboard gave her that motherly smile. Reaching across the seat, she found his hand still gripping his knee, his thin fingers bent and ice-cold.

•   •   •

S
he took the long way home, skirting the town limits for almost a half hour to let her red eyes return to their normal shade. She'd called Sam to say the maintenance men had been late getting there, and that she'd had to take her father to the grocery store. Telling him the truth, then or earlier, seemed too overwhelming. Confessions made things real, and there was still so much about her life with her father that she feared making real to Sam. If Whit had been there, she'd have spilled all her secrets from the start, cried herself dry and probably even managed to laugh somewhere in the middle of it all.

Maybe, she thought, she still could. She just needed a few more minutes to pull herself together, to spare Sam the burden
of her messy life tonight before she had to expose him in the morning.

The marina was still with its usual evening hush as she swung into the parking lot and hurried down the steps to the dock, praying the wind off the water would soothe her swollen eyes. The
Phoenix
was silent as she climbed aboard. Maybe Whit had gone out? She hoped not. She needed his company just now, needed his carefree laughter to fortify her.

“If it ever gets too bad, you can always run away with me. . . .”

She toured the deck and found an opened bottle of wine on the hatch. She could use a swig, she thought, reaching down to pick up the bottle, but her hand slowed when she counted two glasses beside it. Stepping back, she stumbled and turned to see her obstruction: a strappy heel, its mate kicked off a few feet away.

The skin under her ponytail prickled, every hair snapping to attention.

When she heard the creak of movement below, she bolted. Tearing across the parking lot of the marina, she hoped Whit hadn't come up to search the deck for an intruder, prayed he didn't see her disappearing into her car when he didn't find one.

•   •   •

T
he house was dark when she finally climbed the steps, Sam already in bed. She undressed, letting her clothes fall to the floor, and crawled in beside him, rolling against his back. Her eyes closed, she tried to focus on the rhythm of his breathing, willing her thoughts to quiet, but her mind swam with fear and confusion, flashes of anguished images:
her father wandering the median like a lost dog. How it hurt to see him behind glass as if he were a suspect in a terrible crime. The knot in her stomach when she'd discovered Whit wasn't alone, shame that she'd gone to see him at all. Just that morning, her head and heart had been at peace; any complications in her life manageable, familiar. Now nothing made sense. She longed for sleep to wash it all away.

In the morning she'd explain everything to Sam, the awful truth that she would have to call Sunset Hills and hope they had room for her father right away, but for now she wanted just one more night to pretend that everything was as it was, as it should have been.

Everything and everyone.

Was that asking too much?

•   •   •

A
pparently. After three interminable months of chased phone calls, canceled checks, and lost paperwork, Liv was finally able to secure a room at Sunset Hills. At the recommendation of the facility's caregivers, Liv took her father out for breakfast while Sam and Whit helped a pair of movers pack up his apartment. Watching her father inspect his fruit salad, checking every blueberry and every cube of cantaloupe for mold, Liv told herself that he had never liked living in Windswept Estates, that she was doing the best thing for him. That he'd be safe at Sunset Hills, and after all, wasn't that what mattered most?

But for all her preparation, delivering her father to his new home proved agonizing, though not in the way she'd imagined.
She'd expected his hostility, even steeled herself for violence—cursing, lashing out. But his surrender came without any fight at all. From the moment he stepped through the automated glass doors, Liv could feel his body shedding opposition like old skin. His shoulders rolled forward, his steps, once staccato and sure, slipped into whispering shuffles. He toured his room with dull eyes, saying nothing. Liv knew Sam was waiting for her in the parking lot, but she couldn't bear to leave him. Finally his nurse, a woman with a beautiful high knot of tiny black braids, took Liv's hand in hers and gently led her to the door. “Tomorrow will be better, sugar. Every day it gets better. You'll see.”

Liv nodded, too afraid if she opened her mouth a sob would come out instead of words. She held back her tears all the way to the front doors, squeezing through them when they wouldn't part fast enough, gasping for air like someone nearly drowned.

•   •   •

“Y
ou did the right thing, Liv,” Sam said to her a week later. They had come downtown to play tourists on their day off, walking the river and ordering overpriced drinks and oversize bowls of she-crab soup.

“Then why does it feel so awful?” she said, making lazy figure eights through the creamy broth with her spoon.

“Because sometimes the right things do. It's just how it is.” He checked his watch. “We should get back to the marina and make sure everything's set for tomorrow.”

Liv pushed her bowl to the side. “I want to dive with the group tomorrow.”

Sam shook his head. “Absolutely not. It's going to be deep water.”

“A hundred feet, I know. I have to push it eventually.”

“Says who?”

“I want to challenge myself.”

“This isn't learning the piano, Liv. There's challenge and then there's dumb risk. I know you're upset about your dad, but—”

“This has nothing to do with my father. I've been diving for almost two years now, and in all that time I haven't had a single episode. Not one.”

“Because you've stayed shallow,” Sam said.

“Whit thinks there's something down there.”

“Ah.” Sam sat back and folded his arms. “So that's what this is about.”

“He didn't tell you?”

“He was too busy telling me all about Australia, the lucky son of a bitch.” Sam took a beat while he wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin into his empty bowl.

Liv felt the unmistakable creep of dread. “Australia?”

“He took that job with Wes in Sydney. You didn't know?”

She swallowed. “But—when did this all happen?”

He shrugged. “You know Whit. One day he's in. Next day's he's out. You done?”

She nodded, giving him her trash, her movements stilted with shock. How could Sam be so calm about this? Liv knew he and Whit had never been best friends, but surely Sam felt something akin to remorse to be losing him?