The Last Treasure (31 page)

“So bring me up to speed,” he said.

“On?”

“The hunt, what else?” He tilted his head. “Don't tell me you stopped looking for her?”

Regret sent her shoulders back. “It's been hard with school. I've kind of lost track.”

“I bet the old chart still has a few empty spots we could fill up.”

“I wouldn't know. Sam actually took the chart with him.”

“I'm surprised you gave it up.”

“I didn't. He never asked me. He just took it when he left.”

“Jesus, that was a lousy thing to do.”

She shrugged. “I guess he wanted it more than I thought. It was as much his as mine, I suppose.”

“Or maybe he was just being a jerk. . . .” Whit considered his wine before taking a sip and setting down his glass. “People don't always get it right when they have to say good-bye.”

Liv raised her eyes to his and felt a charge of longing rise. She suspected he wasn't referring to Sam.

“Have you stayed in touch?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I tried calling him a few times, but he never called me back.”

“That makes two of us.”

She offered him a weak smile. “So what about you? I'm sure there's a trail of broken hearts from here to Australia and back.”

“Not quite.”

“I don't believe it.”

“Well, there is this
one
lady I've been seeing a lot of lately. . . .” Whit flashed an all-too-familiar rakish grin. “Her name's Bella—and she's loaded.”

And
blond, and perfectly shaped, and fond of all-night parties, Liv would bet.

Prickles of disappointment nipped at her heart. So much for thinking him a changed man able to go one week without chasing a woman's affections.

She forced a halfhearted smile and feigned interest in her napkin. “So, where's lovely
Bella
now?”

“About fifteen feet down.”

Liv glanced up to meet Whit's teasing grin.

“She's a
ship
, Livy.”

Relief tore through her, so fast she hoped her cheeks didn't flush with it.

“Check this out.” Whit leaned back to reach deep into his front pocket and tugged out a Spanish coin, a coveted piece of eight. “It's from the
Bella Donna
. No question. And her manifest says she was carrying gold, silver,
and
emeralds.”

Liv leaned in to touch the coin, running her fingertips over the mottled surface, still warm from being so close to his skin. “Where?”

“The Keys.”

The thrum of possibility began its frantic beat behind her ribs.

“Now all you need is a license and a generous investor.” She smiled. “Oh, and a boat, of course.”

“I have the boat.”

“You do?”

He drained his wine and stood. “Come on.”

“But we've been drinking,” she said.

“It's okay.” He took her hand. “We're walking.”

•   •   •

L
ooking back, Liv might have known what boat was his. Even before Whit took them down the stairs to the Riverwalk, then snaked them through the chains of pedestrians enjoying a moonlit stroll. Regardless, by the time he stopped her at the right slip, her eyes had already filled.

She looked so much bigger, moored between two smaller boats.

“Sam never said
you
bought her.”

“I didn't buy her from Sam,” Whit said. “I heard she was for sale. The guy who bought her from Sam was a friend of Chowder's—you remember Chowdy, right? Anyway, he hunted me down to let me know and . . . Oh shit.” He squinted at her. “Are you crying?”

She swiped at her eyes. “Of course I'm crying.”

“That hurts, Red. You didn't even tear up when you saw
me
.”

She laughed, though it came out so quick and loud that it sounded more like a bark. He always could make her laugh through the tears. But that had always been Whit's way, hadn't it? He was the yeast in every starter, the spark, the match.

“You'll be glad to know she's still the same, slow-as-wet-sand boat,” he said. “Same cheap galley, same lumpy berth. The guys Sam sold it to didn't do a damn thing to fix her up. The only thing I changed was—well, see for yourself.”

When he walked her around to the bow, her breath caught.

Theo's Wish.

“Whit.” She looked up at him. “But I thought it was bad luck to rename a boat.”

“Well, I'll find out, won't I?” He smiled. “So, you approve, or what?”

She opened her mouth to say that she did, to say
something
, but before any sound could come, he took her hand again and led her on board.

“It's true—they didn't do a thing,” she whispered, looking around.

“I know, lousy bastards.”

“No, I mean it's wonderful.” She spun around in place,
taking it all in, the urge to tear up returning. “It's the same exact boat.” Needing to revisit every inch, she walked the deck, the cockpit, then climbed to the flybridge and scanned the river before coming back down the ladder.

Whit waited for her at the bottom. He always looked so devastatingly handsome on a boat, the wind brushing the hair back from his forehead—she'd forgotten. He belonged on the water. Once, she'd thought she did too. But after nine months in fluorescents-baked classrooms and hushed libraries, and only seeing the ocean from the shore, her sea legs had turned soft. Her freckled skin, having adjusted to the relentless sun topside and turned a careful gold, was back to being fair.

Yet five minutes on the
Phoenix
—no,
Theo's Wish
—and her bones were absorbing the rippling water beneath them.

How could she have ever doubted where she belonged?

A burst of pedestrian traffic passed above them. Three women, all in black cocktail dresses, slowed their walk to admire the boat and her captain.

“Be careful,” Liv said after they'd gone, “or you might find yourself back in the charter business before the night's through.”

“I can think of worse things.” He considered her face a moment, then said, “I'm going to recover the
Bella Donna
, Red.”

“I assumed that.”

“I want you to come with me.”

“You're not serious.”

“Aren't I?”

“You're not,” she said again, smiling. “You're never serious about anything, remember?”

“Don't bet on it.” He took a step toward her. “I mean it, Red. Come work with me. Come
be
with me.”

She looked up at him, longing and fear colliding. “Don't say things you don't mean.”

“I'm not.”

As he came closer Liv watched him, filled with the dizzying sense of time-stopping, slowing, thinking to herself:
This is a moment I will remember, a moment I will look back on and say, Everything that meant anything was in this one perfect instant.

And now it's here.

She searched Whit's eyes as they held hers. She'd never seen the circle of navy that hugged his pupils. Or the flecks of copper in his eyebrows. She'd never been this close before. All this time.

“What are you saying?” she whispered.

“When the right woman comes along to quit smoking for, I will.”

He cupped her chin and tipped her face up to his. “Wait—suddenly you're not the smartest woman I know?”

But there wasn't time to answer, barely time to breathe. In the next instant, he kissed her. The only way Whit Crosby could ever kiss her, Liv would realize later—deeply and fiercely and with his whole heart. She let him explore her mouth, breathing in his breath, and burying her fingers in his hair, the way so many other women had done, women she'd envied desperately and never dared to think why.

“You're shaking,” he said.

“I'm scared.”

“You don't think I am?”

She couldn't take her eyes off his mouth. “Liar,” she whispered. “Nothing scares you.”

“Never seeing you again scared me. Terrified me.” He covered her mouth with his again, pulling her so close and so tight that the hard rounds of his shirt buttons dug into her breasts.

She shifted her eyes to the dock. “We're kind of on display here.”

“Good point.” He moved to the closest towline and began unwinding it. “Then we better move.”

•   •   •

H
e steered them through the channel until he found them an inlet to drift in. Not so long ago, they had worried that rangers would catch them building a fire on the beach—now they were tearing off each other's clothes in the middle of the Cape Fear River as if they'd been stranded on the moon. Whit, his familiar impatience resurrected, abandoned his efforts to strip Liv entirely and picked her up with her dress halfway down her hips, carrying her belowdecks to continue his unpeeling on the bunk, hitting his head in his zealousness. He wore her out, in every conceivable way, until the blankets lay on the floor, and all that remained was a damp fitted sheet that clung to the mattress with only two of its four corners. They rose from their stupor the way they'd ascended dives together: breathless and slick and euphoric.

“A break,” she whispered, winded and dizzy.

“Maybe a short one,” he conceded, wrapping them in a blanket and leading her out of the cabin. They made a new bed
on the deck and lay down. Above them, the map of stars was endless.

Whit rolled her into his arms, folding her against his chest. “Cold?”

“No,” she lied, the heat from his skin already burrowing into hers.

They didn't talk about Sam. Eventually they would have to, Liv knew that. But not tonight. They didn't talk about how curious it was that they had come together this way either; how shocking or surprising, because there was no surprise in it.

Instead they talked about the stars, and treasure. Because that, Whit said, was what salvors did at night on decks. “When they're done doing this,” he said.

“What if we never know what happened to her?” Liv whispered. “What if no one ever does?”

“We will, Red. I don't care how long it takes, we'll find her together. We'll solve the mystery before anyone else.”

Liv pressed her lips against his heart. “It can't be this simple.”

“Why can't it? It's not like we just met, you know.”

Before she could argue with his point, Whit climbed to his feet and stood in front of her. Buck naked. In the middle of the Cape Fear River.

“Now listen,” he said, “because I'm only going to say this once: I'm not perfect—”

“This is news?”

“Will you let me finish?”

She rolled her lips inward, guaranteeing her silence.

“And I can't promise you I won't screw up from time to
time,” he went on. “But what you see is what you get—and I swear there is no one, on land or sea, who will love you more than I will.” He returned and came over her, kissing her deeply. “And Jesus, I love you.”

“My turn.” She searched his eyes. “I have this sinking feeling that I've loved you forever too.”

“Sinking?”
He grinned. “A little shipwreck humor, huh?”

“It seemed well placed.”

“Speaking of well placed . . .” Whit rolled her on top of him and settled himself inside her. The sea swayed and shuddered; the sky burned and sparkled. Liv flattened her hands on his broad chest and closed her eyes, seeing only stars.

TOPSAIL ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA

Thursday

W
hit sees Sam's truck even before he pulls into the driveway. It can't be missed—the only vehicle in the entire turnaround. And just as he did a day earlier, Whit takes the front stairs two at a time, but today he's too tired to be combative, too sorry to be angry. He wants only to hold Liv, to find her and give her the letter he's carried from Kitty Hawk, folded in his pocket, warm from the heat of his heart. This time he enters quietly; he doesn't call out. Alone in all the polished wood and high walls, Whit has to remind himself how long he's been gone. Twenty-four hours? Twenty-four
days
? He scans the room, the wide, glossy stairs, remembering the chaos he left, the space then crowded and loud, a circus of strangers with plans to get drunk and get laid, and how he drifted through their party, no
more impacting than a breeze. He steeled himself for mess and stink, and is shocked to find very little. Liv must have cleaned up. He hates that she came back to such a disaster, but then he remembers that she came back here with Sam, and he doesn't feel so apologetic. If they want to break his heart, the least they can do is clean the goddamn house first.

His mind races, but his steps are even, measured, for once in his life,
controlled
. If they are upstairs together, he thinks as he climbs the curved wooden treads, he won't blame her, he won't lose his shit—as if he has any left to lose?—but he won't relinquish her either. He came back to fight for her once before. But the bedrooms are empty—every last one. The whole house is empty. Whit comes back downstairs and pushes out the French doors to the deck, and there he is at the far end. Sam, reclining in an Adirondack chair, his sunglass-covered eyes lifted to the sky. Is he asleep? Whit isn't sure as he begins his approach. His heart slams against his ribs with every step. What is he going to say? Screw it. He's not a planner, why start now? The words will come, the right words, dammit. When Whit's just a few steps away, Sam finally stirs, rolling his head slowly toward him, unstartled.

Sam tugs off his sunglasses, his dark gaze level and unimpressed, as if Whit had only gone into the house a few minutes earlier for more beer, and now he's back.

Before Whit can begin, Sam says, “She's not here. I dropped her off in New Bern. She took a plane back to Miami.”

Gone? Whit drops into the neighboring chair, letting the information sink with him.

A gull lands on the railing. Sam picks up a mug off the glass table between their chairs.

The only thing Whit can think to say is “The
Siren'
s a bust. Warner stripped her clean.”

Sam looks at him just as Whit knows he deserves to be looked at—with confusion; like,
Jesus, is he kidding?
Of course it's a bust. The proof of this mission's swift and certain death is everywhere. The house is empty, the equipment packed up and gone. Even Liv is gone. Gone home.

Without Sam.

Possibility—hope—burns through Whit. He grips the arms of the chair and glances at Sam, reminded of his gripe, ancient as it seems now. “You told me you were leaving.”

Sam calmly sips his coffee. “I did leave.”

“Alone,” Whit clarifies.
Smart-ass.
“I heard about the diary.”

“We saw it,” says Sam, staring out at the water. “We read the whole thing.”

We.

Whit bites his lip to stop himself from saying more, not yet ready to confess how unglued he was that he chased Liv up and down the coast like a storm; that he rapped on Beth Henson's door at five a.m., stinking of salt water and sweat, and pleaded with her to show him the diary; that she did and he read it hungrily. He could tell Sam too about the letter in his pocket, the letter Whit believes might tell a different story about Theodosia and Simon the pirate, a different truth, but not until he tells Liv. It's a gift for her alone. Whit only hopes she'll accept it.

“There's more coffee,” Sam says, as if it's any old day.

“I'd rather have a beer,” says Whit.

“Then you're out of luck.”

The gull moves toward them, inquisitive and bold.

Whit has always liked seagulls, always thought they got a bad rap for their moxie. “This is the part where I say friends don't do what you did.”

“Give me a break,” Sam says flatly. “We were never friends, we both know that. I'm pretty sure we didn't even like each other.”

“We didn't.” Whit smiles. “We liked Livy.” And it's the truth. Liv was the piece that joined them, the cement that held them all together.

Is that a smile rising on Felder's mouth? Whit is sure his bleary eyes are playing tricks on him.

But still he confesses to Sam, to the seagull, to anyone who might hear, “I don't deserve her.”

“Apparently you do.” No tricks now. Sam smiles fully.

“You should know I'm not giving her up,” Whit says.

“I know.”

And in the silence, understanding settles between them, falls over the deck like flurries, sure and steady as the reach of pelican wings.

Key Largo, Florida

A
final, interminable cab ride from Miami International and Liv is home. Not that she is even sure this is home anymore, but right now it feels as safe and certain as anywhere she's been in the past three days.

Three days.

She can't help calculating the changes—years' worth—
crammed into less than a week. The last time she stood in this house, she'd let Theodosia go. Now all the loose squares of fabric she's been collecting for so long have at last been sewn into their quilt.

And she is back, with her answer.

Alone.

Outside on the lanai, her lungs fill with the warm, mossy damp of early evening, the earth that cushions the slab under her feet soft and moist.
Theo's Wish
bobs gently, as if the boat is breathing during sleep. She feels an urge to board it, maybe even to set sail. But she's done enough running away for now. The dew of dusk glistens on every surface, the glass patio table, the fringes of the sago palm fronds. Tomorrow the sun will burn everything dry. She scans the empty chairs before she walks to the edge of the canal and peers down into the flat stretch of water, not sure what she expects to see. As she feared, the heat has ravaged her more tender plants, and yet, remarkably, the jade has survived her absence. Its thick, rounded leaves remain glossy and deep forest green. Just the sight of its continued health and Liv tears up, flushed with an unexpected burst of hope.

We are both castaways now, abandoned to a lighthouse that once offered rescue. We have only each other.

She checks her watch. It's late, but she still has time.

•   •   •

T
he carpeted halls of Sunset Hills smell of dish soap and warm plastic. Gold and green wreaths dangle from every patient's door—the mark of a new month, a singular change in an amber land of perfect preservation. Soon
there will be displays of Indian corn and pumpkins in the lobby, strands of silk maple leaves draped around the reception desk, gourd centerpieces at every table in the dining hall. Liv anticipates the decorations—proof of how long her father has been living here. If this can be called living. She's still not entirely sure.

A new nurse, Tammy, is in her father's room when Liv steps inside. She's so young, her skin so smooth that even when she smiles, there are no creases.

“He's in the sitting room,” Tammy says. “Want me to take you?”

Liv appreciates the young woman's kindness, but she knows the way. Her father blinks rapidly as she approaches, as if she's a bright bulb, or the sun. There's a streak of dried toothpaste on his chin. She drops beside him to wipe it off.

“Hi, Poppy.”

He stares at her as if she might transform into someone else at any moment, his eyes filmy and hooded. Some days she thinks he's been crying, but mostly she thinks it's just the fog of old age. Today, though, she's not so sure. There's a pack of oyster crackers on his tray. His fingers shake as he tries to open it; she reaches over to help.

“I took a trip, Poppy. Did you miss me?”

He doesn't respond, but Liv doesn't expect him to. She watches as he inspects each cracker before he eats it, the dust of tiny crumbs raining down his pilled terry cloth robe, and her heart aches, heavy with love. Perhaps it is because of the glow of the reading lamp beside his head, but she can see the veins so clearly through the threads of gray and white. His head reminds
her of a sparrow's egg, the shell of his scalp a bluish taupe speckled with brown spots. Longing rushes up, a flood of forgiveness. It wasn't his fault. He never meant to need her so, and now he's here. And maybe this time she needs him. Needs to know he can still remember, so she won't ever forget. She wasn't the only one who lost her way when Liza Connelly spun off that slick road. Her father lost his compass too. Liv found hers again—her father never did.

And in all the years she has tended to him, worried for him, resented him too—it is what she hasn't said that startles her.

She leans her head onto his lap and rubs her cheek against the creped skin of his hand.

“I'm sorry she left us, Poppy.” She closes her eyes, feeling the warm trail of her tears slide down her nose, and knowing they must surely be landing on his fingers. “I'm so sorry.”

For a moment, she thinks she feels his hand shift, as if he means to move it to her head and stroke her hair as he used to do when she slept. But it is only to tug out another oyster cracker.

Still she smiles.

•   •   •

W
alking out, nearly past the reception desk, Liv hears her name. The new nurse is jogging toward her, waving a folder.

“I found this in your father's room last week when I was putting away his books.” She hands Liv the folder. “He claimed he'd never seen it before, but I thought I'd ask you just to be sure.”

When she opens to the map, Liv's eyes well before she can read the tiny words that hug the lines of the coast. But she doesn't need to. As she did that night in Hatteras, she could recite every word from memory all over again.

The nurse, still waiting, presses gently. “Do you recognize it?”

The plastic sheathing they've slid it into is a bit much, but Liv appreciates their effort. “It was lovely of you to protect it,” she says.

“Oh, we didn't do that, ma'am. That's how we found it.”

•   •   •

W
hen a ship sinks and spills her hold, storms and currents can spread her bounty over miles of seafloor. But sometimes, in shallower waters, objects can corrode and concretions are formed, treasure bound into concretelike lumps, requiring tremendous care and effort from a marine conservator to separate their pieces, artifacts of another life tangled in the cement of sand and silt and always difficult to separate after being joined for so long.

Lying in bed, Liv holds up the old key and turns it in the path of light from her nightstand, wondering how it is that in all her years searching the ocean, she has never seen the obvious connection between wrecks and love.

The sheets still smell of Whit. The warm, metallic scent of his sweat, and hers somewhere underneath. She rolls over to his pillow and buries her nose in the center, drawing in what she can, the odor faint and growing fainter the deeper she inhales. She wants suddenly to empty his dresser, to surround
herself with everything he's touched, everything he's ever put against his body, and drown in it.

When she hears movement on the boat, she bolts upright, panic prickling her bare skin. Someone is breaking into
Theo
—it's happened before, but never when Whit was gone. She'll call the police—if only she can find her phone. As she creeps down the dark hall, the banging grows louder, but she can see her cell on the kitchen counter. If she can sneak by the sliders unseen, she can make the call. Close enough, she darts past the tall doors of glass, but as soon as she draws up her phone, she lowers it.

Whit is on the flybridge. She can see the outline of his body in the glow of the dock lights.

He hears the slider cast down its track and spins to face her.

Her steps are slow, cautious. For a crazy second, she fears he is like a wild animal that will bolt if spooked.

But he doesn't move. Just smiles. And her lungs expand.

“I thought we could take her for a moonlight ride, Red.”

“It's nearly dawn,” she says.

He considers the sky and nods. “So it is.”

Her heart. She swears if she doesn't cross her arms over her chest and squeeze, her ribs will burst from the pressure of its beating. All she wants to do is run to him, to curl up in his body and let him enfold her—but God, she's suddenly so scared he won't let her. Does he know that she's been with Sam for the last two days? That she's solved their mystery at last? Can he read the regret on her face?

She stops at the edge of the dock and looks up at him. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted.”

As she steps onto the deck, he descends the ladder. Her arms want to reach for him, but she hugs herself instead.

“A lot's happened, Whit.”

“I know, Red.”

“I don't see how you could.”

He scans her face. “Now, hold on. I don't get to be angry too? My wife takes off with her ex-boyfriend and doesn't tell me where, doesn't answer my calls?”

Liv looks away. She walks to the edge of the boat and searches the houses on the other side of the canal, dark and so far away.

“I know about the diary,” Whit says. “And I know about Simon.”

She spins back to face him. “Sam told you?”

The look of disappointment in his eyes crushes her.

She drops down to the bench and rocks forward. “I so wanted it to be us, Whit. It was supposed to be you and me.”