Chapter 5
FIVE
Tia was up to something, and he didn’t like it.
Aw, loosen up, Doyle. He sat on a bench of the dive boat, near the front, trying not to shoot his gaze to the rear of the boat where Tia sat with blond Indiana Jones. Early forties, maybe, Indy wore a wet suit, unzipped to his waist, showing off a tan and buff body, pointing out something on the island of Mariposa.
The boat channeled through the waves, north along the shoreline. The reef and the sunken wreck hung just offshore, maybe a quarter mile from the harbor.
Tia wore a blue one-piece dive skin, also unzipped, with a halter top underneath, listening to Ethan Pine (yes, Doyle had asked Stein the man’s name), as if hanging on his words and aw...
Doyle didn’t care.
Did. not. care.
But something had lodged in his craw the minute she’d walked away with the man after this morning’s post-drama powwow.
Yeah, she had an agenda talking to Mr. Archaeology, and?—
Wait—
“You good, bro?”
He looked over to see Austen step up, hanging on to the overhead bars. She’d braided her hair and held it back in a diving scarf, wore sunglasses and a thin pair of diving pants. Under it, she wore a green one-piece with long arms.
Water splashed, spraying them as the driver cut through a wave, and the boat jerked. Across from him, Heather let out a playful scream, and Dr. Scott put his arm around her. They seemed to be having a good time.
As did Elise and Hunter Jameson, who sat in the back of the boat, holding hands. They’d asked him about Jamal this afternoon as he helped people assemble their dive gear. He hadn’t mentioned the kidnapping.
Jamal seemed to have bounced back. But Doyle recognized a kid trying to hide his emotions, having looked in the mirror one or a thousand times.
So as Doyle looked up at his sister, he weighed his answer, then smiled, nodded. “I’m okay.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then sat on the bench beside him. “I see you keep glancing over at Tia. You two?—”
“Codirectors.”
“That’s what Declan said. How’s that working out?” She grinned at him.
“Why?”
“You don’t ‘co’ anything.” She finger quoted the word.
“I can be a team player.”
“Only if you get to call the plays.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “And Tia seems the same way. Declan said she used to run the Pepper family charity, EmPowerPlay.”
“She’s smart, that’s for sure. And determined.” And maybe didn’t have a good picture of her own limitations. But he clamped down on those words.
“And pretty.” Austen winked at him.
“Yes. Whatever. We work together, Austen.”
She sighed as the boat began to slow. “I know. Can’t blame a sister for wanting her brother to find a happily ever after.”
“I’m fine. I had my chance at happily ever after.”
“Wait—what? You get one chance and that’s it?”
The boat settled in the water. To the east, Cumbre de Luz rose, lush and peaked, encompassing most of the tiny island. The port was situated at the bottom, a sea of red-roofed homes, whitewashed and scattered along the harbor. Palm trees dotted the boardwalk along the black-sand beach like truffula trees. Around the boat, the deep azure blue of the ocean stretched over a shallow reef, fish teeming in the translucent water.
“Listen. I had a plan for my life. And then I didn’t. Now I don’t know what the destination is, and frankly, I’m not sure I want one. I’m no longer a candidate for ‘happily ever after.’” He finger quoted his repeated words. “To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for... Well, what Juliet and I had can’t be duplicated. And I’m not even going to try.”
“It’s been five years, Doyle. And just because the plan changed doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a new one.”
He glanced at her. “Maybe I don’t want a new one.”
He stood up and reached for his tanks. He’d already attached his rig to the oxygen and now opened the valve, tested the air.
Austen stood up too, considered him for a moment. Looked at Tia, back at him. “Whatever you say.”
Then she walked over to her rig.
He couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Tia as the boat came to a stop. She sat on the bench, working on her dive vest, having zipped up her wet suit. She too wore a headscarf, and now pulled her dive mask over her eyes, held her fins in her hand, and approached the end of the boat.
“Pool’s open!” the captain said, and Austen did a scissor jump into the water.
Ethan went in behind her.
Declan and Stein had also kitted up, and Stein checked the Jamesons’ gear before he sent them on their way.
H eather opted to stay in the boat, but Dr. Scott, in a shortie suit, his fins on, waddled to the stern and rolled in, back first.
Declan bobbed in the water, giving an okay signal to the captain. Then he grabbed his fins, now wearing his BDC, pulled down his goggles, put in his regulator, and headed to the back.
“The wreck is about sixty feet down, just beyond the ledge. You’ll have to swim to it because I can’t anchor on the reef,” said the captain—Ignatius, if Doyle remembered right. “Good luck.” He grinned, his mirrored sunglasses sporting a shot of Doyle and his unshaven mug.
Doyle scissored in, slipped on his fins, and then shot an okay to Austen, their official guide for the tour.
She sent them down, and the noise of the world evaporated.
He loved diving. Austen had first taught him three years ago, when she’d yanked him away from the family’s inn during their shoulder month—March. He’d spent three glorious weeks in the Keys, on her boat, getting certified, then diving every day to see the wrecks along the treasure coast. She’d shown him the few gold pieces she’d found littered among the reefs, and he’d gotten a tan, grown a beard, and generally found pieces of himself, like gold, in the crystalline waters.
Now, the old feeling of flying swept over him as he sank, the world turning a kaleidoscope of colors as he descended into the colony of coral that stretched along the shore. They’d anchored to a mooring ball positioned at the edge of the coral bed, the gnarled polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Austen hovered over the coral, pointing to a giant orange barrel sponge, then another, this one red.
Green and red parrotfish nibbled at the algae that adorned the staghorn and elkhorn coral that protruded like tiny trees from the rugged surface, and small, bright-orange clownfish skittered around flowing anemones. Just keep swimming...
The memory of the animated show rose inside—one of Juliet’s favorites.
And see, now she would lodge in his head for the rest of the day.
Austen pointed to an overhang, and he followed her direction and spotted a coiled green eel, asleep in the crevice. A giant lobster stared out at him, its antennae like spears in the water.
A turtle edged out of a crack in the coral and headed away from the cluster of divers.
Doyle took a second to count the crew—yes, everyone was with them—and he gave an okay signal to the Jamesons, who seemed comfortable in the water.
Austen and Ethan had swum farther down the coral, now disappearing behind the shelf, toward where the ocean floor dropped fast into darkness.
The wreck.
Austen and he had already planned the dive—and now he stayed with the Jamesons and Greg Scott on the reef while she headed to the wreck, another thirty feet down.
Declan followed her, as did Stein, but Doyle stayed shallow, pointing out a large grouper and even a reef shark nesting in a nearby lava tube interspersed with the coral. The tubes collected the darkness, and he followed Dr. Scott as the man swam through tunnels, making sure he didn’t get caught on the jagged black edges. The Jamesons followed him, and a stingray lifted from the shadows, floating away on angel wings.
Juliet would have loved this.
“Just because the plan changed doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a new one.”
Austen’s words thrummed in the silence. He sometimes felt like maybe he didn’t want to know what the new plan was.
He’d like his old one back.
Still, yes, five years. The sharpness didn’t take him down quite so often anymore; the grief was not as suffocating when it swept over him. Yes, he missed her, but the ache had become something deep inside that he had gotten used to living with.
A tapping caught his attention.
He looked around to find the source and spotted Hunter Jameson indicating to him with the tapper affixed to his tank. He pointed to his wife, who’d started for the surface.
Doyle signaled to Dr. Scott, and they headed over, then rose to the surface.
The wind had turned the waves choppy. He spat out his regulator. “You okay?”
Elise nodded. “My mask fogged up and I couldn’t clear it. And I’m nearly out of air.”
Huh. Doyle checked his pressure. Only half down. Maybe she had a faulty tank. “Okay, let’s head back to the boat.”
He searched for the vessel and spotted it bobbing in the water farther away than he’d hoped. They’d swum too far. “Let’s inflate our swim sausages.” Crazy name for the tall inflatable signaling tubes, but they worked. Hopefully the boat would pick them up.
Elise and Hunter deployed their tubes.
“I want to keep diving,” Dr. Scott said. “I’m not done.”
“We need to stick together. And we have a second dive, so let’s regroup, then we’ll go down?—”
Greg disappeared under the water. What the ? —
“Go,” said Hunter. “I’ll stay with Elise.”
Doyle popped in his regulator and headed down.
Greg had returned to the lava tunnel, scattering angelfish and tang in his swim to the bottom.
He was after something.
Doyle kicked hard to catch up.
In the tunnel, Greg turned on his light, stopped, shone it on the bottom, then up to the ceiling.
Doyle caught up, indicated that they should ascend, but Scott shook his head. He pointed the light at the ground again.
Brilliance sparkling against the glow.
Greg dove and Doyle followed.
The man picked up what looked like a sand-worn gold figurine, barnacle and algae free. Clearly the shadowed tunnel had protected it. Scott held it up, gave a thumbs-up.
He didn’t have the heart to tell him that it looked like a souvenir of the bell tower from Esperanza, something a tourist had probably thrown in for fun.
Doyle’s attention fixed on the tunnel. And how light poured through an opening at the top, near shore. He kicked away from Scott toward the light.
Surfaced slowly.
The opening seemed to be a deformation in the tunnel, maybe broken up by hurricanes or waves. Beyond it, the tunnel mouth enlarged and led toward the volcano. On the other side of the watery channel rose a small island made from lava debris.
He hadn’t realized they’d dived so close to shore. He made out Hope House on the cliffside in the distance. The black beach spanned out to the water below the cliff, maybe also the remnant of this lava tube.
And then... Wait.
He sank back below the surface and spotted Dr. Scott, still searching the tunnel. Whatever had destroyed the lava tube had also dug an alleyway of sorts between the coral and the dark bottom.
At low tide, the right boat could maneuver through this alleyway and offload cargo to the tube...
Cargo like medical equipment.
And it wouldn’t even have to go through the harbor control, right?
Maybe.
He’d have to talk to the police, get a permit. And perhaps test his theory, but...
But it could be a way to avoid Sebold and his tyranny.
He checked his air gauge—nearly at the warning line—then swam back to Greg. He tapped two fingers on his hand, and Greg checked his air supply. His wide eyes showed what Doyle knew—they needed to ascend.
Doyle thumbed up and they started to rise. He identified the boat’s hull in the water and surfaced twenty feet away. The captain had turned off the prop and bobbed in the water.
Elise and Hunter sat on the boat, wrapped in towels. Heather sat, eyes closed to the sun.
Greg surfaced next to him, spat out his regulator. “Did you see what I found?” He held it out to Doyle.
“Next time, you listen to me,” Doyle said. “The last thing we need is you getting lost or stuck. The lava tubes are fun, but they can be dangerous too.”
Scott’s eyes narrowed, but Doyle didn’t care how much money he might have lost for Hope House. The guy was reckless.
Reckless divers were dead divers.
He waited until Greg climbed out of the water, then took off his fins, threw them onboard, and climbed up the ladder. “That’s a trinket from one of the souvenir shops.” He gestured to the figurine. Grabbed a towel to wipe his face.
Greg made a sound and pitched the fake treasure back into the sea.
“Wait—aw.” More litter in the ocean.
“We’re going back to pick up the others,” said Ignatius.
Doyle studied the rock formation as they motored away. Yes, a small boat, even a fishing trawler, might anchor at the mouth of the tunnel.
But the plan depended on where the tunnel led. He’d have to do some scouting.
Captain Ignatius consulted his GPS screen as he positioned them over the wreck not far away and turned off the engine.
Doyle checked his watch. The others had the same air as he did, but deeper down, the divers would expend more air.
They should be up by now.
He searched the water. Spotted Declan holding an orange deployed sausage. And with him, Ethan Pine.
But Austen, Stein, and Tia were nowhere to be seen.
Doyle pulled off his BCD, a fist in his gut as Declan swam over. He had already changed tanks by the time his boss pulled up to the ladder.
“Where are they?” Doyle said, affixing his vest back on.
“Tia got caught in a web of old fishing net coming out of a porthole. They’re cutting her out.”
Doyle put in his regulator, held on to his mask, and jumped into the water.
* * *
And this was how she would die. Caught in a fishing net sixty feet below the surface of the water, the light rays unable to pierce the darkness, slowly suffocating.
Don’t panic . She read the look in Stein’s eyes as he sawed away at the fishing net that she’d swum right into.
Because she’d panicked.
Stupid!
She’d spotted a shark snoozing on the sand beneath one of the barnacle-encrusted cannons of the Trident, fallen into a coral corridor. The shark stirred and she bolted. Sort of bolted, because she was swimming. But it felt like bolting as she turned and headed for the first ray of light through a snarl of coral.
She’d scraped her tank on the coral, and maybe that’s why she hadn’t seen the fishing net caught on the spires and jagged edges of the opening. Like swimming through a spiderweb ... The tiny holes clipped onto her BCD, her tank valve, then the buckles of her fins, and even snagged on her wet suit.
Her thrashing hadn’t helped.
She’d probably set herself up for disaster when she’d first thought she’d be creative and search amidst the deeper coral and lava formations for wreckage that might have floated from the main site with the current. The debris field spread over a hundred-yard area along the bottom, but some of the wreckage had fallen into the crannies of coral on the way to the ocean floor. Ethan had pointed out remains too—not just a cannon, but an anchor and timbers and even the rotted mainsail.
Other debris sifted in the sand, but most of it was gobbled into the bottom, probably under layers of four or five feet of silt.
Given the tugging behind her, Stein had ripped free one of her fins. He went to work on her tank. Austen had sawed on the netting stuck to Tia’s octopus, the extra breathing supply that dangled off her BCD.
Austen tapped her hand with two fingers.
Right. Oxygen check. The needle had already dipped into the warning zone, and she showed Austen where it cut into the red.
Don’t panic.
But they couldn’t possibly get her free before her air ran out. And they’d come down with her, so certainly they had to be down to dangerous levels also.
Austen ripped Tia’s octo free, but the netting had wrapped Tia up in the water too. Austen tried to get her finger in between the net and the wet suit, but it wouldn’t budge. Tia’s O2 gauge had detached from her BCD, and Austen grabbed it, took a look, then reached for her secondary and gave it to Tia.
She spat out her regulator, blew out the water in Austen’s secondary reg, and took a fresh breath. But a glance at Austen’s O2 gauge said they didn’t have a lot of reserve.
And they’d gone so far down, they would need a five-minute decompression stop fifteen feet from the surface.
She couldn’t even see the boat above, nor the mooring-ball line that connected the surface to the dive site.
Stein was now cutting at the connection to the coral. If she could break free, maybe she could kick like a mermaid to the top.
Suddenly he stopped, and a beeping sounded in the depths. He grabbed Austen and ran his hand across his throat, pointed at her.
Oh. Austen was on her last minutes of air.
He unhooked his secondary hose and shoved it at Tia.
She grabbed it, released Austen’s regulator, cleared the secondary, and breathed.
He ripped off a small emergency tank on the side of his rig and shoved it at Austen. She shook her head, and he gestured up, desperation in his eyes.
Austen inserted the canister’s reg into her mouth and let out her BCD air, rising.
Then the man took Tia’s face in his hands, his blue eyes on hers. Nodded.
So, they were apparently in this to the end. Her eyes started to fill as he turned back to the netting.
No. She couldn’t let him die here on the bottom with her. She hadn’t gotten a look at his O2, but it couldn’t be far behind hers.
He sawed at the netting, and it started to release.
She tried to pry the web from her leg. C’mon—please, God ? —
And it had been so long since she’d called out, but once upon a time, she’d believed. Called out and God had answered?—
Beeping.
She looked up, but Stein kept cutting the line.
She ran her hand across her throat, but he ignored her. All she had to do was take out the regulator. He’d have enough at least for a straight emergency ascent?—
Tapping. It echoed against the darkness, and now Stein looked up, around. Reached back and tapped his knife on his tank.
More tapping, and out of the blue, a diver appeared, kicking hard. He swam up to them, glanced at her, then Stein, and then grabbed his secondary octo. He shoved it into her mouth.
She cleared, breathed fresh air.
Then he took out his own reg and handed it to Stein. Stein took a breath, nodded, and handed it back to?—
Doyle. Of course it was Doyle. He met her eyes with that same crazy, determined, fierce look he’d given her at the camp. And at the medical clinic, and even at the harbor, and shoot —he just kept showing up .
Stein turned back to his work, bubbles releasing from his mouth, and cut another chunk free. Doyle fed him air again, and then Stein finally broke her free, the netting still tangled around her legs.
Doyle took a breath, handed his reg to Stein, and then faced her as he grabbed her arms and kicked, dragging her toward the downline.
Stein kept up, feeding him the reg for a breath, and then himself, bubbles rising. They reached the downline, and as Doyle held on to her, he and Stein pulled themselves up the line, kicking, sharing the breath of life.
They stopped fifteen feet from the bottom for their safety stop, still trading, and Stein’s watch counted down the required five minutes as they hung in the water, the current stirring them. Doyle handed Stein the reg and then looked at her, smiled, winked, and gave her the okay sign before taking it back.
Who was this man? “I was called to be a missionary. Being a doctor was how I was going to get there.”
He wasn’t a doctor, but he did seem to qualify for the other. Brave, creative, a healer.
Dangerous. Terribly, perfectly treacherous for her heart.
She had not come to Mariposa to fall in love. And she certainly couldn’t do it with someone who was already taken—she’d already made that mistake.
She spotted the boat, bobbing some thirty feet away.
A splash, and suddenly Austen was in the water, swimming fast. She wore a fresh tank and handed Stein her secondary.
Doyle grabbed his air back, and when Stein’s watch beeped, Doyle pulled Tia to himself and kicked to the surface.
Stein and Austen surfaced too.
Tia made to spit out her reg, but Doyle shook his head, and Austen kept her air in too as she grabbed Tia’s BCD and helped Doyle haul her to the boat. Stein had gone ahead, taken off his tank and vest and handed it up to Declan. Then he climbed the ladder, turned, and sat, holding out his arms for their rescue package.
A.k.a., Tia.
She removed her regulator, her arms over Stein’s knees as Doyle and Austen submerged, cut away the last of the netting, and removed her fins. Then they threw the fins onto the boat and handed up the netting.
Stein unbuckled her BCD, and Tia shrugged it off. He handed her rig up to Declan.
She didn’t know what to say as Doyle and Austen surfaced, removed their air.
“You all right?” Doyle asked, breathing hard.
Don’t cry. Don’t ? —
Aw. Her eyes welled up and she nodded. Then Stein let her go.
“Hold on to the ladder.”
She did, her entire body trembling as he climbed up, then reached down and grabbed her hands. The man pulled her out of the water, then her feet found the deck, and Stein moved her to a bench. Knelt in front of her, checking her over, his hands on her legs.
He thought he’d cut her.
Austen handed up her fins to Declan and then climbed up, ripping off her mask, unzipping her BCD. “Are you okay?”
Tia nodded, and oh no, tears burned her eyes. “I’m fine. I can’t believe you did that—Austen, you could have died .”
Doyle had followed them and stood behind Stein, dripping, shaking a little. He looked at Tia, then Austen. “You good?”
Austen nodded. And then Doyle pulled her into a hug, so much relief in his gesture it turned Tia’s heart. Now that was love, the real kind, no lying.
Sheesh, she should have realized a guy like Doyle would be taken. Not that it mattered.
It didn’t matter ? —
“You should have seen your brother when he came up and found out you three were still down there,” Declan said, coming over to hand Doyle and Austen towels. “By the time I was on the boat, Doyle was back in the water. I don’t think he’d even buckled his BCD before he went down.”
Brother?
Stein grabbed a towel, ran it over his hair, then scrubbed his face. “Yeah, good thing because I was almost out of air too.”
“And I just barely made it through my deco stop with the bottle Stein gave me.” Austen glanced at him.
Doyle had pressed the towel over his face too. Held it there. Maybe a little longer than normal. Now he lowered it, nodded. “I figured you guys would have more air, given your experience—and especially Stein—but... Anyway, thank the Lord we’re alive.”
He looked at Tia then, met her eyes with such directness, she felt it like heat through her entire shivering body.
Oh. She swallowed, nodded. Yes. Thank You, God.
So maybe she wasn’t an afterthought to the Almighty after all.
“Good thing I taught him how to dive.” Austen slung an arm over his shoulder. “I told him that rescue-diver cert would come in handy.” She winked.
Doyle still seemed shaken, but now he grabbed on to the bar that ran the top of the roof. “What happened?”
All eyes turned to Tia, including Elise and Hunter Jamesons’, who sat quiet, stricken on the other bench, and even Dr. Scott and Heather, who sat in the bow, Dr. Scott draped in a towel.
Declan’s mouth tightened.
“I saw...”
“She saw a shark.” Ethan had been standing near the freshwater supply tank and now came over, sat next to her. “Big one. I saw him too, from above—probably eight feet long. I think she just?—”
“I panicked.” There, she said it. “I... I just...” Listened to fear shouting in her head. “Didn’t think. I swam for the first escape, and of course, right into a net. And the more I struggled, the more it caught me. If it hadn’t been for Austen spotting me... I’m so stupid for panicking.”
“If it hadn’t been for Doyle panicking...” Stein said and clapped a hand on Doyle’s shoulder. “Good instincts, bro.”
“Thanks.” Austen patted his cheek. “I take back all those times I called you the family drama king.”
Doyle gave her a look, and she laughed and high-fived Stein. And somehow, more laughter infected the group, and Tia could breathe.
Full, easy, normal breaths.
“I guess we’ll all be hungry for dinner tonight,” Declan said. He went to stand next to Austen.
At the front, the captain started the engine.
Ethan looked at Tia, nudging her. “So, did you see any treasure down there?”
Doyle raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Ethan and shook his head.
Wait—
He turned and headed up to the helm.
“No,” she said, glancing at Doyle’s back, the way he braced himself against the edge of the boat, looking at the horizon, the low-hanging sun skimming gold across the surface of the ocean.
And she couldn’t escape the sense that whatever treasure she was looking for, she might have already found.