31. Indiana
I couldn’t believe Tyler was standing next to that bastard Kane.
Tyler won’t arrest me . . . will he?
My heart pounded so hard, I felt every thump in my neck as I raced to reach my destination and get in the water before that boat caught up to me.
With every passing minute, they narrowed the gap between us.
I approached my anchoring point, and I peeled back on the engine. As the bow dipped into the water, the other boat drew up alongside.
The expressions on the two men at the helm couldn’t be any more different.
Kane flashed a triumphant grin like he’d already found the Siren’s Lure fortune.
Tyler, however, had his brows drilled together and an expression that was loaded with concern or disappointment. It was hard to tell which.
I pulled back on the engines again and cut them off, and their boat slid away from my view. A lovely silence settled over the bridge that seemed to amplify the pounding in my heart.
“Indiana?”
I spun to Tyler’s voice. He stood a few feet away from me.
“Hi,” I said, keeping my tone upbeat.
“What the hell are you doing?”
My shoulders sagged. “I had to do it. There’s a shipwreck out there called the Siren’s Lure, but the weather needs to be absolutely perfect to dive down there, and today was the day. But I don’t have my dive gear, and I needed equipment and—it was the last wreck Dad and I were?—”
I sucked in a wobbly breath.
“Hey.” He stepped up to me and opened his arms.
“I have to do this. For Dad, and me. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m nothing.”
“Hey, shush.” He squeezed my cheek to his chest, and his heart pounded in my ear.
“Dad and I had been searching for this wreck for years.”
“I understand.”
I pushed back from him. “No, Tyler, you don’t. This is where we were last time when that bastard ruined our dive.”
“You crazy woman.”
I shoved back from him. “I’m not crazy.”
“No, you’re right. You’re not. You’re smart, and brave, and you drive me wild.”
I rolled my eyes. None of that was helpful.
“But your timing is terrible. Or maybe it’s my timing. Or Aria’s.”
“What?” I scrunched my nose at him.
He gripped my hand. “Come here, let me show you.”
I let him lead me outside. Kane stood on the other boat with one foot up on the siding. His mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes from me, but his grin told me he was loving every minute of this.
Tyler waved his hand toward the other boat. “Aria wanted to tell you this herself, but . . . after your little stunt this morning you forced our hand. Because of what you did to help her and her team, and because you lost everything you owned doing it, Aria wanted to give you this boat.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“And she would like to offer you a job working for Wolf Security.”
“What?” I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
“Aria wanted to tell you about all this tomorrow when she had a few members of Wolf Security together.” He shrugged. “Because of this . . . situation, and because we all know that you are going through some . . . stuff . . . Kane has agreed to drop his police report into his boat theft.”
“He has?” I frowned at him. “Why?”
“I want to know what’s down there that’s driving you crazy.”
“Of course you do.” I groaned.
“And like I said before, I’ll even let you keep whatever we find,” Kane said.
“Yeah. Bullshit.”
“Indiana, you and I both know there’s probably nothing left to salvage down there. But whatever we find is yours.”
I turned to Tyler. “He’s lying.”
“I’m your witness. I will make sure he keeps his promise.”
I gazed back at Kane. He was up to something, but I’d run out of options.
“You’re wasting time, Indy,” Kane yelled across the water. “These perfect weather conditions won’t wait for your conspiracy theories to reach a conclusion.”
I let out a heavy sigh, feeling torn between finishing a treasure hunt I’d started with my father,and the complicated dynamics between Kane, Tyler, and myself.
Despite my belief that Kane was full of bullshit, I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Tyler cocked an eyebrow.
“Yes. Yes. Okay, we’ll dive down there together.”
“Fantastic,” Kane said. “Permission to come on board, captain?”
I rolled my eyes and marched away, trying to comprehend the deal I’d just made with the devil.
The three of us worked together to prepare for a dive on one of the most difficult sites I’d ever explored.
For Tyler’s benefit, I told him about the decorated plate I’d found last time, and I detailed what I knew about the reef and what to expect from the ocean conditions. It pissed me off that Kane seemed to hang off every word.
Kane’s diving and salvage equipment was the best I’d ever seen, and as much as I hated it, my jealousy nearly got the better of me. Dad and I fought hard for every single dollar we earned. I had no idea where Kane got his money from, but the smug bastard sure seemed to have a lot of it.
But Kane only had two kits for compressed air, so we decided the three of us would use scuba tanks instead. Using the tanks reduced our dive time, however, it meant we did this dive together, which was something I had to reluctantly agree on.
With each of us holding an underwater metal detector, the three of us dropped into the crystal-clear water together. Swimming side by side, battling the erratic current, we returned to the giant clam near where I’d found the ancient plate last time.
As I swept Kane’s metal detector side to side, I was forced to share my focus between Kane, Tyler, and my search for the ancient wreck. Kane gestured for us to spread out and search the area. He went one way, and gripping Tyler’s hand, I led him in the opposite direction.
This was the first time Tyler and I had searched for priceless items together, and he had a look in his eyes like I often saw on my father. It was that promise of finding something that had been lost to the ocean for years, and it didn’t matter whether or not the item was precious.
Sunlight filtered down from above, casting an ethereal glow over the coral and marine life that seemed oblivious to the unpredictable currents that pawed at our bodies like invisible fingers.
Minutes ticked on as we combed through the reef, searching for a glint of something manmade and hoping for a blip on our metal detectors.
Tyler squeezed my hand, tugging me toward him. He pointed at the needle on his metal detector which had spiked. Giving him the thumbs-up signal, we both lowered to our knees, careful not to stir the sediment, and set our metal detectors aside.
Tyler’s expression was priceless, and I hated that I’d ruined his first treasure hunt with my stupid fury at Kane. With our shoulders together, I dug my gloved fingers into the soft grains. Tyler copied me, and we gently scooped away handfuls of sand.
My fingers brushed over something hard in the sand, and Tyler released a burst of bubbles with his cheer, confirming he must have felt it, too. After a few more scoops, a straight edge appeared in the sand that could only be manmade.
Riding a rush of excitement, we dug faster.
Tyler pushed down to dig deeper, and his hands fell into a hole right up to his elbows. Crying out, he pulled his arms free, and his crimson blood clouded the water around his hand. I reached for his arm, but he waved me away, signaling that he was okay.
He shone his light into the hole he’d created, and my breath hitched.
His light shimmered off hundreds of pieces of broken bottles.
We removed what was left of a wooden crate to reveal a jumble of broken shards and debris that were the remnants of what had once been the precious cargo of the Siren”s Lure. My hopes of finding the cases of 1953 Penfolds Grange Shiraz disintegrated like the pieces of wooden crate we tried to pull away.
All these years I’d dreamed of finding this precious cargo, and as Tyler continued to lift out broken bottles from the pit in the sand, I sagged with a blanket of frustration.
Tyler’s muffled cheer broke through my disappointment when he pulled a complete bottle from the pile of shattered glass. The brown glass shimmered in our flashlights as he turned it over. He thumbed away the algae clinging to the bottle, and unfortunately, every word on the faded label was gone.
As my disappointment took hold, Tyler held the bottle like it was a hard-fought trophy.
He was right. The bottle may not be in pristine condition, but it didn’t take away the fact that it had survived a shipwreck, and we’d found it nearly eighty years after it was lost.
This find was truly significant, and I wished Dad was here to see this.
As Tyler cradled the bottle to his chest, I shone my light into the crate again. There’s another one. I reached in and pulled out the second bottle.
Kane settled beside us, and the surprise on his face was unmissable.
As Tyler and I nursed our precious relics, Kane searched the crumbling crate for another intact bottle.
Tyler’s eyes shone with his excitement, and my chest swelled as I tried to implant every second of this special moment into my memory. Once Kane finished his exploration, which, unfortunately, came up empty, we began our ascent to the surface.
Breaking through to fresh air, we climbed aboard Devil’s Fortune. Tyler and I carried a bottle each to Kane’s undercover area where he had plastic containers set up just in case we found anything. We gently placed the bottles into the container and topped them up with seawater to help their preservation.
With the bottles safely secured, we all stood back.
“I have to give it to you, Indiana. I didn’t think you’d find anything down there.” Kane nodded at me. “Well done.”
I blinked at him. His expression was a mix of disbelief and what looked like begrudging respect.
I glared at Kane. “Is this where you take the priceless artifact from me, just like you did all those years ago?”