The Last Treasure (5 page)

Liv meets his eyes. There's no point in lying; Sam would never have believed the suggestion came from Whit.

She moves to the sliders and looks out, not sure what she's searching for, or whom. It's dark enough that she can see Sam in the reflection. He's watching her as he drinks.

She turns back but remains against the glass, the cool surface startling on her neck.

“I was surprised to see you back in the charter business,” she says. “I assumed when you left for law school, you'd eventually practice.”

“I did. For a while. But after my dad died, I got out. He left me some money and I figured a boat was as good an investment as any.”

“Your dad?” Sympathy washes over her. “I'm so sorry. When did he die?”

“Five years ago.”

“God, I'm sorry,” she says again, not sure what else to say. She'd never felt close to Robert Felder—he'd made sure she didn't—but Sam had been devoted. The loss must have been impossible for him. “So you're a dive captain again?”

He smiles. “Life doesn't always turn out the way we plan.”

A flutter of nerves dances down her spine. The frankness of his comment dangles between them. She looks toward the window.

“What about you?” he asks. “Still writing?”

“Some. Mostly papers for journals. Lectures when I can. Whit keeps me pretty busy.”

“I'll bet.” The edge of insinuation is unmistakable.

Liv gestures to the island, covered with food. “It's gross, isn't it? You'd think he meant to invite all of Topsail.”

“Knowing Whit, he probably did.” Sam takes a slow sip of coffee. “I heard he bought back the
Phoenix
.”

“He did. He changed the name. She's
Theo's Wish
now.”

“I was always told it was bad luck to change the name of a boat.”

She smiles. “That's Whit for you. Tempting fate every chance he gets.”

Sam's eyes flicker, as if she's sparked a long-forgotten memory. “So you and Whit have kept up the hunt, then.”

“We try.” She shrugs. “Life keeps getting in the way, though.”

“You've done well for yourselves. The
Bella Donna
was quite a find. I heard two million in coins?”

“Two point five, actually. And almost thirty feet of gold chain. It was incredible.”

“Good for you. From what I hear, it's getting harder and harder to secure a license to bring up a barrel of bottles, let alone gold.”

“It's been a challenge getting a recovery mission under way. Which is why we were so terrified of losing this one. Did Whit tell you he found the bell? At least, we're fairly certain it's the bell.”

“I heard that,” Sam says.

Liv can't help wondering if Sam has heard other things too: the string of missions Whit has lost or sabotaged in the years since their success with the
Bella Donna
, the crew members he's pissed off trying to circumvent red tape and cut corners.

What does it matter? Sam's here, isn't he?

“Whit's sure there's even more money on the
Siren
,” she says.

“So he tells me.” Sam's eyes narrow slightly, signaling doubt.

“You don't believe it,” she says.

“Blockade runners rarely carried gold. It would be unusual.”

“And yet you came.” She considers him. “So you must think there's at least a good chance of finding
something
.”

Sam smiles. “I think there's a very good chance.”

His eyes meet hers and hold, gently probing. Liv has the feeling he wants to tell her something else. Maybe something that has nothing to do with treasure or diving, that he has someone special in his life, that he's fallen in love, that he's married. She knows she isn't entitled to this information, and maybe that's best. She's not sure she wants to know.

“Hallelujah!” Whit blows into the room, startling them both. One glance at his crooked grin and Liv knows that he's
amply drunk. “In case you're wondering,” he says, flinging open the fridge hard enough to rattle the beer bottles lined along the door, “it takes four crew members and one thickheaded project leader to figure out how to turn on a five-thousand-dollar grill.” He reaches in and begins tossing packages of meat onto the counter. “Hope you're as hungry as that fire.”

“None for me, thanks,” says Sam. “I ate on the road.”

“Really?” Liv can hear the disappointment in her voice.

“Damn,” Whit says. “I was hoping we could all break bread together. Maybe even drag some wood down to the beach and get a fire going, for old times' sake.”

“I'm pretty sure they'd fine us now,” Sam says, looking at Liv. “See you all bright and early.” He raises his mug to her before setting it down. “Thanks for the coffee.”

She nods, feeling traitorous and not even sure why, when Sam excuses himself with a short wave.

She can feel Whit's eyes trying to catch hers as she takes Sam's mug to the double sink and rinses it.

He comes behind her. “Told you he's not over it.”

“I think it went fine,” she says, more defensively than she intended.

Whit smiles against her ear. “Liar.” He kisses her neck and disappears out the slider. She watches him reunite with the men at the grill, letting the tangle of emotions pass through her. It's just the first night, she tells herself. The first time the three of them have been in the same room together after so many years. Of course it's awkward. Things will surely improve in the days ahead. They'll find their way to friendship.
They had once before, hadn't they? Three strangers with nothing in common but a passion for treasure and the mysteries of the sea.

Even though it seems another lifetime to her now, they came together once upon a time.

GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

Thirteen years earlier

L
iv fell into her seat in the fourth row and tried to catch her breath, just grateful she'd arrived before they'd closed the auditorium's double doors. Above the stage, the screen glowed with the title slide:
The Hunt for the Patriot—Separating Mystery from Myth
. Of all the lectures to be late to! It hadn't helped, of course, that her father had followed her around the house with reports of flash floods and thunderstorm warnings, pleading with her to stay home. She hugged her bag against her chest, hoping to quiet her thundering heart. Her hair, she suspected, was a lost cause—its once-tight knot sagging at the base of her neck after her run through the rain. She tugged her red waves free and gave them a hard ruffling.

She saw a few familiar faces in the audience. Dozens of these
lectures under her belt, she recognized many of the maritime studies students—and envied every one. What she wouldn't have given to be registered in the underwater archaeology program. Instead she came to the department's evening lectures, a landlubbing junior majoring in English lit, and pretended to be one of their kind for two precious hours, cloaked in the darkness of slide presentations, and asking questions during the Q&A sessions as if she were an expert in the field.

Her gaze landed on a group of three men several seats below hers—but it was the one sitting farthest away whom her eyes fixed on and held, watching him rake his hand absently through his dark hair as he and his comrades bent heads in conversation. She'd seen him a few times when she visited the archives. Finding it quieter than the student union, and far more interesting, Liv spent most of her free hours between classes sequestered in the archive's tomblike corridors. She'd heard him called Sam. On occasion, he came in with the same two male students who joined him tonight. He had serious brown eyes and a swimmer's lean body. She hadn't had this sort of crush since high school.

The bang of the auditorium doors shook her from her study. She glanced back as the latecomer fell into his seat and sprawled out, propping his feet on the chair in front of him. His mop of dark blond hair was as rumpled as his shirt.

At least she wasn't the tardiest one tonight.

She turned back to face the stage and did a casual tally of attendance. Barely thirty seats filled. Pathetic, considering the presenter. Dr. Harold Warner was a renowned marine
archaeologist here to share his search for the elusive
Patriot
, a schooner that disappeared en route from South Carolina to New York in 1813, the ship and her passengers never found. What made this mystery all the more enduring was that the ship had been carrying the twenty-nine-year-old daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr, whose infamous duel with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had resulted in Hamilton's death and Burr's eventual disgrace. Theodosia's devotion to her erratic father was as legendary as her remarkable academic accomplishments.

Liv had learned of the mystery at ten, when her mother took her out of school to visit a shipwreck exhibit two hours away. She and Liv had pored over nautical books together, dreaming of the day Liv would start her own search for the lost schooner and end the mystery that no one in nearly two hundred years had managed to solve.

Not for lack of trying, of course. Theories abounded—and Liv had memorized them all. Everything from the ship being swept up in a hurricane to pirates commandeering the
Patriot
and her passengers—the latter theory the one Liv and her mother had subscribed to, Liv even hoping that Theodosia had managed to break free of her captors and escape to shore, as many local legends had supported. Dr. Warner's team, however, had gathered more leads that heavily supported the ship's sinking in rough waters near Hatteras—and there was even a rumor that he'd recently located wreckage he believed might be the remains of the
Patriot
. Liv knew Warner believed a hurricane had done the schooner in—not pirates—and Warner's
intolerance of legend and lore was almost as rabid as Liv's own father's. She looked forward to a lively debate during the Q&A afterward.

“Good evening.”

Warner's voice crackled through the microphone. Sam and his friends drew apart. The overheads dimmed and the screen above Warner's buzzed ivory hair lit up. At last all rumbles ceased and the room settled into the lecture.

Liv sank back into her seat and descended happily with the divers on the screen, the closest she and her fragile lungs would ever get to being underwater.

•   •   •

I
t is a common misconception that when a ship sinks, its wreck is frozen at the bottom of the ocean, forever locked in silt and sand—actually it's quite the opposite. When a ship settles on the seafloor, it is still in motion. Despite the anchor of bed and darkness, it continues to move throughout its new life of decay. The sea lives and breathes around it, shifting the wreckage, changing it. Sometimes the currents are gentle; others, like surges from storms, are vicious, blowing hard enough to scatter artifacts across miles, or bury entire debris fields in a single afternoon, hiding secrets from those who seek to uncover them. When she was younger and feeling trapped by her father's overprotective moods, Liv thought about that simple fact and it gave her hope. That even something stuck was still capable of motion, of change, maybe even escape.

For thirty blissful minutes, she swam with Warner's crew,
diving through the slides that charted their treasure hunts, nautical charts, and maps, until the lights came up, bringing her back, grudgingly, to the surface.

When the student moderator informed the audience there was time for a few questions, Liv's hand shot up with several others. The first three questions focused on speculation of Warner's upcoming and well-guarded mission off Hatteras.

Then he pointed at her.

She stood. “What is your opinion on the theory that the
Patriot
and her passengers were captured by the Carolina Bankers and eventually brought to shore?”

Warner stepped out from behind the podium and offered her a placating smile. “My opinion is that it's bunk.” A few chortles rumbled through the audience; Warner smiled at the reaction and nodded to the moderator to move them on to a new question.

But Liv wasn't finished.

“Then what about the Nags Head portrait hanging in the Lewis Walpole Library?” she called out.

Warner turned back to her, his smirk fading. “What about it?”

“Many believe it's a portrait of Theodosia—specifically one she brought with her on the ship to give to her father as a gift. If it
is
the same one, wouldn't it prove that the
Patriot
—and possibly Theodosia—had made it to shore?”

“There's no proof that the portrait is Theodosia, let alone that it came from the ship.”

“That's not true,” Liv said, on a roll now and thoroughly uncaring that the chatter and murmuring had grown around her. “Frank Burdick claimed, just before his death in 1848,
that he'd seen a portrait of Theodosia in the
Patriot'
s cabin after his shipmates had captured the schooner.”

Warner squinted up at her. “Deathbed confessions don't make reliable testimony. Especially when they come from pirates who sailed with Jean Lafitte.”

Liv knew she should have let the mistake go, that she'd already pressed her luck asking so many questions when there were other hands raised and waiting, but she couldn't resist.

“Actually, Dr. Warner, I think you mean Dominique You. Burdick didn't sail with Lafitte.”

The whispers quieted. Warner's tight smile slipped briefly, then resurrected itself. He cleared his throat and glowered at the moderator. “Next question.”

•   •   •

T
en minutes and a round of applause later, Dr. Harold Warner exited the stage with an attentive blond woman young enough to be his daughter—though Liv suspected she wasn't—and the audience rose to leave.

Liv gathered her bag and slipped into her raincoat.

“That was some volley.” She looked up and a flash of heat stained her forehead. Sam stood in front of her, his windbreaker hanging open, revealing a faded University of Chicago T-shirt. “Let me guess,” he said. “You did your dissertation on the
Patriot
, right?”

“Oh God, hardly.” Pleasure coiled in her stomach at his suggestion. “I'm an English major. Shipwrecks are a hobby of mine. I just like to come to these things and pretend I know what I'm talking about.”

But his warm brown eyes continued to radiate admiration. “You might want to consider changing your major.” He extended his hand. “Sam Felder.”

“Liv Connelly.” She gave him hers, trying to ignore that the skin under the collar of her sweater was ripening to scarlet. She gestured to the emptying seats to rescue herself. “I would have thought there'd be a bigger crowd for him.”

“Maybe the rain kept people away.”

In the back row, the latecomer climbed to his feet. He had to be well over six feet. He wore a white collared shirt, most of it untucked. Despite his looking as if he'd just rolled out of bed, Liv had to admit he was handsome in a rugged kind of way.

“There's a party across campus,” Sam said, pointing to his friends coming up the aisle. “Maybe you want to join us?”

Liv couldn't think of anything she might like more.

The clock above the stage read seven fifteen—possibility pounded in her chest. Even if she stayed a half hour, she'd have plenty of time to get home and cook dinner. The pork chops were already defrosted, the potatoes already boiled. And there was always that box of frozen lasagna she kept in case of emergencies.

Which, she thought as she met Sam Felder's expectant eyes, this most certainly was.

•   •   •

W
hen she emerged from the auditorium, the heavy rain had thinned to a fine drizzle, leaving the air thick with the smell of warm, wet concrete. Sam stood by
himself at the bottom of the steps, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. He saw her and tugged one free to wave her down. “My friends went on ahead. I hope that's okay.”

“Fine.” Butterflies of delight took flight, fluttering up from her stomach, warming her skin. Just the two of them.

They walked through the mist, taking turns glancing at each other.

“English major, huh? Do you want to write books?”

“Hopefully.”

“But you love shipwrecks.”

“It's not the ships themselves as much as their stories,” Liv said. “The people, the pieces of their lives left behind. Like a time capsule.”

“Think you could get published?”

“Maybe. My father actually published a book once.”

“Anything I would have read?”

“Not unless you like to read about calculus.” The path narrowed as Sam steered them through an alley of crepe myrtles, forcing their bodies closer. “He's a mathematician. He helped write the definitive textbook on calculus when I was a kid. They still use it all over colleges.”

“He must be pretty famous, then?”

“In certain circles, I guess.”

“Does he do the lecture circuit like Warner?”

“Not anymore.”

“He must think it's great you want to get published too.”

Liv rolled her lips together, measuring her answer. “He would rather I write about something real. Numbers are his thing. Facts. He's not much for fiction.”

“What about your mom?”

She pulled her coat tighter across her chest. “She died when I was thirteen.”

Sam slowed. She could feel his eyes on her, the careful, wary stare of sympathy. “Jesus, I'm sorry,” he said. “We don't have to talk about it.”

“It's okay.” Still Liv felt the familiar lump of tears crawl up her throat. “My mother's the reason I come to these lectures. She loved shipwrecks, loved all the legends, all the mysteries. We loved them together. Especially the
Patriot
. It was our thing. We were going to figure out what happened to that ship. What happened to Theodosia Burr . . .” She glanced at him. “We just felt so badly for her. I mean, it was awful. Theo had just lost her son to malaria. And then she disappears on her way to see her father, who was always—”

“Theo?”

Liv smiled sheepishly. “It was her nickname.”

He pointed them to the left. “You still could, you know.”

“Could what?”

“Be the one to solve the mystery.”

Another flutter of possibility flickered in her stomach. “Not if Warner gets there first. Do you think he's really found the wreck of the
Patriot
?”

Sam shrugged. “I think if there's anything left of that ship, it's long gone.”

“Then you think she sank?”

“Don't hate me, but I'm kind of in Warner's camp. I think it was a hurricane.” He looked over at her. “You think it was pirates, don't you?”

Liv knew how ridiculous the theory sounded when someone said it out loud.

She smiled. “Everyone's entitled to their opinion.”

The party came into view, the hum of its music and conversation audible even before they crossed the street. The two-story house was lit up, its porch packed with guests. Sam skirted them past the clusters of students who flanked the entrance, spilling in and out.

They walked into a cloud of moist air, ripe with the smells of body heat and warm beer. Sam touched her arm and leaned in close to make sure she could hear him over the noise. “See if you can find us a place to sit—I'll get us a couple beers.” He smelled good beneath the thick layer of sweat and damp. Sandy and warm, as if he'd just climbed out of the sea.

Liv slipped through the crowd, just looking for space, and found herself in the kitchen. Three women moved around a cluttered island, filling bowls with potato chips. How quickly this had all happened—one minute she was sitting behind Sam Felder in a lecture hall, lost in fantasy, and an hour later, she was joining him at a party. Prickles of possibility skittered across her skin. She felt as wildly hopeful as a child about to launch into her Christmas stocking. Who knew what treasures she'd pull out?