The Reef

walked decisively to the elevators. She’d take care of things herself.
     
    She felt at home the moment she stepped aboard the Adventure. Someone, her mother she imagined, had washed down the decks. There was no trace of blood, and the equipment was once again tidily stowed away.
    Rather than try to remember what they had left aboard before Buck’s accident, she ducked into the deckhouse for her notebook.
    The moment she did, she knew something was wrong.
    Everything was tidy. The cushions were plumped, the table gleaming. The galley beyond the living area was spotless. But there was no notebook on the table. Therewere no artifacts carefully set there, or on the counter for cleaning and cataloguing.
    After the first shiver of alarm had passed, she told herself her parents had probably done just what she had come to do. They had gathered up the booty and taken it to the hotel. Or out to the Sea Devil.
    The boat was more logical, she decided. They would keep it all together. Wouldn’t they?
    She looked back to shore, wondering if she should go and find them. But here, alone, Buck’s urgency began to claw at her. She would go out to the Sea Devil and check for herself. It was a short trip, one she could easily handle alone.
    Calmer now that she had a goal, she went to the bridge, weighed anchor. An hour, she thought. No more for a quick round-trip. Then she could reassure Buck that everything was taken care of.
    As she cruised out to open sea, her tension dissolved. Life always seemed so simple with a deck under her feet. Overhead, gulls swooped and scolded, and the sea, the sheer blue stretch of it, beckoned. With the wind on her face and the wheel under her hands, she wondered if she would have found this fascinating world if she’d had different parents. Would the lure have been there if she had been raised conventionally, without tales of the sea and treasures as her bedtime stories?
    Just then, with the sea shimmering around her, she was sure she would. Destiny, she thought, was a patient master. It waited.
    She had found hers, earlier than some, she supposed. Already she could see her life with Matthew unfolding before her. Together they would sail the world, unlocking secrets from the sea’s vault. Partners, she mused, in every way.
    In time, he would come to learn that the value of what they did went beyond the flash of gold. They would build a museum, and bring the thrill and the pulse of history to hundreds of people.
    One day they would have children, make a family, and she would write a book about their adventures. He’d cometo understand that there was nothing they couldn’t do, nothing they couldn’t be, with each other.
    Like destiny, Tate would be patient.
    She was smiling over her daydreams when she caught sight of the Sea Devil. The smile faded into puzzlement. Anchored off its port was a gleaming white yacht.
    It was a stunner, a hundred feet of luxury and shine. She could see people on deck. A uniformed man carrying a tray of glasses, a woman sunbathing lazily, and apparently naked, a seaman polishing the brightwork on the foredeck. Glass that ribboned the deckhouse and bridge tossed back the sun.
    Under different circumstances, she would have admired it, the lovely, somehow feminine lines, the celebration ripple of the brightly striped umbrellas and awnings, but the telltale murk on the surface of the water had already caught her eye.
    Someone was below, running an airlift.
    Almost shaking with fury, Tate cut her speed, maneuvered the Adventure to starboard of the Sea Devil. With quick efficiency, she moored her boat.
    Now she could smell it, the unmistakable rotten-egg scent that was perfume to treasure hunters. The gases released from a wreck. Without hesitation, she darted from the bridge. Taking time only to pry off her sneakers, she dived over the side and swam to the Sea Devil.
    Shaking her wet hair out of her eyes, she hauled herself on deck. The tarps she and Matthew had used to cover the booty from the Santa Marguerite were in place. But it took only one swift glance to see that much of what they had recovered was missing.
    It was the same in the cabin. The emerald cross, the bucket that had been filled with silver coins, the fragile porcelain, the pewter she and her mother had carefully cleaned. Gone. Teeth gritted, she looked back toward the yacht.
    Armed with temper and a sense of righteousness, she dived back in the water. She was snarling by the time she climbed the ladder