The Last Treasure (24 page)

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like you don't know who I am.”

He speared a stack of spinach leaves. “It just makes me wonder, that's all.”

“Wonder what?”

His eyes bored into hers. “What else you might be keeping from me.”

•   •   •

S
pring's drab rusts and olives gave way to summer blooms. Their temporary break from Whit slipped into something far more permanent. Despite Liv's hope that the passage of the seasons might mellow Sam's grudge, three weeks before his and Whit's graduation, Sam still remained determined to keep Whit Crosby out of their lives.

“You can't ignore him forever,” Liv said as they lay in bed on a Sunday morning. Rain had come through overnight, shrouding everything in a veil of mist.

Sam rolled her against him. “Can't I?”

“I'm the one who took the risk, and he's the one you keep blaming.”

“You'd rather I blame you too?”

Liv lifted her head to deliver him a weary look. “So your plan is to pretend he doesn't exist?”

He sighed. “I graduate in three weeks, Liv.”

“So does Whit.”

“Your point?”

“It's a small pond, Sam. It's not like you and he won't have to keep dealing with each other in the field.”

“You honestly think Crosby will make a go of it in the real world?”

“He's not Michael, Sam.”

Sam rose on his elbows, the line between his brows deepening. “What does my brother have to do with anything?”

Liv tilted her head pointedly. Was he honestly going to deny the unspoken comparison he made between his brother and Whit?

Sam motioned to the chart. “I thought you were going to add that theory about the ship being commandeered to the Bahamas.”

He was changing the subject, but it happened to be a subject she liked.

“I did,” she said, pointing to the note she'd added earlier that week. With the exception of Sam, the chart was the first thing she saw when she woke and the last thing before she drifted to sleep. If Sam was her compass, the chart was her Bible. But lately it was hard not to look at it and feel prickles of disappointment. For all of her and Sam's—and Whit's—efforts, she was no closer to solving the mystery of the
Patriot
—or Theodosia's fate—than she'd been before she met them.

Sam threw back the sheet and sat up on the edge of the bed. She marveled at the firm expanse of his back, the even shade of bronze he'd managed to keep all winter.

“Did that guy at the marina get back to you?” she asked.

“No.” Sam took his dive watch off her nightstand and tightened it around his wrist. She'd seen the application for
law school on his desk earlier in the week, and been immeasurably relieved to find the forms inside still blank.

“He will,” she said, reaching out to touch the hollow at the base of his spine.

Sam stood and walked to where he'd left his clothes. “I can't flip burgers at Skipper's waiting for an opportunity, Liv.”

She smiled weakly. “Can't you?”

Dressed, he returned to the bed and patted her exposed hip. “Come on. I'll buy you breakfast.”

But her appetite had been missing for weeks. “Nothing for me.”

“It's all this rain.” Sam leaned across the bed to squint out the window. “It's depressing as hell. Wish for some sun.”

Liv nodded, but she had no intention of doing as he asked. Her wish list was already full—her wishes spent on a job that would keep him close to her, or bring her closer to him. The clock was ticking; the days were passing. She didn't have time or space to spare for weather.

•   •   •

I
t would turn out she didn't have to.

Four days later, Liv sprinted through an evening shower to find Whit in front of Sam's apartment building, thoroughly soaked and wielding a bottle of tequila. They escaped together into the entry's tiled vestibule.

She surveyed his tousled, dripping hair, his drenched shirt, nearly opaque with rain. “Don't you own a raincoat?”

He smiled ruefully. “It wasn't raining when I got here an hour ago.”

“You've been outside an
hour
?”

Whit glanced toward the stairs. “Is he here? I didn't see the truck outside.”

“He stopped to pick up a pizza,” she said. “He's just a few minutes behind me.”

“Dare to be alone with me until he gets back?”

•   •   •

W
hit followed her up the stairs and inside Sam's apartment, taking a seat on the couch, not unlike the way he'd dropped in on her months earlier. She slipped into the bathroom and snatched a towel from behind the door, flushed with a piercing sense of déjà vu as she returned to hand it to him.

“Thanks,” he said, wiping his wet hair roughly with it. “At least I'm not bleeding this time, right? No, wait. I take that back—” He opened his calloused palm and stretched out his thumb. “I got a paper cut opening my water bill this morning—damn thing won't close on me.”

She gave in to a laugh. An appreciative smile spread across his face.

“How have you been, Whit?”

“I've been okay. Trying to finish up my damn thesis without turning into a boring old bastard.”

She smiled. “You could never be boring.”

“Thanks. I think.” He squinted up at her. “You know, I'm still not exactly sure why I've been in the doghouse this whole time with him. It's not like I dragged you out there that day.”

Liv sighed. “I've told him that. A hundred times.”

Behind them, the door clicked and opened. Sam stopped on the threshold holding the pizza box in one hand. He kicked the door closed with his heel and walked past them.

“Don't blame her,” Whit said, following Sam into the kitchen. “I barged my way in.”

Sam snapped open the box and motioned to the bottle of tequila. “Where did that come from?”

“It's a peace offering,” said Whit.

“Well, there's not enough pizza for three.”

“I didn't come over here to eat your food.” Whit glanced at Liv before adding, “I came with news.”

Sam took out a pair of plates from the dish drainer and cast a wary look at Liv before sliding his hard eyes back to Whit. “Whatever it is, I'm not interested.”

“You know Curtis and Buck, the guys I told you about who run the treasure-hunting charters out of Wilmington with their boat, the
Phoenix
?”

It was dangerous, but Liv knew how to jog Sam's memory. “Where Whit taught me how to dive.”

Sam glowered at Whit. “Is that what you were doing?”

The air, already pinched with tension, tightened further, but Whit seemed determined to move them forward. “Curtis is retiring,” he said, “and he and Buck asked if I wanted to take over the business. Not just the
Phoenix
, but the whole treasure tour.”

Sam handed a plate to Liv and reached in for a piece of pizza.

Whit moved closer. “The only problem is I need a partner, someone I can trust. Someone who knows what the hell they're doing.”

Liv's pulse hastened. She met Whit's eyes, imploring him to just say it.

“Be my partner, Felder.”

Sam's eyes snapped up to Whit, his hand still on the slice he meant to tear from the pie.

“I can't run the business alone,” Whit said. “And I think we'd make a great team. Best of all, it's turnkey. All we have to do is switch over the permits, make a few updates to the boat, and we could start up as soon as we want.”

Liv looked between them, feverish blooms of hope spreading across her cheeks. She spun toward Sam to champion all the reasons this offer could be his salvation—
their
salvation—but before her excitement could spill out, he said, “I can't—I'm going back to Chicago to law school.”

Shock and hurt knotted in her stomach; he'd assured her he wouldn't send in his application without telling her.

“Congratulations, then,” Whit said, gesturing to the bottle. “You can use that to celebrate. Thanks for the towel, Red.”

She blinked at Whit as he moved for the door. He was going, just like that?

She wanted to rush after him, to fling herself across the door as a barricade so he couldn't give up so quickly—since when had Whit Crosby surrendered without getting his way?—but Sam's hand came over hers.

The door clicked shut, sending the room into silence.

Liv looked up at him. “You promised you'd tell me before you applied.”

“I didn't apply,” Sam admitted. “I just wanted to shut Whit down as soon as possible.”

Relief fluttered through her—but only briefly.

“But you still plan to?” she said.

He moved the slice closer to her. “You should eat.”

She pushed the plate away. “You didn't answer my question.”

“Liv . . .” He leaned back against the counter and dragged his hands down his face. “Jesus, we've been over this. If nothing else comes up, then yes, I'm going to law school.”

“But something else
has
come up.”

“I mean something real.”

“What's not real about a charter business? I've been on the boat, Sam. It's an amazing operation they've got.” She could hear the desperation rising in her voice. “You said you don't want to go to law school, that you don't even want to be a lawyer. Was that a lie?”

“Of course not,” he said. “But you do realize the only reason Whit put this out there was that he thinks I'll get my father to bankroll it—which he won't.”

“That's not the only reason and you know it,” said Liv.

“We'd have to take out loans. Huge ones.”

“People do it, Sam.”

“If I did start my own business, I'd be crazy to go in on it with someone like Crosby.”

“Then what about with me?”

He stared at her. “You still have another year of school.”

“I'll defer.”

“What about your father? Wilmington's three hours away.”

“Then I'll move him down there too. The truth is he needs to sell the house. It's too much for him. He needs something smaller.” She fixed her mouth in a resigned line. They could go
on this way all night. Sam could keep throwing up obstacles—she'd keep knocking them down.

He sighed. “Liv . . .”

She threw her arms around his neck and linked her fingers, determined not to let go until he agreed. “It's perfect, Sam. Really, it's a miracle.”

He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn't go
that
far. . . .”

“Well, I would,” she said. “Think about it: We could be together, doing what we want to do. Exploring wrecks, not just reading about them. The two of us.”

“Three.”

“Not all the time. Not when it really mattered. And we could keep searching for the
Patriot
, for Theo. Just think how much ground we could cover if we had our own boat, our own equipment. And I'm so close to getting my scuba certification. . . .” She searched his eyes for a spark of agreement. “Say something, Sam.”

He frowned. “Something, Sam.”

A joke. She'd take it. She raised her body higher, bringing her lips close to his. For a moment, he refused to dip his chin to grant her a kiss, but when he finally did and she closed her eyes, Liv saw only a blur of blue-gray, the color of the sea, calm and
undisturbed.

OUTER BANKS, NORTH CAROLINA

Wednesday

“Y
ou were always hard to say no to, Liv,” Sam tells her as they walk back up the beach to the glow of the Sundowner.

“Because I knew we'd make a great team. All of us. And we did.”

“I suppose. In some crazy way.”

She smiles. “Not so crazy.”

They take the sandy steps slowly and pause at the top. Her room to the right, his to the left. Two doors down, a man in his twenties steps out with a beer, barefooted and shirtless. He glances at them and offers a weak peace sign before shuffling down the deck. The smell of pot drifts toward them in his wake.

Sam grins. “Happening place. Don't say I never take you anywhere.”

Liv laughs, inexplicably grateful for the interruption, the chance to smile, to joke, as Sam runs a hand over his head, fluttering the short hairs. Liv wonders if they feel prickly or smooth like moss. What about his beard? Flashes of memory spark in and out: sitting on the beach at Hatteras, studying the places where those chestnut curls he's buzzed off once hugged his neck. Not even an hour later, feeling them brush against her throat.

The air swells suddenly, as if someone's opened an oven door and let a burst of heat fill the space around them. She feels a string of sweat trickle down her spine, another between her breasts. She turns her face to the breeze, needing it to cool her, to blow away dangerous thoughts, but the air's too soft to dry her damp skin.

She smiles out at the darkness, hearing the yawn of the surf in the distance. “I keep thinking I'm going to wake up tomorrow and this will all be a dream.”

“Which part?”

Good question. Some of the day's events she would gladly find having occurred only in her imagination. Other parts . . . not necessarily.

“It's not a dream, Liv. We did it.” Sam's moved closer and now he's studying her face as if he were planning to sketch her, lingering on certain features. Her eyebrows, her nose, her lips. He's tracing her with his eyes. “I never wanted to give up on this, Liv.”

He's not talking about the mystery anymore. Liv knows this, just as she knows she should step back, far, far back,
because in the next instant, his palm circles her head and his mouth covers hers, his lips and fingers firm and insistent, the strange prickle of his beard startling but his warm breath tasting so familiar.

Before she can respond, he releases her and pulls back. His eyes are as dark as she's ever seen them, almost black. She searches them fervently in the heavy heat of the night, but she can't find any regret in them at all.

He smiles. “That time was
my
choice.”

•   •   •

T
he beach house looks like a bonfire when Whit pulls up to it. He could swear every room is lit up, and the noise—Jesus! There must be a half dozen cars parked in the driveway—only two of which he recognizes. Sam's truck is gone—thank Christ for that. Whit swings the van under a palm and takes the steps to the entrance two at a time. Who the hell left the front door wide-open?

As he storms inside, the music is so loud he can't tell where it's coming from. Women in bikinis wander past him with wineglasses and cast him curious glances as if he's the interloper. Where is Liv? Beyond the slider, he can see the ponytailed kid—Lance, he remembers his name now—slugging a beer and chatting up a great-looking blonde, and his anger surges. Whit feels like a father coming home from out of town to find his sons throwing a party without his permission. He wants to grab someone by the ear and toss them out the front door. He knows he should just be grateful the men are still here, but instead he feels parental—he feels
old
—and he doesn't like it.

Liv must be upstairs. She's not one for this kind of scene, this level of noise. Maybe she's in the bathtub, maybe reading in some quiet corner somewhere? Is she still so angry at him that she is letting them trash this place out of spite?

“Livy?” He stops at the bottom of the stairs and shouts up, “Red!” He scours the house, easily at first, and then his pace increases. There is a spark of hope when he thinks that maybe she has taken a walk on the beach—the beach!—and maybe he should take a shower first, at least change out of his—

“What's the story? You get it or not?”

Whit whips around to find Dennis in the doorway, the older man's cloud of white hair windblown, his equally white and unkempt eyebrows meeting in a fierce point.

“Have you seen Livy?”

“She left. She and Felder took off this afternoon. So, are we going back down, or what, man? 'Cause I've gotta line up something else if this isn't going to fly. . . .”

Whit is sure someone cut the lights in the adjoining rooms—his peripheral vision suddenly goes dark. Jesus, it can't be true. Felder said he was leaving—Whit never would have left them alone otherwise, never would have been so stupid. And now Sam's taken Liv? No, Whit doesn't believe it. Liv wouldn't—couldn't—do that to him. Leave with Felder?

His heart pounds, hard enough that he claps a hand over his chest, genuinely afraid his ribs might split from the pressure. “Where did they go?”

“Some new shipwreck museum in Nags Head,” Dennis says. “A woman he went to school with runs it, he said; something
about a diary—hell if I know. So are we good to go now, or not?” But Whit isn't listening anymore. He tells Dennis he's sorry, that God, he's sorry as hell and he'll make it up to him, but right now he has to go. Whit can't care that people he doesn't know are spilling wine on rugs he can't afford to replace, and tripping up the stairs, hand in hand, to screw on beds he's paid for with money he doesn't have.

He ransacks his memory as he climbs back into the van—a woman Sam went to school with. Law school or grad school? Nags Head. There is a new museum there; Liv told him about it recently, didn't she? He punches the search into his phone and scrolls down the Outer Banks Shipwreck Museum Web site as the engine churns. The director, Beth Henson. He thinks he remembers someone with that name.

He can't take the ferries—he's sure they don't run overnight—but it's fine. This late, the roads will be empty—he can make it to Nags Head in three hours.

In the rearview mirror, the blazing house shrinks to a fiery cube. Let them have the house, he thinks. Let them have everything. All he wants—all he's ever wanted—is with Sam Felder. Again.

•   •   •

L
iv lets the hot water spill down her shoulders, the faint smell of chlorine rising in the steam. She's washed her hair twice now, and emptied the tiny bottle of shampoo, but still she can't bear to step out of the shower's cloak. She scrubs her underwear with soap and squeezes out
the lather, hoping it will dry by morning. Unwrapping the little bar felt decadent, defiant. On road trips after her mother had died, her father would always forbid Liv to use the complimentary toiletries, rushing into their motel room to sweep the space free of possible contaminants. Surfaces were wiped down, pillows covered with towels. Her father always insisted they sleep fully clothed, not wanting any skin exposed to the sheets. Once she found a welcome mint that had escaped his search and chewed it quickly while he used the bathroom.

Back in her T-shirt, she climbs onto the bed and clicks through the channels, not caring what's on, just needing noise. A door slams several rooms down and the light on the nightstand shudders. She reaches over to turn it off and the television screen glows, bathing the faded blue bedspread in flashes of Technicolor. She won't peel the blanket back, won't inspect the sheets for bedbugs' telltale red dots, won't lay a towel over her pillow. Whit has broken her of these crippling habits, her father's obsessive training, and she is grateful to her husband for it. So why is she so nervous?

Liv can't remember the last time she was in a motel by herself. At home, she finds herself sleeping alone sometimes—Whit on the water, Whit staying out late—but a motel alone is different. A night in a motel is purposeful, intentional. Looking around at the pine-paneled walls, a warm, creamy shade of butterscotch, she thinks of the lake camp her father's stepbrother had offered them after her mother's funeral, a place to escape, a reprieve cut short by her father's discovery of something unsafe—a leaky boat that might sink them a mile from
shore, ancient wiring that might combust and burn them to cinders in their sleep. “It's just us now, Livy,” he said to her, driving home, and she nodded numbly as she fingered the hot metal of her seat belt and quietly released it, not sure why it felt so good when the strap loosened over her lap.

Guilt swims through her again. Throughout the day she's had the urge to call Whit and share the news of the diary with him, but still she hasn't. She unearthed her phone to charge it the hour before but refrained from checking her messages. The missed call icon is proof enough of her newly tangled life, considerations she didn't have twenty-four hours earlier. She can't sleep—she won't even dare try. Her mind is at a rolling boil and Sam's kiss sits in the very center.
That time was my choice
. When he walked off afterward, waved to her as if kissing her good night had been the most natural thing, she'd felt as if her feet were glued to the concrete. She reaches up to the wall to test the sheet of pine, the layers of shellac perhaps as thick as the wood itself, and presses her palm against the panel, as if feeling for a pulse. It would take nothing to step back outside, walk four doors down, and knock—but it would take everything to walk in. Is Sam lying as she is, wondering if she will come to him? Is he debating going to her?

She hears a creak and her gaze snaps to the door, sure it is Sam on the other side, sure he's choosing again, and her breath catches while she waits for the knock. It doesn't come.

She looks down at her phone in her hand. Her father never sleeps before two a.m. If she calls now, he'll be watching TV. He might even be calm enough to talk to. Maybe, just maybe,
she'll catch him in a sliver of lucidity and he'll call her Livy. But when the phone is answered on the tenth ring, she knows it won't be her father on the other end.

“Francis Connelly's room.” His nurse, Mary, a saint, and fifty-year-old grandmother of three.

“Mary, this is Liv. How was he today?”

“Not so good. Tomorrow'll be better.”

God bless Mary and her dogged optimism. Liv closes her eyes, feeling the swell of tears.

“I wanted to tell him good night.”
And that I'm in a motel. That I've used the shampoo. That I'm sleeping without a towel but I'm still a little afraid.

“He's fine, sugar. Don't worry about him. How are
you
?”

“I'm okay.”

“No, you're not.”

No, I'm not
.

“What's the matter?”

It was supposed to be with Whit. Not Sam.

“I'm just tired,” Liv lies.

“How's the treasure hunting going?”

“It's . . . it's fine,” Liv says, because she knows even to scratch the surface would cause her whole heart to break apart and she'd never get it closed again.

“Finding anything yet?”

The biggest treasure of all, Liv wants to say. The only one that ever mattered. So why does she wish she could give it back to the sea?

“Remember that man of yours promised me a gold necklace for my trouble,” Mary says. “But you tell him I'll take
silver—I'm not picky.” Then she gives in to a big, deep cackle and Liv can't help smiling, even as tears leak out.

“Anything you want me to tell him, sugar?”

Liv smiles. “Tell him I used the shampoo,” she whispers.

“Used the what, baby?”

She closes her eyes. “Just tell him I love him. And that I'll be back soon.”

When she hangs up, she sets the phone down on the nightstand and stares at it a long moment before she picks it up again.

Let him worry. It'll do him good to think of someone besides himself for once.

She taps the screen and waits, so sure Whit will pick up.

When the voice mail message comes on, the sound of his voice makes her want to cry again.

“It's me,” she whispers. “I took a little road trip to the Outer Banks to follow a lead. Mostly I just need some time away. Maybe we both do, Whit. All I know is it's very strange being here without you. And I can't decide what that means.” She pulls at a loose thread in the blanket's hem and it gives easily. “I love you, but I don't know if it's enough anymore and . . .” She stops, releasing the thread before the whole length of edging comes loose. “Good night, love.”

In the dark, she draws the sheet around her and waits for the call back, but the phone remains silent. Eventually sleep comes, even as a single thought drifts in and out of her early dreams:

She meant what she said to Sam tonight. The three of them had made a good team.

For a while, the
best.