combing the coast of Florida. There were so many known wrecks that had yet to be found. The legend of the Bermuda Triangle had sprung up because so many had been lost and no trace ever found.
She hesitated, then began combing the article again. Both ships had been lost with treasure aboard, as had so many ships before their sad encounter. But these treasures had been worth millions, even at the time. Heaven only knew what they would be worth now.
Enough to kill and die for, certainly.
THEY WERE STILL ANCHORED in the bay.
Matt was pacing the cabin. “All right. Sandy and Brad are guilty. They’ve been stealing yachts. They have a base somewhere, and they’ve managed to get the boats to this base, where they’re being done over. Every law-enforcement agency out there is onto them. So…what is the difficulty now? Why don’t we just come out with the big guns—major league underwater equipment?”
“We’ve got to be back out there in the morning, and we have to find it,” Lee insisted. “It’s ridiculous that we haven’t been able to.”
“Maybe our coordinates are wrong,” Matt said.
“I don’t believe that,” Keith said firmly. He was the one who had studied the accounts of the wreck, taking into consideration every storm that had ravaged the area since. He had also been the one to study and calculate what had possibly occurred after they had received the new records, only recently turned over to the United States by the German government. He had figured in time and tides.
Keith stopped pacing. “Why do you think they didn’t try to steal this boat?” he mused.
“Huge boat, three men. Witnesses,” Lee suggested.
“Just two of them,” Keith mused. “Tough guys when they’re armed, against a retired couple, one friendly diver…”
“But they hung around out there,” Matt said.
“Maybe they were looking for the right opportunity,” Lee said. “Hoping we’d eventually show some vulnerability.”
“They won’t dare show up out here again,” Matt said. “They must know the law is onto them.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Keith put in.
“I just don’t get it. Why are we still tiptoeing around?” Matt said.
Keith rose. “Because we work for a company with a government contract and this is what we were hired to do. Not to mention that we’ve got another dead diver on our hands.”
“Who might never have been anywhere near Calliope Key,” Matt reminded him. “Plenty of assholes put on dive gear.”
“This man was experienced,” Keith pointed out.
“And didn’t own a yacht,” Matt added.
“Accidents happen,” Lee murmured.
Keith kept silent on that score. He had seen the body.
There had been no accident.
ON SUNDAY MORNING, the newspaper carried an account of a diver found dead in the Keys.
Beth found herself obsessing over the article, reading it over and over again. When Ashley awoke, she stuck it beneath her nose.
Ashley shook her head. “Beth, everything in the world isn’t related to a missing couple and pirated boats. Those two couldn’t have been everywhere.”
“It was idiotic of them to have been in Miami,” Beth said.
“Not really. Think about it. The area is huge, boats everywhere. Hide in plain sight.” She looked at Beth. “He didn’t have the kind of boat our pirates have been stealing. And, Beth…Jake and I were out one day in the Keys, diving down to the Duane. A guy on our boat wasn’t in the best shape and shouldn’t have been doing such a deep dive. He panicked, popped up to the surface and died. It happens.”
“I know.”
“So do you have a plan for the day?” Ashley asked, carefully changing the subject.
“Besides just being worried sick?” Beth asked her.
Ashley leaned forward. “They will be apprehended. And Amber will be protected. Look, Beth, you have a right to be scared. And angry.”
“I’m angry about having to be scared. I have a lot to do this week.”
“We can get a man into the yacht club, as well.”
“Ashley, you and Jake can’t go calling in every favor you’ve ever earned. You have to let me pay these guys.”
Ashley shrugged. “If you were to allow me just to report what happened—”
“No. I will not risk Amber.”
“But, Beth—”
“Hey, I reported the skull. Lot of good that did.”
“This is different.”
“Maybe they’ll be caught soon,” Beth said. Her cell phone rang, and she excused herself and picked it up.
“Where the hell are you?” Ben’s voice demanded angrily.
“At Ashley’s,” Beth said.
“Why didn’t you tell me? What were you doing, babysitting?” Ben asked.
“Something like that,” Beth lied. She hesitated. Why not tell her brother the truth? Because he had doubted her over the skull? Because he would panic over his daughter? She didn’t like lying to Ben. But for the moment… “So what’s up? What do you need?”
Ben was silent for a minute, still angry. His voice was tight when he said, “Amber is anxious about you—I don’t know why, and neither one of you seems to want to tell me. I have to clean the hull today, so I’m taking her to lunch at the club, and she’s going to swim and sunbathe while I’m working. Will you come?”
She didn’t want to do anything but fume and fret and worry, she realized. But that was a stupid course of action to take. She had to trust in her friends, and wait for Sandy and Brad to be apprehended.
They were probably hiding in plain sight, just as Ashley had said. And if so…
They were hiding around boaters. She looked at Ashley. “Want to have lunch at the club?”
“Sure. I just need to arrange a babysitter.”
KEITH COULD HEAR THE LULLING sound of his own breathing, at forty-five feet down, following the path of the reef. With breaks here and there, it stretched for nearly a mile.
Lee was topside. He and Matt were tracing a grid, with Matt perhaps twenty feet west of his position as they
