Night Diver: A Novel Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my fellow authors

  You keep me sane!

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH LOWELL

  CREDITS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  PROLOGUE

  THE MOMENT KATE Donnelly heard her brother’s too-cheerful greeting on the phone, she wished she had let the call go to voice mail. She loved Larry, yet right now she had nothing but bad news for him.

  And fear.

  “I hope you’re calling to tell me that everything is fine,” she said.

  “If you were down here, everything would be fine.”

  “No,” she said, more curtly than she had meant. “I just finished a job with a very nervous gallery owner.”

  “Then what you need is a little vacation on white sand beaches, blue sky, warm sea, and—”

  “No.” Cold chills rippled from Kate’s nape to her fingertips. The ravishing tropical paradise of St. Vincent was the heart of her nightmares.

  “C’mon, Kate,” he said impatiently. “Get over it. It happened almost fifteen years ago.”

  “You weren’t there. I was. No.”

  “You won’t have to get near the water. Cross my heart.”

  And hope to die.

  She forced herself to take a slow deep breath, then another, as she listened to her brother’s pleas. Finally the urgency beneath his coaxing penetrated the deeper, older nightmare of the death of her parents. She began listening instead of staring out the window of her condominium at the haze of humidity and car exhaust.

  Larry’s voice was both hoarse and sharp over the crackling satellite connection. “We’re at the point where you can’t do things from there anymore. We need you here.”

  “Anymore? I’ve barely started. I only got those files two days ago and I’ve hardly begun to put them in order after I work on my own business all day. And calling them files is charitable. Rotting cartons of receipts and shopping lists are not files.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It took more time than I thought to get stuff together. You know that I never was good with papers and numbers.”

  “You’re in charge of the salvage business,” she said. “You have to keep books or hire someone to do it for you.”

  “Look, I’ve kept it afloat since you ran out. Grandpa hates records, much less balance sheets. Everything I know I learned from you before you bailed. I’m a diver, not a businessman.”

  Kate closed eyes that were an echo of St. Vincent’s clear turquoise water. “I’ve known about your lack of interest in bookkeeping since I was ten and started keeping the ledgers for Moon Rose Limited.” Their family salvage business had never been wealthy, but it had kept them in food and living quarters.

  “No doubt about it. You got all the number smarts in the family. That’s why we need you. Please, sis? If you don’t help us, we’re going under, and you know that will kill Grandpa.”

  She felt the door to the trap closing softly, relentlessly, like sinking into warm salt water. She couldn’t live with herself if the family business went bankrupt because she was too frightened to revisit the scene of her nightmare.

  I’m barely living with myself now. Running hasn’t ended the nightmare. Maybe facing it will.

  Certainly there’s nothing in North Carolina to hold me right now. Not even a houseplant. And I’ve been promising myself a vacation.

  She shuddered lightly. St. Vincent wouldn’t be a vacation. It would mean facing things she had been running from her entire adult life. Part of her, the part that was no longer a teenager, knew she had to get over the past. The rest of her wailed in remembered terror.

  Do flies trapped in amber scream?

  Sunset flowed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her Charlotte condo, making the room hotter than it should have been, but it was cold in the shadows of her mind.

  “You’ve at least had a chance to read the contract, haven’t you?” Larry asked.

  “Enough to know that you shouldn’t have signed it,” she said, sensing she had lost the fight but not wanting to give up.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. It was sign up with the Brits to salvage that maybe-Spanish wreck or sell the boat. That would have—”

  “Destroyed Grandpa, I know,” she finished tiredly. “Larry, I advise small businesses, not pass miracles. You should have called me before you signed that contract.”

  “We tried, but you were in the Yukon working with those native carvers. You got them going in a business, so we should be a piece of cake after that. Kate, please, you’re our last hope.”

  She closed her eyes and fought against what she was afraid was going to happen anyway. “Hope? I don’t know how you’re putting diesel in the tank right now. Was your advance on expenses approved?”

  “Not yet. The Brits are sending C. Holden, some kind of fancy accountant, out to evaluate whether the dive is worth the advance. We’re heading into the stormy season.”

  Icy fingers tapped down her spine. “I know about the storms in St. Vincent,” she said tightly.

  “So we’re really under the gun. You’ll find a way to convince this Holden dude that we’re okay. You talk numbers better than anyone.”

  “Larry . . .”

  “I’m serious,” he said quickly. “You’re brilliant. You’re the only one who has a chance of getting this guy to agree to a stay of execution.”

  Kate sighed and knew the trap was shut. “When does he arrive?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ve timed your flight so that when you get here, you’ll be able to bring him to the little house we rented at the beginning of the dive. I’ll meet you there and take him to the Golden Bough. You don’t even have to go on the water if you’re still scared.”

  Scared, she thought. What an easy word for cold-sweat terrified.

  “All right,” she said in a rush, before she lost her courage. “I’ll do it. But I’m not sleeping on the boat.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You can stay at the rented house. There’s no room aboard anyway, what with the extra divers we hired. I’ll even have someone leave a meal or two in the fridge so that . . .”

  No longer really listening, she let out a cautious breath, relieved that she wasn’t expected to stay aboard anything that floated.

  Or sank, in the case of the family business. Nothing she had seen in the few hours she had sorted through the invoices gave her any confidence that she could keep the company alive. Wages and air supplies, food and fuel, maintenance and debt service, and a thousand other expenses drained the accounts. The Donnellys had poured three generations of work into a seventy-foot hole in the water called the Golden Bough.

  And it had been her home until that terrible night.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself fiercely. I already promised to go. Larry sounds like the weight of the world has been lifted off his shoulders.

  “ . . . and you’ll keep the Brits off our back,” her brother all but sa
ng. “Nobody can baffle with numbers like you can.”

  She started to protest, but her brother was still talking fast, relief in every syllable. She listened with half her attention while he made silly comments about her skill with numbers. It was good to hear something other than fear and defeat in his voice.

  Idly she wondered what the rental was like. Grandpa Donnelly didn’t waste money on anything having to do with land.

  “I’m not diving,” Kate said when Larry paused for breath.

  “You don’t have to even come aboard unless you want to. Hell, sis, if you get in the water, then things will really have gone in the toilet.”

  “Things are already there. If you knew numbers, you’d understand that.”

  “Yeah, whatever, I promise you won’t have to dive.”

  “Fine. I’ll stay as long as I can, but no more than two weeks. Three at the outside.”

  “You’re the most incredible sister ever,” Larry said. “I’ve booked space on a flight that leaves tomorrow morning at nine. I’ll park the old pickup in the airport lot, with directions to the house. It has a dock so it’s easy to come and go from the ship.”

  Kate looked at the phone. The fact that her brother had bothered to see to the details of her trip told her more than words how worried he had been.

  “See you soon, sis. I love you.”

  He hung up before she could say anything.

  Or change her mind.

  He and Grandpa Donnelly were so much the same that often it was scary, like looking in a mirror caught in time. Grandpa had been pulling treasure out of the water too long to have been just lucky or smart or canny. He had a generous helping of all three. Larry had the luck in spades.

  Too bad our parents didn’t share that luck, Kate thought sadly.

  Then she closed the door on the haunted past. There was no time to dwell on it. First she had to call and make sure that Larry had followed through with the ticket. Her brother meant well, but the details of daily life quickly dissolved in the lure of diving.

  A call to the airport assured her that a ticket was waiting.

  The lock on the trap clicked shut.

  Don’t think about it. Breathe slowly. One . . . two . . . three.

  When her skin no longer felt cold, Kate went about preparing for travel with the efficiency of someone who always kept a suitcase of basics packed. Her life revolved around the inevitable, urgent calls from small businesses who trusted her to keep them out of the quicksand of red ink that always awaited people who were entrepreneurs, not accountants.

  People like Grandpa and Larry.

  Ruthlessly she shut off the thought. With tight motions she pulled business clothes out of her to-go suitcase and substituted shorts, sleeveless tops, sandals, and bathing suits. Remembering the penetrating tropical sun, she threw in some lightweight long pants and blouses, plus a hat and major sunblock. Unlike most residents of St. Vincent, she didn’t have the lush, dark skin that would allow her to ignore the sun.

  When she was finished, she eyed the two cartons of “business” papers that had arrived on her doorstep two days ago. On the subject of bookkeeping, Larry had raised malicious compliance to an art. Whoever wanted to check expenditures would have to spend days sorting out things in order to begin the real work of setting up spreadsheets to track expenses.

  It doesn’t matter. The contract they signed is a guaranteed loser for Moon Rose Ltd. Even if they discovered the richest galleon ever, the Brits would get it all and the Donnellys would get expenses plus three percent of the net profits.

  And the net is determined by the Brits. Articles given to museums aren’t part of the net, because they are donated, not sold.

  She couldn’t believe Larry had signed such a punitive contract.

  While she cleaned her condo—she hated coming back to a mess after a long trip—she mulled over the ways she might be able to help her family. By the time she had finished, showered, and set her alarm, she was fighting to stay awake. She was asleep before her head touched the pillow.

  And she dreamed.

  The sun was brilliant over the turquoise water and white sand. Lazy waves surged and rolled, making the boat lift and fall with the languid grace of a dancer. Laughter from below, her parents teasing one another as they checked dive gear . . . teasing sliding into screaming and the water closing around, sun overcome by night, wind and water bleeding into darkness and screams.

  Her screaming while her parents kept sinking, sliding from her grasp, she was spinning, screaming, reaching, the night sea devouring them, her, screaming no no NO NO . . .

  Kate awoke in a cold sweat, throat tight from remembered screams, heart racing, breathing almost impossible, her radio alarm shrill in her ears.

  Just a dream, she told herself.

  Just another nightmare.

  She should be used to them by now. She’d had them since the night her parents died. Since she hadn’t been able to save them from the ravenous sea.

  Night diving was dangerous.

  And now she was headed back to her greatest failure, her greatest fear.

  CHAPTER 1

  HOLDEN CAMERON SURVEYED the interior of St. Vincent’s modest airport with the eyes of a world traveler who had lived and worked in war zones. Instinctively he searched for danger in the body language of the people around him. He didn’t expect any, but had learned that the unexpected was a killer.

  You’re medically retired now, he reminded himself. You’re a bloody consultant.

  And you’re walking into a family of thieves.

  A smart man would be wary. Holden hadn’t survived this long by being dumb. And if he needed any reminder, the stabbing ache in his left thigh obliged. The scar from the shrapnel wound had faded somewhat, but pressure changes caused by flying or especially diving played merry hell with him.

  Idly he rubbed his thigh and wondered which one of the Vincentians who eddied through the arrival lounge would be his native guide. Most of the people were dressed in loose, colorful clothes that allowed them to be comfortable in St. Vincent’s unvarying heat. The only exception was the silver-haired, transparently pale Englishman who had boarded the plane with him at Heathrow.

  Poor bastard will get heatstroke. Canary Wharf suits don’t work well with St. Vincent’s climate, but appearances have to be kept up whilst living among the natives and all that utter rot.

  With faint amusement, Holden’s glance moved past the man, searching the faces of the people who were searching the faces of the people getting off the plane. Nobody seemed interested in him. He stepped aside from the main flow of traffic. Back to a wall, he watched and waited for someone to care, never taking his attention from the people milling about.

  Almost everyone in St. Vincent’s airport had hair as black as his, but considerably more curly. With it came the many shades of skin that resulted from hundreds of years of intermarriage between Europeans and the Africans who had once been slaves. What genetics began, the tropical sun burnished. The music in the voices was soothing, like the lapping of the sea on a moonlit shore.

  The glow of deep auburn hair caught his attention. The woman was casually dressed and subtly anxious. Her hair was sleek, pulled back into a ponytail, and looked natural rather than dyed. Wisps of hair curled gently in the humidity, clinging to her face and neck. Her curves would have done credit to an exotic dancer. Her skin was pale, with just enough freckles to tempt him into touching and tasting.

  Though Holden liked women of all shapes, colors, and sizes, he’d always had a weakness for redheads. Eyes that were the luminous turquoise of tropical shallows glanced at him, hesitated, then moved on, still searching.

  Pity, he thought, looking at the redhead from behind his mirrored sunglasses. I’d love to spend a few weeks lazing on the island with her, discovering and licking each freckle. But I’m here to oversee a scurvy lot of divers who appear to be keeping more than they should.

  Human greed, as reliable as gravity.

  Shifting
to ease the weight off his bad leg, he waited, watching. If nobody showed up, it would be one among many demerits in the file of Moon Rose Ltd.

  The crowd swirled, shifted, and eddied like richly colored water.

  Kate kept searching for a pale-skinned Brit, but saw no likely candidates.

  Did he miss the plane? she thought, then instantly rejected the idea.

  Accountants were precise. It came with the job. More likely, Larry had fouled up the arrival hour, or even day. Divers had their own way of keeping time. She and her brother had been born and raised aboard the Golden Bough, but she was able to shift gears to match whichever culture she found herself in. Larry . . . well, Larry liked the idea that time was divided into later, much later, and never.

  Again she searched among the Europeans who had arrived. The man leaning against the wall, watching the crowd through mirrored sunglasses, was too fit and had too much physical presence to make a convincing accountant. The man in the tropical suit and big belly was speaking what sounded like Russian, not London English. Another man had a flashy playmate hanging from his arm, English speaker by way of the Bronx. The pale, thin man in the heavy suit was diffident, searching for someone, and looked old enough to be her grandfather.

  Her attention kept wandering back to the man leaning against the wall. He had drawn a lot of female glances, but he greeted no one. His dark blue shirt was short-sleeved and square at the bottom, meant to be worn outside his khakis pants. Two waterproof duffels lay at his feet. Without moving, he dominated the place. His features were an unusual mixture of strength and refinement, his face oddly Celtic, his skin a silky dark honey.

  Wonder what color his eyes are, she thought.

  Then she mentally shook herself. She had only been on the island long enough to get her baggage and stow it in the old VW pickup Larry had left in the parking lot. Yet she already had succumbed to the lazy sensuality of St. Vincent, where the language was music, the temperature was made for bare skin, and the surface of the sea was always warm.

  The sea.

  Kate rubbed the cold bumps that rippled over her skin. Abruptly she made her choice. The pale man might be older than she had expected, but the rest of the package looked right. He was standing about ten feet from the intriguing man with the two duffel bags.