The Reef (9 page)

“I don't very often.” Wanting to change the mood, he draped an arm over her shoulders. “Like I said, the past is past. And it's too nice a day to think about it. Maybe we should take some time off later in the week. Rent some skis or try some parasailing.”

“Parasailing.” She looked up at the sky, relieved that his voice was casual again. “Have you ever done it?”

“Sure. The next best thing to being under the water is being over it.”

“I'm game if you are. But if we're going to talk the rest of this crew into a day off, we'd better get to work. Get your hammer, Lassiter. It's back to the chain gang.”

They'd barely begun to work on conglomerate, when they heard a shout over the port side. Tate brushed off her hands and strolled over.

“Matthew,” she said in a thin voice. “Come here. Mom.” She cleared her throat. “Mom! Come out. Bring the camera. Oh, God. Hurry.”

“For heaven's sake, Tate, I'm frying shrimp.” Exasperated, Marla came on deck with the video camera swinging from her arm. “I don't have time to take movies.”

Tate, with her hand vised on Matthew's, turned and
grinned idiotically. “I think you'll want to take one of this.”

Marla scooted to Tate's other side, and the three of them looked over the rail.

Both Buck and Ray bobbed in the water, faces beaming manically. Each gripped the side of a bucket that shimmered and dripped with gold doubloons.

“Jesus Christ,” Matthew breathed. “Is that thing full?”

“To the brim,” Ray called out. “And we've filled two more below.”

“You ain't seen nothing like it, boy. We're rich as kings.” Water trickled down Buck's face, from his eyes. “There are thousands of them, thousands, just lying there. You gonna haul this up, or you want us to pitch them to you one at a time?”

Ray howled with laughter, and the two men batted each other on the head. Coins spilled out of the bucket, like loose fish.

“Wait, wait, I have to get you in frame.” Marla fumbled, cursed, laughed. “Oh hell, I can't find the record button.”

“I'll do it.” Tate snatched the camera, bobbled it. “Hold it steady, guys, and smile.”

“They're going to drown each other.” Matthew gripped the rope and drew the bucket up. “Christ, it's heavy. Give me a hand here.”

Marla grunted, nearly upended over the rail, but hauled the rope with him while Tate gleefully recorded the scene. “I'm going to go down with the underwater camera.” Awed, she plunged her hand into the coins when Matthew set the bucket on deck. “God, who'd have imagined it? I'm up to my elbow in doubloons.”

“Told you to imagine big, girl,” Buck shouted. “Marla, you get out your fanciest dress 'cause we're going dancing tonight.”

“That's my wife, pal.”

“Not after I kill you, hoss. Going to get another bucket.”

“Not if I get there first.”

Tate sprang up and raced for her wet suit. “I'm going
down with the underwater camera. I want to get this on film, give them a hand.”

“I'll be right with you. Marla.” Matthew snapped his fingers in front of Marla's glazed eyes. “Marla, I think your shrimp's burning.”

“Oh. Oh, my lord.” Still clutching a handful of doubloons, she dashed to the galley.

“Do you know what this means?” Tate demanded as she fought her way into her wet suit.

“That we're stinking rich.” Matthew snatched her off her feet and whirled her around.

“Think of the equipment we can buy. Sonar, magnetometers, a bigger boat.” She gave him a sloppy kiss before wriggling away. “Two bigger boats. I'll get a computer for listing artifacts.”

“Maybe we should get a submersible while we're at it.”

“Good. Put that down. One submersible with robotics so we can mine the abyss on our next expedition.”

He hooked on his weight belt. “What about fancy clothes, cars, jewelry?”

“Not a priority, but I'll keep it in mind. Mom! We're going down to give Dad and Buck a hand.”

“See if you can catch me some more shrimp.” Marla poked her head out, held out a platter filled with blackened blobs. “These aren't fit to eat.”

“Marla, I'm going to buy you a trawler of shrimp, another of beer.” On impulse, Matthew caught her face in his hands and kissed her full on the mouth. “I love you.”

“Might try telling me that,” Tate mumbled under her breath, then jumped off the side. She went in feet first, then tucked neatly and began to swim. Following the line, she kicked through the murky cloud, and into the clear.

There Ray and Buck hovered at the bottom, a second bucket of gold beside them as they plucked through the pay dirt. She snapped a picture as Buck handed her father a blackened brick that was an ingot of silver.

Fish swam around them, a living carousel, as they mined the sand. Medallions, more coins, oblong bricks of discolored silver. Ray found a dagger, its handle and blade crusted with sea life. Feigning a dueling stance, he jabbed
it playfully at Buck, who hefted an ingot and mimed a defense.

Beside Tate, Matthew shook his head, circled his finger around his ear.

Yes, she thought, they were crazy. And wasn't it great?

She swam clear to take her pictures from different angles. She wanted a good composition of the little pyramid of ingots, another of the odd sculpture of coins and medals fused together beside the glinting bucket.

National Geographic,
she thought gleefully, here I come. The Beaumont Museum just found its cornerstone.

She accepted the dagger her father offered. With her diver's knife she scraped delicately at the handle. Her eyes rounded at the glint of a ruby. Like a buccaneer she tucked it into her weight belt.

Through signals, Buck indicated that he and Matthew would haul up the next load. Ray pantomimed opening a bottle of champagne, drinking. This met with unanimous agreement. Giving the “okay” sign, Buck and Matthew kicked toward the surface with a bucket between them.

Tate gestured for her father to stand with one flipper poised on the pile of ingots and snapped pictures as he happily hammed it up for her. She was bubbling with laughter when she let the camera drop by its strap.

And then she noticed the stillness.

It was odd, she thought absently. All the fish were gone. Even Smiley seemed to have whisked himself away. Nothing stirred in the water, and the silence was suddenly and eerily heavy.

She glanced up through the murk and saw the shadow of Matthew and Buck as they carried their rich burden to the surface.

And then she saw the nightmare.

It came so fast, so quiet, that her mind rejected it. First there was nothing but the figures of the men swimming through the cloudy water, the sun fighting through it in thin misty streams. Then the shadow bulleted out of nowhere.

Someone screamed. Later her father would tell her the
sound had come from her, and had alerted him. But by that time she was already clawing her way up.

The shark was longer than a man, perhaps ten feet. In her horror, she could see that its jaw was already open for the kill. She saw the moment they understood the danger and screamed again because she knew it was too late.

The men broke apart, as if propelled. Gold poured down through the water like dazzling rain. With terror digging talons into her throat, Tate watched the shark take Buck in his vicious mouth, shake him like a dog shakes a rat. The force of the attack ripped off his mask and mouthpiece as the shark tore him through the blood-smeared water. Somehow her knife was in her hand.

The shark dived, still thrashing as Matthew plunged his blade into its flesh, aiming for and missing the brain. The desperate jab left a gash, but the fish, frenzied on blood, held on to its prey and rammed his attacker.

Lips peeled back from his teeth, Matthew stabbed and hacked. Buck was dead. He knew Buck was dead. And his only thought was to kill. The shark's black, glasslike eye fixed on him, rolled back white. Buck's body drifted free in the swirling blood as the fish sought fresh prey and mindless revenge.

Matthew braced himself, prepared to kill or die. And Tate burst through the hideous murk like a warrior angel, an ancient dagger in one hand, a diver's knife in the other.

He thought his fear had reached his limit. But it doubled then, almost paralyzed him, as the shark turned toward the movement and charged her. Blind with terror, he kicked forward through the curtain of blood, rammed hard against the wounded shark to impede its progress. With a strength born of hot panic, Matthew plunged his knife into its back to the hilt.

And prayed as he had never known he could.

Grimly, he held on while the shark rolled and thrashed. He saw that while his blade had found its mark, so had hers. She'd ripped open its belly.

Matthew let the carcass go and saw that Ray was struggling toward them with his knife freed in one hand while he hauled Buck's limp body. Knowing what the bloody
water could bring, Matthew dragged Tate toward the surface.

“Get in the boat,” he ordered. But her face was chalk white, her eyes beginning to roll back. He slapped her once, twice, until she focused. “Get in the fucking boat. Haul anchor. Do it.”

She nodded, breath sobbing, and struck out in awkward strokes as he dived again. Her hands kept slipping on the ladder, and she'd forgotten to pull off her flippers. She couldn't find the air to call out. Her mother had turned on the radio, and Madonna was slyly claiming to be just like a virgin.

Her tanks clattered on deck, and the noise had Marla strolling over from the starboard side. In an instant, she was crouched beside Tate.

“Mama. Shark.” Tate rolled over to her hands and knees and choked up water. “Buck. Oh God.”

“You're all right.” Marla's voice was high and thin. “Oh, baby, are you all right?”

“It's Buck. Hospital. He needs a hospital. Pull up the anchor. Hurry.”

“Ray. Tate. Your father?”

“He's all right. Hurry. Radio the island.”

As Marla raced off, Tate pushed herself up; she dragged off her belt, turning her eyes away from the blood on her hands. She stood, swayed, bit her lip hard to keep from passing out. As she ran to the side, she dragged off her tanks.

“He's alive.” Ray grabbed for the ladder. Between them, he and Matthew supported Buck's body. “Help us get him onboard.” His eyes, full of horror and pain, met hers. “Hold on to yourself, baby.”

As they lifted Buck's unconscious form into the boat, she saw why he had warned her. The shark had taken his leg below the knee.

Bile rose to her throat. Grimly, she swallowed it, gritting her teeth until the nausea and dizziness passed. She heard her mother gasp, but when she turned, her movements slow and sluggish, Marla was moving forward briskly.

“We need blankets, Tate. And towels. Plenty of towels.
Hurry. And the first-aid kit. Ray, I radioed ahead. They're expecting us at Frigate Bay. You'd better take the wheel.” She pulled off her blouse beneath which she wore a pretty white lace bra. Without a wince she used the crisp cotton to staunch the blood at the stub of Buck's leg.

“Good girl,” she murmured when Tate ran back with armloads of towels. “Matthew, pack these around the wound. Hold them firmly against it. Matthew.” Her voice was dead calm and with enough steel to have his head jerking up. “He needs lots of pressure on that leg, understand me. We're not having him bleed to death.”

“He's not dead,” Matthew said dully as she took his hands and pressed them to the towels she'd packed against the wound. There was already a sickening pool of blood welling on the deck.

“No, he's not dead. And he's not going to be. We'll need a tourniquet.” Her eyes stung as she noticed Buck was still wearing his left flipper, but her hands were quick and efficient. They never trembled as she fixed the tourniquet above the gory stump of his right leg.

“We need to keep him warm,” she said calmly. “We'll have him to the hospital in a few minutes. In just a few minutes.”

Tate covered Buck with a blanket, then knelt on the bloody deck to take his hand. Then she reached for Matthew's and linked the three of them.

She held on as the boat flew through the water toward land.

M
ATTHEW SAT ON
the floor in the hospital corridor and tried to keep his mind blank. If he let down his guard, for even an instant, he was back in the bloody swirl of water, staring into the doll's eyes of the shark, seeing those wicked rows of teeth slice into Buck.

He knew he would see it hundreds, thousands of times in his sleep—the blinding scream of bubbles, the thrashing of man and fish, the blade of his own knife plunging and hacking.

Each time the scene rolled through his brain, what had taken only minutes stretched hideously into hours, each movement slowed into horrible clarity. He could see it all, from the first bump when Buck had shoved him out of the shark's attack path and through to the rush and noise of the emergency room.

Slowly, he lifted his hand, flexed it. He remembered how Buck's fingers had tightened on it, gripped hard on that race to the island. He'd known then that Buck was alive. And that was somehow worse, because he couldn't convince himself that Buck would stay that way.

It seemed that the sea delighted in taking the people he cared for most.

Angelique's Curse, he thought on a wave of guilt and
grief. Maybe Buck had been right. The fucking necklace was down there, just lying in wait for a victim. The search for it had taken two people he'd loved.

It wasn't going to get another.

He opened his hand, rubbed it hard over his face like a man waking from a long sleep. He thought he must be going a little crazy, thinking this way. A man had killed his father, and a shark had killed Buck. It was a pitiful defense against his own failure to save them that had him blaming an amulet he'd never even seen.

However bloody that ancient necklace and the lore surrounding it might be, Matthew knew he couldn't point the guilt at anyone or anything but himself. If he'd been quicker, Buck would still be whole. If he'd been smarter, his father would still be alive.

As he was alive. As he was whole. He would have to carry that weight for the rest of his life.

For a moment, he rested his brow on his knees, fought to clear his head again. He knew the Beaumonts were just down the hall in the waiting room. They'd offered him comfort, support, unity. And he'd had to escape. Their quiet compassion had all but destroyed him.

He already knew that if Buck had even a slim chance of survival, it wasn't due to him, but to Marla's quick, calm and unflinching handling of a crisis. It was she who had taken control, even down to remembering to grab clothes from the boat.

He hadn't even been able to fill out the hospital forms, but had only stared at them until she'd taken the clipboard from him, gently asked the questions and filled in the blanks herself.

It was frightening to discover that he was, essentially, useless.

“Matthew.” Tate crouched in front of him, took his hands and wrapped them around a cup of coffee. “Come in and sit down.”

He shook his head. Because the coffee was in his hands he lifted it and sipped. He could see that her face was still pale and glossy with shock, her eyes red. But the hand she rested on his updrawn knee was steady.

In one terrifying mental blip, he saw her hurtling through the water toward the jaws of the shark.

“Go away, Tate.”

Instead, she sat beside him, draped an arm around his shoulders. “He's going to make it, Matthew. I know it.”

“What, are you a fortune-teller now, on top of everything else?”

His voice was cold and sharp. Though it wounded, she leaned her head on his shoulder. “It's important to believe it. It helps to believe it.”

She was wrong. It hurt to believe it. Because it did, he jerked away from her, got to his feet. “I'm going for a walk.”

“I'll go with you.”

“I don't want you.” He whirled on her, letting all the fear, the guilt, the grief explode into fury. “I don't want you anywhere near me.”

Her stomach quaked, her eyes stung, but she held her ground. “I'm not leaving you alone, Matthew. You'd better get used to it.”

“I don't want you,” he repeated, and stunned her by putting a hand just under her throat and pushing her against the wall. “I don't need you. Now, why don't you go get your nice, pretty family and take off?”

“Because Buck matters to us.” Though she managed to swallow the tears, they roughened her voice. “So do you.”

“You don't even know us.” Something was screaming inside him to get out. To keep it hidden even from himself, he pushed her. His face, inches from hers, was hard, cold, merciless. “You're just out for a lark, taking a few months in the sun to play at treasure-hunting. You got lucky. You don't know what it's like to go month after month, year after year and have nothing to show for it. To die and have nothing.”

Her breath was hitching now no matter how she fought to control it. “He's not going to die.”

“He's already dead.” The fury died from his eyes like a light switched off and left them blank and flat. “He was dead the minute he pushed me out of the way. The goddamn idiot pushed me out of the way.”

There it was, the worst of it, out, ringing on the sterilized hospital air. He turned from it, covered his face, but couldn't escape it.

“He pushed me out of the way, got in front of me. What the hell was he thinking of? What were you thinking of?” Matthew demanded, spinning back to her with all the helpless anger rolling back into him like a riptide. “Coming at us that way. Don't you know anything? When a shark's got blood it'll attack anything. You should have headed for the boat. With that much blood in the water, we were lucky it didn't draw a dozen sharks in to feed. What the hell were you thinking of?”

“You.” She said it quietly and stayed where she was, backed against the wall. “I guess both Buck and I were thinking about you. I couldn't have handled it if anything had happened to you, Matthew. I couldn't have lived with it. I love you.”

Undone, he stared at her. There had been no one, in his whole life, who had said those three words to him. “Then you're stupid,” he managed, and pulled unsteady fingers through his hair.

“Maybe.” Her lips were trembling. Even when she pressed them hard together, they vibrated with the power of her roiling emotions. “I guess you were pretty stupid, too. You didn't leave Buck. You thought he was dead and you could have gotten away while the shark had him. You didn't. Why didn't you head for the boat, Matthew?”

He only shook his head. When she stepped forward to put her arms around him, he buried his face in her hair. “Tate.”

“It's all right,” she murmured, running soothing strokes up his rigid back. “It's going to be all right. Just hold on to me.”

“I'm bad luck.”

“That's foolish. You're just tired now, and worried. Come in and sit down. We'll all wait together.”

 

She stayed beside him. The hours passed in that dream state so common to hospitals. People came and went.
There was the soft flap of crepe-soled shoes on tile as nurses passed the doorway, the smell of overbrewed coffee, the sharp tang of antiseptic that never quite masked the underlying odor of sickness. Occasionally there was the faint swish as the elevator doors opened and closed.

Then softly, gently, rain began to patter on the windows.

Tate dozed with her head pillowed on Matthew's shoulder. She was awake and aware the instant his body tensed. Instinctively, she reached for his hand as she looked toward the doctor.

He came in quietly, a surprisingly young man with lines of fatigue around his eyes and mouth. His skin, the color of polished ebony, looked like folded black silk.

“Mr. Lassiter.” Despite the obvious weariness, his voice was as musical as the evening rain.

“Yes.” Braced for condolences, Matthew pushed himself to his feet.

“I am Doctor Farrge. Your uncle has come through the surgery. Please sit.”

“What do you mean, come through?”

“He has survived the operation.” Farrge sat on the edge of the coffee table, waited for Matthew to settle. “His condition is critical. You know he lost a great deal of blood. More than three liters. If he had lost even a fraction more, if it had taken you even ten minutes longer to get him here, there would have been no chance. However, his heart is very strong. We're optimistic.”

Hope was too painful. Matthew simply nodded. “Are you telling me he's going to live?”

“Every hour his chances improve.”

“And those chances are?”

Farrge took a moment to measure his man. With some, kindness didn't comfort. “He has perhaps a forty percent chance of surviving the night. If he does, I would upgrade that. Further treatment will be necessary, of course, when he is stabilized and stronger. When this time comes I can recommend to you several specialists who have good reputations in treating patients with amputated limbs.”

“Is he conscious?” Marla asked quietly.

“No. He will be in recovery for some time, then in our Critical Care Unit. I would not expect him to be alert for several hours. I would suggest that you leave a number where you can be reached at the nurses' station. We'll contact you if there is any change.”

“I'm staying,” Matthew said simply. “I want to see him.”

“Once he is in CCU, you'll be able to see him. But only for a short period.”

“We'll get a hotel.” Ray rose, laid a hand on Matthew's shoulder. “We'll take shifts here.”

“I'm not leaving.”

“Matthew.” Ray squeezed gently. “We need to work as a team.” He glanced at his daughter, read what was in her eyes. “Marla and I will find us some rooms, make the arrangements. We'll come back and relieve you and Tate in a few hours.”

 

There were so many tubes snaking out from the still figure in the bed. Machines beeped and hummed. Outside the thin curtain Matthew could hear the quiet murmurings of the nurses, their brisk steps as they went about the business of tending lives.

But in this room, narrow and dim, he was alone with Buck. He forced himself to look down at the sheet, at the odd way it lay. He would have to get used to it, he thought. They would both have to get used to it.

If Buck lived.

He barely looked alive now, his face slack, his body so strangely tidy in the bed. Buck was a tosser, Matthew remembered, a man who tugged and kicked at sheets, one who snored violently enough to scrape the paint from the walls.

But he was as still and silent now as a man in a coffin.

Matthew took the broad, scarred hand in his, a gesture he knew would have embarrassed both of them had Buck been conscious. He held it, studying the face he'd thought he knew as well as his own.

Had he ever noticed how thick Buck's eyebrows were, or how the gray peppered them? And when had the lines
around his eyes begun to crisscross that way? Wasn't it strange that his forehead, which rose into that egg-shaped skull, was so smooth? Like a girl's.

Jesus, Matthew thought, and squeezed his eyes tight. His leg was gone.

Fighting off panic, Matthew leaned down. He was nearly comforted by the sound of Buck's breathing.

“That was a damn stupid thing to do. You made a mistake getting in front of me that way. Maybe you figured on wrestling with that shark, but I guess you're not as quick as you used to be. Now you probably figure I owe you. Well, you've got to live to collect.”

He tightened his grip. “You hear that, Buck. You've got to live to collect. Think about that. You kick off on me, you lose, and me and the Beaumonts will just split your share of the
Marguerite
on top of it. Your first big strike, Buck, and if you don't pull out of this, you won't get to spend the first coin.”

A nurse parted the curtain, a gentle reminder that the time was up.

“It'd be a real shame if you didn't get to enjoy some of that fame and fortune you've always wanted, Buck. You keep that in mind. They're tossing me out of here, but I'll be back.”

In the corridor, Tate paced, as much from nerves as the need to keep herself awake. The moment she saw Matthew come through the doors, she hurried over.

“Did he wake up at all?”

“No.”

Taking his hand, Tate struggled with her own fears. “The doctor said he wouldn't. I suppose we were all hoping otherwise. Mom and Dad are going to take a shift now.” When he started to shake his head, she squeezed his fingers impatiently. “Matthew, listen to me. We're all a part of this. And I think he's going to need all of us, so we may as well start now. You and I are going to the hotel. We're going to get a meal, and we're going to sleep for a few hours.”

As she spoke, she drew him down the corridor. After
sending her parents a bolstering smile, she steered Matthew toward the elevators.

“We're all going to lean on each other, Matthew. That's the way it works.”

“There has to be something I can do.”

“You're doing it,” she said gently. “We'll be back soon. You just need to rest a little. So do I.”

He looked at her then. Her skin was so pale it seemed he could pass his hand through it. Smudges of exhaustion bruised her eyes. He hadn't been thinking of her, he realized. Nor had he considered that she might have needed to lean on him.

“You need sleep.”

“I could use a couple of hours.” Keeping her hand on his, she stepped into the elevator car, pushed the button for the lobby. “Then we'll come back. You can sit with Buck again until he wakes up.”

“Yeah.” Matthew stared blankly at the descending numbers. “Until he wakes up.”

Outside, the wind kicked at the rain, swept through palm fronds. The cab bumped along the narrow, deserted streets, its tires sluicing at puddles. It was like driving through someone else's dream—the dark, the huddle of unfamiliar buildings shifting in the glare of headlights, the monotonous squeak of the wipers across the windshield.