Page 3 of Nyall

That fantasy was all Caroline needed to keep going. “There’s going to be all kinds of blame and shame, babe.”

Swimming in her wet suit gave her more buoyancy that she would have had in a bikini, and her fins helped her maximize her kicks. Thanks to the streamlining neoprene material she had more side-to-side roll, and longer reach with her arms. Still, after an hour of swimming she figured she’d only crossed three or four miles of ocean. As she took a floating rest, she ran the numbers in her head. Adding in time for rest breaks, Caroline would be swimming for another eight hours before she got near enough to the popular fishing and cruising areas. By then the sun would have set, decreasing her chances of being spotted to almost zero. She’d be swimming alone and exhausted in the dark.

Why are you trying so hard to survive this? Guys like Rich always get what they want, are adored by everyone, and live to be a hundred.

Caroline had learned long ago that she had to fight for everything in life. Her mother, Gina Gataki, had been only eighteen when she’d married Jack Parish, the oil-rig roughneck who had gotten her pregnant. How he would have served as a father no one knew, as he’d died in a drilling accident before Caroline had been born. That had forced Gina to go back to work as a sponge diver to make ends meet. Caroline remembered her mom handing her off to her grandmother at the dock, something she’d done until Caroline had grown old enough to go out with her and her grandfather on the boat. Then Gina had taught her how to swim, and then to free dive, and finally to collect the sea sponges that helped support them and her grandparents.

Don’t be greedy, my little star, Gina would say in Greek to her whenever she spent too long underwater. The sea provides us with just enough.

Her mother had insisted Caroline stay home one weekend when she’d had an ear infection, which was the only reason she was still alive. While out on the water Gina and her father had been caught in a sudden storm. The old boat had washed ashore, but their bodies had never been found. Caroline had been sixteen, and that loss had forced her to drop out of school. Working as a sponge diver had allowed her to care for her broken-hearted grandmother until she died a few years later.

Since then, Caroline had been on her own, and she should have kept it that way. Loneliness had coerced her to get involved with Rich even when she’d suspected how spineless and selfish he was. She’d just never imagined her lover resorting to murder so he could claim the glory and treasure of the San Miguel all for himself. It made her sick to think she’d slept with her own killer.

He’s only that if I give up and die.

Once she had rested enough, Caroline checked her direction by setting her dive watch to compass mode, and then began to swim west again. The sea remained calm, and she saw no signs of any predators, so she judged she was good for the next hour. The sun beginning its descent and the temptation to keep pushing on got the better of her, and she swam until her muscles began to burn. When she stopped to rest, she noticed for the first time the weight of the waves buffeting her, and her own growing weakness. The effects of the exertion made her want to scream with frustration, but that would only waste energy she needed to stay alive.

No boats appeared anywhere around her; she still couldn’t see land.

A cramp in her right shin made Caroline automatically reach down to massage it, and she sank under the water for a moment. The knotting muscle told her that she was becoming dehydrated now, which could prove just as deadly as exhaustion. Nothing was on her side, she thought. Panic danced around the edge of her thoughts like a grinning skeleton, threatening to make her hysterical.

No way am I losing it.

She needed to accept that Rich would very likely get away with murdering her. She doubted anyone had seen them leave the dock; it had still been dark when they’d set out at four a.m. Even if someone had, her partner could make up whatever story he wanted to go along with the doctored recording of the coms. He’d probably already worked that out and had everything rehearsed. Without a body or any witnesses, the police would be hard-pressed to charge Rich with anything.

No one will ever know what really happened to me.

That she would die at twenty-five years old because of lost treasure that she didn’t even want seemed horribly unfair. All the people she’d loved had already been taken from her. She’d dropped out of school and sacrificed her dream of becoming a marine biologist just so she could get by and take care of her grandmother. In between dive jobs she’d worked at bars and restaurants to pay the bills. She’d never wanted marriage or kids, but she’d been waiting to find the man of her dreams and fall in love.

I’m alone and tired, but I’m not dead. Not yet.

Caroline surfaced, and gently worked her leg muscles with a slow stretching movement until the cramp eased. When she brushed her wet hair back from her face the side of her hand nudged the tiny pearl earring she’d forgotten to remove before leaving her apartment this morning. Rich had given her the studs for her birthday last November, and joked about how someday soon he’d replace them with something better.

“I never wanted diamonds, you son of a bitch,” she muttered.

Without thinking of anything else, she went back to swimming west. All she let into her head was the sea, and how beautiful it was on this calm, sunny day. The taste of salt on her lips made her imagine heading into her favorite beachside bar once she got home. She’d order a tequila sunrise, and maybe some extra-spicy nachos, and buy a shot for the bartender so they could have a toast for her mom. She’d probably kiss the first good-looking guy she saw when she reached shore.

Then she’d go and find Rich.

Hours passed; how many Caroline didn’t know. The terrible anger, like her two-beat kicks, sustained her for a good long while. At times she swam under the surface to keep her head from overheating, and alternated between different arm strokes to avoid stressing her shoulders. When she stopped again, she judged from the sun’s slant that it was around four in the afternoon. Her breathing had grown labored, and she was struggling again to stave off the anxiety of being stranded so far from land. Her arm and leg muscles burned and knotted as she treaded water and watched the sea, turning to look in every direction.

No boats, no sign of land, no hope.

As she thought of continuing to swim her stomach clenched, and her body sagged in the water. Tears stung her irritated eyes as she reassessed her physical condition. She’d used up almost all of her energy; judging by what was left she wouldn’t last another mile or two. If she cramped again, she likely wouldn’t be able to stay afloat long enough to work it out. She didn’t want to end up floundering and terrified, either. In the end, maybe all that mattered was going out with some dignity. The fastest way to do that was one final deep dive.

Okay, Mama. Time to come and be with you and Papou.

The sweetness of relief spread through Caroline as she began breathing to saturate herself with as much oxygen as she could. Accepting her fate proved a lot easier than fighting it; she even had a kind of strange anticipation of what awaited her. Would it be some sort of afterlife like the church-goers always touted, or plunging into nothingness and going to sleep forever?

She reached down and pulled off her fins, which floated up to the surface. Since she was on the inside of the Florida current of the Gulfstream, they might even make it to shore with the tide. She’d had them custom-made and stamped with her name and phone number, so someone who found them might figure out what had happened to her. Then she thought of her diver down flag, which her partner always forgot to remove after they came back to the docks. Maybe someone would see it and start asking questions. Maybe Rich wouldn’t get away with her murder.

Taking what she knew would be her last breath, Caroline dove underwater.

Her weary arms and legs managed to keep working as she swam for the bottom. Caroline knew the pressure was increasing from the weight of it in her ears, but that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing really did. It seemed strange that she had never been more alive than she was in this moment of choosing to end everything. Hopefully she’d reach the bottom before she blacked out. The water here proved slightly shallower, and her dive watch showed she was at a hundred and twenty feet when she finally touched silt.

Wow. Nitrogen narcosis had already begun to set in, Caroline realized, as a beautiful euphoria filled her. Was this what it did to you and grandpa, Mama?

Something glittered in a bunch of kelp right in front of her nose, and dreamily she reached out to touch it. Incredibly it turned out to be a gorgeous silver ring with a glittering green stone. She slid it onto her finger, and then held out her hand to admire it.