Romancing the Alpha: An Action-Adventure Romance Boxed Set (34 page)

A note was too subtle for Moira. What about Bill? Could he have slipped a warning into her backpack? She ran through the remaining people on the boat but came up blank. That one of them had put the note in her backpack was certain. Which one and why was the mystery.
Hot damn.
Between a vindictive ex-girlfriend, potential spies, and a missing jewelry plot straight out of a movie, this expedition was turning into a farce.

The note and its implications put a dampener on her excitement over seeing the
Lusitania
for the first time. She forced air into her lungs and squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to focus. A distracted diver was a danger to herself and others.

For the remainder of the journey out to the wreck site, Katy suited up and checked her rebreather kit. The mix of gases would allow her to breathe under water and stay under longer than regular scuba equipment. The catch was that rebreathers—especially the closed circuit variety—were fiddly and required vigilant monitoring.

Mark cast an eye over Katy’s gear and nodded in approval. “You’re good to go, Dr. Ryan.”

“Katy, please.” Proud though she was of her newly acquired academic title, she preferred going by her first name.

The man treated her to a flirtatious wink and moved down the row to Dex, who was fiddling with his tank and scowling.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “It was fine when I checked it this morning.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Mark examined the rebreather and shook his head. “In all likelihood, it’s functioning normally, but don’t take the risk. I have a spare rebreather with our supplies. Use that today, and I’ll have a proper look at this one while you’re on the dive.”

Katy leaned over the side of the ship, tasting the sea air on her tongue and the wind on her face. The sea was relatively calm today, but she wasn’t deceived. This area was where the Celtic Sea mingled with the Atlantic Ocean, and it did so with ferocity. Unless a diver had a death wish, they had to pay close attention to the currents.

Con, the skipper, whistled and slowed the boat. “First stop.”

“Okay, this is your team’s drop-off,” Rick said to Dex, Katy, and Jack. “Good luck and stay safe.”

After doing a final equipment check, Katy sat on the side of the boat, gave Rick a thumbs-up, and splashed backward into the cold water.

The sea was ice cold, even with her top-of-the-range diving suit. During the dive to the bottom, the water grew murkier and darker with each meter, but Katy didn’t care. This was what she lived for. The thrill of adventure, the rush of exploring places beyond the usual realm of human reach.

This dive was extra special. She’d been so busy finishing her doctoral thesis that she hadn’t had time to participate in dives earlier in the season. And what a dive this was. Each second brought her closer to her goal. Yeah, she’d seen photos and video footage of the wreck, but nothing could compare to experiencing it live.

Deeper and deeper they swam, Dex taking the lead. At last, he signaled that they were close, using both a verbal message through the microphone embedded in his helmet and a hand signal in case the sound waves played havoc.

A few minutes later, the murkiness cleared, and Katy’s breath caught. There she was: RMS
Lusitania
, one hundred years after her final, fatal voyage.

The ship was a far cry from her original splendor. The reports of the wreck’s poor condition were no exaggeration. It lay on its starboard side, broken and forlorn. Due to currents and weather, Katy’s vision was three meters max, and she was reliant on her expert knowledge of the wreck’s layout to orientate herself. Looking at maps and scaled models of the Lucy, it was easy to forget how large she’d been in life, and how vast her wreck site was in reality.

After another signal from Dex, Katy slowed her pace. She was now close enough to the ship that she could reach out and touch it. Resisting the urge, she hauled the camera out of her pack. Maneuvering items at this depth took strength and patience, and the camera’s bulky flash made it especially tricky. Once she had the camera in position, she spent the next while taking snaps.

In the wonder of the experience, she almost forgot her mission to look for Alfred Vanderbilt’s jewel case. On dry land, the job had seemed less daunting, less improbable, than it did down in the depths of the Celtic Sea, with a limited range of vision and a ticking clock. Although their rebreathers would allow them to stay underwater longer than simple scuba equipment, they had the currents to consider.

Dex was all swagger on land, but cool efficiency under water. “I’ll take this area—” he indicated a swathe of wreckage near a porthole window, “—and Jack can concentrate on the seabed. Katy, alternate between my area and Jack’s to take photos and film footage. As always, don’t forget to check your rebreathers regularly, and use hand signals in addition to speech for anything important.”

Dex got to work mapping his section of the ship, and Jack swam to the seabed at the edge of the wreck. Katy stayed with Dex at first, taking photos and shooting film. Despite the powerful flash, it was important to take plenty of shots in case some turned out grainy. The churning water ensured a constant supply of sand, plants, fish, and other underwater creatures to impede her vision. All she could do was snap as many pictures as possible and analyze the footage when they got to the surface.

The part of the ship they were working on had taken a serious beating, either during the sinking or over the last century. If Katy judged correctly, it had suffered the fallout of at least one depth charge. Without prior knowledge of the ship’s original structure, it would be impossible for a layperson to discern the various parts of the
Lusitania.
Katy identified this particular area as the engine room. Although battered, it was possible to peer inside the wreckage to the remains of a metal catwalk and an iron girder that ran across the room. As was the case with many ship disasters, the majority of the
Lusitania’s
engineers had not survived. Despite her protective suit, a shiver ran down Katy’s spine.

Dex’s voice crackled through her helmet’s integrated speakers. “Get over here.”

She swam to him and gasped when she saw what he held in his hand. It was a gold locket. “Weird place to find it.”

“Not really. Might have been lost during the sinking and sunk down to rest here.”

In other words, it might have been around a drowning passenger’s neck after the ship went down. Katy shuddered. She’d explored many wrecks before this one, including doomed submarines from the Second World War, but none had produced the visceral impact of the
Lusitania
. In the course of the research for her doctorate, she’d seen photographs of the passengers and watched the grainy video footage of their departure from New York on their fatal voyage. Despite the black-and-white photos and old-fashioned clothing, their faces were ones she might meet on the street. They were people with hopes and dreams and loved ones. All that ended in eighteen minutes of mayhem on May 7, 1915.

“Try not to think about it,” Dex said, reading her mind. He’d always had the uncanny ability to interpret her thoughts whenever she let her guard down.

“It’s impossible not to. Those poor people…” She hugged herself inside her suit.

Dex rested his arm on hers. Through the transparent material of his helmet, his blue eyes radiated compassion. “They met a terrible fate. It’s hard not to dwell on it, but we have a job to do today and—” he motioned to her breathing tank, “—a ticking clock.” Giving her a reassuring smile, he pulled the locket through the water and pushed it into his salvage bag. “Let’s get back to work.”

For the next half hour, Katy worked beside Dex, snapping photo after photo. Being this close to him was a heady sensation. His absence from her life had left a gaping hole. Despite spending the last eight months immersed in research, not a second went by when she didn’t miss Dex, didn’t wonder what would have happened if she’d swallowed her stupid pride and apologized. He was the only man who’d ever coaxed her out of her protective shell. And let’s not forget the earth shattering sex…jeez, she had to get a grip.

Apart from the chance find of the locket, this part of the wreck didn’t boast much to salvage. After snapping hundreds of photos, Katy tapped Dex on the shoulder. “I’m going to move over to Jack.”

“Okay,” he said, “but don’t forget—”

“To keep track of time and check my equipment regularly.” She gave him a thumbs-up. “I know. It’s been a while since my last dive but I’m no rookie.”

“I’m team leader down here, cup—Katy. It’s my responsibility to get the three of us safely back to the surface. Humor me, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” She gave him a mock salute.

Dex’s suit shook with mirth. “I don’t know how you survived the Navy. Taking orders is not your forte.”

“Taking orders from dickheads is not my forte.”

“Do I qualify?” He sounded amused.

“On occasion.” She swam away to the sound of Dex’s laughter crackling through her speakers.

Jack was hard at work on the seabed, brushing away sand and sifting through the debris. The digging caused particles to spin through the water, further impacting their poor range of vision.

“Hey,” Katy said when she reached him.

“Hello, Dr.—Katy.” She sensed his blush through the protective layer of his helmet. He seemed a sweet kid but he’d need to toughen up if he were to survive the rigors of underwater archaeology, especially working on a team led by the capricious Rick Nulty.

She eyed the items lined up on his tray with unabashed curiosity. “Turned up anything interesting?”

“Indeed.” Even through the poor reception of the speaker, the man’s enthusiasm was evident. He opened his salvage bag and hauled out a woman’s shoe, complete with buckle. “Isn’t it fascinating? So well preserved by the sand.”

“Uh, great.” Katy’s stomach churned as she imagined its owner’s probable fate. She snapped a few photos of the shoe, plus the other items Jack had unearthed. She’d take more photos when they got back to the ship, but there was something eerily haunting about photographs of artifacts in situ.

For the next hour, Jack continued digging in the seabed. Apart from a few minor finds including a fork, a dinner plate bearing the Cunard Line’s logo, and a broken belt, nothing spectacular revealed itself. Certainly not Alfred Vanderbilt’s jewel case, Katy thought gloomily. At any rate, they were at the wrong end of the ship for that. Come hell or deep water, she’d make damn sure she got to dive down to the area of the promenade deck and the entrance to the first class staterooms on a future dive.

“Well, hello there.” Jack produced something from beneath the sand with a flourish—or what passed as a flourish at this depth. In his gloved hand, he held a broken watch. “I can’t see an engraving, but we might have more luck when we’re back on the ship.”

“There’s something else there,” Katy said, her heart rate accelerating. “See that glint of gold to the left?”

She swam down and took a few photos before scooping up a small golden case. No, not golden. Unless she was very much mistaken, this was solid gold. Her heart thumped an uneven rhythm. Could it belong to…? But what were the odds of that? Despite the wealth of many of the first class passengers, Alfred Vanderbilt was one of the most probable candidates to own a solid gold cigar case. She slipped it into her salvage bag, anxious to reach the surface and take a proper look.

The rest of their time raced by. Dex unearthed yet another intact dinner plate, and Jack a fork. Other than these minor finds, nothing else of interest came to light. Together, they moved to an area farther away from the ship’s structure, where debris from the wreck was known to lie. This involved more digging in the seabed and resulted in a few interesting finds. A tin cup, possibly from the third class restaurant.

Katy glanced at her watch. Despite feeling they’d been under only an hour, their time was running out. They were down to their last five minutes when Jack motioned for her to swim over to him. Curiosity piqued, she followed his signals. When she saw what he’d found, her breath caught in an instant of panic. It was an anti-submarine depth charge.

“Holy fuck. Is it live?”

“No. See here?” Jack pointed to part of the bomb. “That indicates it malfunctioned on the way down. Given its approximate age and location, I suspect it’s one of the explosives that caused damage to the wreck in the latter part of the First World War.”

Katy nodded. She was familiar enough with the history of the period to know that the original anti-submarine depth charges used by the British Navy during the First World War weren’t precise enough or powerful enough to reliably hit and sink a moving submarine. Their effectiveness lay in forcing the submarines to move out of the area and generally caused more damage to the seabed than to their targets.

Her heart rate began to return to normal. She lacked the expertise to date a depth charge in these conditions, but they were Jack’s specialty. The ones they had to look out for dated from the Second World War and beyond.

While Katy snapped photos of Jack’s find, Dex joined them and signaled the order for them to begin their ascent. The journey to the surface always took longer than the descent, due to the need to allow time for decompression stops. Having once seen a diver get the bends, Katy knew it was no joke.

The ascent went smoothly, and Con was waiting for them on the surface. Back on board the ship, they went through the laborious process of shedding their wet diving gear while Con maneuvered the boat into position to collect the second team.

Dex ambled over to Katy while she was examining the couple of items she’d retrieved from the seabed.

“Not bad for day one,” he said, peering at the cigar case. “Is it engraved?”

“We’re about to find out.” Katy carefully opened the case. Despite a century underwater—assuming it did come from the sinking of the
Lusitania
—the hinges worked perfectly.

The remnants of what had once been cigars fell onto the plastic covering Katy had spread over the table. Clearing the debris from the inside of the case revealed the curly letters of an engraved name on the inside flap:
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.