“Yes.” She unhooked her tanks, but it was more than their weight she felt lifted from her shoulders. “I’ve finished.” Digging into her bag, she pulled out the six bright coins. “These were loose. We still haven’t found the chest. If it still exists.”

He’d already thought of that, but not how he’d tell her his own theory. “They might have taken the chest to another part of the boat when the storm hit.” It was a possibility; it had given them hope that the chest was still there.

Kate looked down. The glittery metal seemed to mock her. “It’s possible they put the gold in one of the lifeboats when they manned them. The survivor’s story wasn’t clear after the ship began to break up.”

“A lot of things are possible.” He touched her cheek briefly before he started to strip off his gear. “With a little luck and a little more time, we might find it all.”

She smiled as she dropped the coins back into her bag. “Then you could buy your boat.”

“And you could go to Greece.” Stripped down to his bathing trunks, Ky went to the helm. “We need to give ourselves the full twelve hours before we dive again, Kate. We’ve been calling it close as it is.”

“That’s fine.” She made a business of removing her own suit. She needed the twelve hours, she discovered, for more than the practical reason of residual nitrogen.

They spoke little on the trip back. They should’ve been ecstatic. Kate knew it, and though she tried, she couldn’t recapture that quick boost she’d felt when she picked up the first coin.

She discovered that if she’d had a choice she would have gone back weeks, to the time when the gold was a distant goal and the search was everything.

It took the rest of the day to transport the salvage from the Vortex to Ky’s house, to separate and catalog it. She’d already decided to contact the Park Service. Their advice in placing many of the artifacts would be invaluable. After taxes, she’d give her father his memorial. And, she mused, she’d give Ky whatever he wanted out of the salvage.

Their original agreement no longer mattered to her. If he wanted half, she’d give it. All she wanted, Kate realized, was the first bowl she’d found, the blackened silver coin and the gold one that had led her to the five other coins.