I scowled back as the report continued. The boat’s line had been cut. Anchor gone. They suspected something—foul play, perhaps by another diver. But they could prove nothing. Gulls make bad witnesses. So do the eyes under the water.

The divers drank more—to Robb, and all the others that came before, to all the souls claimed by the sea.

The ones they would plunder.

Come morning, the divers were strewn about the lobby as if they themselves had been wrecked there, tossed around as if by the storm. Outside, rain hammered the corrugated steel that patched our roof. Steady dripping echoed through the resort halls. The sea had crept closer. Boats that had been anchored to shore now bobbed a hundred meters out. Our raft had been tossed halfway up the shore.

I put rum in the orange juice. Extra grease for the eggs. I knew they’d dive anyway.

I had just set the steaming pots of black coffee on the table when I felt the weight of eyes on my neck and a hand on my waist.

I turned and met a pair of golden eyes, bright like beach agates, shining round like ancient coins.

“Robb!” I threw my arms around his neck. His wet hair dripped cold water over my arms. His neck against my lips tasted like oil and aspirin.

The divers began to groan and pull themselves upright. They rose scowling at the sound of my shriek, but soon switched to cheering as they saw Robb, whole and hale, in my arms.

The commotion brought Alden out of the office. His smile split his face, but his eyes stayed cold.

Breakfast ran long as Robb recounted his survival story—his voice rough, throat salt-water chapped.

He’d felt his line snap. Watched it sink around him in coils, tugged by swift currents. Instead of surfacing, he said, he’d followed the line, followed the current, hoping he might find a treasure trove—a deposit of flotsam.

“Did you?”

“What did you find?”

“The ship,” he said.

Every mug slowly lowered. Full forks sunk back to plates.

“Did you go in?”

Robb smiled. He reached into a bag at his wetsuit belt and pulled out a fistful of treasure. Some gold, some silver, some black with oxidization, some glittered with cut stones, bright with pearls.

Nervous laughter circled the table.

“You didn’t . . . You wouldn’t disturb the remains, though. Must have just been . . . Maybe a box of treasure, right?”

Robb’s grin widened. His eyes weren’t dilating, but remained fixed discs of gold. “Must have been a chest,” he said. “Big pile of goods all in one place.”

The nervous laugh circled again. Alden’s smile had slipped.

“You register your find yet?” a diver asked.

The hangovers were gone. Sobered with gold lust. Filled up with need.