“There.” She pointed. “Those are sea stacks, pillars of stone that stick out of the water. Sea stumps are what are left when the stack is eroded. Ryan said if I was going to find anything, the stumps would have caught the remains. The next night I launched where Ryan directed—” she looked up at a flock of white seagulls that called encouragement as they swooped onto the firm, damp sand “—and I found wreckage. Scattered metal from the hull and, propped up against the stone of the sea stump, two solid-gold Moche heads. Gold doesn’t corrode, so after so many years underwater they were just...there, noble and serene.” She clutched a fist to her chest. “What a moment. I thought, I will never forget this.”

“But you did.” Way to point out the obvious, Adam.

Elle shot him a glare. “I remember now.”

The first sign of irritability he’d seen her exhibit. The new, memory-enhanced Elladora would not be the Elle he had known. And loved. Who still, regardless of her irritation, attracted him and made him fear...for her.

“I sent Penderghast a message saying I had news. The next day he arrived ahead of the storm. His helicopter landed. He disembarked and went to his cabin. I waited for him to contact me, but first he arranged for a party for the researchers. He said since the storm was starting to roar, the teams should, too. By the time he texted me, it was after nine in the evening. I met him on deck.” She inched away from Adam, sat up, looked into the mounds of white sand. “What a sucker I was.”

He prodded her with scorn. “Alone on the deck? Without telling anyone you were meeting him?”

She sat up straight, in a flurry of anger at him. “Why would I tell anyone? I believed he was a philanthropist, a man interested in promoting the sciences, who took personal interest in the recovery of important archaeological finds.”

“I withdraw the question.”

She wasn’t done defending herself. “He wanted to keep what we were doing quiet. I thought because it involved artifacts of great worth. He wanted to make sure no one stole them before we could preserve them. Pretty stupid, huh?”

“Not stupid. In light of Stephen Penderghast’s reputation, it makes sense.”

“That’s right.” Her shoulders relaxed. “I told him I had found the treasure. He smiled.”

“Did he?”

“Like the Cheshire cat. Then I explained Ryan’s advice, and he said, ‘You told someone?’” Her voice hit a new high.

Adam recognized the incipient horror.