Blanche shouldered her tanks. “I hope it’s in a big box. If it’s just the crown, we could be searching for weeks.”
They did their checks; then somersaulted backward off the gunwale. For a split second, Ivy felt the shock of cold water, but the thin layer between her skin and the neoprene quickly warmed. Weights on her belt pulled her down, and she kicked her flippers. They followed the rope of their anchor. Just like flying, Ivy thought, how can Everett not love this?
It didn’t take long to reach bottom. Even in the gloom, Ivy saw trash littering the sand. Blanche’s light flickered on, playing across the garbage-strewn dunes. Why were people such douche-bags, she wondered.
Blanche secured a reel to their anchor. It would serve as a guide if visibility dropped, or let them know if the boat drifted. She swam off along the bottom.
Flickers like sparks flashed above them: a school of fish. Ivy watched them dart back and forth in synch, only the bubbly sound of her regulator in her ears. A darker shadow followed the school. A predator of some kind, she thought, but not big enough to worry about. She swam along the makeshift garbage dump. It wasn’t like a huge pile of trash, but it was strewn about as far as she could see. She pushed aside her anger and hunted for a boat anchor with something attached.
The bottom lit up in a rainbow of colors, Blanche using her power to manipulate her flashlight. Ivy swam toward her. Hollow and metallic, amplified by the water, Ivy heard her cousin banging on something. As she neared, she saw a fluke-style anchor half-sunk in the sand. At the end of a chain, she saw a padlock sticking from the bottom.
Blanche intensified the light until the sea floor was as bright as day. Ivy brushed away sand, making the water murky. In a few moments, she uncovered the corner of a rusting steel strongbox. The padlock secured the chain to the box’s handle, holding it to the anchor. But the box was not watertight. It wasn’t about to float off on its own with or without the anchor.
Once the box was free of the sand, they saw a cube of steel about eighteen inches per side. Blanche fiddled with the padlock, and lifted her palms upward. What do we do about this?
They couldn’t easily lift the box and the anchor back to the boat. Ivy followed the chain. It was secured only by the anchor rope. She took the dive knife from a sheath strapped around her thigh. With a couple cuts, the chain was free. Ivy put the knife back and stabbed a thumb upward with her other hand. Blanche lifted the box and swam toward her. After a moment, she dropped it back in the sand.
Ivy swam over, and together they moved the strongbox, following the reel back to their anchor. Blanche unclipped the line, and they slowly kicked toward the surface. After a few moments, Blanche checked her dive computer. Ivy had bought it for her last Christmas, and was a little thrilled to see her cousin use it. Blanche was much more serious about diving than Ivy.
Her cousin held up her free hand. They stopped, hovering at about twenty feet down. Given the short time, and the shallow depth, they were probably okay. It was always better to not take chances with the bends.
Ivy thought getting the strong box up on the boat would be a nightmare, but when they lifted it above the surface, water poured out of it. Blanche spat out her regulator. “You get aboard, and I’ll hand it to you.”
She stripped off her flippers and tossed them aboard before mounting the ladder. Then Ivy turned and grabbed the handle. With a grunt, she lifted it over the gunwale and set it down on the deck. Blanche’s flippers landed on the boat, followed by Blanche.
“Still have that padlock to deal with.” Blanche unzipped her vest and hung it on the poling platform to drip dry. It was going to take Ivy at least twenty minutes to shuck the clingy neoprene. She examined the lock. Salt water had already rusted the latch.
“Might have to cut it off,” Blanche said.
Moira floated down from the poling platform. “Whatcha got, flower pot?”
“I think the tiara is in this box,” Ivy said. “The anchor it was tied to matches the one Everett and I found on a suspect’s boat. I found the coordinates in his dive log.”
She shook the lock. It was solid.
“Oh, c’mon, I wanna see it,” Moira said. “Here.”
The ghost crouched down and passed her hand through the padlock. It moved about a half millimeter.
“Dang it all,” Moira said. She gave the lock a hard scowl for a moment. This time when she passed her hand through it, the lock shook. The hasp clicked, the body of the lock thunking to the deck.
“Ohmigosh,” Moira panted. “Holy cow.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “That was tough.”
“Are you okay?” Blanche stepped forward, concerned.
Moira became more transparent. Her breathing was still hard. It was weird, because a ghost didn’t generally breathe at all. “Took a lot out of me. I’m dematerializing. C’mon, let’s see it before I fade out.”
Ivy threaded the hasp through the latch and threw the top open. She reached in, pulling out a small crown that glittered in the sun. A pinkish, orangish gem glowed. Wet silver and gold filigree hurt the eyes with sparkly reflection. Except…
“All that effort,” Moira panted, “for a fake.”
Chapter 12
By the time they got the boat back in storage and loaded the truck with dive gear and a heavy strong box, the sun was setting.
“I still don’t get it. Who the hell would go to all the trouble of sinking a fake tiara in the middle of the ocean?”
Ivy started the truck and buzzed the windows down. The warm cab actually felt kind of good after a day on the water. “Not only did he sink it, he kept track of where he sank it. That leads me to believe that the sinker thought the tiara was the real deal.”
“It’s got freakin’ rust on it. Gold doesn’t rust.”
She headed toward Light House. “It probably wasn’t rusty when it went in the drink.”
They drove in silence for a while. As they approached the city, Blanche complained. “The smell of this thing reminds me of Daddy’s cooking. I’m starving, but I don’t wanna eat left over fish and chips. You wanna grab something?”
“I have to get this over to Everett.”
“Really? A fake tiara? Where does that put your case?”
Ivy shrugged. “No idea. That’s why I’m taking it to Everett.”
“Hey, there’s a Jersey Mike’s on the way. I can place an order on my phone and we can pick it up.”
Dang it all. Blanche really knew Ivy’s weak spots. “Order me a Number Five,” she groaned.
“Mike’s way?” Blanche swiped on her phone.
“Is there any other way?”
Ivy didn’t realize how hungry she was, but she ate half the drippy sandwich on the way to Light House. They hosed off the gear and hung it to dry. She ate the other half on her way to Everett’s office.
The reception room was officially a jungle now. She fought down panic and hauled the strong box into the inner office.
“I thought you were gonna call me when you closed shop.” Everett didn’t look up from his computer. Ivy sat down the strong box with a thump that made him jump. He gave Ivy the hairy eyeball, and then the box. “Tiara’s inside.”
“Kinda,” Ivy said.