The Reef

again.
    She reached for a broken piece of coral, examined it, discarded it. Matthew swam by her, taking the lead. Though Tate reminded herself the change of lead was basic diving procedure, she fretted until she could once more take the point.
    They communicated only when strictly necessary. After agreeing to spread out, they kept each other in view. As much, Tate thought, in suspicion as safety.
    For an hour, they combed the area where they had found the sword. Tate’s first sense of anticipation began to wane when they discovered nothing more. Once she fanned away at sand, her heart thumping as she caught a glint. Her visions of some ancient shoe buckle or plate faded when she uncovered a twentieth-century can of Coke.
    Discouraged, she swam farther north. Here, suddenly, a vast undersea garden of brightly patterned shells and coral with darting fish feeding. Lovely branched coral, too fragile to survive the wave action of shallow water, speared and spread in ruby and emerald and mustard yellow. Itwas home to dozens of creatures that hid in it, fed on it, or indeed fed it.
    Pleasure slid through her as she watched a volute with its pumpkin-colored shell creep its laborious way along a rock. A clown fish darted through the purple-tipped tentacles of a sea anemone, immune to their stinging. A trio of regal angelfish glided along, a formation in search of breakfast.
    Like a kid in a candy store, Matthew thought, as he watched her. She was holding her position with slow movements, her eyes darting as she tried to take in everything at once.
    He’d liked to have dismissed her as foolish, but he appreciated the sea’s theater. Both the drama and comedy continued around them—the sunny yellow wrasses busily cleaning the demanding queen triggerfish, devoted as ladies-in-waiting. There, quick and lethal, the ambushing moray darted from his cave to clamp his jaws over the unwary grouper.
    She didn’t flinch from her up-close seat of instant death, but studied it. And he had to admit she was a good diver. Strong, skilled, sensible. She didn’t like working with him, but she held up her end.
    He knew that most amateurs became discouraged if they didn’t stumble across some stray coin or artifact within an hour. But she was systematic and apparently tireless. Two other traits he appreciated in a diving partner.
    If they were going to be stuck with each other, at least for a couple of months, he might as well make the best of it.
    In what he considered a gesture of truce, he swam over, tapped her shoulder. She glanced over, her eyes bland behind her mask. Matthew pointed behind them and watched those eyes brighten with appreciation when she spotted the school of tiny silver-tipped minnows. In a glinting wave, they veered as a mass barely six inches from Tate’s outstretched hand, and vanished.
    She was still grinning when she saw the barracuda.
    It was perhaps a yard off, hovering motionless with its toothy grin and staring eyes. This time she pointed. WhenMatthew noted that she was amused rather than afraid, he resumed his search.
    Tate glanced back occasionally to be certain their movements didn’t attract their audience. But the barracuda remained placidly at a distance. Sometime later when she looked back, he was gone.
    She saw the conglomerate just as Matthew’s hand closed over it. Disgusted, and certain only her inattention had kept her from finding it first, she swam another few yards to the north.
    It irritated her the way he seemed to work in her pocket. If she didn’t keep her eye on him, he was practically at her shoulder. In a gesture of dismissal, she kicked away, damned if she’d let him think his misshapen hunk of rock interested her, however promising its pebbly surface.
    And that’s when she found the coin.
    The small spread of darkened sand drew her closer. She fanned more from habit than enthusiasm, imagining she’d probably unearth someone’s pocket change or a rusted tin can tossed from a passing boat. But the blackened disk was barely an inch under the silt. She knew the moment she plucked it up that she was holding a legend.
    Pieces of eight, she thought, giddy with discovery. A pirate’s chant, a buccaneer’s booty.
    Realizing she was holding her breath, a dangerous mistake, she began to breathe slowly as she rubbed at the discoloration with her thumb. There was the dull sheen of silver at the corner of the irregularly shaped coin.
    With a cautious glance over her shoulder to be certain