Glided wreckage

Chapter Four

The call came at midnight.

Rafael had given up on sleep again. He sat at the small fold-down table in The Rusty Spoon's galley, nursing a glass of water that had gone warm an hour ago. The dive computer's memory card lay on the scratched surface between his elbows. Small. Gray. Loaded with whatever secrets Mateo had tried to hide.

His phone buzzed. A number he didn't recognize. Honduras prefix.

He answered on the first ring.

"You're the brother." Not a question. A man's voice. Low. Tired. The kind of tired that came from seeing too much and sleeping too little.

"Yes."

"The encryption wasn't military. It was custom. Someone paid a lot to keep that file closed." A pause. Papers shuffled on the other end. "I broke it anyway. Took six hours. You owe me four thousand dollars."

"Send me the account details."

"Already did. Check your messages." Another pause. "You want to know what's on the card, or do you want to pretend your brother died clean?"

Rafael's knuckles went white around the phone. "Tell me."

"Coordinates. Fifteen of them. Your brother wasn't looking for La Dama del Abismo. He was mapping a network of tunnels beneath the trench. Natural caves. Limestone. Some of them connect to the galleon's stern section." The man coughed. Cleared his throat. "There's a note attached. Text file. Dated three days before he disappeared."

"Read it."

"Rafa — if you're hearing this, I found something the owners don't want found. Not gold. Not the box. A chamber. Below the main wreck. There's a second ship down there. Older. Portuguese, I think. Don't come looking for me. Tell Dad I finally did something right."

Silence stretched between Honduras and the Cayman Islands.

"That's it," the man said. "That's everything."

Rafael set down the phone. His hand trembled. He didn't care who saw.

"The owners," he repeated. "Did he name them?"

"No. Just 'the owners.' But I checked the encryption signature before I cracked it. Traces back to a shell company registered in Panama. Same shell that funded three illegal salvage operations in the last decade." A beat. "You know Damien Voss?"

Rafael's blood turned to ice water.

"Everyone knows Voss."

"Then you know why your brother ended up at the bottom of the trench." The man's voice softened. Just slightly. "I'm sorry. I don't send invoices to dead men's families often. Take care of yourself."

The line went dead.

Rafael stared at the phone until the screen dimmed. Then he picked up the memory card. Turned it over. Placed it back on the table.

The galley felt smaller now. The walls closer. He could hear Lux breathing in her cabin — a soft rhythm through the thin door. She was asleep. He should wake her. She'd want to know.

Instead, he sat in the dark and thought about Damien Voss.

---

Morning came gray and wet.

Rain tapped the deck above. Not a storm. Just the kind of steady drizzle that made everything feel sealed in plastic. Lux emerged from her cabin with her hair braided and her expression shut tight.

"You look like someone died," she said, pouring coffee into the chipped mug.

"Someone did. Fifteen years ago." He slid the memory card toward her. "The data's decrypted."

She set down the mug. Read the note he'd transcribed on a scrap of paper. Read it twice. Her face didn't change, but her throat moved in a hard swallow.

"A second ship," she said. "Below the wreck."

"A chamber. Mateo called it a chamber."

"Same thing at that depth. Limestone pocket. Could be stable. Could collapse if we breathe wrong." She folded the paper. Handed it back. "Voss owns the encryption."

"How did you know?"

"Because I've seen his signature before. Three years ago, he tried to buy Leo's dive logs. Offered fifty thousand. I told him to walk into the ocean." She picked up her coffee. Didn't drink. "He doesn't forget slights."

Rafael leaned back. The chair creaked. "Your father knew about this chamber?"

"My father knew about a lot of things. Parkinson's ate most of them." She finally took a sip. Made a face. The coffee had gone cold. "We need to dive again. Deeper than before. Past the galleon, into the caves."

"You're asking me to go below three hundred feet."

"I'm asking you to stay on the boat while I go alone."

"No."

"Rafael—"

"I said no." He stood. The table rattled. "Mateo died down there because he went alone. Because he didn't trust anyone to watch his back. I'm not making the same mistake."

Lux set down her mug. Hard. Coffee sloshed over the rim.

"You don't know what you're asking. Below three hundred, everything changes. Your brain slows. Your hands stop listening. One wrong kick and you stir up silt that takes twenty minutes to settle." She stepped closer. Jabbed a finger at his chest. "I've been diving since I was nine. I've pulled bodies out of caves. I've watched grown men weep through their regulators because the dark got inside their heads. You are not ready for this."

"Then train me."

"What?"

"Train me. Push me until I break or until I'm ready. I have money. I have time. I have no intention of dying in a hole your father mapped twenty years ago." He caught her finger before she could pull it back. Held it. Lightly. "You're not the only person in this boat who's lost someone to the trench."

She stared at his hand around her finger. Didn't pull away. Didn't lean in.

"You let go," she said quietly, "or I'm throwing you off this boat myself."

He let go.

She stepped back. Rubbed her finger where he'd held it. Her cheeks had gone pink — from anger or something else, he couldn't tell.

"Training starts tomorrow at dawn," she said. "You show up hungover, I leave you on the dock. You argue with me underwater, I leave you there permanently. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Good." She grabbed her coffee mug and threw the cold contents into the sink. "Now get off my boat. I need an hour where I don't have to look at your face."

Rafael grabbed his jacket. Paused at the door.

"Lux."

"What?"

"Thank you for not saying I told you so."

She snorted. A real sound. Unpolished.

"The day's still young. Give me time."

He stepped onto the deck. The rain had softened to mist. Somewhere across the harbor, a fisherman yelled at his son. A dog barked. Normal sounds. Human sounds.

Rafael walked down the gangplank with the memory card in his pocket and Damien Voss's name burning behind his teeth.

He didn't look back.

But he wanted to.