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24

Haven

Thursday

T hat evening, Enzo and I lay on my bed. “How was the Museo del Mare?” he asked. We were on top of the duvet, propped up against pillows.

I had all but forgotten about the Museum of the Sea. I’d been too preoccupied with the archive. “I didn’t go, actually. I ran out of time.”

He faced me, smiling. “An entire afternoon at the archive, then?”

I smoothed the bottom edge of my thin pajama shorts, then crossed and uncrossed my legs. I couldn’t seem to sit still, not with Enzo lying next to me. Even fully clothed, he left me light-headed. “I’m an archaeologist, remember. I love archives.”

“Find anything good?”

I reached for my cell phone on the nightstand next to me. “Let me send you this picture of an article,” I said. “Can you translate it for me?”

“Maybe.” He scooted closer. “Depends.”

I playfully swatted his arm and AirDropped the photo to him. While he read, I toyed with my own phone, begrudgingly peeking through Conrad’s Instagram. He’d posted a story that morning, the video taken as he stood at the boat’s helm next to his driver, Gio. Their dive boat cut through the waves, throwing sea spray into the air. Though I couldn’t see Conrad, I could hear him laughing and hollering. They were making straight for Li Galli.

I glanced over at Enzo. “Done reading yet?” I asked. When he didn’t reply, I threw a long, bare leg over his. “Psst. Hello. Hi.”

He put his hand on my bare thigh, squeezing it. “Just finished,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Can you read it to me?” I asked. “The article?”

He paused a beat, all but eating me alive with his eyes. “Yeah,” he finally said, situating himself more comfortably against the pillows. “All right, so—”

“Wait.” I reached into my bag, grabbed my notebook and a pen, and then nodded. “Okay.”

As he read, he repeated much of what I already knew: twenty-five men had perished on the Aquila , including a Holmes Foster, who was a prisoner onboard. But Enzo did share a few details that Google Translate hadn’t picked up, including the brig’s owners—the Mazza brothers—and assorted technical details about the vessel. Two-masted. One-hundred-eleven feet long. Two-hundred-fifty tons.

I tapped my pen on my notebook, disappointed. There was nothing useful here. And nothing gleaned about its cargo.

“Why this article?” he suddenly asked. “Do you think the Aquila is one of the wrecks we saw yesterday?”

I didn’t think it was. I knew it was.

Still, I deflected. “I came across it while searching for info on Li Galli. Trying to understand why there are so many wrecks in the area.”

Seemingly satisfied with this answer, he glanced at the bedroom door. “Care if I grab a glass of water?”

“Not at all.”

When he left, I viewed Conrad’s final Instagram story, posted six hours ago—when I was tucked away at the archive.

The image loaded, and my stomach dropped. Not only had they returned to Li Galli, they’d returned to the same location we’d left them at yesterday. It was further proof, as if I needed it, that Conrad wasn’t taking pictures for Project Delfino at all. If so, they would have dropped anchor elsewhere.

“Goddammit,” I said aloud, tossing my phone aside. I had to get back in the water tomorrow, no matter what. No matter the conditions.

Enzo returned, a glass of water in each hand. He took one look at me and raised his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

I exhaled hard. “Yeah. Just work stuff.”

He settled in again, facing me, propped up on one elbow. He toyed with the string on my pajama shorts.

“Can we go on another dive in the morning?” I asked. “Same spot as yesterday?”

He paused, his fingers hovering near me. “Is there something more to all of this? You seem…in a rush. These wrecks, they aren’t going anywhere.” His brown eyes searched mine. “We have time.”

He didn’t understand. I didn’t have time. But I couldn’t blame him for the statement: he didn’t know the full story. And looking at him now, his expression full of both concern and desire, I felt more frantic than ever. About everything .

I set my water glass down, untied my pajama shorts, and kissed him with a week’s worth of urgency and frustration.

***

The next morning, I shot a quick text to Mal. At last, having spent three nights at a hotel near the Naples airport, she’d finally been able to book a flight home for later that evening.

Can confirm , I said, Italian men make the best lovers .

Details, girl , she replied, with a flame emoji.

Walking to the kitchen for coffee, I eyed the countertop and flushed: last night, Enzo and I had frantically pushed everything to one side. I could make out the outline of a handprint, still visible on the glossy marble countertop. Then I glanced out at the terrace, the railing bright white in the morning sun, remembering how I’d clutched it last night, Enzo’s hot breath on the back of my neck.

He’s very adventurous , I texted back. If there’s a solid surface in this place, I think we christened it.

Three little dots as Mal typed her reply. That’s my kind of sex.

I laughed. Before last night, I’d never had sex on a kitchen counter or a terrace partially within view of an entire village. And yet, I’d loved every second of it. I hadn’t been worried about breaking rules or being seen. I craved him so bad—even now, making coffee in the kitchen—that I thought I might ignite. I think it’s my kind of sex now, too , I replied.

Enzo had gone home at three in the morning. Every last inch of me was tender, so I took a couple of Advil and a hot shower. Then, with plenty of time until I met him at the dock, I retreated to the terrace with my coffee and phone, ready to dive into Holmes’s diary.

I started at the beginning. Holmes’s first entry was made in July of 1817, and it recounted his excitement about an impending cross-Atlantic voyage from his home, Boston, to Sicily and then on to Naples. It was clear he’d been working on boats for much of his adolescence and early adulthood, and his journal entries revealed that he knew a little of everything, from repairing sails to carpentry to basic navigation. His knowledge of rigging was clear, too, and although I thought I knew a decent amount about sailing, I was quickly lost in Holmes’s detailed descriptions of reefing lines, pulley systems, and intricate knots.

Entries of this nature went on and on. I kept my eye on the clock—I needed to meet Enzo in half an hour—and I began to skim the pages, anxious to reach the part about Holmes’s arrival in Italy. Only then, I suspected, would I find the topics that interested me: the Mazza brothers and their black-market loot.

Still, I found myself liking this Holmes more and more. Some entries revealed his compassionate side—like the time he’d pried a lure from a cormorant’s mouth, despite his shipmates wanting to leave the bird for dead—and others were humorous, like when he once duped his crew with a seashell stew.

In December of 1817, on his twenty-second birthday, Holmes finally arrived in Naples. Yet just as I began to read the entry, Enzo texted.

Can’t make our dive today , he said.

I frowned, feeling the brief sting of rejection, but then I began to worry he was ill or something had happened to him. You okay? I asked.

It took him a few minutes to reply, which only furthered my concern. Vesuvius headlines everywhere. I’ve been making calls all morning. Meet me for coffee?

“Shit,” I whispered. “What now?” I went online to CNN where the leading headline was Threat of Mt. Vesuvius Eruption Halts Amalfi Tourism .

The beginning of the article quoted a leading travel agency. According to their spokesperson, more than seventy percent of their bookings to the Amalfi region for the next two months had been canceled in the last ninety-six hours.

“Some have changed their travel plans to Santorini or Ibiza,” the spokesperson said. “Others have canceled outright. We’re staffing extra agents around the clock to keep our customers happy.”

Forget hype. The archaeologist in me wanted actual data . Toward the bottom of the article, as though an afterthought, a volcanologist had gone on record discussing his concerns. The underwater CO2 measurements in the area had worsened overnight, he said. Certain water temperature recordings had shifted, too, and they didn’t correlate with seasonal currents.

And yet, Mount Vesuvius herself—the actual crater, well inland—wasn’t demonstrating anything out of the ordinary. No tremors. No dried-up vegetation. No change in the steam vents.

I went back to my text message with Enzo. Coffee sounds good , I typed out, my hands shaking. When and where?

***

We met at Dall’ Alba al Tramonto, a café Enzo’s mother had recently recommended to him.

The shop was mostly empty inside, just a pair of employees standing behind the counter. The news played out on a corner television. I couldn’t understand it, but the subject of the story was evident enough, as the camera crew filmed live from Positano’s Spiaggia Grande. The reporter waved to the half-empty beach behind him.

Enzo sat at an outdoor table, his hands folded in his lap. The terrace had a magnificent view of the ocean, but Enzo’s expression was morose as he looked out at the water. Two cappuccinos sat in front of him.

I snuck up behind him, kissing him on the cheek. “Good morning.”

He smiled, not letting me sit down until he’d pulled me in for a longer, deeper kiss. The brim of my hat mussed up his hair, and a few tables away, an elderly couple scowled at us. I fell heavily into my chair and reached for my cappuccino.

“So,” I said, motioning toward the ocean. I didn’t have a good view of the beach from here, but somewhere down there was the reporter I’d just seen on TV. “What do you make of it?”

“What I think doesn’t matter much anymore.” Enzo tapped his fingers on the table and exhaled hard. “When I got to the shop this morning, I had a voicemail from our insurance company.”

I closed my eyes. I knew where this was going. “The decision isn’t up to you anymore,” I offered.

“Right.” He showed me his phone, the list of outgoing calls. “Luca and I spent this morning calling everyone with open reservations. Updated our website. For the time being, we’re—” he took a sip of his coffee “—closed.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered back, feeling terrible about his predicament. He’d told me how tight his shop’s margins were. Without any divers for the foreseeable future, the shop would most certainly be in a deficit. And to think how hard he’d worked for all of this…

I couldn’t help but think about myself, too. “Does this mean you can’t take the boat out at all?”

He nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, yes. I’m so sorry, Haven.”

So our diving was done. “Don’t say that. None of this is your fault.” I pushed my cappuccino away, my spirits as low as they’d been all week.

“It’s so frustrating,” he said, his jaw set. “The data, it doesn’t—”

“Make sense,” I finished for him. “There should be earthquakes, or geysers, or something else, if Vesuvius was about to erupt.”

“Exactly. I don’t know whether to be scared or not. Whether to leave or not.”

“Do you know people who are leaving? Locals?”

“Quite a few, yes.”

This surprised me. “What about your mother? Is she staying?”

“She’s staying. She insists everything is fine.” He shrugged. “Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. But tourists are how my business stays afloat. No tourists, no work.”

I mused on all that had gone awry in recent days. “What a shit week,” I finally said.

Enzo reached for my hand. “Not everything about this week has been terrible.”

My memory flashed to last night—the clean smell of his skin, digging my nails into his shoulder blades, resting my head in the crevice of his collarbone—and felt myself grow warm.

“Not everything, no,” I agreed. “Meeting you has been the complete opposite of terrible.”

Enzo’s face was solemn. “I just don’t understand why the world works this way. I meet the first amazing woman I’ve met in years, and in the same week, my business—and the entire town—go to shit.”

I gave his hand a squeeze, but his phone buzzed and he pulled away. “I need to get going,” he said. “People wanting refunds on their deposits…”

I ached for him, wondering if his business even had the cash on hand to issue refunds.

After Enzo left, I checked my Instagram again. Conrad had posted a new story, and I clicked on it, wondering how he was dealing with the latest news.

Apparently, he wasn’t.

He was ignoring it entirely, given that he’d posted a video of himself on a boat only a few minutes ago. Making great progress! the caption read. I’ve got a good feeling about the next few days.

I could read between the lines: this post was meant for me. He wanted me to know he was getting close to my father’s discovery. Had his equipment picked up an anomaly of some kind?

I felt helpless. Without Enzo, I didn’t have a boat. I didn’t have a dive buddy. I didn’t have air tanks. And even if I had all of those things, did I want to dive in such precarious conditions?

Not for the first time in recent days, I began to wonder if I should simply accept defeat. Conrad had the tools and the skills to brave these waters. I didn’t. Simple as that.

I called Mal, who picked up on the second ring. “Everything okay?” she asked, her voice higher-pitched than normal, laced with concern. Indistinct voices chattered in the background. She would be at the airport now, getting ready to head home. “I’ve seen the news.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, no. I mean, I’m fine. I’m not in any danger.” I spun my empty cup on its saucer, annoyed with everything. “I just feel…hopeless. Frustrated. Part of me is tempted to throw in the towel and come home.”

There was a moment of silence. “Wow,” Mal finally said. “I did not expect you to say that.”

I hadn’t expected it myself, either, but nothing about this trip had gone right. Professionally, at least. And I didn’t think a budding romance with Enzo was reason enough to stay. Better to cut my losses, I thought, and head home before I fell even further for the guy.

“Hold on,” Mal said. I heard footsteps, then the background noise on her end quieted. “Haven,” she said. “Don’t do anything rash. You need to think on this. You’re not the quitting type.”

“Conrad is on the water right now,” I reminded her. “I’m not. I don’t even have access to a boat anymore.”

“Did things go sour with Enzo?”

“On the contrary. I’m crazy about him.”

“That’s unlike you.”

“I know. But his shop’s insurance company called. No diving for the foreseeable future. I can call up other dive shops, but they’re probably in the same predicament.” I found myself spewing words at Mal, telling her about the last couple of days. Photographing the Aquila . The archive. Diving with Enzo, sleeping with Enzo. “I feel like I’m so close to putting a few puzzle pieces together. But I need more dive time.” I stifled a yawn. “And I need a full night’s sleep.”

“That’s on you, girl. Take a nap. No one told you to stay up all night having sex.”

“And for the love of God,” I went on, ignoring her, “I need a dive buddy. I can’t go down there alone.”

“Let me make some calls,” Mal suddenly said. “Go take a nap. I’ll text you soon.”

“Calls? Who do you plan to call?”

“I know people.”

“What do you—” But I stopped short, interrupted by loud chatter on the other end of the call again.

“Talk soon, love,” Mal said.

She hung up before I could reply.

Having resolved to accept Mal’s suggestion about a nap, I grabbed my purse to leave. Two women had just stepped onto the terrace, coffees in hand. They took a seat beneath a potted wisteria tree, bursting in blooms. I glanced at them with only minor interest, but then I did a double take: one of the women looked very much like Enzo’s mother, Savina. And hadn’t he said she recommended this café to him?

I studied her for a moment behind my sunglasses. That bright red lipstick—it was undoubtedly her. And she was accompanied by another woman, the one she’d been with on the beach the other day.

I wavered for a moment. Saying hello might open the floodgates to questions about me and Enzo, a conversation I didn’t have the energy for. Besides, Savina herself seemed preoccupied, sitting close to her friend as the two of them looked over a stack of papers.

Pulling the brim of my hat down, I planned to make a quick exit. I already wore sunglasses, so I felt certain Savina wouldn’t recognize me.

Then I heard it—the name of the influencer whose yacht had gone down. Asher Vice.

The women were speaking in fast, hushed Italian, but I caught a few more words, including Vesuvius and—at this, I nearly tripped— la Maledizione Amalfitana. The Amalfi Curse. Savina’s friend said the word streghe several times, and I made a mental note, thinking it vaguely familiar.

Everyone was talking about the hydrothermal vent data and the yacht sinking. But still, I found it strange how the women hovered over the pages in front of them. What were the printouts, anyway? I badly wanted a peek.

Throwing my purse over my shoulder, I quietly stood. As I moved toward the door, I paused, pretending to rummage through my bag while eyeing the papers spread out on the table.

I was only able to glance at them for a second or two, but it was more than enough. The papers were covered in data— tables—that I recognized, instantly, as oceanography readings. A couple of days ago, the news broadcaster had displayed charts looking just like this. And these pages were riddled with annotations and highlights, like something out of my own research notebook.

I remembered Savina’s concern about Enzo diving Li Galli, and now I understood why: obviously, she was fixated on its strange occurrences. Obsessive, even, given the marked-up data tables. It reminded me of the way my father used to mark up his site maps, his depth charts. And now, as I walked past, she tapped a pen against the pages. She mentioned the word Asher again, and memoriale .

This woman was even more peculiar than I’d thought.

I’d nearly made my way to the front door of the café when I felt a hand lightly touch the spot between my shoulder blades.

Shit.

“Haven,” came Savina’s voice. I turned, feigning surprise, and greeted her. “I saw you walking out,” she said in her thick Italian accent, “and my friend, Renata, was just leaving. Have a few minutes?”

It would have been terribly inconsiderate to refuse. I returned to the patio and took a seat, making brief small talk with Renata before she left.

To my relief, Savina steered clear of talking about Enzo. We discussed her villa renovations—next week, a contractor would be installing the chandelier I’d seen sitting on the floor during my visit—and then she asked me more about my schooling and some of my favorite wrecks in the Keys.

The conversation began to wane. “Before we go,” Savina said, motioning for me to stand. Fallen wisteria petals dotted the ground around us. “I was thinking about something you told me at the villa.”

As we stepped into the sunshine, I was better able to study her face. I noticed, now, the lines etched deep in her forehead, the shadows under her eyes. She looked sleep-deprived, strained. I knew that look well—grief, wallowing its way through the body—and I empathized greatly with her. Losing Bria…well, I couldn’t fathom the toll it had taken on her heart.

“You said there are rumors of sunken treasure that intrigue you,” Savina said. “Is there anything specific you’re looking for?”

I tried to keep my expression neutral. Her question was a bit too on the nose. I traced back through our earlier conversation, wondering if I’d accidentally revealed why I was diving Li Galli. I felt sure I hadn’t.

I gave a weak shake of the head. “Not really,” I lied.

“Hm,” Savina said, opening the door for me. I sensed my response had disappointed her. She leaned in to give me a quick hug. “Well, have a lovely day, Haven.”

With that, Savina slipped out of the café before disappearing into the narrow and winding streets of sun-riddled Positano.