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Haven

Three months later

L ess than three months after leaving, I returned to Positano. I would stay longer this time, much longer—up to a year. Project Relic was back on, and this time, the project was entirely on my terms.

My team remained the same, with one bittersweet exception: Mal. She and Megan had decided they were ready, at last, to live in the same city, and Mal had proposed. Given their upcoming life changes, Mal wouldn’t be able to resume work on Project Relic. Sad as I was to be without her, I was thrilled she’d found such happiness.

I hadn’t thought I’d ever work on Project Relic again, not against the likes of Gage and Conrad. But a few days after my conversation with Lucille and my final trip to Savina’s villa, Conrad had abruptly departed Positano.

Gage had been the one to tell me via a near-panicked phone call. “What happened with Conrad?” he shouted into the phone.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied, staring at my dive gear, trying to strategize how to get back into the water as soon as possible.

“He ditched the project,” Gage said. “Without explanation. Did something go down between you two?”

My shoulders slumped forward, and I took a seat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward to put my head in my hands. He ditched.

It could only mean one thing. He’d found my father’s gems. And quickly, too: I wondered if his proprietary equipment had done the trick, or maybe he’d cracked the mystery behind the strange alphanumerical codes my father had left behind with the photos.

Either way, this was all the proof I needed: Conrad never cared a whit for the project’s objectives. I could only hope that he was now too distracted by his newfound loot to forget about the video he intended to blackmail me with.

“Nothing went down between us,” I muttered, thinking it was time to start packing and search flights home. “Maybe he got bored. Or maybe something better came along.” I could hear the defeat, the frustration, in my own voice.

And…Enzo. I couldn’t deny my still-smoldering feelings for him. We’d had lunch the day after my last visit to the villa, though it was somber at best, with everything so up in the air. Now I tried not to dwell on what our relationship might have become if Project Relic had gone forward.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then, “You want back on the project?”

I froze. “You yanked me from the project, remember.”

Gage exhaled on the other end of the line. “I acted rashly, Haven. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not, Gage. You’re sorry that Conrad’s team evaporated into thin air, but you’re not sorry you pulled me from the project in the first place.”

“What can the foundation do to get you back on?” In his voice, I heard eagerness—maybe, even, desperation.

I paused, sitting on the edge of the bed. Angry as I was with Gage, I could see an opportunity here. I could use this to my advantage. Renegotiate some of the terms I hadn’t liked from the get-go. Demand more money for my team members. Draft a tighter contract between all parties involved, so the foundation couldn’t renege on me. No matter what.

Still, renegotiating the contract would take time. Weeks, maybe months. And I wanted a different attorney overseeing the process—not someone on Gage’s side but someone on my side, with my team’s interests at heart.

“Let me think on it a few days,” I said. “I’ll get back to you next week.”

“We don’t have that kind of time, Haven.”

“Gage. You don’t have a team at all right now. If we do this, you’re not strong-arming me again.” I pulled my suitcase from the corner of the room and set it on my bed. Regardless what I decided, I needed to head home—for a short while, at least, to regroup and start calling attorneys. “I’ll be in touch.”

I hung up before he could reply.

***

Soon after my arrival in Positano—the second time—my phone rang.

I’d just finished unpacking my things. I was now in a single-occupant studio tucked on a side street toward the middle of town. Here, my window looked out onto an alleyway. It had no terrace, no view, no Mal. A decrepit stone oven doubled as a closet. The host told me it had once been a bakery, many lifetimes ago.

But it was cozy, inviting. It was more than enough.

I glanced at my caller ID. Conrad. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. In spite of everything, I answered, curious what he was after now.

“Back on the project, I hear,” he said. His voice was raspy—like he was sick, maybe. It didn’t sound like him. Gone was the usual tone of pretentiousness.

I raised my eyebrows. “News travels fast.”

“I’m surprised you’re still working with Gage, given all that went down last time.”

“I got my own lawyer. Secured better terms. This project could make my career.”

“Fair.” He exhaled hard. “Proud of you, kid.”

I rolled my eyes. Conrad might have saved my life, but he’d almost ruined my career. I would trust him with an underwater rescue any day, but not much more than that. “Is there something you need?”

“The gems,” he said slowly. “Did you know?”

I frowned. In truth, I hadn’t thought much about the gems in the last couple of months. I’d been busy gearing back up for the project, finding a replacement for Mal. I’d made peace with the fact that although I hadn’t recovered the underwater treasure my father so badly wanted, I’d done something greater. Something undoubtedly more impactful.

Still, I imagined the gemstones would fetch a pretty penny. Hundreds of thousands, maybe. I wondered what sort of salvage reward Conrad had negotiated with the Italian government. If he’d told them at all, that was.

“Know what?” I asked now.

Conrad sucked in a breath. Then, very quietly, as if he hardly believed it himself, “They’re fakes, Haven.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Fakes?”

I thought about the swindling Mazza brothers and Chloe’s comment she’d made during my first visit to the archive: They were swindlers…known for pulling tricks and planting decoys…

“That’s right,” Conrad said. “Not a real gem in the lot. Just blue glass.” He stopped, letting that hang in the air.

Blue glass? I frowned. The gems my father had spotted were pink, red.

Who’s finding rubbish now? I wanted to ask him.

“Shame,” I finally said, a smile creeping onto my face.

“Do you know about anything else, Haven? We can chase it down together if you do. I mean it this time.”

Jesus, this man would not give up. “I don’t know a thing,” I said. It was an honest statement, though already, I was reaching for my bag. I wanted another look at the alphanumerical codes in the cloud folder. Maybe, having gotten some distance from the whole endeavor, I’d spot something new this time.

Besides, I’d never forget the phone call with my dad after he’d spotted the gems. He’d been convinced of their authenticity. And given Conrad’s statement just now about the color of the gems, it was clear he’d excavated something different than my dad’s discovery.

“I have to go,” I told him.

We said goodbye, and I hung up, thinking of the different things that can bring a person joy. For people like Conrad, it was cash. For people like my dad, it was adventure.

Right now, for me, it was karma.

I fell backward on the too-firm bed and laughed until my stomach hurt.

***

I dumped the contents of my bag onto the bed, spreading everything out: my binder with the marked-up site plans and maps; my notebook, full of scribbles I’d made during my research and visits to the archive; the freshly drafted legal agreements; and my laptop, where I now reopened the Word document with the indecipherable list of letters and numbers.

I flipped through a few pages of my notebook, stopping on the page where I’d noted record indicators at the archive—the room number, cabinet code, and so on—for the original fourteen files I’d hunted down at the archive.

Then, I glanced at my dad’s list.

His codes. I wondered for the first time if they could be some kind of archive-record indicator, too. But he’d parsed them into columns, instead of listing a string of digits like I had.

Further, even once merged, his records indicators didn’t match mine.

I tapped a pen against my chin. Was it possible he’d been on a different trail of investigation altogether?

I gathered my things and called for a cab.

***

Chloe recognized me the moment I walked in. “Welcome back,” she said brightly, pushing forward the clipboard with the visitors’ log. “I wondered if I’d be seeing you again one of these days.”

I signed my name, then paused, hovering the pen over the page. “Might I peek through this real quick?” I asked, holding up the clipboard. After all, the names in the log were visible for all to see.

She frowned, then said, “Sure. Not a problem.”

I turned back page after page, searching many months ago, looking for one date in particular: the creation date as indicated in the Word document’s metadata. If the list did indeed consist of archive-record locators, my dad probably would have visited the archive on or around that date.

Yes , just over nine months ago, there it was, unmistakably clear: my father’s steady block handwriting, spelling out his full name, followed by his hurried, loopy signature.

Tears welled in my eyes as I brushed my thumb over his signature. I’d seen it a thousand times before but never had it wrenched at my heart like it did now. He’d been here, standing where I stood, touching these very pages.

“Thank you,” I said, setting the log back on the desk.

“Is everything all right?” Chloe asked.

I nodded. “Perfectly all right, yes. May I?” I motioned to the door behind her, which led to the archival rooms I was now so intimately familiar with.

She gestured toward it. “Good luck.”

I settled in at one of the large research tables, brushing it clean of dust and tiny flakes of aged paper. I reopened my dad’s Word document, studying his codes.

From what I could glean, he’d listed three separate archive records.

I went in search of the first one, wondering if this record would have anything to do with the Aquila . It didn’t, but I recognized something else almost immediately—the stamp on the brown paper bundle. FM-1886.1. This record, then, also came from the private archive housing the many Fratelli Mazza documents.

It was a newspaper article, published in Naples in August 1886, about a group of treasure-hunters who’d stumbled on a well-preserved wreck they traced back to the Fratelli Mazza. The men reported they’d found quite an assortment of goods still intact amid the wreckage, including—to their delight—hundreds of diamonds at the front of the vessel. They’d been hidden inside the copper-sheathed hollowed-out bowsprit at the front of the ship. The turquoise patina on the copper was what had originally caught their eye, leading them to the valuable discovery.

I made a few notes in my notebook, then returned the bundle to its shelf. I navigated to another room, another cabinet, another shelf, finding my dad’s second record of interest. This, too, was a newspaper article, published in the 1970s after the advent of modern-day scuba diving. A pair of novice divers, exploring Roman ruins in the Bay of Naples, had stumbled on a gold-plated religious relic, estimated to be worth millions.

The location of the relic? The front of the ship, settled in the silt alongside several large fragments of copper casing.

My heart began to thump harder in my chest.

I quickly made my way to the third and final record, not at all surprised when I withdrew yet another newspaper article, this one published in 1922. I read the headline quickly— Free Diver Finds Stolen Pithos off Coast of Capri, Missing for a Century— and skimmed the article, learning that this free diver had found the jar peeking out from beneath a sliver of bluish-turquoise copper sheathing near the vessel’s bow.

Then, I gasped.

A Post-it Note was affixed to the bottom of the article, with a short note scribbled on it:

This explains the copper-sheathed bowsprit on all Mazza ships. Inside is where they hid the good stuff! Those brilliant bastards.

The handwriting was my father’s. Had he accidentally left the sticky note secured to the article? A moment of exhilarated oversight, perhaps?

With a lump in my throat, I carefully removed the note from the article and stuck it to my notebook, staring at it. Even the tone—the whimsical humor of it—was exactly like him.

It reminded me of what he’d told me so many times. Sometimes the answers aren’t in the water, but out of it.

Here was proof of it.

I could only surmise what had led my dad down this path. Maybe he hadn’t been searching for the Aquila , but instead he’d strategized more broadly, investigating the Fratelli Mazza as a whole. Then, making the connection across these articles—and possibly other resources he’d come across—he’d gone diving in the areas the Mazzas were known to sail, to sink.

Li Galli, for one.

Conrad, I knew, would never have thought to pursue this route of investigation. Conrad wasn’t the archive type; he was the yacht type. He’d take one look at the database, written entirely in Italian, and call it a waste of his time.

Regardless, this discovery was meant for me. All along, I’d wanted to finish what my father had started. Little did I realize that even now, after his death, he still had a few things to say.

***

After dropping off my things at my new studio apartment, I made my way down staircase after staircase. I trailed along the beach sidewalk for a few minutes, doing my best to avoid the slew of fresh tourists, then I stopped in front of a shop window, quickly touching up my lip gloss.

A few steps later, I opened the door to Enzo’s dive shop.

In the last few months, he and I had exchanged a few text messages but nothing of real consequence. I sensed the what-could-have-been was as painful for him to dwell on as it was for me.

I hadn’t hinted at my return to Positano, either. I wanted to see the expression on his face when I showed up—in person—at his shop.

It was better than I’d even hoped. If I thought he’d be surprised, I was wrong. He looked astonished .

“ Buongiorno ,” I said playfully. I stepped forward and leaned my hip against the desk. “It’s great to see you again,” I whispered.

I gave a quick glance around the interior. Enzo had made a great deal of improvements in the last few months. New merchandise, new signage. From what I could tell, the shop was doing well.

He bent forward, both arms braced on the top of the desk. My breath caught: my hair band was still on his wrist.

He caught me looking. “I haven’t taken it off,” he said. “Not once.”

Had there not been a customer shopping for sunscreen a few feet away, I’d have thrown myself over the desk and pushed him against the wall. From his expression, I could tell he was fighting the same urge.

I took a steadying breath, willing myself to hold it together. For now. I told him about Project Relic, how I was back in charge.

The more I spoke, the brighter his eyes shined. “I can’t believe it,” he finally said. “That…you’re here.”

I glanced around. “I’m proud of you, Enzo. The place looks great.”

“Thank you. Do you need a boat? Gear?”

I paused. I did need a few small items, but that could wait.

Right now, I just wanted him .

“In due time,” I said, locking my gaze on his. “Right now, I have other priorities.”

He shook his head, ears turning bright red, and ran his hand over his jawline. I was certain, for a moment, my heart went still.

“How’s business?” I managed.

“Never better,” he replied. “I hired another employee. And things have been calm—perfect diving conditions. Along the entire Amalfi Coast, not so much as a distress call.”

I knew this already. In the last three months, the Amalfi region had resumed its normal tourism levels. The hydrothermal readings had suddenly and inexplicably returned to normal. No more boats had sunk.

I couldn’t say I was surprised. When I’d told Savina all I’d learned, I could see it in her eyes: she wanted free of this burden.

“If anything,” Enzo went on, “conditions have improved. Visibility has been good all along the coast. Naples, too. Some of the clearest water anyone can remember. A lot of trash has been cleaned up. And all those oil slicks…gone.” He lifted his hands and dropped them again as if to say Who knows?

I shrugged with him, playing along. Obviously, Savina and Lucille had wasted no time in getting to know one another. I’d never be privy to the conversations between the two women, but it was clear Lucille had picked up the baton I’d set down and had begun to undo the false narratives Savina had erroneously believed her whole life.

“How’s your mother?” I finally asked.

He smiled. “Wonderful. Villa’s mostly in order. She seems…happier. At peace, or something. I think the renovations had been stressing her out. She’s made lots of new friends, too.”

“Locals?”

“Some,” he said. “Though, she’s grown quite close with a woman named Lucille, who visits every so often from Venice.”

“Interesting,” I said, looking down so Enzo wouldn’t see the edges of my lips turning upward.

“She’ll be glad to know you’re back in town,” he said. “She adores you. Maybe you two can get coffee or lunch. Or she can join us on the boat one of these days.”

I nodded, considering how very beneficial that could be for me. Savina, her strand of hagstones…

The thought was a fleeting one. It was the chase, the hunt , that invigorated me. Just like my dad. He’d given me a hell of a clue, after all, and I couldn’t wait to get back to the Aquila ’s wreckage and resume my search toward the front of the ship. I’d be looking, first, for fragments of copper.

The lone customer in the store walked out empty-handed. It was now Enzo and me, alone in his shop. Without a word, he walked over and flipped the sign to Sorry, We’re Closed . Then he locked the door and pulled the blinds.

He stepped toward me and placed his hands on either side of my face. “Haven,” he said, “how long will you be here this time?”

“A year, at least,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear that.” Then he kissed me with such urgency, such need, I had to place my hands on the wall behind me, lest my knees give out.

I knew for sure, this time, that nothing about this moment was Savina’s doing. She didn’t even know I was back in Positano.

There was no magic here.

No witchcraft.

This was as real as it could get.