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6

Haven

Monday

M al’s statement echoed in my mind. The Amalfi Curse.

“Absurd,” I said quickly, not keen on giving it any credence. “It’s just a legend.”

“I’m not saying I believe it,” Mal continued. “I’m only saying this is why the legend exists at all.” She pointed to yet another rescue boat making its way toward the scene. “If people can’t explain something logically, they’ll resort to legends. The supernatural. Magic. Gods.”

Looking through the binoculars, I watched as the rescuers pulled the women off the sundeck to safety with only moments to spare. The bridge deck slipped underneath the water, followed soon after by the yacht’s exhaust pipes and, lastly, its navigational antennae. For all my time in and around boats, I’d never actually seen one sink. I was amazed now at how the ocean seemed to swallow the thing whole, like a snake with a rat.

Meanwhile, a trio of geared-up divers had just jumped into the water. Rescue divers, in a race against time.

Mal turned back to the Vespa. “Can we go?” she asked. “I feel kind of sick.”

“Same. If they come up with—” I cut myself short, unable to finish the statement. If there were others onboard, this could be a rescue mission or a recovery mission, but I didn’t have the stomach to watch and find out.

What were the chances? Despite the legend about the Amalfi Curse, no boats had gone down in this area for a decade. Yet this morning’s incident had unfolded at exactly the site of our impending fieldwork. I couldn’t decide if this was a case of bad luck or a self-fulfilling prophecy. We had, after all, selected the site because of the number of wrecks to be surveyed. Should I really be surprised that another boat went down in such a perilous waterway?

Yes , I thought to myself. Because nothing about it looked perilous today. And while the lives at stake were of utmost importance, there would be project considerations to think about later, as well. This would disturb our site, no doubt: news crews patrolling the waterways. Police monitoring the area. Disaster tourists wanting to see the area for themselves.

Feeling discouraged, I leaned my helmet against Mal’s back and sighed loudly.

“You good?” she called back.

“I guess,” I said, shaking my head.

She turned and grabbed my hand. “Look. The divers will do their best. Maybe they’ll get them out alive. Think positive.” Then, as if reading my mind, “And even if there’s a delay, the project will go on.”

But we were already on borrowed time. “Mount Vesuvius,” I reminded her.

Mount Vesuvius, the enormous and very active volcano not far from here, was long-overdue for an eruption. Scientists monitored the volcano around the clock, knowing the eruption would be catastrophic, not only for the Amalfi Coast’s residents and tourists but its historic ruins. Nearby Pompeii had been buried in ash for two thousand years after the Vesuvius eruption in 79 CE. The sunken relics in the Bay of Naples and the Amalfi area were also at risk of being lost to history when the volcano inevitably blew again.

Still, long-overdue was ambiguous enough to push aside in favor of more urgent crises.

Until six weeks ago, when scientists released concerning data showing that underwater hydrothermal vent activity in the area had taken a turn for the worse—without explanation.

Suddenly, Mount Vesuvius was the more urgent crisis.

Once this news hit, my team convened. We knew the change in hydrothermal vents might put the wrecks at risk of further deterioration. And an eruption? That could bury it all.

We unanimously agreed to expedite Project Relic—a fitting project name, now more than ever—by several months. After all, we already had our funding, our dive boat, and our jurisdictional approvals.

What we didn’t have was time.

***

Project Relic was born two years ago, the product of a fortuitous conversation and a few espresso martinis.

I’d been attending a conference on advances in maritime technology. After the first day of sessions, sitting at the hotel bar, I’d struck up a conversation with another conference attendee—Sloane, the CEO of a software start-up firm working on ways to leverage their oceanic databases and AI in the field.

An hour passed, and we delved into my work, the archaeology side of things. “It’s too bad we haven’t found a way to reconstruct fragmented shipwrecks,” I said at one point, taking a sip from my martini, “or wrecks stacked on top of one another.”

Sloane furrowed her brow, popped an espresso bean into her mouth. “Draw it for me,” she said.

I pulled a paper napkin out from underneath a bowl of mixed nuts and reached for a pen in my bag. I drew two rudimentary shipwrecks, one on top of the other. It was a rather pitiful sketch, but she got the point.

“What do you need to know in order to reconstruct them?” she asked, pointing to the drawing.

“The age of the vessels. Ocean current patterns. The weight and salinity of the water. Composition of the seafloor in the area.” I let out a long sigh. “To name just a few.”

“We have that data,” Sloane said, leaning forward. She took the pen, made a few markings of her own. “And if we had renderings, or photographs, our AI could use it to…”

I took out a second pen, both of us now furiously scribbling notes. We ordered two more martinis and got to work.

That very evening, at the hotel bar, Project Relic was born. We would combine my team’s photographs of underwater wrecks with Sloane’s slew of databases and her new software. Using AI, this would—hopefully—render four-dimensional, reconstructed images of each vessel.

It was photogrammetry on steroids.

The new software would not only be transformational in the field of underwater historic preservation but would also shed light on the Amalfi Coast’s heritage, and it was crucial in strategizing excavation of the wrecks, too.

If we could get it done before it was too late, that was.

We built out a solid project plan, then began to seek funding. Conrad Cass was well-connected with HPI, an international heritage protection foundation, having once served on their board of directors. He set up a call between HPI and my team. The foundation was looking to venture further into the oceanic project space—James Cameron and his Titanic expedition had set enticing precedent—and after hearing our project plan, they committed one million dollars, contingent on their approval of our site selection.

This was where my father’s extensive diving experience proved helpful. A year before we hoped to kick off the project, and six months before his death, my father had gone diving in Li Galli. It was his first of two trips there. “It’s stacked,” he told me afterward. “Wreck upon wreck. I barely scratched the surface.” He’d been so impressed that he’d hit Pause on his other planned dive trips, interested only in returning to Positano again as soon as possible.

Little did he know what would happen on his second, return visit.

Nevertheless, after that first awe-inspiring trip, he showed me a few photos. Even I was astounded: dense wreckage littered the area, and the site was less than thirty meters deep. This was important for air preservation, safety precautions, and photography.

With the exception of being situated in the danger zone of mainland Europe’s only active volcano, Li Galli was the perfect site.

HPI liked our selection, and we signed a few final documents. They reminded me several times that they could exit or alter our agreement at any time, and their attorneys required a slew of confidentiality agreements, too. I wasn’t so much as allowed to breathe the organization’s name to anyone outside the project. I couldn’t blame them for being tight-lipped: if Project Relic failed, it could sabotage the foundation’s future opportunities.

Still, it was unthinkably exciting. If my team pulled this off, we’d be trailblazers. And when we spoke with HPI about scientists’ concerns in recent months and our desire to expedite the project, they enthusiastically supported us. Underwater relics were seductive enough. But a race-against-time element made it all the more exhilarating.

The foundation’s funding was more than enough to cover our expenses, like chartering a boat and paying my team. Not to mention I was given free rein to run the project as I liked, including handpicking my colleagues. In the end, though, I sensed HPI—particularly the CEO, Gage Whitlock, who was very close friends with Conrad—had mixed feelings about my selection. A team of five women was unheard of in the male-dominated field of nautical archaeology, and our partners at the software start-up were mostly women, too. I wondered if Gage thought we’d be spending the next year in Positano sunbathing and sipping limoncello.

I didn’t let it weigh on me. I’d built a hell of a team, and if Project Relic could be done, we’d do it.

***

Back at the villa, I retreated to my bedroom, though I could only call it mine for a couple more days, as I’d soon be sharing it with another team member. I heaved my backpack on top of the bed and sat down next to it, thinking of the Li Galli islets. I envisioned the skeletal pile of wrecks scattered across the seabed. The layers of sediment—sand and pumice and biodebris. The mollusks clinging to ship fragments.

And somewhere among this, something else. The something big : the treasure my father had spotted.

I still remembered his phone call that day, the elation in his voice. It was his second, final trip to Positano. “A trail of pink and red gemstones,” he told me, nearly out of breath. “Hard to see in the silt, but I reckon there were thousands of them.”

“Do you think they’re real?” I asked, wary of his years of bad luck.

“Yes,” he urged. “I know they are. I have proof of it. I’m going back down tomorrow with bags. I didn’t have any with me today, and I was near out of air, too.”

Strange, I thought, how he’d been so convinced of their authenticity. I have proof of it , he’d said. It was unlike him to make such a declaration.

Later that night, however, he’d suffered a minor stroke. It upset his coordination so much that he could hardly use the stairs. Diving was out of the question until he’d recovered.

He returned to the States to rest, to rehab. For a couple of weeks, I stayed with him. He suffered frequent vertigo and weakness in his arms and core. Worse, he was beginning to fear that he’d never dive again, which was a grieving process I hated to watch. Diving was all he talked about. The deepest dives he’d done. The rarest sharks he’d spotted. The roughest currents he’d navigated. I miss the ol’ deep , he said time and time again, his eyes downcast.

Still, he was sharp as a tack. His recollection of the second Li Galli dive was detailed and elaborate. He showed me a few grainy underwater photos he’d taken near the gems and an abovewater photo that was geotagged with the wreck’s general location, so he could return to the site.

If I can’t make it back to Positano myself , he said one morning, don’t let this go .

I’ve always had better luck than you , I teased in return, trying to keep his spirits high. I gave him a kiss on his forehead. I’m headed outside for a bit , I told him. Love you, Pops. I would forever be a daddy’s girl, and I made sure he knew it.

I put on a swimsuit and spent a few hours sunbathing on the dock. I had a strong margarita, then a second one. At some point, I dozed off.

Later that afternoon, when I went back inside, I found my father slumped over in his desk chair. I screamed and ran toward him, trying to shake him awake, but there was no use. He was already dead.

His cell phone lay on the floor next to him. When I opened it, it was evident he’d been confused: he had tried calling 9-9-1-1-1 several times.

He’d suffered a second stroke, and this one had killed him.

Remorse and sorrow I could have handled. Instead, I was filled with self-loathing, knowing I was mere steps away while my father died so completely and entirely alone. Had he called for me, shouted my name? If I hadn’t had my headphones in, perhaps I’d have heard him. If I hadn’t had a second margarita, I wouldn’t have dozed off. If I’d invited him out for a drink with me, I would have been there to call the ambulance.

If, if, if. They’ve haunted me ever since. Mal tells me to go easy on myself. But I wasn’t there when he needed me.

After my father’s death, I realized that Positano now held more than just professional value. The team had selected the site for its preservation potential, but amid these wrecks lay my father’s sunken, unfulfilled dream.

Whatever it was he’d seen, I wanted to bring it to the surface, just as he had intended to do. Don’t let this go , he’d pleaded with me.

I might not have been there when he took his last breath, but that didn’t need to be the end of the story.

I could still give him this.

***

I pulled out my phone to reply to Conrad’s text earlier that morning.

Thanks for the nice message , I said. How’s Australia? According to Conrad’s social media, he was somewhere near Brisbane on a week-long dive expedition.

Hey, kid , he replied. Wrapping up down here. Great week in the water. How’s Positano? Find anything other than shipwrecks yet?

I paused, staring at the message. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way—like he was probing for information. Like maybe he knew something.

And the emoji? He never used emojis.

I shook my head, annoyed with myself. Conrad was a good guy. I decided I was being sensitive—defensive, even—because I had a secret, and I feared someone finding out.

Besides, I had every reason to trust Conrad. As a former helicopter rescue swimmer with the US Coast Guard, he was responsible for saving thousands of lives throughout his career.

Mine included.

***

I reached into my backpack and snagged my iPad, then I opened up the cloud folder containing the dozen grainy photographs my father had taken on his GoPro camera during his final dive in Li Galli. He’d shared the folder with me before he died. He’d named it Li Galli Potential .

The password? My middle name.

There was one other item in the folder, too: a Word document with a haphazard table of numbers and letters, presented in no rational manner. I’d stared at it countless times, trying to make sense of any pattern. I could find nothing. The only clue was the file’s creation date as noted in the metadata, showing that my dad had compiled this list the day before he spotted the underwater loot—the day before the grainy photos were taken.

Most of the photographs in the folder were taken underwater, and though they were full color, the camera had not picked up much beyond murky shades of steel-blue. In a few of the photos, I could make out the hazy shapes of wood segments, though it was impossible to determine whether these were part of a stern or mast or porthole. Other photos revealed only indistinguishable plankton or the air bubbles emitted from my father’s mouthpiece. And because these pictures were taken underwater, the metadata didn’t include longitude and latitude. This made it impossible to trace their precise location.

The last photo was taken abovewater. It looked to be a sunny, warm day, a band of cottony clouds stretching their way across the sky. In the distance stood La Rotonda, the southwesternmost islet of Li Galli, which was rich with foliage, assorted shrubs and umbrella pine trees. A lone bird soared high above.

I right-clicked on this photo’s metadata, as I’d done countless times before. The camera had recorded the longitude and latitude, and this geotag represented the best clue I had in locating my father’s last wreck amid the mess of other ruins.

I jumped at the sound of a knock on my door—Mal. Quickly, I flipped over my iPad. I hated hiding this from her, but it seemed the right thing for now. Yes, the team had selected the Li Galli site months before my father’s discovery of the gems, but I still worried Mal or my team might question my motives for being here.

Besides, I didn’t want to distract them from the project objectives we’d set. And though I trusted that Mal’s values were in the right place, I didn’t know the other team members quite as well. What if one of them decided she wanted to locate the loot herself? I’d have liked to think they’d prioritize our professional goals over anything else, but it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

And worst-case scenario? Even with my professional ethics in the right place—I’d report any discovery to Italian authorities at once—if my team knew I was treasure-hunting on our off days, they might report the information to HPI. I’d read the contracts more than a few times, and I knew better than anyone that the foundation could back out of the project as easily as I could be kicked off it.

No, I simply couldn’t find a good reason to reveal this secret to my team. Project Relic was important to me, yes: it would propel the five of us women archaeologists to the forefront of respected conservation circles, and if we succeeded, my career was set. But I reminded myself who had gotten me here in the first place: the adventurer who’d geared me up in my first dive kit at age eight. The teacher who’d scolded me for touching coral. The competitor who’d raced me in our dive descents. The friend with whom I’d developed a shared underwater language consisting of strange hand signals.

No matter what Project Relic might do for me professionally, fulfilling my father’s final wish remained a priority.

And it was something I needed to keep close to my chest. Something I needed to guard.

***

Later that afternoon, Mal and I changed into our swimsuits. We packed a bag with sunscreen, water bottles, and some of the fresh fruit we’d bought at the roadside stand yesterday. We’d need to find a market later today and start stocking the kitchen.

Before we went outside, I checked the news for any mention of the yacht that had gone down in Li Galli. As I opened my phone, I smiled at the photo I used as my wallpaper: my father in a wet suit many years ago, his white hair disheveled and dripping, and his forehead indented from his dive mask. Smile lines creased his cheeks and eyes; he’d always been terrible about sunscreen, and anyone could guess he’d spent a lifetime on the water.

“Not much on the news yet,” I told Mal, scanning a short article in English. “Just says a yacht went down west of Positano. Twelve people on board. Story still developing.”

“Twelve people?” she repeated.

I gave a small nod, knowing we were thinking the same thing: we’d only seen three people get rescued. But we also hadn’t stayed to watch what unfolded. For all we knew, the rescue divers could have gotten the others out just after we left.

“I’ll check again in a bit,” I concluded, leading us to the door.

Spiaggia Grande was only a twenty-minute walk, so we decided to forgo the Vespa. As we started our downhill journey, Mal called her longtime girlfriend, Megan, back home in Miami. They’d been together for years but never lived in the same city, and it seemed to work for them: they were two fiercely independent, career-driven women, satisfied with a daily phone call and the occasional getaway to Austin or Asheville. I’d met Megan a few times and adored her instantly. We bonded over a shared love of to-do lists and raw oysters, whereas Mal, with her spiked blond hair and a naked woman tattooed onto her collarbone, hated both, and we liked her all the more for it.

I listened to Mal’s half of the conversation as I carefully navigated my way down staircase after staircase, one of Positano’s claims to fame. It was a city built on a hill, and though the route down to the beach wasn’t bad, I was already dreading the trip back up. On one side of us was a stone wall with natural vegetation—tiny ferns, interspersed with patches of white wildflowers—protruding from the gaps. An orange tabby cat had found himself a perfect hideaway in the wall, and I gave him a rub under the chin, glancing up at the colorful hillside above us.

When we turned a corner, I nearly ran into a man rushing up the staircase. He carried a box of what I instantly recognized as snorkel gear: masks, fins. His forearms glinted with sweat as though he’d been carrying boxes all morning. “ Mi scusi ,” he said breathlessly, his eyes flitting briefly to my lips.

“No problem,” I replied, then I chided myself for not using my rudimentary Italian. I’d been studying basic phrases for the last few months with a phone app. I turned around to give him a final glance, and I caught him looking back at me with a grin. Now was my chance. “ Va bene ,” I called out, beaming back at him.

“Ah, very good!” he replied, disappearing into a doorway.

As we wound our way along pencil-thin sidewalks and stairwells dripping with bougainvillea vines, I began to ruminate on my love life…or lack thereof. I’d dated a few guys in recent years, all of them fellow dive researchers. But time after time, I grew bored, and for now, I was done dating anyone in the field. It made for too many date-night conversations about work or colleagues or research papers…and not enough good, plain fun .

I wondered how I’d fare in Positano. As we passed one trattoria after another, I couldn’t help but notice all the tables set with pairs of wineglasses. Everywhere, couples walked hand in hand, while restaurant signage advertised fixed-price menus for two.

Sometimes, I envied Mal and Megan for what they managed to keep aflame: a relationship lite , of sorts, with minimal time commitment yet no shortage of devotion. But now I shook my head, feeling ashamed for brooding on it. I was thirty-five with a PhD, and I got to explore wrecks along the Italian coastline for the next year.

What more could I possibly want? And it wasn’t as though I’d be alone here in Italy—or idle. Between managing Project Relic and the work of four other nautical archaeologists, as well as making time to discreetly hunt down my father’s last wreck, I’d be too busy to care about romance.

I sighed as we passed another ridiculously attractive Italian man, this one sweeping out a doorway without a shirt on. Maybe I wasn’t too busy for all romance. A night or two of fun never hurt anyone.

“ Non lavorare troppo ,” I said sweetly as he and I made eye contact.

Mal had just hung up the phone and looked at me mischievously. “ Troppo -what now?”

“It means Don’t work too hard ,” I said. “You didn’t study much Italian before this trip, did you?”

“I’m here to work, not flirt,” she teased, winking. “And God knows if one of us is having sex in Italy, it isn’t me.”

I gave her a playful slap on the shoulder, laughing along with her.

We turned a final corner, finding ourselves in a large plaza overlooking the beach. The sand here was rocky and ash-colored, different than the pebbly, pale sand in the Keys. Barefoot, we made our way to the sliver of beach available to people who didn’t want to pay for an umbrella. We were perfectly happy lying on our towels.

As we searched for a place to settle in, two women walked past us, conversing in Italian. One of them pressed a tissue to the corner of her eye, her cheeks streaked with tears. Her friend gave her a gentle pat on the back, and I couldn’t help but wonder what troubled her so.

I glanced at Mal through my sunglasses, reminded of my dad’s birthday. I was grateful to have a friend by my side today, too.

We spotted an empty area close to the water and made our way through the throng of tourists, stepping over coolers and toy buckets and thrown-aside beach hats. Settling down, I fought off a feeling of disappointment: this beach was far more crowded than I’d have liked. Polluted, too. I glanced out at the small tenders queued up alongside the seawall, a sort of makeshift marina. Streaks of oil trailed behind several of them, glinting black and purple in the sunlight like bruises on the water.

Mal and I sunbathed for the better part of an hour. Just as I nearly dozed off, she reached into our beach bag, withdrawing a miniature bottle of sparkling wine and a pair of cups.

I frowned. “What’s this for?” I hadn’t seen her sneak anything out of the kitchen.

She uncorked the bottle and split it between the two cups, then she held hers up to make a toast. “To your dad. Happy birthday, Mr. Ambrose.”

I might have taken a sip right then, if not for the sudden lump in my throat. “Thank you, Mal,” I managed.

The crowd around us grew denser with no sign of letting up. A pair of English-speaking tourists settled in so close that our shoulders nearly touched. Mal and I were just about to pack up our things and leave when one of the women posed a question to her friend.

“Did you hear about the yacht?” she asked. Her accent was thick, British. I glanced over at her, hiding my gaze behind my sunglasses, and watched as she scrolled through social media. “Went down very near here, just this morning. Several passengers still unaccounted for.”

Shit , I thought. Mal and I shared a sobering look. It was the worst possible outcome for those poor people.

This news, plus the crowded, littered beach, had put me in a mood. “Let’s go and find something to eat,” I suggested.

We didn’t have to walk far; the plaza near the beach was home to countless restaurants and bistros. We chose a small pizzeria with an outdoor terrace overlooking the water. Despite the good view, a gloomy energy settled around us. Neither of us seemed keen on pulling up the news ourselves.

After our order was placed, my phone lit up with an email from Gage Whitlock.

Just checking in , he said. You girls make it okay?

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t a huge fan of Gage for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his tactless communication style. “He can be so condescending,” I said to Mal, turning my phone to show her the beginning of his email.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to deal with him. That’s your job as boss, right?”

Mal and I played this game often. I was project lead, yes, but as the designated dive marshal and safety officer, she didn’t rank far behind me. After every dive, she would download the data from the team members’ dive watches and run a quick audit. If she found anything concerning—an uncontrolled descent, for instance, or inadequate air reserves—she could, quite literally, halt this entire project.

And if we encountered an incident on the water? She’d immediately be the one in charge.

“Yes,” I said, as the server approached with our Aperol spritzes. “Doesn’t mean I have to love the guy.”

Still, no matter what I thought of him, Gage was CEO of the foundation paying for this project, and I needed to keep the peace.

Great to hear from you, Gage , I replied, tapping away with a bit too much force. We made it just fine. Checked into lodging okay. No issues with anything s—

I paused. No issues with anything so far , I’d almost written.

But that was a lie, wasn’t it? A yacht holding a dozen people had gone down that morning in Li Galli, our exact project site. And they hadn’t gotten everyone off the boat.

There were absolutely issues.

I just wasn’t about to discuss them with the project’s largest stakeholder.

I deleted the unfinished sentence and wrapped up my reply on a positive note, assuring Gage I’d check in again soon.

Nothing else will go wrong , I assured myself. Then I dropped my phone in my beach bag with a sigh and reached for my drink.