Page 9

8

Haven

Monday

A fter a simple dinner of sliced tomatoes with fresh burrata, I was nearly about to crawl into bed with a book, but Mal knocked on my bedroom door and let herself in. Her eyebrows were knit together, her mouth set hard. “Hey, you need to hear this.” She reached for the remote on my nightstand and flipped on the television.

She found a news channel in English and scooted back against my pillows. Together, we watched as a weatherman behind a desk sifted through a stack of papers.

“The weather?” I said. “God, you’re that bored?”

“Shhh,” she said, no hint of a grin.

Chastised, I returned my attention to the TV.

The meteorologist held up a piece of paper: it was a graph, covered in erratic lines and indecipherable symbols. “We received this a few moments ago from our oceanography team,” he said, a grave expression on his face. “Additional data indicating increased carbon dioxide levels observed around several key offshore hydrothermal vents.” He checked his notes for a moment. “Sorrento, Amalfi, Positano,” he added. “All are showing significant increases. The data has been unusual for the last six weeks, but this is…” He shook his head. “This is a notable spike.”

Mal turned the television down a notch. “There were a few articles posted this morning,” she said, “about the correlation between increased CO2 seeps—basically carbon dioxide from underwater vents—and imminent volcanic eruptions.” She put her elbows on her knees. “They’d issue formal warnings if we needed to be worried about this, right?”

“Did the articles say anything about the Vesuvius steam vents? Or earthquakes?” Both were far more concerning indicators than oceanic CO2 readings.

“No,” she conceded.

“Okay, then.” I grabbed the remote and muted the television. “We have enough to worry about, Mal. I can’t deal with something else.”

She stared at me for a moment, looking unconvinced.

I put up my hands. “I promise: if there are warnings, real warnings, we’ll do what we need to do to stay safe.” I motioned to the television, which had flipped to a commercial break. An enormous cheeseburger stretched across the screen, grease dripping down its side. “Look,” I said and pointed. “They don’t play cheeseburger commercials during real emergencies, right?”

“I guess so, yeah.” She turned the television off. “I think I just need to get out.”

I remembered seeing an ad for Positano’s world-famous nightclub. “How about Music on the Rocks? It isn’t open yet, but we could get ready, go somewhere for a drink beforehand.”

She pursed her lips, then said, “I could dance, yeah.”

We made plans to head that way in an hour. Yet just as I dug a short blue dress out of my suitcase, my phone rang. Gage.

I didn’t have the energy for him tonight. I hit Ignore , making a mental note to call him back tomorrow.

***

Music on the Rocks, nestled inside a cave on the eastern edge of the village, undoubtedly made for a good distraction.

Pink and blue neon lights illuminated the low concave ceiling, while patrons stood along the cave walls, marveling at the craggy stone interior. The dance floor was already packed when we arrived, and I scanned the room, feeling more upbeat than I had all day. The vibe was not only chic but wildly unlike any place I’d been before.

We went to the bar and ordered a couple of beers, then we made our way to a white leather sofa situated near the dance floor. I tugged down my short blue dress, while Mal looked much more comfortable in her ripped black jeans.

She and I toasted to our second night in Positano, but as we both took a drink, I felt my phone buzz in my purse.

“What the hell,” I said aloud. “It’s Gage. Again.”

“Again?”

“He called me earlier, just before I started getting ready. I ignored it.”

Mal grimaced, a hate-to-break-it-to-you expression on her face. “If he’s calling again, you need to take it.”

“I know, I know.” I stood, eyeing the doorway. “I’ll step outside. Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

I rushed out the main club door and onto a terrace built into the cliffside. A few men leaned over the railing, smoking cigarettes. One of them had his phone open, showing off a text. “They canceled their flights,” I heard him say.

“Because of Vesuvius?” his friend asked.

“Yup.”

I flicked open my phone, answering Gage’s call. “Hi, Gage,” I said.

“Haven.” His voice was solemn, serious. “I tried calling you earlier.”

“Yes, I saw. Mal and I are out for the night. I think I mentioned we arrived a few days early.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “So, Haven, we have a situation.” I stayed silent, alarmed by his tone. Cigarette smoke wafted in my direction, and I took a few steps away, trying to get fresh air. “You heard about the yacht sinking today?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “We saw it this morning, as it was happening.”

“Oh,” he said. “Do you have any idea what caused it? The media isn’t saying much.”

“No. There was no smoke. And it seemed a perfect day for boating.” Nearby, the men along the railing glanced at me.

“Did you see the news a couple hours ago? Where they announced the casualties?”

I hung my head. This must have been why he’d called a couple hours ago. “No, I didn’t. I knew there were people they hadn’t yet located. But nothing beyond that.”

Maybe, I thought, Mal and I had avoided checking for updates as an unconscious way of avoiding what we already knew.

Gage exhaled. “Eight people died.”

I closed my eyes, brought my hand to my mouth. Eight.

“This is unbelievable,” I said into the phone, feeling dazed. “I can’t—”

“Conrad’s calling,” Gage interrupted. “Let me take this and call you back.”

“Conrad?” I said.

My question was met with silence. Gage had already hung up.

I rushed back inside, maneuvering through a throng of people to get back to Mal. I cursed as a woman in high heels backed into me, spilling her entire drink—something dark, like soda—onto the front of my blue dress.

“Hey,” I said to Mal, raising my voice above the DJ’s music. “Come outside for a minute.”

With a wary look, she followed me out. We made our way past a line of people waiting to get into the club, neither of us speaking. Finally, we emerged onto a wide, empty walkway running alongside the main beach.

“Eight people died in the yacht sinking,” I said softly.

Her mouth dropped open. “Shit . ”

“Yeah. Gage told me.” I paused, wondering what he and Conrad were discussing at that very moment. Given their close friendship, it could have been anything—but still, I had a bad feeling about this. “He’s talking to Conrad about something now, then will call me back.”

Mal ran her hand across the back of her neck, exhaling hard. I spotted a nearby bench, and we took a seat, suddenly bone-tired. I kicked off my heels, and Mal did the same, then I glanced miserably at my dress, wet from the woman’s spilled drink. Already, the stain was setting.

What a sight we must have made: not even eleven o’clock, and already we looked like we’d had a rough night.

While I waited for Gage to call me back, I pulled out my phone and googled positano yacht sinking . It was the headline story on countless news outlets, so I clicked the first one.

As Gage said, eight people had died—but this wasn’t the headline. The headline was who died: Asher Vice, a well-known TikTok influencer boasting thirty million followers, and his swimsuit-model girlfriend, Julie Jensen. As the boat went down, Asher had been trapped in one of the berths belowdecks with his girlfriend and four other women, all swimsuit models who featured regularly on his social media platforms. A few surviving passengers had tried to break through the door to save them, as well as Asher’s friend in another berth, but they were unable. The bodies would undergo autopsy to determine whether drugs had been at play.

The cause of the sinking was to be determined, the article stated. There was no indication of fire. No bad weather. Seas were calm. All of it, just as Mal and I had observed this morning.

The comments below the news article varied. Some expressed condolences, some were unashamedly insensitive. Most were speculative. I read through a few quickly, my fingers trembling as I scrolled.

@jforge23: How tragic. I know his little sister. She must be crushed.

@kch_forthewin: There’s something they’re not telling us. No fire, no bad weather? Boats don’t just sink.

@craterhunter99: I think it was a sinkhole. Check out the news about the carbon dioxide levels in the same area. Scary stuff given Vesuvius.

@cruzecpl: Heard a new steam vent formed in the crater. Already canceled our trip to Isle of Capri. Not worth it.

@kch_forthewin: Vent activity varies by the day. Means nothing. Volcano’s not gonna erupt.

@jp1104: Five girls in the same room? Someone, teach me the way.

@reliccollector: Probably a drug-induced coma. Don’t even feel bad for them.

@tears_n_lore: The Amalfi Curse strikes again.

@kch_forthewin: Say what now?

@tears_n_lore: Google it. Said to be the reason behind lots of sinkings in that exact area.

@kch_forthewin: Old wives’ tale. Fake news.

@tears_n_lore: Do you have a better explanation?

I might have kept reading, but my phone rang again. It was Gage calling me back.

“Here he is,” I said to Mal, cringing as I answered.

“Sorry about that,” Gage said.

“No problem. How’s Conrad?” I crossed my legs, squeezing them tightly together, everything in my body tense.

“He’s fine. Look, Haven, we need to have a conversation about this.”

I gazed out at the beach. The tide was out, making the water feel far away. “Absolutely,” I said. “Probably best to delay the project a beat—let the police wrap up their investigation, stay out of their way. We can use that time to do some work at the archives in Naples, try to get a feel for the existing inventory of vessels downed in the area.”

This was met with silence. All I could hear was a faint tapping sound, as though Gage were nervously drumming a pen against his desk.

“We don’t have time,” Gage finally said. “We’ve never had time, but now more than ever, every hour counts.” He let out a heavy sigh. “This isn’t easy to share with you, but HPI has decided to reassign the project.”

I swallowed hard, shaking my head. I must have misheard. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s for your safety, Haven. You said yourself you couldn’t determine why the boat went down. The only explanation is the currents—the maelstroms. The area is known for them. And with the strange data, the hydrothermal vents, we just don’t know what’s going on down there. I can’t pay to put a group of women in the water, Haven. Should something happen, think how that would look.”

Think how that would look . Always worried about optics, this one.

“So if not me, then who?”

Another pause. “Conrad,” he finally said.

I frowned. Had I misunderstood? “But Conrad is in Australia.”

“His dive trip is done, apparently,” he said. “Look, I know you two are close, and there’s a lot of history there. You can stay involved with the project in a remote consulting capacity. And with his diving abilities, his safety record—I don’t care what the hell those waters do. I trust Conrad can get himself and his team out safely if needed.”

“His team?” I repeated.

“Right. He sent me a short list of names. They’re working on travel arrangements now.”

“Hang on,” I said, my mind reeling. This was all happening so fast. “Whose idea was this? The foundation’s, or Conrad’s?”

He let out a sigh. “Look, Haven, I’m gonna shoot you straight. When your team opted to expedite the project, we at the foundation were supportive—but we were nervous, too. Things have only gotten worse over there, and I’ve been losing sleep over it, quite literally. Conrad called me early this morning and pitched the change in plans. I gathered my leadership team and the board. We all agreed this is for the best.”

I clenched my jaw, furious that I’d been excluded from these meetings. “Am I on Conrad’s list of names? His team?”

Gage hesitated. “No.”

I thought I might scream. “So none of you trust me in challenging waters,” I said flatly. I glanced at Mal. “Or my dive marshal.”

Gage spoke quickly now. “It’s not a matter of trust, Haven. It’s a matter of experience. Conrad has a lifetime of incident management under his belt. You’re newer to this. A lot newer.”

“I’ve been diving my entire life.”

“Fair.” He took a breath. “How many dive accidents have you handled?”

I bit my lower lip until I tasted blood. “None.” Actually, one, and it was my own, but I wasn’t about to share this.

Or the person who saved me.

***

Despite having logged more than fifteen hundred dives, I’d only had one significant incident underwater, when I was sixteen years old. It was nothing short of a miracle that Conrad, who had only joined my father and me for a few recreational dives over the years, was there when it unfolded.

We meant to explore an underwater arch trail, a series of swim-through rock and coral formations off Key Largo. During the dive, I spotted an arch a few meters away from the trail and made my way toward it. As I swam underneath, admiring a moray eel hidden in a tiny crevice, I felt a snag and then a pop against the back of my head.

At once, a rush of cold salt water flooded my eyes, my nose. The strap on my face mask had caught on the rocks, snapping it. My mask, no longer secured, broke its seal and floated away.

As divers, we train for moments like this, but we rarely expect to use that training in real life. I’d removed my mask countless times in pools and even shallow ocean water. I knew well how to replace my mask on my head and clear it of water.

But I’d never practiced that snag and pop. I’d never had my mask strap split in two. And nothing had prepared me for the violent sting of salt in my eyes, the instant blindness, the water flooding my nose, and—worst of all—the immediate onset of panic.

All of this, thirty feet beneath the surface of the water.

I remained as calm as I could for ten, maybe twenty seconds. I still had my regulator—my source of air—in my mouth. My eyes quickly adjusted to the sting of salt water, though all I could see was the blur of blue, a shadow here or there. I fumbled around as best I could to get my bearings, but as I waved my arms frantically, my hand caught the hose attached to my regulator and inadvertently yanked it out.

Now I was without a mask, without air, and hidden beneath an archway without a dive buddy.

A calmer, more mature diver—a diver like Conrad or my father—might have considered this predicament yet another training exercise. I should have gone for my air first: even if the regulator slips from a diver’s mouth, it’s attached to the tank and always there to be found, if only a bit out of reach. Even without a mask, I could have then taken a few deep breaths to calm myself, then made a safe, slow ascent to the surface.

I did none of these things.

I panicked, inhaling exactly when I shouldn’t have.

Even to this day, I’m not sure how much time passed after this. The story was pieced together in fragments offered by my father and Conrad, beginning with the moment they noticed I was no longer behind them on the original trail.

When Conrad spotted bubbles rising to the surface a short distance away, he swam toward me, realizing something was awry: my mask was off, but the regulator hadn’t yet slipped from my mouth. Just as he came up behind me to assist, I yanked the regulator out.

Which meant that in the exact moment I needed help, I had a rescue diver mere inches away.

This was easy work for Conrad. He released the weights attached to my dive gear, put my head in a neutral position, hooked his arm around me, and took me to the surface.

At some point during the brief ascent, I lost consciousness.

Once on the surface, Conrad performed CPR. As I came to, he blew on his whistle to alert the boat’s driver, who had anchored a short distance away. They say my father surfaced about this time, too, his eyes ablaze with so much fear they thought he’d suffered an incident of his own. Someone called for an ambulance to be waiting upon our return to shore.

This was the day we all decided that where my father was lacking in luck, I was getting his share of it. Conrad’s quick thinking had saved my life, and it was part of why now—even after my father’s passing—he and I stayed in touch. I wasn’t sure how I could ever repay him.

No matter Conrad’s yachts and high-rolling associates and flashy nature, so in contrast to my upbringing. He’d been one of my father’s lifelong friends; a fervent supporter of my career; and the man who’d breathed air back into my lungs.

I trusted him completely.

Until right this very moment, on the phone with Gage.

“Why can’t Conrad and I lead it together?” I disputed. “Why let him bring in a new team? My crew has been studying our approach for months.”

“I’ll make sure he gets all the documentation, but there won’t be much of a learning curve. He could do this in his sleep. He’s got his own camera equipment, too, including some new proprietary tech. He can send his images directly to the software start-up. We’ll make sure they get what they need.”

I felt Mal’s reassuring hand on my knee, though she could only hear half of the conversation. Tears burned in my eyes, but still, I refused to let this man make me cry. “Sounds like the two of you have it pretty well figured out, then.”

“We’ll need to have a few handoff calls, make sure the docs are transferred to him, et cetera. I’m having my admin draft up a new contract for him. It will be ready by morning. Conrad can be out in two days. He already booked his flight.”

“He’s lucky he got a flight this late,” I said, making no effort to hide my irritation.

“From what I hear, cancellations are off the charts. My wife’s travel agency handles a lot of Italy bookings. She said nearly a quarter of next week’s reservations have postponed. Premature, in my opinion. There have been no official warnings.”

For once, something Gage and I agreed on.

Stunned, I bent forward and put my head in my hands. I thought of Conrad more than a year ago, referring me to HPI and setting me on track for professional success.

I thought of him pulling me from the water nineteen years ago, saving my life.

I thought of his kind text message only hours ago, acknowledging my father’s birthday.

And yet he and Gage had just yanked me from the project. And Conrad hadn’t put me on his team.

What the hell was this about? Conrad had done so much for me in years past, but now I felt betrayed. He’d been stealthy about it, and now he was making Gage do the dirty work of delivering the news.

This wasn’t the Conrad I’d known for most of my life.

I looked at Mal. Her eyes were downcast, resigned. “What about my team?” I asked Gage.

“We just talked about that. Conrad wants—”

“No, what my team is due . Their earnings. Three of them, my dive marshal included, left jobs or transferred projects to make this happen.”

Gage let out a little laugh. “Well, we obviously can’t pay them for work they won’t be doing.” I heard him shift a few papers around. “Of course, the foundation will cover everyone’s expenses incurred thus far, your trip home, and so on. And I’d be willing to honor the team’s living stipend through, say, end of next week.”

I stood and paced the sidewalk in my bare feet, my heels dangling from one hand. “My dive marshal quit her job , Gage.” I had nothing to lose now. “She sublet her apartment in Miami. This isn’t just a staffing change. My team has upended their lives for the next twelve months. This was to be our work, our income. I’m not even over my jet lag and you’re already calling it off? None of us can just fly home and pick up where we left off.”

“Haven.” Gage lowered his voice. “Today’s incident could very well be your blessing in disguise. I don’t know what’s going on in those waters, okay? I can’t have you dead at the bottom of the ocean.”

I had one last idea. “Then, we’ll shift sites. We’ll go back to OBX.” In early project-brainstorming days, it had been a contender: North Carolina’s Outer Banks, particularly the wreck field around Cape Hatteras, was dubbed the Graveyard of the Atlantic. “We’ll need a bit to reframe our approach,” I continued, “but we can keep my team intact. And we’ll be out of harm’s way.”

I wouldn’t be able to search for my father’s discovery, but at this exact moment, I was more worried about my team and their ability to pay their bills.

Gage paused, let out a resigned breath. “I’m sorry, Haven. We can’t shift sites, not this late. We can shift people. This is just business. You can’t take it personally.”

I thought of the rudimentary napkin drawings I’d sketched at the hotel bar a couple of years ago—the birth of Project Relic. This entire idea had been mine, so of course I was taking it personally. If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be here at all. But I supposed Gage could say the same. If it weren’t for his organization’s funding, we wouldn’t be here, either.

And that was where he had me beat.

“How about this,” Gage continued. He’d lowered his voice, probably suspecting I wasn’t alone. “You stay put. Just you. Assuming Vesuvius doesn’t do anything drastic, I’ll find a way to secure your living stipend through the end of the twelve months. Call it a year-long vacation. Will that make you happy?”

Was this a joke? Did he consider me shallow enough to take such an offer and send my team home empty-handed? “No,” I said. “For one, I’m not taking an incentive that leaves my team with nothing. And two, I don’t want a vacation. I want to work.”

He exhaled hard, and I knew our conversation was finished. “Then, I can’t help you,” he concluded. “We’ll be in touch tomorrow about the handoff.”

I didn’t acknowledge this, nor did I give him the courtesy of a goodbye. I ended the call and shoved my phone into my purse.

Mal stood to the side, eyes downcast. I wrapped my arms around her neck and held her close. “I’m so sorry. Gage said—”

“You don’t need to recap it for me,” she said. “I heard enough.”

I nodded, and we embraced for a long minute. With my head on her shoulder, I looked off into the distance, beyond the ocean’s edge, to where the water grew deeper, darker. The waves lapped rhythmically along the sand, easy and slow.

I thought again of Conrad. He’d once been a friend to me. Now, he felt anything but. What had changed with him?

I remembered his strange text message that morning. Find anything other than shipwrecks yet?

Was it possible, somehow, that Conrad knew about the loot my father had spotted? Could that be behind this unexpected shift in…everything? I didn’t think my father had shared his discovery with anyone else. But Conrad was an experienced guy, and I supposed my father might have wanted to seek professional or technical guidance on recovering the gems.

Regardless, Conrad had been the one to initiate this change in plans. If he knew about the gems, he could have gone after them anytime on his own. But with HPI sponsoring the project? That gave him a free ride.

As Mal and I began the uphill walk back to our villa, I couldn’t shake the possibility of it. Maybe, to Conrad, this last-minute journey to Positano wasn’t about Project Relic at all.

Maybe he wanted the loot. Maybe he wanted someone else to pay for the expedition.

And maybe he wanted me out of his way.

Gage had made it clear: there was no negotiating this decision. The project wasn’t mine anymore. He had given me the choice to remain in Positano for a year with the living stipend we originally agreed upon, but his stipend could go to hell. I didn’t want the foundation’s money.

Still, I hadn’t come here with only one objective. And Gage couldn’t pull the plug on finishing what my father had started.

“What will you do?” Mal said.

We’d just ascended yet another staircase, and we were both breathing hard. I paused, turning to sit on the top step and catch my breath. “I guess I need to email the others,” I said, pulling out my phone. I hovered my fingers over the screen, hating the news I was about to share. The rest of my team was supposed to board their flights the day after tomorrow. I imagined their suitcases, already half-packed on their bedroom floors.

I kept the email short and sweet, telling them the project had been reassigned and they needed to cancel their flights. We could hop on a team call to discuss details at some point tomorrow. After I hit Send, Mal took a seat next to me. From this vantage point, we could see much of the village. Toward the center of town was an ancient church, its facade glowing blue and violet. Beyond this, a few lights bobbed on the water—small boats, anchored for the night. From somewhere nearby, I could hear the faint thumping of music.

“I can’t believe we have to leave,” Mal said, admiring the view. “I guess I’ll stay with Megan until I can undo my sublease situation. If I can undo it.”

“We already paid the first month on the villa, so we have it for a few more weeks, if you want to stay.” I sighed. “But, still. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear you say that ever again. You did nothing wrong, Haven.”

“What about income?” I asked her. “What will you do?” I had a modest savings account, thanks to what I’d inherited after my father’s death. Mal had no such thing.

She chewed her bottom lip. “My boss was pretty understanding. She said if I changed my mind in the near future, I could come back. Not sure what she meant by near future , but if I head home like, ASAP, I think I’ll be okay.”

This, at least, gave me a measure of relief.

“What about you?” she asked. “What will you do?”

I held my breath. Now was the time.

“I’m not going home,” I said.

She was silent a moment, frowning at me. “What?”

“I’m not leaving.” I looked her in the eye. “I never told you this, but my father’s last dive was Li Galli. He located a wreck with something valuable. Gemstones. He didn’t retrieve them—didn’t have what he needed. He intended to go back the next day, but…”

“His stroke.”

“Right. He couldn’t return. He made me promise I’d come back in his place.”

Mal eyes were wide. “Why are you just now telling me this?”

“A lot of reasons. Mainly, it wasn’t my secret to share—it was my father’s. But also, I didn’t want to divert the team’s focus with mention of anything valuable among the wrecks. And I didn’t want you all…” I sighed, splaying my hands. “Well, even though we chose this site before his discovery, I don’t want anyone to think my motives for being here are misaligned.”

“So no one else knows,” Mal said.

“Not on the team, no. And I want to keep it that way.”

But Mal was shaking her head. “No, I mean, does anyone else know about the wreck and the loot? Besides you and your dad?”

I exhaled. “I’m not sure. Conrad, he said something strange earlier.” I showed her the text with the wink emoji, and I told her about the few clues my father had shared: the grainy underwater photos, the abovewater image with longitude and latitude coordinates, the strange list of numbers and letters I couldn’t decipher. All of them were digital and uploaded to the password-protected cloud folder. “I don’t know what, if anything, my father shared with Conrad. But his text seems strange, doesn’t it?”

Concern spread across Mal’s face. “Totally. I mean, I’ve never met the guy, but I’ve listened to some of his interviews. He goes on and on about how much untapped value is sitting on the seafloor. And I’m one hundred percent sure he doesn’t report his discoveries.”

I stood, ready to keep walking back to the villa. “Which is why I’m not going home. I’ll find somewhere cheaper to stay. I’ll tap into my savings. But I’m sure as hell not letting Conrad beat me to it.”

We resumed walking up the steps, and my phone buzzed. Erin, one of the women on my team, had replied. I’m so sorry, Haven , her email said. I’m crushed and can only imagine how you feel. Is it because of Mt. Vesuvius? I’ve seen the news—people are worried. This sucks, but our well-being comes first. Get home safe. XO.

“She’s right,” Mal said, “about our well-being.” She tripped on a step, cursing under her breath. “What are you going to do about a boat? Air tanks? A dive buddy? It’s clear you won’t be diving with Conrad.”

“I guess I’ll find a local dive shop,” I said. For Project Relic, we’d arranged all of this with a private dive outfitter in Sorrento, but that was off the table now.

“You’d trust a stranger with what could be a massively valuable discovery?”

The more questions Mal asked, the more my plan began to slip from my fingers. “Depends on the stranger. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.” I felt myself growing defensive, even combative. I hadn’t prepared for any of this.

She side-eyed me. “I’m on your side, Haven. Remember that.”

Our villa, with a single lamp illuminating a window, stood just ahead. “I don’t have all the answers,” I said, “and I know this endeavor isn’t necessarily safe.” I turned the key, swung open the door. In front of us lay our half-unpacked items, a mess of groceries and luggage and dive gear we’d intended to organize in coming days.

“But I’m not going home,” I reiterated. “Not yet. I’m not letting Conrad take this from me, too.”