“Well?” Remi said, her voice tinged with skepticism. She was used to Sam’s sometimes premature excitement.
“I’ve found, my dear, a vintage Master padlock, circa 1970,” he replied, then hefted from the water the piece of wood it had been attached to. “Along with what looks like an old gatepost.” He dropped it back into the water and then straightened up with a groan.
Remi smiled at him. “My intrepid treasure hunter. Well, it’s more than I’ve found.”
Sam looked at his watch, a Timex Expedition he wore only on expeditions. “Six o’clock,” he said. “Shall we call it a day?”
Remi ran her cupped hand down her opposite forearm, shedding a layer of goop, and gave him a broad smile. “Thought you’d never ask.”
They gathered their packs and hiked the half mile back to their skiff, which they’d tied to a grounded cypress stump. Sam cast off and pushed the boat into deeper water, wading up to his waist, while Remi yanked the engine’s starter cord. The motor growled to life and Sam climbed in.
She turned the bow into the channel and throttled up. The nearest town and their base of operations was Snow Hill, three miles up the Pocomoke River. The B&B they’d chosen had a surprisingly decent wine cellar and a crab bisque that had put Remi in culinary heaven at the previous night’s supper.
They motored along in silence, lulled by the soft gurgle of the motor and gazing at the overhanging canopy. Suddenly Sam turned in his seat, looking to the right.
“Remi, slow down.”
She throttled back. “What is it?”
He grabbed a pair of binoculars from his pack and raised them to his eyes. Fifty yards away on the bank there was a gap in the foliage—another hidden inlet among the dozens they’d already seen. The entrance was partially blocked by a tangle of branches piled up by the storm.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“Something . . . I don’t know,” he muttered. “I thought I saw a line in the foliage . . . a curve or something. Didn’t look natural. Can you get me over there?”
She turned the rudder and aimed the skiff at the mouth of the inlet. “Sam, are you hallucinating? Did you drink enough water today?”
He nodded, his attention fixed on the inlet. “More than enough.”
With a soft crunch, the skiff’s nose bumped into the mound of branches. The inlet was wider than it looked, nearly fifty feet across. Sam looped the bow line around one of the larger limbs, then slipped his legs over the gunwale and rolled into the water.
“Sam, what’re you doing?”
“I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
“Like hell.”
Before she could say more, Sam took a breath, ducked underwater, and disappeared. Twenty seconds later Remi heard a splash on the other side of the branches, followed by Sam sucking in a lungful of air.
She called, “Sam, are you—”
“I’m fine. Be back in a minute.”
One minute turned into two, then three. Finally Sam called through the foliage, “Remi, can you join me, please?”
She could hear the mischievous lilt in his voice, and thought, Oh, boy. She loved her husband’s adventurous impulses, but she’d already started imagining how good a hot shower was going to feel. “What is it?” she asked.
“I need you to come here.”
“Sam, I just now started to dry off. Can’t you—”
“No, you’re going to want to see this. Trust me.”
Remi sighed, then slipped over the side into the water. Ten seconds later she was treading water beside him. The trees on either side of the inlet formed an almost solid canopy over the water, enclosing them in a tunnel of green. Here and there sunlight stippled the algae-filmed surface.
“Hi, nice of you to come,” he said with a grin and a peck on her cheek.
“Okay, smarty-pants, what are we—”