Read Online The Last Treasure by Erika Marks - Free Book Online Page B

jerks.”
    She sighed quietly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
    When he didn’t answer, she walked to the stairs and began to climb.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    L iv undressed and slid under her sheets, raising the hem of her nightgown enough to let the cool cotton slide over her thighs and stomach. In the tree outside her window, a bird fluttered in the branches, rustling with alarm. Maybe she wasn’t the only one in this suffocating night who searched for flight.
    Her heart knocked around her chest like loose change. She closed her eyes, letting memories of the evening return. Losing herself in all those slides. Standing up in the auditorium, debating with Dr. Harold Warner, feeling so smart and fierce in that safe, quiet dark. Then the way Sam Felder had looked at her when the lights came up, the admiration in his warm brown eyes. He believed she was outspoken, freethinking. Maybe even bold when she wanted to be. What would he have thought if he’d seen her creep into her father’s house likea scared fourteen-year-old girl who’d missed curfew, not a twenty-one-year-old woman who should have been free to stay out for as long as she wanted, with whomever she wanted?
    She rolled onto her back and stared up at the unmoving fan blades, shame washing over her.
    At the party, she’d watched students drink and laugh and flirt without any concern for clocks or schedules. God, what was that like? Just the other day she’d met a junior named Amy who’d boasted of overnights at her boyfriend’s off-campus apartment and the diner down the block where they regularly gorged on pumpkin pancakes at three in the morning.
    Three in the morning.
    Just the thought of it had made Liv’s heart flood with envy.
    She turned onto her side and listened to the familiar creaks of her father finally leaving his window post and climbing the stairs, the soft click of his door closing, then the hush of nothingness. Through her screen, the night crackled suddenly with sound, somehow louder now. She wasn’t tired. Not even a little. Her pulse raced beneath her skin. Everywhere she touched, her neck, her hip, her knee, she could feel her heartbeat.
    â€œAll explorers face risk. . . .”
    She could say she was going away with her class, that it was required for a grade. Yes, it was last minute, but she wouldn’t be far and she’d have her phone with her, in case of emergencies. She could say whatever she needed to say to get away. Her father could manage for two days without her. Surely he could.
    Yes. Yes, he could.
    We can’t call ourselves explorers if we never go anywhere, can we?
    â€œNo, we can’t,” Liv whispered into the darkness.
    When she’d come out of the party, she’d squinted into the misty night and felt the knot of dread twist behind her ribs not to see Sam and Whit right away, sure they’d changed their minds at the last minute and abandoned her, that this was what she got for pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
    Then she’d seen them, two figures just beyond the edge of the streetlight, and her fisted heart had unfurled. Sam Felder stepping inside the bright globe and waving to signal her, solid and sure. And behind him, Whit, a tall mass of black except for the tiny orange dot of a cigarette tip, glowing and fading with each drag. Blinking like a lighthouse beacon, Liv had thought. But God help the woman who steered her boat toward Whit Crosby’s rockyshore.

4
    TOPSAIL ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA
    Wednesday
    T he remnants of overnight clouds stretch across the dawn sky, wispy and thinning like strands of cotton candy, and Whit is glad to see them.
    He’s slept poorly, but it’s always this way the night before a dive. Excitement and anticipation race through his head like sugared-up kids stuck inside on a rainy day; his brain won’t shut off. But it’s not just his head that’s