were hoping to find them imperfect, to detect chinks in their armor so that you could justify your lack of interest.'
Jennifer arrived with the tea. Nick was uncomfortable. He had forgotten what it was like to talk to Amanda. Her emotional probing and her unsolicited observations were both extremely disquieting to him this morning. Nick had not come to see her to dissect his attitude toward women. He changed the subject
'Speaking of treasure,' he said, bending down to pick up his bag, 'I found something very interesting yesterday while I was out diving. I thought maybe you might have seen something like it before.' He pulled the trident out and handed it to Amanda. She almost dropped it because she was not prepared for its weight.
'Goodness,' she said, her skinny arm trembling under the strain of holding the golden trident out in front of her. 'What could it possibly be made from? It's too heavy to be gold!'
Nick leaned forward and took the object. He held it for her as she ran her fingers over its exceptionally smooth exterior. 'I've never seen anything like this, Nikki. I don't need to get out all the books and the photographs for comparison. The smoothness of the finish is inconsistent with the processing techniques in Europe during or after the galleon days. This must be modern. But I can't tell you anything else. Where in the world did you find it?'
He told her just the outline of the story, careful as always not to give away key bits of information. It was not just the agreement he had made with Carol and Troy; treasure hunters never really trust anybody. But he did share with Amanda his idea that perhaps someone had cached this particular piece, as well as some others, for later retrieval. Nick insisted that this idea of his was a perfectly plausible explanation for the tracks on the ocean floor.
'Your scenario seems very unlikely to me,' Amanda said, 'although I must admit that I am baffled and have no better explanation. Maybe Miss Dawson has some sources that can shed some light on the origin of this thing. But there is almost no chance that I am mistaken. I have personally seen or viewed close-up photographs of every significant piece of treasure recovered from the Keys in the past century. You could show me a new piece today and I could probably tell you in what European country it was made and in what decade. If this object comes from a sunken ship, it is a modern ship, almost certainly after World War II. Beyond that I can't help you.'
Nick put the trident back in the bag and started to leave. 'Wait just a minute before you go, Nikki,' Amanda said as he stood up. 'Come over here for a minute.' She took him by the arm and led him over to a spot just in front of the large painting. 'You would have liked Walter, Nikki. He was a dreamer also. He loved to look for treasure. Every year we would spend a week or two in the Caribbean on a yacht, ostensibly looking for treasure but just generally sharing each other's dreams. From time to time we would find objects on the bottom of the ocean that we couldn't understand and we would create fanciful conjectures to explain them. Almost always there was some prosaic explanation that was inferior to our fantasies.'
Nick was standing beside her with his bag in his right hand. Amanda turned to him and put her hand softly on his left forearm. 'But it didn't matter. It didn't even matter that most of the years we came up empty-handed altogether. For we always found the real treasure, our love for each other. We always returned home renewed and laughing and thankful that life had allowed us to share another week or ten days in which we had imagined and fantasized and hunted for treasure together.'
Her eyes were soft and loving. Her voice was low but full of passion. 'I do not know when or if you will come again, Nikki, but there are some things that I have been wanting to say to you for some time. If you like, you can dismiss them as the ravings of a sententious old woman, but I may never have a chance to tell you these things again. You have all the attributes I loved in Walter, intelligence, imagination, sensitivity. But something is wrong. You are alone. By