by David Wood
“Did it look like this?” Rae reached into her shirt and took out the amulet.
When he saw it, Lawson gasped and his eyes went wide. He quickly smoothed his expression into one of indifference, but Maddock hadn’t missed the initial reaction. It was a look of recognition and alarm.
“Perhaps,” Lawson said. “But that’s really all I know. I’ve heard the broad strokes and nothing more. I mean, a shark-octopus hybrid? That’s about as realistic as the Fountain of Youth.” He forced a nervous laugh.
“Any idea where we could learn more?” Maddock asked.
“About the Lusca? No idea. I’ve spent my life gathering local stories and legends, and what I just told you is all I know.”
“This might sound strange, but have you heard any legends of explorers from the ancient world coming to the islands?”
“None,” Lawson said flatly. He made a show of checking his watch. “I’m sorry, but I really have to go. I hope you enjoy your visit to the museum.” With that, he turned on his heel and hurried away.
Rae turned to Maddock. “Was it me or did he clam up after I showed him the amulet?”
Maddock nodded. “Something spooked him. He knows more than he’s letting on.”
15
Andros Island, Bahamas
The local police precinct was a two-story block building that dominated the narrow street on which it stood. The interior was no more impressive. The walls were a dull green and sorely in need of a fresh coat of paint. What had once been a white tile floor was now cream and on its way to light brown. Half the fluorescent bulbs had burned out, and a few more flickered annoyingly. The place was neat and clean, with a strong smell of cleaning solution and burnt coffee.
The officer on duty, a tall, skinny young man, greeted them with a tired smile. His name tag read M. Gomez.
“How may I help you?” he asked.
“A friend of mine is missing,” Bones said. He wasn’t quite certain that was true. In fact, he had no idea if Thel were missing or had simply ditched him. But he couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
The young man’s shoulder sagged. “I’ll need you to fill this out.” He handed him a clipboard and pen.
Bones frowned. He couldn’t complete this form. Feeling foolish, he handed the clipboard back to the officer.
“See, here’s the thing. I don’t actually know her name. At least, not her full name. But I can describe her and tell you where she was staying.”
Gomez closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
“Sir, I’m terribly sorry if this seems rude but we really can’t help you if you are unable to give us the information we need.”
“Just answer me this. Have you had any reports of a woman named Thel going missing? Caucasian, red hair, big green eyes, fair skin, perfect lips. About this tall.” He held his hand out just below shoulder height.
“Chick is drop dead gorgeous,” Kyle added. “She swept this dude off his feet in no time flat.”
“Is this a joke?” Gomez’s demeanor, which had conveyed fatigue and perhaps a touch of impatience, had suddenly gone downright hostile.
“I don’t understand,” Bones said.
“Don’t play dumb. Every year about this time, we get at least one tourist who comes here and tries to file a missing person’s report for a friend who was last seen with the Little Mermaid. Or at least someone who looks just like her. Every once in a while someone falls in love with her but can’t find her again. They get so desperate that they show up at the precinct fishing for information.”
“That’s not what’s going on here,” Bones insisted. “Come on. A freaking cartoon?”
“I didn’t mean that literally.” Gomez fixed him with a long look. Slowly, his facial features relaxed. “You seem sincere, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. The thing is, it’s become sort of an urban myth around here, and tourists pick up on it. It happens like clockwork. About this time of year somebody comes in here and makes a report involving this girl. A couple years ago she stole a guy on his honeymoon. He and his new bride were having drinks at Brigadier’s. She ran to the ladies room and when she came back, her husband was talking with a beautiful redhead. She said there was something like madness in his eyes. The girl hurried away, but the guy got all twitchy, like he was jonesing for her. At least, that was how his wife described it. Said he suddenly hopped up and took off. She never saw him again.”
Bones suddenly felt dizzy. He couldn’t deny that his desire to find Thel felt very much like the deep craving an addict might feel when denied their drug of choice.
“This urban legend,” he began, trying to distract himself, “is there anything to it? Like, is there a source? Was there an original redhead who disappeared?”
Gomez cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “Sir, we’re really busy.”
Bones looked around. He was literally the only civilian in sight. And something told him Gomez wanted to talk about this.
“I know you’re busy and I don’t mean to waste your time.” In truth, it appeared the only thing Gomez was busy with was a cheese Danish, which sat half-eaten on his desk. “The truth is, I love this sort of thing. I grew up on In Search Of and now I can’t get enough. And we really did meet a girl last night who might be missing.”
The young officer’s eyes went wide. “Really? I’m a huge fan of that show! What’s your favorite episode?”
“Like I could ever pick just one. But if you’re going to force my hand, I’ll have to pick the episode with Nessie.”
“I love Nessie! Have you ever heard of the Lusca?”
“No. What is it?”
“A local legend. A giant water monster that drowns swimmers in blue holes.”
“Blue holes, plural? How does that work?”
Gomez grabbed a legal pad and began to sketch. He drew the side profile of an island in the sea.
“Andros is filled with blue holes.” He drew lines going straight down through the island. “They’re connected to one another by a network of underwater passages.” He began sketching horizontal lines. “Most are small, impassable to anything larger than a fish, but not all of them. And some even connect to the sea.” He drew more lines, these connecting to the water.
“What about the offshore blue holes? Do those connect?”
“Probably. At least some of them. Those are some of the deepest blue holes in the world and the bedrock is like Swiss cheese in places.”
“Has anybody ever swam from an offshore blue hole to one on the island?” Kyle asked.
“No, and It would be suicide to try it,” Gomez said, glaring first at Kyle, then at Bones.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bones said.
“Don’t give me that. I saw the way your eyes lit up when your friend was talking.”
Bones chuckled. “You got me.”
Just then, a man in a rumpled suit entered from a door at the back of the room. His hair was mussed and he had dark circles under his eyes.
“Is everything all right here, officer?”
“Absolutely, Detective. I’m just warning these gentleman away from some risky diving locations.”
“Good.” The detective looked from Bones to Kyle. “Listen to the officer. People regularly drown on and around Andros, and in many cases we never find their bodies.” He stared until the two men each acknowledged him.
“Understood,” Bones said.
“Word!” Kyle added, flashing a peace sign.
When the detective left, Bones lowered his voice. “If you never found the bodies, you can’t really know for certain they’re dead.”
Gomez rolled his eyes. “Don’t say that loud enough for Detective Lane to hear. He’s an ass at the best of times, but he’s been up all night investigating several disappearances. It’s been one hell of a night for our department. We don’t need anyone else to go missing.” He frowned pointedly at Kyle, who nodded vigorously. “He also hates my fascination with cryptozoology.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Bones said after Gomez had warned him for a third time about the dangers of diving in and around the blue holes. “I was in the SEALs. I know the hazards.”
“Please promise me you won’t go down there,” Gomez said. “You have no idea of the paperwork involved, and it would all get dumped onto me. Also, I want to hear more about the Florida Skunk Ape. That’s a new one on me.”
“You won’t be hauling my corpse out of a blue hole. That I promise.” Bones paused. “That is, if you’ll tell me all you can about the urban legend. The one about the missing girl.”
Gomez glanced back in the direction of the captain’s office. “To tell you the truth, it’s sort of a hobby of mine, along with my cryptid research. Most of what I’ve collected I can’t show you.”
Bones didn’t miss the guilty look on his face. It looked as if someone had been copying official documents.
“But I can show you one thing—a newspaper clipping about a girl who went missing in the seventies. I think she might be patient zero, so to speak. The girl whose disappearance spawned the legend. Hold on a minute.”
Gomez hurried over to the door from which Detective Lane had emerged, opened it, and peeked through. Apparently satisfied, he returned to his desk, dug deep in the bottom drawer, and pulled out a large three-ring binder. He flipped through, took out a page, and left the room. Bones heard the rumble and whir of a copy machine. When Gomez returned, he handed Bones a sheet of paper, still warm from the copier. It was folded in half.
“Okay, you two get out of here. Don’t look at that until you’re well away from the station. I don’t want to risk Lane finding out what I just did.”
“Fair enough. Thanks for your help and we’ll see you at the boat tonight. You bring your cryptid research, I’ll provide the beer.”
“Count me in,” Kyle said.
“No,” Bones said, then winked at Kyle to show he was kidding. Well, he was sort of kidding.
He folded the paper a couple more times and tucked it into his pocket. He wasn’t entirely sure why he couldn’t let go of the thought of finding Thel again. She was hardly his first one-night stand. But she was different. The craving inside of him was driving him to distraction He had to know who she was, where she had gone.
Out on the street, when they were well away from the police station, he finally took a look at the article. The headline read, SEARCH FOR MISSING COLLEGE STUDENT ENTERS SECOND WEEK. There was a photograph of the missing girl. When he saw it, he stumbled and nearly fell. He was suddenly dizzy.
Kyle grabbed him by the arm and steadied him.
“Whoa, man. You okay?”
Bones couldn’t speak. Instead, he handed the paper to Kyle, who took one look and gasped.
“Bro, you have got to be kidding me.”
16
Nassau, Bahamas
Lawson lost himself among the museum visitors, then doubled back. He spotted Rae and the blond man who hadn’t introduced himself. They were making their way toward the exit. He followed them outside and watched as they turned the corner onto Bay Street and disappeared from sight. He breathed a sigh of relief. He’d thought he’d given himself away when they’d pulled out that amulet, but they didn’t seem to have noticed anything.
He returned to the museum, hurried back to his office, and locked the door behind him. It was a tiny space, with only a single window to elevate it above the level of janitor’s closet.
“I thought Echard was full of it,” he muttered as he searched for Echard’s phone number. It took him a minute to find it. He’d hidden it in a bottom drawer tucked inside the pages of his favorite novel, Atlas Shrugged. He’d never actually read the book, but had heard enough of it discussed on talk radio that it was now near and dear to him. He’d found this copy in a secondhand store and fallen in love with it. It was a battered hardcover that looked to have been read through many times. He kept it close, like a good luck charm. It was also where he hid his emergency cash, although that was a bit light of late. He’d been participating in a poker group Echard organized, and he wasn’t doing well.
There it was. A scrap of paper with the name Bill Jones scribbled at the top. Echard had called him the previous night and promised a financial reward, plus forgiveness of his gambling debts if he should ever come across an artifact like the one Rae had just shown him. His first instinct had been to snatch it, but that wouldn’t have gone over well with her friend. The man had been friendly enough, but there was a coldness in those blue eyes that gave Lawson the creeps.
He had explained to Echard that theirs was an experiential museum, not one that emphasized the collecting and curating of artifacts. Still Echard had insisted that Lawson contact him should he ever come across such a piece.
He punched in the numbers with a trembling finger. Why was he so nervous? He was just passing along information. Echard should be delighted.
The person on the other end picked up on the third ring.
“Yeah?”
“Echard, it’s me.” Long pause. Silence. “Lawson from the museum.”
“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t sleep much last night. I’m pretty out of it.”
“You sound like you’re getting sick.” Lawson thought Echard’s voice sounded deeper, gruffer than he remembered. Of course, they’d never actually spoken over the phone.
“Yeah, maybe.”
Lawson hurried on. “I don’t actually have the artifact in my possession, but I know who does.”
“Really? Tell me.”
“Raeána Franklin. She teaches at the college. I didn’t catch the name of the guy she’s with, but he looks military to me. They just left here, headed toward Prince George Wharf.”
“All right. Thanks for letting me know. Anything else?”
Lawson frowned. “Well, there’s a matter of payment. You promised..." He let his voice trail off. Technically, Echard had said he’d pay for the artifact, and all Lawson had to offer was information. Still, that had to be worth something.
“Yeah, I’ll come by later. Thanks.” Echard hung up.
Lawson hung up the phone, then sat down to catch his breath. The sight of the artifact, the phone call, they had unsettled him. He was certain something was going on here that he didn’t understand.
Twenty minutes later, there was a sharp knock at the door. When he opened it, he was surprised to see Echard.
“That was fast.”
Echard frowned, scratched his head. “I wanted to give you a heads-up. There’s a girl named Rae Franklin and a guy called Dane Maddock who have been poking around, asking questions about my business. If they show up here, give me a call right away.”
“What are you talking about? I just called and told you they were here with the artifact.” He scratched his head. “Wait a minute. How did you get all the way here from Andros in less than a half an hour?”
Echard’s face went scarlet. He seized Lawson by his necktie, pulled it tight, and slammed him backward into the wall.
“You had better start making sense, and fast,” Echard snarled. “Or else I’ll sell your gambling debt to some friends of mine who sell human organs on the black market.”
Lawson didn’t know if it was an idle threat but he wasn’t about to take any chances. Quickly, he recounted Rae and Maddock’s visit, and his subsequent phone call.
“It sounded like you,” he lied. “And I know I dialed the correct number.”
Echard’s gaze seemed to burn into Lawson. How had he ever believed the man was a mere beach bum? The rage, the intensity Lawson saw in Echard’s eyes frightened him even more than Mad
dock’s cold stare. But what was worse was Echard’s obvious zeal. He was obsessed with this artifact and that made him deadly.
“It was not me.” Echard said each word with the force of a punch to the gut. “So who the hell did you talk to?”
“I don’t know.”
Echard tightened his grip around Lawson’s throat. With his other hand, he lifted up the hem of his Hawaiian print shirt to display a pistol tucked into the waistband of his cargo shorts.
“Tell me exactly what was said. And don’t leave out a single word.”
Bones hung up the phone and turned to Kyle. “That was a guy from the pirate museum in Nassau. He thought I was Echard.”
Kyle had guided him to Echard’s apartment. They’d skulked around, and once satisfied that the man was not home, Bones had picked the lock. It was a skill he’d developed as a teenager. They had just closed the door when the phone rang. Bones had answered on impulse.
“What did he say?” Kyle asked.
“He was calling to let Echard know that Maddock and your sister have the artifact.”
“Hold on.” Kyle scratched his head. “You dudes just pulled that thing up from the bottom of the sea, didn’t you?”
Bones nodded. “And it was hidden inside a clay egg until yesterday afternoon.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It sounds like Echard was already aware this thing existed before we found it. He’s been keeping an eye out for it. At least that’s what makes the most sense.”
“But, how did he know they’d take it to the museum?”
“What else would you do with an artifact? He’s probably got connections at all the local museums.”
Bones looked around. “Let’s give this place the once-over. Shouldn’t take too long.”
Echard lived in a small apartment above a restaurant, so the whole place stank of curry. It was comprised of a single room plus a small bathroom. It didn’t take long to search every inch.
They didn’t find much. Echard owned little in the way of personal possessions except for a box of the wooden fetishes he’d been hawking on the beach. Bones was amused to see that they’d been manufactured in China.