by Mae Clair
Reagan hadn’t helped, twisting provocatively, making those small throaty sounds that sent his blood skyrocketing. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and how they’d spent the night twined in each other’s arms, their bodies a perfect fit. Like they were meant to be together. Like she belonged to him.
Horseshit, Brody would say. Live a little, Doc.
But he’d done that already. He was twenty-five years old and a damn PhD. If he wanted to lose his head over a woman ten years his senior, that was his business. He swallowed a mouthful of egg. Just thinking about the feel of her body pressed to his came dangerously close to giving him a hard-on.
“Elijah?”
“Huh?” His fork clattered to his plate. He raised his head and blinked stupidly. Reagan, Alan and Livy were all staring at him. Whether as a result of his insightful exclamation or from the clang of silverware striking china, he wasn’t sure. He cleared his throat and adopted his best Dr. Cross persona, trying to recover some dignity. It wasn’t an easy feat with his jeans stretched taut beneath the table and his libido in high gear. “What is it?”
Reagan gave a slight nod of her head, indicating he should look behind him. When he glanced over his shoulder, he found Brody standing off to the side, watching expectantly.
“I need to talk to you,” his friend said.
Elijah frowned. They had been friends once, probably still were. He glanced at his watch. Pellar would be arriving soon with the next round of clues, but there was time. “What do you want?”
“Over here.” Brody motioned him toward the railing of the sundeck, away from the breakfast tables. Monica and Tarvick were seated at a circular table next to his. Neither stopped their meal or polite small talk to watch, but Elijah sensed both were acutely aware of the exchange. It was no secret his friendship with Brody had taken a nosedive.
He hesitated, mentally checking to see if he could stand without embarrassing himself. Satisfied he was decent, he followed Brody to the railing. The breeze off the ocean was warm and slight, carrying the tang of saltwater and sand. In a few hours the beach would radiate with the trapped heat of the noon sun, glistening nearly white beneath a turquoise sky. The weather promised to be cloudless and sunny, a perfect day for treasure hunting. “I heard you had some problems with clue three,” Elijah said to Brody once they were away from the group.
“You mean you heard I bottomed out. I didn’t make it back here until almost nine o’clock last night, then had the damn misfortune to show up empty-handed. Pellar put on a real performance. Smug and gloating. Sorry you missed it.”
Elijah leaned forward and crossed his arms over the railing. “Pellar’s an asshole.” No secret there. What came as a shock was the misconception he’d formed tying Pellar to Brody. When his friend had failed to show up last night, all his suspicions got tossed headfirst out the window. Sherlock Holmes, he wasn’t.
He glanced over his shoulder, watching Reagan chat with Livy and Alan. Damn, she was beautiful. Looking at her made him realize he’d set himself up for a bad fall. If he hadn’t been so pissed at Brody, he might have asked his friend for advice. What do you do when you’ve fallen in love with a woman who’s not in it for the long haul? She’d made all that fuss about his age at the beginning. Odds were she wanted a guy close to her own age for anything remotely permanent.
Permanent. Shit.
He’d spent a week with her, and was already thinking about change of address cards.
Brody followed his glance. “I guess you can’t be too miffed at me when your mind’s on Reagan.”
“Don’t count on it.” Elijah straightened, jarred back to the present. Brody was smiling at him, that same shitty half-grin he used when he wanted a rise. This time it didn’t work. Elijah lowered his voice. “I don’t know what’s going on, Brody, or how you fit into this treasure hunt, but I know damn well you do. I’m also sure there was someone on the beach the night we were swimming that you didn’t want me to see. It’s why you pushed me under water.”
Brody leaned casually against the railing. His attempt to appear nonchalant contradicted the faint strain in his voice. “So you’ve given up the ludicrous notion I was trying to drown you?”
“For now.” Looking back, Elijah knew it had been a stupid assumption, but didn’t want to admit it. There was still something going on that his friend was trying to hide. As long as the air remained unsettled between them, the distance would never be breached. “So why did you bottom out on clue three?”
Brody shrugged. “Why do you think? Too hard. I thought with that behind us, you’d stop being an SOB and start talking to me again.”
“I am talking to you.”
“You’re talking at me, Doc.” The smile flitted around his lips. “I thought I’d hang around and watch you dazzle the rest of them. See if you walk away with the journal. You and Reagan. I might even make a side bet if I can find anyone stupid enough to take it.”
Elijah hesitated. He wanted to trust Brody, but lingering doubt made him cautious. Maybe Brody hadn’t solved clue number three, but something still didn’t add up. Another time, he would have told his friend about the slashed tire and being locked in the attic of the wax museum. They would have compared notes, each trying to outguess the other. It would have become a game of one-upmanship, the competition heightening and sharpening their deductive skills. He was tempted to ask Brody about Pellar and the discussion Reagan had overheard. If his friend wasn’t involved in what was happening, what was his tie to Pellar?
Maybe Brody had been out slashing tires and slamming doors. He might have deliberately taken himself out of the treasure hunt, hoping to shift Elijah’s suspicion elsewhere.
He scowled, disturbed by a new thought. What if Brody and Pellar had rigged the hunt so no one would win? Would Pellar send them all away, change the rules of the game, and pocket the journal himself? Had he already worked out that stipulation with Sothern? Brody’s connections to the antiquities market through St. Croix would allow him and Pellar to sell the journal anonymously and split the cash. Maybe Brody had tired of being a paid go-between, and had convinced Pellar of the benefits to a partnership.
Annoyed, he rubbed his temple. He knew Brody, or thought he knew him. The man he’d been friends with would never sink so low. He should shove his half-assed suspicions aside and take Brody at face value, circumstance be damned.
Except there was too much at stake. Not just for him, but for Reagan and her uncle. “Time to get moving, people.” Pellar’s twittering voice broke through Elijah’s thoughts. The staff manager swept onto the sundeck, Clarice trailing behind him. She pushed a silver cart with a cut crystal bowl, this one tinted with the barest trace of blue.
“Gather around, now.” Pellar raised both hands, impatiently wriggling his fingers to beckon the participants forward. He summoned them one by one like a fretful teacher lining up school children. “Ms. Holt, Mr. Tarvick, Ms. Cassidy.” He paused to turn a long pointed look on Elijah, his voice growing sour. “And Dr. Cross.” Pellar cleared his throat, fastidiously pushing down his cuffs. When he spoke again, his voice had regained its normal nasal inflection. “Come, come. Do gather so we can begin. There are only two more rounds of clues left.” He gave a short, fluttering giggle. “How dreadfully exciting!”
“How dreadfully nauseating,” Elijah muttered to Brody.
His friend chuckled. “Go draw your clue. I’m rooting for you, kid.”
Elijah sent his friend a doubtful look, uncertain whether he was annoyed or pleased.
A half hour later when he and Reagan sat down to examine their clue, he settled for confused.
* * * *
The Soda Shack had become their place of choice for examining and discussing clues. It was crowded again this morning, packed with an assortment of tourists, locals and business-suited professionals heading to work. Reagan and Elijah waited until they were seated at a window-side table before opening the latest envelope. Straightforward this time, Pellar had promised. No four-tiered
mumbo-jumbo to match clue three’s multi-tiered structure. Plain and concise, with no guarantee on the level of difficulty.
Reagan added cream and sugar to her hazelnut-flavored coffee, watching as Elijah opened the envelope. It was hard not to stare and remember how he’d held her last night, their bodies joined in the heat of passion. She wanted to crawl back into bed with him and pass a long, leisurely day wrapped in his arms.
Last night had been exquisite, a magical enchantment she’d never experienced with another man. The memory left her frightened, saddened, and over-the-top intrigued. She wanted to spend hours dissecting how he could have ensnared her emotions so easily, but already knew the answer. Simple and to the point, it was him.
She swirled her spoon through her coffee, disturbed by the cliché thought. It was girlish and unrealistic. Fairy-tales, love-at-first-sight, undeniable fated attraction. She wasn’t a believer in any of them. It didn’t make sense to fall head-over-heels in love at thirty-five with a man she’d known only a short time.
“What does the clue say?” she asked.
He slurped grape soda through a straw, before setting the cup aside. “More poetry from Pellar.” He flashed a smile and adjusted his glasses. “Or should I say Sothern?”
Reagan listened as he read the words aloud:
I don’t have a keeper, but I’m kept all the same,
a guard and beacon of lesser known fame.
I once marked an entrance and turbulent site,
twelfth on the list in the heyday of Light.
She groaned. The first clues had been bad enough, but the last two were worse, couched in singsong rhyme. “I was hoping we were done with poetry after clue number three.”
“It’s not that tough.” Elijah slid the paper across the table. “Read that over and tell me the first thing you notice.”
Reagan perked to attention, sensing he was onto something. Clue number four, not even nine o’clock in the morning, and her incredibly sexy PhD had already fixated on the hunt. Was it possible they had finally drawn something easy? She read the clue aloud, pausing slightly at the end of each phrase.
“Well?” Elijah was grinning.
Reagan’s brows drew together as she studied the neatly typewritten words. “There’s a reference to twelfth,” she said carefully.
“Aside from that.”
She frowned, uncertain what he wanted her to see. She read the verse a second time silently. As her eyes touched the last word, it suddenly struck her. “Light is capitalized.” She glanced up with a start.
“Exactly.” Elijah slouched in his seat. Reclaiming his cup, he poked his straw through the ice at the bottom, trying to locate another slurp of soda. “Which indicates a proper name or, in this case, a time period. The heyday of Light.” He took a sip, mostly air. Abandoning the search as futile, he shoved the cup aside.
The tiny thrill of discovery Reagan felt seconds ago quickly fizzled. “I hope you know what that means.” Her mind raced, grappling for any random association she could make. “Electricity, fireworks…personal or spiritual enlightenment.” That one was a stretch, but she’d come to realize the importance of lateral thinking in Sothern’s clues.
“All good ideas. If I weren’t a marine archeologist, I might think along those same lines.”
“It’s a nautical reference?” Reagan sat up straighter. Could they have been so lucky to finally draw a clue related to Elijah’s professional background? After yesterday’s near-miss, she’d been prepared for something tricky and hard. She slid the paper between them so they could both see it, and tried to think of it in nautical terms. “When I think of keeper and light,” she said, tying the references in the first and last lines together, “I think of a lighthouse.”
“You’re on the right track.” Elijah reached for her hand, tracing his thumb over her knuckles. “Sometime I’ll take you to Maine. I have a friend who keeps the Rock Harbor Light.” His lips stretched in a slow grin. “I always wanted to make love on the shore with that ancient light angling out to a sea. Kind of wild and beautiful at the same time.”
Her mouth went dry. She wanted to say something flippant, but tripped over the words. The thought of Elijah and a dark, wind-tossed sea left her breathless. The idea of making love made her weak-kneed. “You mean you haven’t already?”
“Ouch. No, Reagan. I’m kind of funny in that I’d have to be in love first.” He leaned across the table and kissed her on the lips, unconcerned by the crowd in the busy restaurant. When he drew back, he winked. “There are a lot of wild, remote places I could show you.”
Reagan met his eyes. Had he just said he was in love? “You’re pretty wild yourself.”
“And with that we better get back to the clue.” He still held her hand, but nodded to the paper.
She had the feeling they’d crossed into an area he wasn’t sure about, something he wasn’t ready to discuss. He’d beat a hasty retreat, disturbed when his playful teasing had led them down a path that came dangerously close to examining true feelings.
“If we go with lighthouse,” Elijah said, “We’re looking for something that’s kept but of lesser known fame. Beacon in the second line relates back to lighthouse, as does guard and marking an entrance and turbulent site.”
“Then the answer is lighthouse?”
“No. Something different. In 1819 the United States started using lightships, something the British had been employing since 1731. They didn’t reach a heyday here until 1909.”
Reagan was intrigued. It was a term she’d never heard before. “What’s a lightship?”
“A vessel that acts as a navigational aid for other ships,” Elijah explained. “Lightships were used to mark port entrances and danger spots like reefs and shoals. They were anchored in spots where it was impossible to build a traditional lighthouse, and could be replaced by a relief ship when they needed to be serviced. So, like a lighthouse they were kept and, like a lighthouse, they acted as a guard and beacon, but were of lesser known fame.”
She smiled, content to listen to the endless list of things that rattled around inside his head. “And the heyday of Light was 1909?”
Elijah nodded. “In 1909 there were upward of forty lightships on station in the US, most on the eastern seaboard. Lightships carry the name of the station they guard on their starboard and port sides like… Seven Stones or Terrington Bank, but they’re identified by a series of numbers.” He grinned. “LV 12 for Light Vessel Twelve.”
“Twelfth on the list in the heyday of Light.” He was brilliant, really he was, and that made her want to crawl into bed with him all the more. She bit her lip, trying to focus on the matter at hand. “So all we have to do is find out the name of the ship–actually the station–Light Vessel 12 was assigned to in 1909.”
Elijah sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “I think it’s more complicated than that. We’ve had to retrieve a specific item for all of the other clues so far.”
“And this one?”
“We won’t know until we learn the name of the ship. Hopefully, we’ll figure it out from there.” He dug his cell phone from his pocket. “One call should do it.”
Reagan watched as he punched out a sequence of numbers. “Who are you calling?”
“A friend at the university. I could research it online, but Angus can nail it faster. We might have finally drawn the easy clue.”
Reagan wasn’t certain. “Only because of your background. And we still don’t know the end result or what item we need to retrieve.”
The result was Blackbird Rock. Elijah’s friend managed to get back to them in a little over a half hour with the information. According to maritime records, Light Vessel 12 had been stationed off Rhode Island in 1909, guarding a treacherous shoal known as Blackbird Rock. Although the information was a step in the right direction, Reagan still felt bewildered. “Rhode Island? Where does that leave us?”
Elijah frowned and muttered something unintelligible. He shook his head. “It�
�s got nothing to do with Rhode Island.” They had yet to leave the Soda Shack, and he’d downed more than a few grape sodas. The high-impact dose of sugar had made him edgy. He fidgeted in his seat, rapidly drumming his fingers on the tabletop.
He’d been agitated since receiving the phone call from his friend. Had her brilliant, hunky marine archeologist encountered a brick wall? As second slipped into second, she had the sudden inclination there was something he wasn’t telling her. “Elijah?”
He shot her a look from under his lashes, his eyes a cauldron of blue flame. “Remember John Feather and the Southern Cross?” He slipped off his glasses and tucked them into his pocket. “Captain Feather’s ship was called The Blackbird.”
Unnerved, Reagan sat straighter. The crowd in the cafe had thinned, most of the early morning throng disappearing to local jobs or trendy tourist destinations. She hadn’t realized how quiet it had become until she heard the fluttery bump of her heart. One or two clues suspiciously connected to Elijah’s past could be chalked up to coincidence, but the unlikely similarities continued to mount. Her mouth was dry. “What is going on?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned forward and rubbed his eyes. “The only person close enough to me to pick up on this stuff is Brody, and I’m not sure I ever told him about that damn book. Besides, what the hell does any of it have to do with Rook’s journal or the Twelfth Sun?”
Reagan felt a shiver of apprehension creep up her spine, much like the times when she felt she was being observed. Casting an uneasy glance over her shoulder, she noted again the cafe was mostly deserted. Several small groups occupied booths and tables by the windows, each immersed in their own conversations. Her Irish grandmother would tell her to listen to instinct, the voice that even now conjured an alternative scenario in her head. One that had absolutely nothing to do with Rook’s journal or the Twelfth Sun. Deciding to take a chance on the wild theory, she stepped out on a limb. “I don’t think this treasure hunt has anything to do with the journal or the Twelfth Sun. It’s about you, Elijah.”