All That Glitters

by Mary Brady

  “Something like that.”

  He sat cross-legged in front of the chest. When he lifted the hasp it made a tiny groan. To protect her, she supposed, he had placed his body between her and the box.

  A Galahad, an Arthur, a Lancelot, a throwback of the finest sort.

  He lifted the box lid slowly and looked in and without turning he asked, “Is there any town lore that you know of about someone losing their head?”

  “Head? No. Do not tell me there is a head in that box.” She charged over to his side and scrambled around so she could see.

  He lifted the lid completely until it rested back on its hinges.

  The contents of the box sparkled and glittered in the firelight.

  “Oh, my.” Addy sat back on her heels. “Liam Bailey, you dirty dog.”

  Zach laughed out loud. “That old devil.”

  “Legend says he denied ever being anything but a law-abiding privateer.” She curled up beside him.

  “Colleen must he have hidden it away from her father and husband knowing either one of them could have legally taken it away from her and spent it as he pleased.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

  “You’ve been sitting on pirate treasure all this time.”

  “There’s more irony in this tale. My parents turned over ownership of what my mother disdainfully called ‘the family mausoleum’ to me when I was twenty-five. Said it would do me good to take responsibility for something, even if it was just an old wreck barely worth caring for. My mother wanted nothing to do with the old mansion and my father always acquiesced to her wishes. I’ve been seeing to it since then.”

  “So the place belongs to you, and everything in it. Hmm.”

  She put her arms around his neck and brought his mouth down to hers.

  He broke away. “There’s a pirate’s chest treasure sitting beside us and all you can think of is kissing me.”

  “I have you in my arms. I can’t think of anything hotter than being surrounded by gold, jewels and man.” She put the tip of her index finger over his heart. “This man.”

  The light from the fire glistened off the treasure and soon off their naked bodies.

  All that glitters, Addy thought as she tumbled over the edge, bringing Zach with her.

  When the fire had burned low, he raised himself up on his elbows. “Are you a witch?”

  “Have I cast a spell on you so you’d forget the treasure and make love with me instead?”

  He rolled to one side and then got up to renew the fire. When he returned he grabbed a hand of glittering gold and gems.

  She gasped at the cold and the pleasure when he placed a golden necklace dotted with green stones on her chest. Then she closed her eyes when he began to arrange the elegant jewelry with the tip of his finger.

  After he had settled the long strands of the necklace on either side of her neck and the large, sparkling gem between her breasts, she opened her eyes and glanced down at herself.

  “You look lovely in emeralds and gold. I knew you would.”

  “You’ve thought of such things, have you?”

  “You make me think of many things I’ve never thought of before. I would always see you in emeralds if it were up to me. And then I would see you out of them.”

  If he didn’t stop, she was going to have to have him again, but he sat up and found two more blankets for them. “Digging into a box of treasure while wearing only a blanket. Kinky. I like it.” She reached into the chest and pulled out a handful of coins. “These rectangular ones are somewhat tarnished. What does that mean?”

  “There’s less gold in them.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He looked sheepish and then shrugged.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re rich. I forgot.”

  “Did I tell you that’s one of the reasons I like you?”

  “Because I don’t mince words?”

  “Because you don’t care that I’m rich.”

  Now it was her turn to shrug.

  She aimed a smile at him. “It’s not your wealth that impresses me.” Wrapped in her blanket, she moved forward. “Although what would impress me right now is knowing what else is in that box.”

  He tipped the chest so the contents spilled out. “There are heaps of stones, set and unset, of all colors, and coins—many, many coins—a few chalices, several crosses, miscellaneous things and one crown.”

  “Imagine being some ill-fated king or queen out there in history who lost their crown to a pirate.”

  Zach pulled the crown, a circlet of gold with crudely faceted stones roughly attached, from the box and set it gently on her head. “I think we’ve discovered what your hair is for. Holding a crown in place.”

  She felt the crown in her hair with both hands. “I like it. Maybe no one will notice if I keep this one.”

  “You can have it.”

  “I don’t think so.” She could not think of having anything so precious to always remind her of what she had and lost.

  “It’s mine to give.” His look answered hers with, he’d give her the world if it was his to give.

  “Don’t we, I mean, you, have to return everything to the owners?”

  “The contents of this chest are over two hundred years old. The chances of identifying any of it and connecting it to an owner are remote. With its clear provenance, it’s mine to give to you.”

  She took the crown off and put it back in the box. “Crowns aren’t much use when digging up news stories.”

  “I guess it’s just as well. I can see Heather having a heart attack right now because we’ve been handling these things without the standard precautions.” He held her gaze with a smile. “Imagine her reaction if I started giving it away willy-nilly before she got a chance to examine it and catalog everything.”

  She could hear the same regret in his voice that she felt. He was saying goodbye again. With care, she put the coins back in the oak box. When Zach returned the emerald necklace and the rest of the treasure, she closed the lid and lowered the hasp until it clicked into place.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “You make walking away so hard.” She kissed him on the mouth as she squeezed his hand.

  “Stay with me for now. I’m going to ask Hunter and the chief to come up. It’s best if whatever I do is open and aboveboard.” He kissed her hard, almost desperate, but stopped abruptly. “With a few exceptions,” he said.

  She was an exception. She had always been an exception. It had started when she was a kid. Her hair was an exception. All her siblings had glossy, straight hair. She was the exception when she fought ferociously to have the journalism club she started in sixth grade treated with respect. She was certainly the exception when she took on the types of stories that interested her and not always the ones the editors were clamoring for. Suddenly being an exception was a bad thing.

  She wanted to love Zach openly and freely, to tell him.

  * * *

  JUST BEFORE NOON Chief Montcalm looked from one of them to the other. He shook his head. Hunter Morrison sent the two of them with a questioning smile. They were all standing at the dining-room table in the loft. The unassuming treasure chest sat in the center, lid closed under the single fluorescent lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

  “The old folks in town have a bit of oral lore handed down from one generation to the next,” the chief said. “It goes... ‘Today Mama took an old box from a hiding place only she knew about. She wrapped the box in red cloth and tied it up. Then she took James and Mr. Michael to town and I never saw the box or those men again.’”

  “The old folks. Do you mean the group that’s called the Goldens? How do you know what the Goldens talk about?” Addy asked.

  He stared at her dead-on.

  “You
’re not going to tell me. Okay.” Addy frowned. She’d love a crack at interviewing this guy for his life story. She was sure there were some doozies there.

  “You saw the red oilcloth on the workbench in the garage,” Zach said. “We found remnants of the twine it had once been bound with.”

  The law officer carefully undid the brass hasp. He slowly lifted the lid, stopped halfway and opened it all the way. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Wow, Chief. That was a pretty emotional outbreak for you.”

  The other men looked at her.

  “What?” she asked, just beginning to realize how deeply the chief had built his reputation on being a closed-off kind of guy.

  “Zach, we are going to have to keep this quiet,” the chief said distracting everyone.

  Hunter leaned in closer and then he straightened.

  “Very quiet,” he said, and then and gave Addy a pointed look.

  “It must be worth millions,” Addy said when she peeked in for the hundredth time since this morning, which seemed to be days ago, but was only a few hours.

  “Many millions if it’s real.”

  The chief looked up when Zach commented. “The evidence points to real.”

  “What are your plans now?” Chief Montcalm asked.

  “I thought I’d see if they’d put it in the vault in the bank, but I wanted your opinion.”

  Before he spoke, the chief stared at her as though assessing how much he could say in front of her that would or would not show up on the front page of a newspaper.

  “I know George Heinz at the bank,” he finally said. “He’ll want an inventory and there are many mouths at that bank. Mr. Morrison is right. This needs to be kept very quiet.”

  The chief looked at her again.

  She shrugged. “Okay. Okay.”

  “I’ll keep it here,” Zach told them. “This place has been searched several times over the years, and the folks in town are busy with other things.”

  Addy’s phone rang.

  “Excuse me.”

  She left the three men discussing the fate of the box and stepped out of the loft onto the landing outside the door.

  “Hello, this is Addy.” The caller ID already told her it was Richard Smally, her previous and soon-to-be editor at the Boston paper.

  “Addy, I’m waiting. I need what you’ve got on Hale or I’m going to have to let Wally and Jacko duke it out over the story. That would be a shame because you could always find the interesting angle.”

  “I’m working on just such an angle right now.”

  “Well, you’ve got until five p.m. tonight and then I’m going to send out the hounds. Oh, and Bonacorda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t let me down.”

  He didn’t need to say it, but the great big again was not very silent inside her head.

  “Five p.m.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ADDY KNEW RICHARD SMALLY well. If she didn’t get something viable to him by the deadline, she’d miss her chance of ever getting back her journalism career. Soon she would fall outside the implied, but never spoken of, age bracket for breaking out of the pack. The world changed slowly, some corners more slowly than others.

  Addy retreated to the couch wondering what she could say about Zach and the situation in Boston or here in Bailey’s Cove that didn’t qualify as off the record.

  The three men stood around the treasure, discussing how to get the word out. She wanted to raise her hand but was certain they didn’t want it to come to the town via her.

  She could go to the Pirate’s Roost and ask questions for a great human-interest sidebar, but she’d have to be cagey or they’d catch on that she had been tipped-off by the chief.

  Wait. Why should she care? She was a journalist and a reporter. She got leads and info from many places, people who never knew she got leads from them, from people who were miffed they had spilled the beans. Or spoke on a subject because they were angry with someone.

  Other than Zach, she hadn’t promised any of the people of Bailey’s Cove she’d keep mum about what they said...

  Until she accepted their invitation to be one of them.

  By staying, by helping, by letting them trust her, she had more or less said the secrets of Bailey’s Cove were off the record. The legends of Bailey’s Cove belonged to them until they wanted the world at large to know.

  She was done for.

  “Do you need a ride back to town, Ms. Bonacorda?”

  Addy looked up to see the three of them watching her with great interest. The chief had asked the question.

  The chief had donned inscrutable. Hunter had that questioning smile again. Zach’s expression said a noncommittal goodbye, and Addy couldn’t stop the feeling she was fading away. Soon she’d be nothing but a point of interest in local history.

  “I was thinking of asking a few more questions—”

  “I’ll take her, Chief.” Hunter Morrison stepped up and interrupted her. “We have a few things to discuss.”

  Asked and answered Addy thought. “I’ll pack up my things.”

  She slid the laptop and power supply into her bag along with her paper and pens and Christina’s nightgown and headed for the door. She spared a single goodbye glance at Zach.

  Walking away this time was so much harder because she knew it wouldn’t kill her. It would just make her suffer forever. No, maybe only for ten years, until they met in the Boston Common.

  She trudged down the steps with Hunter behind her. It was time she headed back to Boston.

  “I get it, Mr. Morrison. Everything said on Sea Crest Hill except the published historical information is off the record including any personal information about Zachary Hale and the treasure of Liam Bailey.” Tucked into the passenger seat of Hunter Morrison’s car, Addy gave him the speech he was most likely looking for.

  “Hunter, please. Call me Hunter. We are in Bailey’s Cove after all, and it’s mostly informal here.”

  “Can I quote you on that?” She tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of her tone.

  He laughed, a pleasant laugh with no hint of derision.

  She leaned her head back against the headrest. “I get that you’re protecting Zach.”

  “He’s pretty good at protecting himself, but he tends to believe the good in people and overlook the bad, so I do my due diligence on his behalf.”

  “What do you want to know from me? Shall I list the evil side first? I sometimes chew my fingernails. I don’t drink the milk out of the bottom of my cereal bowl, but I do drink dirty martinis. At this minute my bed at home is unmade and I can’t tolerate people who are two-faced. The last one is my favorite.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “I know. You still eat fast food in spite of the guilt and you ride your bike the wrong way on one-way streets.”

  “You’ve been following me around?”

  “No, but I’m a good guesser. Listen, I didn’t volunteer to drive you back to Christina’s so I could elicit promises from you or put you on the stand.”

  “Then why?”

  “I wanted to let you know I understand how hard it is to love someone who, for crazy reasons sometimes, cannot love you back.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You, how you look at him. Your body language around him.” He paused and glanced at her. “How you worry your fingers when the subject comes up.”

  She instantly stopped and put her hands flat on her thighs. “Very funny. I’ve known him less than a week. How can I be in love with him?” So much in love with him.

  “Time isn’t relative when it comes to that kind of thing. Think of how fast you learned to hate him.”

 
She couldn’t argue that. Ten minutes into Savanna’s story, she had loathed the man.

  As Hunter drove into town, busy workers were everywhere. The sound of hammers and chain saws could be heard even through the car’s windows. “You’re engaged,” Addy said. “How long did it take you to fall in love and buy her a ring?”

  “I fell in love the first day I saw her in the sixth grade.” His tone was matter of fact.

  “That was fast and young.”

  “I asked her to marry me almost seventeen years later.”

  “Commitment anxiety?”

  “Divergent paths.”

  She leaned forward in her seat belt as if she could see the future better. “Don’t tell him. He doesn’t need that kind of pressure in his life.”

  That must have been the correct answer as his features lost some of their tenseness.

  “I won’t tell him anything. That’s up to you, but don’t give up hope.”

  “Why are you doing this? Why are you telling me these things?” She had to stop the finger worrying again.

  “People around town are talking about that reporter woman. Apparently she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and she’s pretty nice for an outsider. And Delainey never stopped loving me.”

  “You’re a lucky guy.”

  “Hang in there. He’ll get through all this.”

  Hunter turned the car from Church Street onto Treacher Avenue. As he pulled up in front of Cora, her phone signaled a text.

  Sorry. Thought it was the right thing to do, her sister wrote.

  Now what was she doing?

  “Trouble?”

  “My sister. Apologizing for something. I’d better call her.”

  She got out of the car and he came around to meet her.

  “Thank you for the ride.”

  “I know unsolicited advice doesn’t usually sit very well. Just trying to payback my luck by passing the message forward.”

  She reached out and hugged him. “Hunter Morrison, I’m glad you have Zach’s back.”

  She left him smiling as he got back into his car.

  “Answer your phone. Answer it,” she said as her sister’s phone rang and rang. By the time she got to her room and voice mail was about to click in, Savanna answered.