But only the shrieking gulls answered. Nobody was listening and nobody cared.
It didn’t matter. Her feelings for Mark were as dead as the unlucky crew of this galleon. Or they would be, Issie told herself with great determination, just as soon as this longing for him was gone. Never mind the curse of Black Jack’s treasure. Issie wasn’t worried about that in the least; after all, what could possibly be worse than the curse of loving somebody you shouldn’t?
It was time to move on, and as she snapped as many pictures of the wreck as she could, Issie had the overwhelming feeling that finding the Isabella was the first step towards the rest of her life. There was an odd fluttering sensation in her stomach, which for a moment she struggled to identify. When she did, Issie was taken aback. It was hope making her heart lift. Hope! How amazing? How long had it been since she’d felt remotely optimistic about anything?
Still smiling, Issie walked around the remains of the ship, capturing it from as many angles as possible and savouring the fact that, for now, the wreck was her delicious secret. This couldn’t and shouldn’t last: the Isabella was an important find and it had to be documented. And Issie knew with all her heart that this wreck was that very galleon. As soon as she was back in the village, she would report her discovery so that things would be done properly, with the care and expertise that were required. The starting point would be to contact the official Receiver of Wreck, even though this particular vessel had sunk many years ago. Salvage law was notoriously complicated. Besides, there were laws to protect wrecks that might be historically significant. It was not for Issie to poke around examining the ship’s remains for herself, and she didn’t think Jake would be amused if her interest in the Isabella landed the Tremaines in court.
Breathtaking as the Isabella was, though, it was the lost cargo Issie was more interested in. She was convinced it hadn’t gone down with the ship; the coin hanging from her necklace was surely proof of that. If there was even a grain of truth in Granny Alice’s bedtime story, then fabulous wealth could be far closer than anyone could ever have dreamt, and finding the wreck was only the beginning.
As she sprinted across the beach and back to the village, Issie Tremaine felt sure that her next discovery would be no less than Black Jack Jago’s stolen treasure.
Chapter 8
The fragrance of the magnolia tree drifted on the night breeze, and beyond the window a fat full moon lit the sea. Crickets chirped, the ceiling fan clicked in endless rotation and down on the pontoons engines chugged as fishermen unloaded the day’s catch. The hotel bar was jumping with music, and Luke could feel the base beat thrum through the mattress as he lay on the bed. Days on from New Year’s Eve Key West was still poised for action: the bars were heaving, whiskey was waiting and the hot night was filled with possibilities.
So why the hell was he feeling so lethargic? Even pressing the button on the TV remote felt like an effort.
“Come on, baby, we’re meeting the others for dinner at eight. You need to get changed.”
A slender blonde woman stepped in from the wrap-around porch, immaculate in a white shift dress and towering strappy sandals, and narrowed her eyes critically.
“You’re not going out like that, are you?”
Luke was wearing board shorts and a black vest. His long dark hair was caught up in an elastic band at the nape of his neck and he was a day overdue for a shave – but then, weren’t most guys on Bone Island? He took a swig from the bottle of Bud held loosely in his left hand.
“Well, yeah, I was actually, Stella. Why? Something wrong with this?”
The woman pushed a lock of hair from her forehead, stabbed it into place with a pin, and turned to look at him. Her face was beautifully made up: despite the stifling humidity, her skin bore not so much as a glimmer of sweat. The glittering diamond earrings that swung as she moved her head were matched with a large teardrop pendant, which hung heavily between her breasts – breasts that were significantly younger than the rest of her, Luke had quickly realised. They were as round as twin scoops of caramel ice cream, and displayed to full advantage by a plunging neckline. Not that the rest was any less impressive. Stella de Souza, like most wealthy soon-to-be divorcees, took her personal training and her beauty regime very seriously.
“Sweetie, my lawyer’s got a table booked at Zara’s, and that place has a waiting list a mile long. I don’t want to even think about the strings he’s had to pull to get it. So no, I don’t think short pants and a vest will cut it.”
Zara’s was the town’s latest be-seen-at venue. In a plum spot right on the waterfront, it seated only twenty or so guests at a time. And there they enjoyed morsels of delicious and, in the locals’ opinion, very overpriced food – while their very presence in the place announced to the world just how wealthy they were. It was all bullshit as far as Luke was concerned. In his opinion the fried oyster po’boy sandwich from the bar only metres along the sidewalk was just as good. You could eat that on the pontoon with the same moonlight trickling across the inky water, and what’s more you could watch the great dark shapes of tarpon circling beneath. Still, chilling on the pontoon with a takeout and a cold one didn’t announce to the rest of the world just how rich you were, did it? And Stella was rich.
Seriously rich.
She was also a great lay. Since New Year’s Eve Luke had enjoyed many hours tangled up in white sheets and honeyed limbs in the seclusion of her private guest cottage right on the water. Bored and still waiting for her divorce to be finalised, Stella was in the Keys to blow off some steam. Like many wealthy older women before her, she was more than happy to enjoy some no-strings fun. Stella was hot and totally uninhibited. The champagne had flowed, the sex was good and she’d done a great job of taking his mind off his woes.
She was also very demanding, though. Listening to her now, Luke’s temples began to throb.
“Honey, get your ass to the lobby and tell them to find you a dinner suit,” Stella was saying, flipping open her Louis Vuitton purse and pulling out a gold Amex card.
Luke grimaced. “What’s this? Pretty Woman in reverse?”
“You’d better believe it, baby. You’re not coming out for dinner dressed like a goddamn bum. Take that earring out too, yeah? It’s kinda scruffy.”
Ignoring this command, Luke took another long slug of beer. He might be down on his luck but he wasn’t any woman’s kept man. Stella had liked him enough in board shorts on New Year’s Eve – and she’d liked him even better without them. When he’d taken her face in his hands and kissed those suspiciously full red lips, she’d not been thinking about board shorts and earrings.
“And don’t tell me you’re not hungry,” Stella added, crossing to the dressing table and spritzing herself with Opium. “You’ve been so athletic all afternoon that you must have worked up quite an appetite. You need to eat, honey. Gotta keep your strength up.”
As she said this, her feline eyes widened and a naughty tip of her pink, pink tongue darted across her lips. In spite of his lethargy, Luke felt himself harden. God, she knew how to make a guy come to heel. No wonder she was screwing such a huge settlement out of her ex.
“Oliver’s worth millions,” Stella had told Luke airily that first evening, over a bottle of vintage champagne – which, thank God, she’d refused to let him buy. “He’s got so much money the poor bastard doesn’t know what to spend it on, which is why I’m actually doing him a favour by going for such a huge settlement.”
Luke hadn’t followed. “And how does that work, exactly?”
Stella had laid her scarlet-tipped fingers on his thigh, tracing them along his shorts and onto his tanned flesh. All the blood in his brain had instantly migrated south, but somehow he’d managed to take in that her ex was big in hedge funds – and the more he worked, the happier he was. The nearest Luke had ever come to a hedge fund was doing some gardening for his mom, but he knew enough to realise that Stella would be a very wealthy divorcee. Paying her off would only spur Oliver to spend even
more time in the office, Stella had said with more than a little bitterness; it would suit him fine, seeing as that was where he liked to be.
Now, as Luke lay on the bed half listening to Stella giving him orders about what to wear, he was starting to have some sympathy for the unknown Oliver. The office was looking like a very attractive place to hide.
“And see if the spa’s open: get a haircut, honey,” she finished, not even looking at him now but instead smoothing her own hair in front of the mirror. “Put it on my account.”
“I’ll pay for my own damn haircuts,” Luke grated, annoyed now. No matter how sexy and hot in bed a woman was, nothing was worth this.
But Stella just laughed at his irritation. “Oh, don’t get all huffy. You sound like my teenagers. When you hit pay dirt, you can return the favour. Until then, enjoy a few treats.” She winked. “You’ve earned them!”
Luke raised his eyes to the fan in despair. He was starting to wish he’d never told Stella what it was he did for a living. At first she’d been disbelieving, then amazed – and now she was determined that she was going to invest in him. This had sounded all very well at four in the morning after a few bottles of champagne and some great sex, but now it was beginning to feel as though the shackles were tightening. As much as a wealthy sponsor was an answer to his prayers, Luke wasn’t convinced that Stella was the way forward. On the other hand, there wasn’t exactly a crowd of others beating a path to his door.
“I’m outa here.” With one final check in the looking glass, Stella stalked to the door and blew Luke a kiss. “See you in an hour, honey. And get yourself sorted, y’hear? Don and Shelly can’t wait to meet a real live treasure hunter. Play your cards right and who knows what this year could bring.”
Once the door clicked shut, Luke lay back on the pillow and groaned. Christ, he was hopeless. Talk about mixing business and pleasure. Stella was only supposed to have been a fun diversion, but already those “no strings” had turned into golden chains and she was dangling a 24-carat padlock under his nose. This was not the way his New Year was meant to have started.
He stretched his arms above his head and stared up at the ceiling fan again. Around and around it went in never-ending circles, a bit like his thoughts. Here was a beautiful, sexy woman offering him all the funding he’d ever dreamed of. Over breakfast she’d put a proposal to him that would have tempted even Mother Teresa – and Luke Dawson had never pretended to be a saint. In return for a sixty percent share of whatever he found, Stella had said nonchalantly (she’d been pushing her eggs benedict around the plate at the time), she’d provide him with a brand new dive boat, pay for crew and transfer an agreed amount into the business account every month. He’d be functional by February and able to compete with the best.
In other words, Mal Dawson would really be able to see that Luke had known best all along.
Yes, it was tempting.
Yet on the other hand, if he let Stella sponsor him he’d owe her everything. This idea made Luke uncomfortable. Call him old-fashioned, but the thought of being bankrolled by a woman – especially one he’d been seeing – didn’t sit well with him. The boundaries were already blurred and if he was feeling this uneasy after three days then how the hell would he feel after a few months?
He groaned. Freaking awful, probably. But what choice did he really have? Fate had sent Stella his way: a sexy, vibrant, rich woman who was prepared to invest in him and screw him senseless. Most guys would grab the opportunity with both hands. The problem was that Luke Dawson wasn’t most guys. He was proud and honourable and independent to the point of stubbornness. Surely something else had to come up?
He sat up, about to head for the wet room in the hope of clearing his head beneath jets of icy water, when the television on the wall caught his attention. Or rather, the stunning girl on the screen ripped his thoughts right away from showering. Her heart-shaped face was crowned with long honey-coloured braids pinned up with glittery slides, and she was staring into the camera with eyes the exact hue of the Caribbean Sea. A kissable mouth like a fuchsia bud opened and closed wordlessly, and her small hands were gesticulating wildly. She was standing on a crowded beach somewhere pretty damn bleak, but even without sound it was obvious she was very excited. Hot as this girl was, though, it was the caption below her that had really grabbed his attention.
Wreck of eighteenth-century treasure ship discovered in Cornwall
Shit. Where was the remote? The TV was on the BBC America channel for some reason. Disinterested in the Brits’ grey-looking police series and their peculiar obsession with Dr Who, Luke had pressed mute. Now, though, he was desperate to hear what Goldilocks had to say. And where the hell was Corn Wall? Each second that passed felt like a lifetime, until at last his fingers came into contact with the remote control, and surround sound flooded the room.
“…the Isabella was carrying two and a half tonnes of gold coins, and the ship was also reputed to be carrying jewels,” a reporter was saying, in an accent Luke had last heard when his ex-girlfriend had been watching Downton Abbey. “When she was lost, the coins – along with the rest of the treasure – sank beneath the waves.”
“But that isn’t quite true!” Braids interrupted excitedly. “The ship was wrecked and the treasure was stolen away by a local smuggler. It was smuggled down a secret tunnel. Jonny St Milton from the hotel told me.”
“That’s nonsense, Issie!” An elderly woman standing next to the girl was looking troubled. “It’s just a tall story. Jonny tells lots of them. Always did and always will.”
But Issie (as she was apparently called) shook her head defiantly. “It’s true. He says he saw the tunnel and was sworn to secrecy.”
The reporter turned to face the camera. Behind him, gloved hands waved and pale faces gurned as people pushed forward, all desperate for their moment of fame. Issie remained beside the reporter, a determined expression on her pretty face. Luke was jolted because he knew it was the exact expression his own features arranged themselves into when he was pursuing a lead.
“Shifting sands and currents meant that until this week Isabella hadn’t seen the light of day for well over two hundred years. Her precious cargo has been missing for just as long, and the mystery of where it went continues. This is Mike Elliott, for BBC News, from Polwenna Bay in Cornwall.”
Luke pressed pause on the TIVO control. His heart was racing and he had that sensation in the pit of his stomach that always, without fail, signalled that he was onto something. Springing up from the bed, he tore across the suite and stood so close to the TV that his nose brushed the screen. There he remained for five minutes, staring intently at Issie. Not because she was pretty – which she undoubtedly was – but because of what she was wearing. At the opening of her shirt hung a necklace which, he was certain, proved that her theory was true.
The necklace was in fact a coin on a length of chain. A gold coin. And not any gold coin either, but – and he was pretty sure of this – an eight-escudo piece showing the head of a monarch. Doubtless it would once have been transported across the seas on a ship carrying currency from the New World to the old.
“I’ll be God damned!” breathed Luke. If only he could zoom in closer and be certain which monarch… But the LCD screen showed only so much definition and the image was tantalisingly pixelated when viewed this close up. Was it Philip V? It didn’t matter. Either way, the feisty Issie was in possession of a coin with a worth that might range from four hundred dollars to over ten thousand – and that coin had to have come from somewhere. What was it she’d been saying about a tunnel, before the old lady had cut in with her scathing comments?
Luke rewound the interview and watched it again, his eyes narrowed and his white teeth biting his bottom lip. After viewing it three more times he grabbed his iPhone so that he could Google Polwenna Bay and the Isabella. What he read made his pulse race again.
Forget dinner at Zara’s, flash dive boats and warm waters. He was going to blow the last of his savings on
a hunch that was growing stronger by the second.
Luke Dawson was going to Cornwall, England.
Chapter 9
Alice Tremaine was worried. January was usually the quietest month in the Polwenna Bay calendar. Christmas and New Year were always busy, almost as busy as mid-summer, but once these high points had passed the streets would empty, holiday-cottage windows would darken and most of the gift shops and restaurants would close for a well-deserved break. You could walk from the top end of the village by the primary school right the way through to the harbour without meeting a soul; even the seagulls, deprived of overflowing bins and pasty crusts, were normally subdued during the low season.
This was the time of year when the locals took stock and the village exhaled after all the excitement of the festive period. The decorations came down, the trees were recycled and things went back to normal. Although she enjoyed the bustle and liveliness the visitors always brought with them, Alice always thought that January was when the locals were given Polwenna Bay back for themselves. For those few quiet weeks it was possible to walk the cliff paths alone or have a fireside seat in the pub without having to wait for a group of walkers to finish their drinks and move on. You could even, if you so wished, drive a car through the narrow streets to the marina without having to reverse several times for terrified tourists who’d been lured by their satnavs into the warren of lanes.
Yes, that was what January was usually like – but this year was a year unlike any other. As Alice made her way down from Seaspray with her shopping basket on her arm, she realised that, even six days on from the big storm, the village was just as busy as it had been on New Year’s Day. In fact, she’d go as far as to say that it was busier. The main street bustled with visitors; Patsy’s Pasties was doing a roaring trade and Silver Starr’s shop Magic Moon was offering half-price tarot readings. Even Davey’s Locker was open for business – which wasn’t surprising really, since the beach was as packed now as it usually was in August. Apart from the weather being grey and bitterly cold, the only real difference was that these visitors were armed with shovels rather than brightly coloured plastic spades from Merlin’s Gifts, and instead of wielding windbreaks they were waving metal detectors over the wet sand.
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