Rough Waters

by Maggie Toussaint

  She’d won one point, darned if she wouldn’t argue this one, too. “Lyle could be involved. He knew about the sovereigns. He wanted the journal. What if someone in his crew went after your journal?”

  Rock seemed to study the white lines on the highway. “Someone in his organization acted independently?”

  She shrugged. “Could be.”

  Rock whuffled some air. “Sneaky. That would force me to give Lyle the journal.”

  His voice sounded so dark, a shiver slid down her spine. “You seem so down to earth. How’d you venture off on this treasure hunting path?”

  “Finding that family journal in my mom’s papers did something to me. My mom was gone, and I had no family to support or look after. Searching for sunken treasure had long been a dream of mine but I could never afford to do it right. I also uh...traveled a lot. Anyway, I knew it was a gamble, but something inside of me kept saying it was my time. So I figured out how I could do it. A venture capitalist seemed like a great idea for the cash I needed to outfit myself with a boat and diving gear. I figured I’d make the money from fishing charters in the specified time. Except mechanical things kept going wrong with the boat.”

  “Sounds like sabotage to me. Someone wanted you to fail.”

  “I considered that angle, especially since Palamiri benefitted. But I could never figure out why. What did I ever do to him?”

  “Good question.”

  They needed answers. Lyle, Palamiri, Avery, and Shandy were connected to Rock or the missing treasure. Who else? “Tarpley benefitted from your loan, from you taking all the financial risk. You bought his dive gear with the investor’s money, right?”

  “I did. Tarp wanted to help, but his credit was bad. I’d helped him out before, so I didn’t see any problem with bringing him along on the ride.”

  Rock and Tarpley. Without meeting him, Jeanie knew Tarpley was a user. He’d taken advantage of Rock. Tarpley. A wild idea blazed across her mind. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “A hundred percent. His head slammed into the center console as I flew out of the boat.”

  “You hit something and survived.”

  “The motor. My left side hit the motor housing.”

  “Any chance you misinterpreted what you saw?”

  “The boat blew up. That’s a fact. Tarpley wasn’t in the wreckage. I searched. He wasn’t there. The tide must have carried his body out to sea.”

  “If you swam to shore, is there a chance Tarpley made the swim if he survived the explosion?”

  “He was a good swimmer, but I would have noticed him swimming. With the minimal wave action that day, visibility was good. He couldn’t have swum to shore on top of the water without being seen.”

  Tarpley’s body never surfaced. Her pulse slowed momentarily as her thoughts crystallized. “What about underneath the water? You guys had dive gear on board.”

  “Anything’s possible, but why fake his death? If he’s alive, why didn’t he step forward?”

  “I can think of one reason. You were supposed to be dead.”

  Rock scoffed. “I’ve known Tarpley since third grade. He wouldn’t try to kill me.”

  The bombing worried at her peace of mind. “Someone did. Spitballing here, but maybe the only reason you’re still alive is the treasure went missing.”

  “No offense, Jeanie, but that seems backward. I’d love nothing better than to hand Lyle those vintage coins and pay off my loan.”

  “Wait a minute. You didn’t die. The coins and that little chest are missing. The players are reassembling in Mossy Bog. Someone thinks I have the loot. Agree so far?”

  “Those are the facts.”

  Jeanie twirled a strand of hair as they passed the RV park. “Tell me more about the shipwreck.”

  “The Clarissa plied the route along the East Coast from England routinely, trading cloth and spices for British gold. She put in at Hatteras the week before she went down in December 1860 and wasn’t expected back for months.

  “According to the only surviving crew member, the magistrate’s son stowed away, which caused the captain to circle back to take him home. A bad storm struck the ship. They sought shelter behind the island. A wave broadsided the vessel, sank the craft in navigable waters. The storm raged for days with gale force winds. The sole survivor settled in the Outer Banks area. He was my mother’s great-grandfather.”

  “So that’s how you came by the journal.”

  Rock nodded. “He wanted nothing more to do with the sea, and other than pearl divers, folks didn’t dive for treasure back then. He wrote of two chests of gold in the captain’s quarters. There should be more coins to find.”

  “You and Tarpley only found three?” she asked.

  “That’s all. We dove two dozen more times, but we came up empty-handed.”

  “Did someone else find the main treasure previously?”

  “Anything’s possible, but I checked. No 1850s sovereigns were reported in that area of Pamlico Sound. Tarpley and I were working on the theory of island drift when the explosion happened.”

  “Island drift?”

  “Something scientists figured out. Due to the flow of the Gulf Stream and constant wind and wave action, sand accumulates at the northern end of an island and subtracts from the southern end. Through time, an island migrates.”

  “Then why build waterfront homes on islands?”

  Rock shrugged. “People are dumb?”

  Jeanie shook her head. “We’re getting off-track. You and Tarpley were working on a new theory. Y’all were going to look elsewhere, then the boat blew up.”

  “Correct.”

  “Did you check elsewhere?”

  He shook his head. “No boat. No gear. Injuries. I need the insurance settlement to gear up. With vermin like Palamiri watching me, I have to be discreet.”

  “But you plan to check it out?”

  “My plans aren’t firm. I could spend the rest of my life diving for that treasure, or I could let it go.”

  “But, Rock. It’s your dream.”

  “It was a dream. Tarpley like to drove me crazy searching for the treasure. I wanted the prestige of making the find, and extra income is always welcome, but fame and fortune don’t guarantee happiness.”

  “What does?”

  He gave her a look that made her feel both warm and hopeful and hot and sexy at the same time.

  “Don’t know yet. But I hope to find out.”

  Chapter 37

  As the dishwasher sloshed water over the dinner dishes, Rock savored his showdown with his fishing charter rival. Palamiri hadn’t liked being confronted, but it had felt good to put the man on notice. Jeanie was up in the guest room using his computer to video chat with her kids. The dogs padded beside Rock as he checked the window and door locks of Lytham House for the night.

  He’d verbally sparred with Palamiri at the Outer Banks, but they never came to blows. He’d thought Palamiri might punch him on St. Simons today during their discussion on the pier, but the man had held his temper. Rock replayed the conversation in his mind.

  “Not cool, Palamiri,” Rock began, wishing they were in a less public location. He leaned in, lowered his voice, determined to call the guy on his crap. “Bringing little kids into this.”

  Palamiri startled, stepping back hard into the railing. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Rock followed his rival. “You can’t sell those coins or pawn the chest. I’ll call the cops on you so fast your head will spin.”

  Palamiri’s brow furrowed. He shoved his hands through his hair and stared out to sea. “I can have you arrested for harassment. How many threatening phone messages have you left for me now?”

  “I let you get away with too much in North Carolina,” Rock said. “Not anymore.”

  “Bite me. You can’t prove a thing.”

  “I heard you and Tarpley were drinking buddies. He told you about our find.”

  “I don’t know nothing about no sovereigns.”
>
  Bingo. “Those coins belong to my investor. He put up the money for the treasure hunt.”

  Palamiri shrugged. “Not my problem.”

  “It’ll be your problem when the bills roll in. Your hotel costs two-fifty a night, and you’ve been there a week already. You aren’t made of money.”

  “You’re blowing smoke. You don’t know squat about me and Tarp.”

  “Tarpley was a good man.”

  “He was a no-account drunk. He hated your success. Tarp sold you out time and again.”

  Palamiri’s words sliced into Rock, searing through muscle and tendons. No way. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You thought you knew everything, Mr. High and Mighty.”

  “Enough. Hand over my coins and the chest.”

  The harsh sound of Palamiri’s laughter grated on Rock’s nerves.

  “Give me what’s mine, or I’ll go to the cops.”

  Palamiri made a crude hand gesture.

  For the second time, Rock regretted the public setting. He should have come in under cover of night and ambushed Palamiri. “You can’t sell them without incriminating yourself.”

  Palamiri’s face darkened. He waggled a finger in the direction of Rock’s chest. “Everything would be fine if you died in that explosion.”

  Rock reeled from an invisible gut punch. “You planted that bomb? You killed Tarpley?”

  Palamiri swore, started to stomp away, then spun around. “Leave me alone. Contact me again, and I’ll call the cops.” He stormed off, leaving Rock to wonder how much of the confrontation was bravado.

  Hours later, Rock still couldn’t interpret the conversation.

  Palamiri knew about the chest of coins.

  But Tarpley. His friend of twenty-five years—had he sold Rock out? Thinking back, the scenario explained so much about Rock’s boat troubles and Palamiri’s opportunism. Rock paused in the den to absorb that potential truth.

  He exhaled slowly, his shoulders bowing under the impact of the worst betrayal he could imagine. His thoughts raced. Tarpley. His friend. His enemy?

  He didn’t want to accept the idea. Wanted it to be a lie. But the ugly truth glittered like a dark gemstone.

  He was a fool.

  His best friend had sold him down the river.

  Over and over again.

  He reached for the banister and steadied himself. He’d lost nearly everything, except his life, which had been a near thing.

  The stolen treasure.

  This was about Tarpley making the big score.

  Rock had been in Tarpley’s way.

  In this scenario, Jeanie’s theory of Tarpley surviving the explosion sounded plausible.

  But how, and why?

  He sat down in the cushioned rocker, dogs curling near his feet, and let his thoughts drift back to the explosion.

  They’d come out to chart the island’s precise longitude and latitude and compare depth soundings with the NOAA nautical chart, something they did routinely. The map Rock hand-drew rested on the console. Tarpley moved from bow to stern with the depth pole, glancing at his dive watch.

  “You got a hot date or something?” Rock asked.

  “I wish. Having trouble with my blood sugar.”

  “Told you to cut back on the booze. Grab a soda out of the cooler.”

  “I’ll snag one soon as we finish this pass.”

  Rock studied the chart. The depths varied from the mapped values, but not by much. There’d been a few big storms through here since the maps were created. With the frequent overwash of this part of the barrier island, he thought for sure the depths would be way off.

  Rock balled his fists in frustration as they passed over the area where they’d found the wooden chest with the three coins initially. This place wasn’t safe to dive on a strong ebb tide like this, but they always carried dive gear out just in case they found something. They needed high tide or dead low water to have the least current interference.

  Tarpley banged the sounding pole on the side of the boat. “We’re wasting our time with the pole. We should be diving. Poking at the mud won’t pad my wallet.”

  His friend’s surly attitude didn’t sit well with Rock. Tarpley made it sound like Rock was keeping him from finding the treasure. “The gold isn’t beneath us, or we’d have found it by now. The saltwater ecologist I talked to kept going on and on about how islands are being formed and reformed by wind and wave action. He said Hatteras changes shape a little bit with each big storm event. We have to figure out where the boat sank because it wasn’t here. The small chest we found could have been stowed separate from the chests of gold in the captain’s quarters.”

  “Why can’t you find the shipwreck?”

  There it was again. That sharp, ugly tone. “Chests are heavy, and even if the chests didn’t survive, gold coins are heavy. They’re silted under, deeper than our equipment can penetrate. We were lucky to find three coins in that small chest.”

  “Where’s a hurricane when you need it? That would stir everything up. Or we need the biggest metal detector ever made or one of those underwater sonic detector thingamabobs.”

  Big talk for a man who kept asking to borrow money from his friends. “We can’t afford any new equipment, unless you came into a cushy inheritance lately.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “So, we’re stuck out here poking a stick in the sound bottom.”

  “What if your relative got it wrong?” Tarpley grumbled. “What if those coins were a fluke?”

  “We’ll find more coins. We just have to finesse them from the sea.”

  Tarpley glanced toward the mainland, pole in hand. “Wanna run over to Cedar Island for dinner? I’ve got a hankering for fried fish.”

  “Sure. But it’s dead out here now. We may not get a chance to work unobserved for a long time. Let’s finish this grid before we quit for the day.”

  Images replaced the conversation. Tarpley in the bow with the sounding pole. Rock in the captain’s chair recording data. His seat vibrated. A loud boom sounded. Air rushed past. Slammed him back. His life streamed before his eyes. His mom. His time as a SEAL. His best friend, Drake Tarpley. Each image flickered, sharpened, and faded like a July firework. The motor housing loomed. His left arm protected his head. Bone crunched on impact. He screamed. Blue sky. Black water. Bounced hard on the water.

  Sank.

  “Drake?” He choked out.

  “Tarpley!” He swam toward the bow.

  No answer.

  No body.

  Was Tarp dead?

  He remembered seeing Tarp’s bleeding head. Was it a minor scalp wound? Could Tarp have escaped serious injury? He might’ve used the time Rock was airborne and floundering underwater to grab the dive tank and whatever else he needed from the wreckage.

  It was possible.

  Rock didn’t want to believe it.

  Except he didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  Tarpley had complained about Palamiri every chance he got.

  Had his griping been an act?

  Chapter 38

  Jeanie waved goodbye to her kids and her mom’s friend Bessie in the webcam, then smiled as her mother’s image filled the computer screen. “Nathaniel and Sable sound happy, Mom. I’m so glad I had a chance to speak with them. Are you getting any rest?”

  “We’re managing fine. Bessie is a lot of help, and the kids adore her. We’re strict about naps though. We seniors need to recharge as much as they do. We’ve been to the beach and the fort and everywhere in between.”

  Jeanie’s heart panged at missing out on the fun. “Sounds like every day is full.”

  “Don’t worry about us.” Her mom leaned in, concern rimming her green eyes. “What’s the news from home? Any breaks in the case?”

  “Laurie Ann has no new suspects, but Rock and I have been talking. Some valuables Rock found on a dive went missing. He thought Avery took them, but Avery doesn’t have them.”

  Her mom’s face darkened. “Aver
y is in town?”

  “Avery and Rock nearly came to blows in The Muddy Rose. I kicked them both out. I do not need Avery Munro back in my life. Not unless he forks over all the child support he owes me.”

  “About that, dear. I’ve been meaning to discuss this with you, but these snatches of conversation go by so fast. Avery did you wrong, but his mother, God rest her soul, always said Avery needed a little longer to catch on. Maybe he regrets his decisions.”

  Jeanie didn’t want to get caught up in the backwash of Avery’s crap again. She flicked her wrist. “Enough about Avery. Let’s talk about when y’all can come home.”

  “Did Laurie Ann catch the burglars?”

  “Not yet, but I miss my kids. It’s too quiet, too dead with them gone. I miss Giraffe and Dolly. Did Giraffe’s leg come off again?”

  “The children are fine. Giraffe is fine. Even if we stay a week or two, don’t you worry about us.”

  Jeanie realized she was chewing on her thumbnail. She sat on her hand. “Can’t help worrying. Must be the mommy gene.”

  “Tell me about Rock.”

  Jeanie’s gaze flickered to the open bedroom door, and her voice dropped. “What about him?”

  “You like him?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “The two of you have chemistry. If I were you, I’d use this kid-free time to figure out if he’s the type of man you want.”

  Jeanie blushed as desire surged. “Mom!”

  “Do you think I don’t know a good looking man when I see one?”

  “He’s different, Mom.”

  “Different can be good.”

  “Avery was different.”

  “Avery was a loser. You’ve wised up since then. Give Rock a shot.”

  Jeanie sighed deeply. “All right, then. I’ll keep an open mind.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  Not even vacation could dull her mom’s intuition. “Shandy’s in town. She’s tangled up in this mess somehow.”

  Her mom grimaced. “Must be money involved. Don’t let her mess with your head.” Her mom glanced over her shoulder at a sudden cry for Nonnie. “I gotta go. Be safe. Keep me posted.”