The Emerald Quest

by Renee Pawlish

  Frank waved him off. “Ben, we will, but right now we have to find the De La Rosa Emerald. Max Scheff and Wright are after it, just like we are. We’ve got to find the emerald before they do, or all of this will be for nothing. We’ll come in and make a statement once we have the emerald.”

  “Please, Ben,” Riley said. “I can’t tell you how important finding the emerald is.”

  Chief Burton gazed out into the water, thinking. Then he turned to Detective Shaw. “Let’s go out to Copper Key and have a talk with Mr. Wright.”

  “What about their statements?” Detective Shaw asked.

  “We can’t force them to make a report if they don’t want to,” Chief Burton said. “And I know Frank and Riley.” Chief Burton’s mouth curled into a smile. “Once they’re after some lost treasure, nothing will stop them. Not even the Chief of Police. The Winters can come in to the station later and we’ll get their statements then. Right now, we’ll visit Isaiah Wright.”

  “He won’t tell you anything,” Frank said.

  “Of course not,” Chief Burton snorted. “He’s too smart to let himself get caught in anything. I’m sure he’s removed any traces of your presence there. I doubt I could find even part of a fingerprint, let alone a soundproofed room or other evidence of foul play. Not only that, I don’t have a warrant to search the house. What I will do is tow the Donzi back there and ask Wright how it came into your possession. And he can explain why he was following you. I suspect he’ll say you were trespassing on his island and that you stole the Slingshot to escape, and they were just trying to get the boat back.”

  “That’s a lie,” Noah said.

  “Yes, it is.” Chief Burton held up his hands. “I should be able to get a warrant to search his house. But unless I can find proof that he kidnapped you, there’s not a lot I can do.”

  “Thanks, Ben,” Frank said. “Let’s tie up the Donzi.” He helped Chief Burton and Detective Shaw secure a line from the police cruiser to the Donzi. Then Frank leaped across into the Explorer. “I’ll stop by later on tonight to give you an update.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Chief Burton said. “And for you to make a statement when you complete your treasure hunt.”

  “You have our word,” Riley said.

  “What about Wright?” Noah asked. “Will he try to hurt us again?”

  Chief Burton shook his head. “He knows we’re on to him, so he’ll have to be careful.”

  “We’ll be careful, too,” Riley said, patting Noah’s shoulder. “No more excitement for us.”

  But that was not to be.

  ***

  Against Noah’s protests, Frank and Riley took him to the hospital to have his shoulder examined. Luckily, Noah suffered no broken bones or pulled muscles. Noah’s shoulder was bruised, but the doctor in the emergency room assured everyone that in a few days, the shoulder would feel fine.

  Back at the Winters’ house, Riley and Anthony fixed sandwiches for everyone. While they ate, Noah and his parents chatted excitedly about everything that had happened to them. Juan Carlo and Anthony sat on the edge of their chairs, enthralled by the story.

  “Increíble,” Juan Carlo murmured repeatedly while they talked.

  “Now Wright and Max have the map,” Frank said in conclusion. “We had to show it to them.”

  “It’s just a matter of time before they figure out what the map means,” Riley said.

  “But they’re missing the cross piece, just like we are,” Noah said.

  “What do you mean?” Frank asked.

  “We’re missing another piece,” Noah replied.

  “There should be a piece that attaches to the etched pieces of glass,” Juan Carlo said. “It has lines to mark the exact spot where the emerald is hidden.”

  “‘X’ marks the spot,” Noah said.

  Frank shrugged. “Even so, we’re still not sure what part of the Keys the map is showing.”

  “We traced the map onto paper,” Anthony said. “But we couldn’t figure it out either.”

  Frank stood up. “Let’s project the map up onto the wall.”

  Riley had put the spyglass in a safe when they’d returned home. She retrieved it and gave it to Anthony. He held it up and Riley shone a flashlight through the end of it.

  “We found notches on the edges of the glass pieces,” Anthony said.

  “So we lined up the notches, like this.” Noah reached around his mother and rotated the glass pieces so the notches pointed toward the ceiling. “This way, the arrow on the map points to the north.”

  Noah twisted the glass pieces slightly until the lines on the wall resembled a map of islands.

  Frank rubbed his chin as he studied the map. “I have no idea what group of islands those are.” He scrunched up his face. “Or even if that’s a set of islands in the Keys.”

  “It doesn’t look like anything to me,” Riley said.

  “Let’s get back to the cross piece.” Anthony set the spyglass back on the table. “Juan Carlo, do you know what it looks like?”

  “It’s supposed to be made of porcelain,” Juan Carlo said. “It’s round and fits over the other two etched-glass pieces. It’s got wires hooked in it, like the crosshairs in a rifle scope.” Juan Carlo took a piece of paper from the table and drew a circle and lines. “Like this.”

  “If it wasn’t with the glass pieces that we found in the cave, it must’ve been kept with the spyglass,” Anthony said.

  “That means it’s somewhere around the San Isabel wreckage,” Frank said.

  Riley scowled. “Unless Alfonso De La Rosa hid it someplace else.”

  All of a sudden, Noah’s mind flashed back to when they’d dived the San Isabel earlier that week. He remembered the circular piece of porcelain he found. He’d thought it was a flour sifter. Now he knew it wasn’t. “I found that piece,” he said.

  They all looked at him in surprise.

  “Where is it?” Riley finally asked.

  “I don’t have it now,” Noah replied.

  “What?” Frank jumped up. “What did you do with it?”

  Noah shrugged sheepishly. “Remember when we were exploring the San Isabel on Tuesday? I told you I found something by the ship? Well, when that shark swam out of the hole in the hull and startled me, I dropped it.”

  “Oh no!” Riley slumped down in her chair.

  “I thought it was a flour sifter or something,” Noah explained. “I didn’t think it was important or I would’ve told you.”

  “It’s okay,” Frank said. “We’ll have to go find it now.”

  “Now?” Juan Carlo asked. “It’s almost dark.”

  Frank nodded. “We’ve done plenty of night dives. We’ll take the underwater lights and we’ve got a spotlight on the Explorer that will help illuminate the shipwreck.” He turned to Noah. “You dropped the piece by that jagged hole, right? Up near the bow?”

  “Yes,” Noah said.

  “Let’s go!” Anthony hopped to his feet.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  X MARKS THE SPOT

  The sun had set by the time the Explorer approached the dive site. Stars dotted the night sky, and the water was dark as oil.

  “Noah, you’ll show us where you were when you dropped the porcelain piece,” Riley said. “Anthony, you stay with Juan Carlo on board the Explorer. I doubt Wright or Max Scheff will try anything, but if you run into problems, kill the spotlight. Then we’ll know you’re in trouble.”

  “That’ll work,” Anthony said.

  Frank dived into the water, followed by Riley. Their underwater flashlights twinkled in the dark depths. Noah jumped off the back of the boat, quickly sinking beneath the ocean’s surface. The spotlight from the Explorer faded into a yellowy haze. He couldn’t see much beyond what the beam of his light illuminated. Off to his left and right, there was nothing but darkness. Noah kicked hard, joining his parents as they swam toward the San Isabel. His shoulder ached as he swam, but he gritted his teeth and didn’t let it slow him down.
/>   Frank gestured for Noah to join him. Noah swam up beside his dad, coming to the hole in the port side of the ship. Noah moved to where he had been when his dad had surprised him and he’d dropped the piece of porcelain. Noah descended down to the ocean floor.

  Further above them, the light from the Explorer’s spotlight illuminated the top of the shipwreck in a hazy glow. Shadows danced off the side of the shipwreck. But on the ocean floor, it was almost completely dark. Noah thought of an underwater haunted house.

  It’s spooky down here, he thought, shaking off an uneasy feeling.

  His mom and dad joined him. They felt around on the ocean floor, stirring up sand. Riley lifted up a hand and waved something around. Noah took the object from her, then shook his head. They kept searching.

  Noah paused for a few seconds, trying to picture the object as it slowly settled into the sand. He thought about what he had been doing. He wasn’t motionless when the shark startled him. He’d been kicking his feet to stay by the ship’s hull. So the water around him had been moving. Maybe the porcelain piece hadn’t floated straight down. Maybe it had floated off sideways. Noah moved alongside the bottom of the shipwreck, one hand holding his flashlight, the other hand feeling in the sand. He touched some rocks and coral, then something else. He lifted up his hand. In it was the round porcelain piece with the two wires!

  He swam over to his parents, elated.

  Riley nodded her head when she saw him holding the piece. Through her face mask, Noah saw the excitement in her eyes. Frank pointed with his thumb for them to surface.

  Noah spit out his regulator as soon as he surfaced. “Found it!” he shouted, holding the porcelain ring up.

  Frank and Riley swam over and inspected the piece in the moonlight.

  “The wire pieces aren’t aligned like Juan Carlo’s drawing,” Noah said. “See? The wires don’t cross in the center of the circle. They cross over to one side.” The porcelain piece looked like this:

  “That’s okay,” Frank said. “As long as we correctly line this up with the other glass pieces, I’m sure it’ll tell us where the emerald is.”

  “Did you find it?” Anthony leaned over the side of the boat.

  “Yes, Noah found it!” Riley said as they swam over to the Explorer.

  “This is excellent,” Juan Carlo said as he helped them aboard. He took the porcelain ring from Noah. “Now we have all the pieces for the spyglass. How amazing!”

  “Anthony, head us back to shore,” Frank said as he took off his wet suit. “We’ve got to put this piece on the spyglass and see what we have.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Anthony said, saluting Frank with a grin.

  ***

  “Let’s try this again,” Anthony said an hour later.

  Everyone was sitting in the Winters’ living room, watching Anthony. He had attached the etched-glass pieces to the spyglass, and then he twisted on the porcelain piece, lining up the notches so the map displayed correctly. Riley turned on a flashlight, shining the beam through the spyglass. An image appeared on the wall.

  “That doesn’t look like anything,” Frank said. “That crosspiece points to the ocean.”

  “This can’t be right.” Riley fiddled with the porcelain piece. “We must not be lining this up correctly.”

  Frank and Anthony shook their heads as they stared at the map on the wall. “No, that still doesn’t make sense.”

  While they talked, Noah got up and went to his dad’s office. He returned a moment later with a powerful magnifying glass.

  “May I look at those pieces?” he asked.

  “Sure.” Anthony handed him the spyglass.

  “What are you thinking?” Frank asked Noah.

  “Look how small the etching on the glass is,” Noah replied. “Whoever made this had to use a magnifying glass to etch a map so tiny. What if he put other writing on the porcelain piece or the glass that’s so small you have to enlarge it in order to see it?”

  “Hey, that makes sense!” Frank nodded.

  “What a smart boy,” Juan Carlo said.

  Noah blushed. “Let’s see if I’m right.” He peered through the magnifying glass. “Here, on the edge of the glass pieces. There’s a tiny ‘N’ on each one of them.” He handed the magnifying glass to Riley.

  She examined the edge of the glass. “How about that,” she murmured.

  “‘N’ for North,” Juan Carlo said.

  Noah took the magnifying glass back from his mom. “And look here,” Noah continued. “Painted onto the edge of the porcelain piece is a small arrow. I didn’t see it before.”

  Riley stared at him. “You’re already a fine treasure hunter.”

  “I wonder what the arrow means?” Noah said. He pocketed the magnifying glass and twisted the end pieces on the spyglass, lining up the ‘N’s until each one pointed toward the ceiling. He held the spyglass up and Riley shined the light through it again.

  “Okay, but what islands are those?” Anthony said. “There are over seventeen hundred islands in the Keys.”

  “And look at the arrow on the map,” Riley said. “It’s pointing to the East.”

  “And the crossbeam from the porcelain still points into the ocean,” Frank said.

  “Maybe that’s where Alfonso hid the emerald?” Juan Carlo asked skeptically.

  “Wait,” Noah said. “I’ll bet the arrow on the porcelain piece matches the arrow on the glass.” He turned the porcelain ring so that the ring lined up with the arrow on the map, pointing due East.

  “Look at that.” Frank said slowly, with awe in his voice.

  The cross pieces now laid over the southwest edge of a large area on the map.

  “X marks the spot,” Noah said.

  Riley moved over to the wall and put a finger on the map in the center of the crosshairs. “This is where we’re supposed to look.”

  “Increíble,” Juan Carlo whispered.

  “But that doesn’t even look like it’s pointing to an island,” Frank said. “If I had to guess, that’s somewhere in the Everglades.”

  The Everglades are subtropical wetlands covering most of the southern portion of Florida. So much water covers the area that the Everglades are only navigable by boat or canoe. The ’Glades, as they are locally known, have large sawgrass prairies, dark watery woodlands, and labyrinths of swamps, lagoons, and creeks.

  Noah turned to Juan Carlo. “Is there anything more in Alfonso’s journal?”

  “Alfonso wrote a journal?” Frank turned to Juan Carlo.

  Juan Carlo reddened. “I’m afraid I kept this from you.” He explained to Frank and Riley about the existence of the journal. “But that is in the past,” he said as he saw Frank frown at him. Juan Carlo went into the guest bedroom off and returned with Alfonso’s journal. “I’ve read this thing so many times, but I don’t believe Alfonso mentions anything that would be of help to us.”

  Juan Carlo hummed to himself as he carefully turned pages in the old journal. “Here’s something about the San Isabel, but that doesn’t help us,” he mumbled. “Ah, I know Alfonso wrote something about a house that Roberto De La Rosa stayed at.” Juan Carlo flipped to a different page in the journal, running his hand lightly over the writing. “Here it is. Roberto stayed at a place called ‘Paso del Caimán’.” He looked up. “Does anyone know where that is?”

  “That was almost two hundred years ago,” Riley said. “Who knows where that place was.”

  “What’s that mean in English?” Noah asked.

  “The, uh, what is the word?” Juan Carlo struggled with the translation. “The Hole of the Alligator?”

  “Oh, I know what it is,” Anthony said. “The ‘Pass of the Alligator’, like a mountain pass.”

  “Yes.” Juan Carlo smiled. “I think that would be correct.”

  Anthony smirked. “And my mother said I’d never use my high school Spanish.”

  “There aren’t any mountains or mountain passes in Florida,” Frank said wryly.

  “Wait a mi
nute,” Noah snapped his fingers. “I just read about that.” He rifled through the books on the coffee table. “I think it was in this one.” He lifted up the book about pirates that he’d been reading a few days earlier.

  He flipped pages for a moment, then began reading. “Smuggler’s Den, once known as ‘The Alligator Gap’, was a place where pirates stayed in southern Florida. Located deep in the Florida Everglades, the site was a perfect place for pirates to hide out. The pirates built a house to survive the rainy season. The house had a huge stone fireplace and three lookout towers built into the cypress trees. The famous pirate Blackbeard was rumored to have stayed there. In the 1970’s, this same place was used by drug smugglers. Small airplanes would drop packages of drugs into the Everglades, and drug runners would retrieve the parcels. Since Smuggler’s Den is extremely difficult to find, drug runners stayed there to avoid local law enforcement.”

  Noah looked up. “What better place to hide an emerald than in a smugglers’ den!”

  “I knew there was a reason I bought him that book,” Riley laughed.

  “But why would Roberto De La Rosa stay with pirates?” Noah asked. “Unless he was a pirate himself.”

  Juan Carlo cleared his throat. “This is most difficult to discuss,” he said, his face reddening. “You see, there was a family rumor that Roberto was, in fact, a pirate. He associated with royalty and even worked for the king, so no one suspected that he could be a criminal. It is a dark part of my family’s past, one that I always denied. But I suspect that it is true.”

  “It’s okay,” Noah said. “It was a long time ago.”

  “That doesn’t matter now,” Anthony said. “What we need to know is where on Smuggler’s Den would Roberto hide the emerald?” Anthony asked.

  “Either in the lookout towers. Or maybe in the chimney,” Noah smiled. “Slip out a loose stone, shove the emerald in, and no one knows.”

  “You could be right,” Frank said. “The emerald would be safe until Roberto returned.”

  “Only he never did,” Juan Carlo said.