A Whisper of Danger

by Catherine Palmer

  “Your bedroom,” Miriamu said. “Ni maridadi kabisa.”

  It certainly was maridadi. One of those Swahili words that had no direct translation, maridadi was a perfect description of this room. The word meant beautiful, fancy, decorative, and exquisite all rolled into one. No higher compliment could be paid.

  Jess walked across the thick Persian rugs that carpeted the floor and stared in wonder at the room’s treasures—a huge Zanzibar chest carved in wood and studded with brass; a large fern filling a bright copper urn; chairs of ebony, mahogany, and teak; a table inlaid with silver and glass; an enormous canopied bed hung with mosquito netting; and paintings everywhere. Everywhere.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why did he leave all this to me?”

  She had asked the question of herself in London and had found no good answer. She had asked Mr. Patel in Zanzibar. The attorney had shrugged. He didn’t know. She looked at the two Africans standing before her. Miriamu’s dark eyelashes fluttered down. Solomon squared his shoulders.

  “Ahmed Abdullah bin Yusuf did not have friends,” the African man said. “He did not have family. Perhaps you were important to him.”

  “I was his student, that’s all. I loved his art, and I respected him as a teacher and as a man. But that was a long time ago. I took classes from him for only a couple of years.” She looked around the room. “He left all this to me? I just don’t get it.”

  “But you did get it, memsahib. And now you will live forever in Uchungu House.”

  He gave her a dark look before leaving the room with Miriamu at his heels. Jess pressed her hands against her stomach as she gazed through the archways onto the balcony that faced the sea. Like a Möbius strip that had no beginning and no end, Solomon’s words swirled around inside her head.

  “And now you will live forever in the House of Bitterness.”

  Unable to sleep in spite of her exhaustion, Jess lay in the big bed and stared up at the ceiling through the filmy mosquito net. In London, she had imagined Dr. bin Yusuf ’s house as a quaint stone cottage by the sea. A haven for Splinter. A cocoon for her. Hannah would come, and Africa would wrap its benevolent healing arms around them all. Everything would be perfect.

  Instead, she was burdened with a palatial stone mansion of great architectural significance, a household staff, and a gallery of valuable art. Would Splinter even be safe here? What if he tumbled off the cliff or fell down a well or got bitten by some strange tropical bug? Could she actually paint out here in the jungle? Could she afford to pay Solomon and Miriamu? How could she protect the paintings and sculptures?

  Jess flopped onto her stomach and buried her face in the feather pillow. No, it wasn’t any of that. She could handle Splint and the rest of the situation. Somehow or other, she would manage. She always had.

  It was him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t get him out of her brain.

  In Zanzibar town, the men had walked around the corner, the whole group of them. An African or two. Someone in a turban. A heavy white man with a bald head the color of a baked crab. And then those blue eyes. Rick McTaggart’s blue eyes. No one else had eyes like that—deep-set, penetrating eyes that never wavered, eyes that always stared direct and straightforward, eyes that could pin a person to a wall or buckle her knees or make her weep.

  But had she seen Rick’s face? She couldn’t remember. She had glimpsed a flash of tan skin, broad shoulders, brown hair. It could have been anyone, couldn’t it?

  Not with those eyes. The instant she saw them, everything had swept over her. Their meeting on a beach, their brief passionate romance, their wedding, the little house where . . .

  She sat up and clapped a hand over her mouth. Make it go away. Make the memories leave me alone. Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes. She blotted them with the sheet.

  It’s okay, Jessie. It’s okay.

  The words Rick had whispered in her ear that afternoon in Zanzibar held the same deep tones she remembered so well. It’s okay, Jessie. He had called her by his special name. Jessie. So it was him. It was Rick McTaggart, and she couldn’t escape.

  Worse, even worse, he had picked her up and cradled her against his chest. She had felt the hard roundness of his biceps beneath her hand. She had rested her cheek on his shirt—warm khaki cotton, brown buttons, a pocket with a pen, a small spiral-bound notebook, a pair of sunglasses. And she had smelled him. Rick.

  No one else smelled like Rick McTaggart—like salty sea air, sunshine, tanned male skin, and freedom. No one else walked like him, with that confident stride, shoulders thrown back, purpose in every step.

  No one else called her Jessie.

  She flopped back on the bed and pulled the sheet over her head. Make him go away. Don’t let me ever have to see him again. The cry from her heart was meant to be a prayer, but she hadn’t talked to God in so many years she wasn’t sure she remembered how. And she wasn’t sure he would want to listen. After all, ten years ago she had been so angry with him . . . raging and crying and begging . . . and finally turning her back on him.

  Well, who wouldn’t? No one wanted a God who would allow trouble like Rick McTaggart to invade. Jess had always believed God was sort of like Hannah. Benevolent, protective, loving. If she’d been around at the time, Hannah would never have let Rick McTaggart near Jess. Of course, Jess probably would have made her own choices anyway. Terrible choices. Horrible mistakes.

  “God, if you’re out there anywhere,” she whispered into the silence of her room, “if you care about me at all, please fix this. Please help me get through this. Heal the brokenness inside me so I don’t have to feel so awful anymore. I’m choking from it. I’m dying inside. Please just fix it!”

  She doubted her prayer had the power to break through the thin web of mosquito netting, let alone find its way to God. Feeling empty and cold in spite of the hot night, she lay on the bed and listened to the surf until sleep took her.

  Just after sunrise, the roar of truck engines brought Jess bolt upright in bed. Had every car on the island of Zanzibar lost its muffler? She threw off the sheet, pushed out from under the mosquito-net canopy, and padded onto the balcony outside her room.

  The horrendous sound came from the driveway just below. As Jess leaned over the stone railing, the ruckus stopped. Two khaki green trucks left over from some military campaign sat basking in an aura of diesel fumes. Two men jumped out of the first truck; three exited the second. Without preamble, they began hauling machinery, hoses, metal chests, and ropes from the truck beds and depositing them on the verandah of Uchungu House.

  “I hope she’s got eggs today.” One of the men whisked off a battered white hat and bellowed at the house. “Hey, Miriamu! We’re ready for breakfast.”

  Four of the visitors were Africans—shirtless wiry men who wore ankle-length skirts of native fabric wrapped around their waists and small white caps perched on their heads. The man who had hollered was white, bald, and he sported a paunch the size of a small beer keg. Barely visible beneath his girth was a tiny blue swimsuit. His thongs flipped on the crunchy gravel as he walked back and forth unloading equipment.

  “Excuse me,” Jess called down. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “Great ghosts!” The bald-headed man’s focus followed the direction of the voice. “You gave me the fright of my life, lass.”

  “Then we’re even. I wasn’t expecting visitors today. I’m Jessica Thornton, the new owner of Uchungu House.”

  “Owner?” The man scratched the skin on the top of his head. “I didn’t realize anyone had been given the rights to this place. Ahmed . . . well, I didn’t know he had an heir.”

  “I was his student. And you are?”

  “John Wallace of Scotland, at your service.” He gave her a deep bow. “Treasure hunter, marine salvager, expert on Indian Ocean sea life, and Scottish dancer extraordinaire. You may call me Hunky.”

  In spite of her irritation at the intrusion, Jess couldn’t hold back a grin. “May I ask what you
are doing here, Mr. Hunky?”

  “It’s simply Hunky, thank you. Now, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Wallace Diving, Ltd.”

  “I’ve been living in London.”

  “I fancied I was world famous.”

  “For diving?”

  “For treasure hunting, of course. In my time I’ve found some fabulous loot. These past few weeks I’ve been exploring a sunken ship out in the bay. I discovered the ballast stones three months ago. I’m surprised you didn’t know. The news was all over town. They had it in the newspapers.”

  Jess wondered if Zanzibar even had a newspaper. “I’m afraid I hadn’t heard anything about it. I just arrived in town yesterday. Look, Mr. Wallace, I appreciate your situation, but I have a lot of work to do, and I want to keep things private around my house. I’m going to have to ask you to move your operation to another location.”

  “Another location? Lass, there’s only one ship out there, and it sank in only one bay. That bay is yours. Have you had a look at it?”

  She lifted her focus to the line of palm trees just beyond the verandah balcony. “Not yet, but—”

  “You’ve a private beach, inaccessible to the public and worth a fortune should you choose to replace this crumbling old house with a luxury hotel. In the meantime, there’s only one way for a diving team to get out to that ship, and that’s from your beach.”

  “My private beach.”

  “It’s private, yes, but I trust you won’t shut it off to me and my crew. After all, we’re doing a work of great importance.”

  “Treasure hunting doesn’t seem all that important to me, Mr. Wallace. In fact, your presence here at Uchungu House feels an awful lot like an invasion of privacy.”

  Hunky Wallace glanced at his men before turning his focus on Jess again. “This is not merely a treasure hunt, you realize. It’s a grand and important venture into the mysteries of the past. Wallace Diving, Ltd., is working with the Tanzanian government—”

  “What?” one of his men cut in. “But, Bwana Wallace, you said we—”

  “On the contrary, Karim. I have decided this wreck is of vital historical significance, and the government has the right to investigate.”

  “But just yesterday you told—”

  Hunky put out a silencing hand. “Surely Ms. Thornton cannot object to the necessity of government exploration of this valuable relic of Zanzibar’s past.”

  Jess crossed her arms and studied the persistent diver standing below her on the driveway. “Do I have a choice?”

  “With the government? Not really. They do as they please, you know.”

  “How long is this going to take?”

  “Another month or two at the most. Maybe three, but not more than four. Actually, it all depends on what we find. We’ve only just begun diving.” He gave her a broad grin, then turned to one of his men and murmured a quick list of instructions. “We’ll do our best not to disturb you, lass. You’ll hardly know we’re here.”

  The roar of one of the army trucks coming to life drowned out his last words. He gave a shrug as the vehicle pulled past him and headed back down the driveway. Jess shook her head. Treasure hunters. If Splinter got wind of this . . .

  “You won’t mind us having a bit of breakfast before we go out on the water, will you?” Hunky called up to her. “Miriamu usually manages to boil us a few eggs and stir up a little posho.”

  “I suppose I don’t mind this morning, but—”

  “Good. We’ve got to wait for our government man, anyway. Karim’s gone to fetch him from town.” He tipped his head in the direction of the verandah. “Come on, chaps. Let’s go eat breakfast. It’ll give Karim time to round up McTaggart.”

  A bolt shot down Jess’s spine. “McTaggart?”

  “He works for the Ministry of Something-or-Other in Dar es Salaam. Ministry of Antiquities, is it? Or the Ministry of Historical Development? Something like that. At any rate, he’s been on my back for a month about this particular wreck. I’ll let him poke about for a bit. That should satisfy him.”

  Jess gripped the stone balcony rail. “Are you . . . are you talking about Rick . . . uh . . . Rick McTaggart?”

  “The very man.” He gave her an expansive grin. “Come down and join us for breakfast, won’t you, Ms. Thornton? I’ll introduce you to my crew, tell you a bit about our work, and allay all your fears. Within the hour, McTaggart will arrive, and we shall all begin the most exciting adventure of our lives!”

  THREE

  Rick McTaggart studied the ocean from behind dark sunglasses as he drove his motorcycle down the bumpy road that led away from Zanzibar town. Ahead, one of Wallace Diving’s two trucks led the way toward the site of a recently discovered shipwreck, a find Rick had been trying to document for several months.

  As usual, Hunky Wallace had been bragging in the local pubs about the wreck he’d found—an undated bark, possibly loaded with gold, and completely untouched. When it came to revealing the exact location of the find, however, the veteran treasure hunter had been as tight-lipped as a clam. The Scotsman wasn’t about to let any other scavengers at his prize. As for the government . . . well, Hunky always used the language of the sailor he was to describe how he felt about bureaucratic interference.

  Yesterday in Zanzibar, Rick had gone through yet another futile exercise. Earlier, he had scheduled a meeting with Wallace and crew. At his office downtown, Rick had shown them every official document he could find that set forth the rights of the Tanzanian government to investigate any excavation site on land or at sea. He had used his most persuasive arguments. He had even leveled a couple of well-formulated threats. No good. Hunky wouldn’t budge. In fact, the man denied he’d even found a wreck.

  Rick had been ready to board the hydrofoil for the mainland this morning when Hunky’s man, Karim, had appeared out of nowhere and instructed him to follow the truck to the wreck site. Bwana Wallace had decided to cooperate.

  In spite of his concerns about this sudden about-face, Rick felt a tingle of excitement as he turned the motorcycle onto a narrow trail at the remote northern end of the island. An undocumented shipwreck. The possibility of hidden treasure. The hope of a magnificent discovery. A familiar tightening in the pit of his stomach set his pulse racing.

  It was almost enough to quell the uncomfortable memory of the events of the previous day. Almost. Nothing could quite suppress the memory of when he’d walked around a corner with Wallace’s crew and had spotted the beautiful, long-legged brunette in the alley ahead. Tall, slender, almost ethereal in her blue blouse and denim skirt, the woman had seemed to float toward him through the shadows. He had experienced an instant of paralyzing reaction so intense he had felt light-headed. His mouth dried up, his heart rate went berserk, and a sweat broke out on his forehead. He hadn’t felt so off-balance in years.

  And then the woman had moved into a patch of sunlight. Her hair turned auburn, her eyes violet, her face familiar. Shock zapped through him. Recognition dawned in her eyes, and her cheeks drained of color. She clutched her stomach and crumpled onto the sidewalk. Sick, trembling, as white as the sand on the beach, she curled into a ball.

  He could hardly remember what had happened next. Somehow he had found himself bending over Jessica. His Jessie. He had cradled her in his arms and carried her to a chair, murmuring soothing words.

  And then she had hit him. Her camera bag smacked into the side of his head. She shouted at him. Somebody pulled him back. Escorted him away.

  When he had finally rid himself of Hunky’s crew and returned to the café where he’d left her, she was gone. Had the woman really been Jessie? He had been so sure. Positive. Now he could hardly believe it.

  Rick drove his motorcycle up to the verandah of a huge old house, a relic of the years of Portuguese and Arab occupation of Zanzibar. He cut the engine and took off his helmet, determined to bury the incident and focus on the project ahead. Karim appeared beside him.

  “Let us go inside Uchungu House, Bwana McTaggart. Bw
ana Wallace is eating his breakfast.”

  “How long has Hunky been working the wreck?” Rick asked as they climbed the steps into the cool shade of the verandah. “A month?”

  “Not so long. Perhaps two weeks.”

  When he walked into the living room and spotted the painting on the wall, a faint memory pricked his spine. “Uchungu House. Isn’t this where that artist used to live? The African van Gogh?”

  “Yes, Bwana McTaggart. This was the home of Ahmed Abdullah bin Yusuf.”

  “I thought I read somewhere that he died recently. Cancer or something.”

  “I do not know, Bwana. There are many rumors.”

  They crossed a room with a stone daka, entered another room with a curving staircase, and then stepped out onto the porch surrounding the courtyard. Hunky Wallace and his men filled the chairs around a long table that had been piled with fresh bread, mangoes, boiled eggs, and white cornmeal posho mounded high in a bowl.

  “McTaggart!” Hunky pushed back his chair and beckoned with a wave of his beefy hand. “Join us, won’t you? We’ve a long day ahead of us, and a man needs a good breakfast when he’s working the waters of the Indian Ocean. Make room there, my good lad. That’s it.”

  A boy of ten or twelve moved down a chair to leave room beside the treasure hunter. Rick accepted the place of honor, cocked his elbows on the table, and eyed his host. “So, what’s all this about, Wallace? Yesterday you claimed you didn’t even have a wreck—said you didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. You called me every name in the book. You announced that the government of Tanzania and I could go straight to—”

  “Not in front of the boy, I beg you.” Hunky clapped a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “We’ve a special guest here this morning, Mr. McTaggart. Meet young Spencer. He insists we’re to call him Splint.”