Treasure Point Secrets

by Sarah Varland

  “And not before.”

  She stood and walked to the door. As she reached for it, she paused. “Chief? Do you trust Lieutenant Davies?”

  He looked bewildered by the question but answered without hesitation. “Absolutely. One hundred percent.”

  Just what she was afraid of. Though her suspicions pointed to Davies, it would be her word against his. The chief trusted them both, but the lieutenant outranked her. That might carry some weight. Besides, the chief was irritated with her for keeping things from him.

  “Thanks.”

  Shiloh walked out of the office and closed the door behind her. She’d call Adam and see if he’d be willing to start their unofficial search first thing in the morning.

  * * *

  “So what exactly are we looking for?” Adam called to Shiloh, who was in the kitchen making coffee.

  “Anything linking Blackbeard and Treasure Point. I have a feeling it’s Blackbeard Island, but the island is going to take some effort for us to access and search, so we should be relatively sure before we go to the trouble.”

  “Got it.” Adam opened his laptop. He’d initially suggested they meet at her house, but she’d pointed out that it was more likely their online steps could be traced there, especially since someone was already watching Shiloh.

  So his house it was. It had taken the dog all of ten seconds to declare undying allegiance to Shiloh and to start following her around as if she’d invented Milk-Bone treats. Tux had good taste; Adam would give him that.

  “I’ll be right in as soon as I figure out how to use your machine. My brain doesn’t work right without coffee.”

  Adam searched for Blackbeard Island. One site had nothing to do with the actual place but with some kind of animated game. That wasn’t useful. The next hit looked as if it had been made by a kid for a class project. That wasn’t what Adam was looking for, either.

  So far he was zero for two.

  The third was the official site for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Definitely legit. Whether it held any important information would be a different story.

  He skimmed the first paragraph, which detailed some of the island’s history and how the navy had originally owned it. Finally, he got to the part that interested him—the part that mentioned Blackbeard and a possible treasure. Unfortunately, it told him only what he already knew. He returned to the search-results page.

  Another site was a treasure hunter’s forum. Adam read through some of the posts. One mentioned several different treasures supposedly hidden in Georgia, including one by Blackbeard. Another poster insisted that Blackbeard Island hid nothing and discouraged people from trying anything, since its status as a wildlife refuge made treasure hunting there illegal. Yet another commenter, who sounded as if he might admire pirates a little too much, insisted that Blackbeard’s treasure did exist and could be hidden anywhere along the Georgia coast.

  Adam pulled up a Georgia map and noted for the first time how jagged and pocketed the coastline was. And much of it was well connected to rivers that went even farther inland. None of that helped narrow down anything.

  So Blackbeard Island looked like the best option. At least it gave them a place to start other than searching the hundreds of square miles where Blackbeard could have hidden his treasure.

  Adam smelled the coffee brewing—thankfully. He was already fighting the urge to pinch himself to see if he was really awake and aware and searching for pirate gold.

  The things a man would do for a woman.

  “Coffee’s almost done.” Shiloh walked in and sat down beside him, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she did so. “What have you found out?”

  He summarized for her, and she nodded as if she’d heard it all before, which made sense since she’d probably learned all that in college.

  Adam continued. “The thing that seems to point to Blackbeard Island is its proximity to both Savannah and Treasure Point. You were thinking the men were using each of the towns as basically a base to start their search from, right?”

  She nodded. “Exactly. I think they started in Savannah because it’s a big city. It’s easier for strangers to blend in. Then when everything escalated in Savannah, I think they moved here.”

  “Because it was the next best choice.” Something about that didn’t sit right with Adam. “Why not one of the bigger coastal towns? Darien, maybe?” The nearby town was larger than Treasure Point and just south.

  That thought seemed to trouble Shiloh, too, but in only a moment her expression cleared. “We’re almost due west of Blackbeard Island here. Treasure Point is smaller than Darien, but not by much. Maybe the proximity made it worth it.”

  Her explanation was logical enough. “So we’re pretty set on Blackbeard Island. Want to check it out tomorrow?”

  “Yes. So maybe today we should research possible hiding spots on the island? See if we can find any information online about places that have been searched already?”

  He nodded and within five minutes had two maps of the island printed, one for each of them. “I thought we’d mark what we find separately and then compare.”

  Shiloh’s appreciative smile made his time off from work more than worth it. “Thanks, Adam.”

  “You’re welcome.” He forced his thoughts to the map and the research waiting to be done. Seeing her whole face light up meant too much to him. He’d do almost anything, sacrifice almost anything, to see her look at him like that.

  And it scared him half to death. Hadn’t she left once already with no warning? What if he turned his life upside down for her and she left again?

  Worse yet, what if he did everything he could to help her solve this case and she ended up dead? Like Annie. Like his mom.

  He’d said he wanted to leave the past behind them. But he had to know why she’d left. Now all he had to do was get up the guts to ask. Adam glanced over where she sat working on her computer. He’d ask when she was done with what she was doing.

  Minutes later, Adam heard Shiloh slam her computer shut.

  This was his chance.

  * * *

  Shiloh looked over at Adam to find him staring at her. “What?” she asked.

  “Shiloh...”

  His intense gaze bored into her.

  “I changed my mind. I need to know—why did you leave?”

  Words warred in her mind as she struggled to articulate all the confusion and anger she’d felt when she had left. “I felt...betrayed by you. You said it was Annie’s fault she was killed. That women shouldn’t do any kind of dangerous work.”

  He said nothing.

  She continued. “I knew already that following in her footsteps and finishing what she’d started was the least I could do for her. And you made it abundantly clear that you wouldn’t support that.”

  Or had he? Technically, his father, her pastor at the time, had been the one to insist that Christianity didn’t permit women to hold dangerous jobs. But Adam certainly hadn’t argued, and when Shiloh had brought it up, he’d backed his dad’s opinions.

  It had hurt then, to her very core. And it hurt now to remember. She tried to edge away from him on the couch only to realize she had no room to move. She was essentially pinned between the arm of the sofa and Adam.

  She sneaked a glance at him. Adam’s emotions were written clearly across his face. He looked...devastated.

  “We lost five years together because of a difference of opinion about the best careers for women?”

  Any emotion that had stirred in her heart to see him so broken was crushed with that question. A difference of opinion? “This was more than a friendly disagreement. You and your father all but told me Annie had sinned by becoming a police officer in the first place. I knew I was about to do the same thing and that you’d want no part of it.”

 
“I never said it was a sin, Shiloh.”

  “Well, your father sure did, and you backed him up. So either you did agree with him or you were so concerned with impressing him that you were more interested in supporting him than your fiancée who you supposedly loved.”

  The words seemed to slap him in the face.

  “‘Supposedly’? I did love you, Shiloh. I wanted to give you everything. We were to be married. You are the one who left. You. Not me.”

  “I left because you didn’t support what I wanted to do with my life. I knew then, Adam, knew that becoming a police officer wasn’t just a crazy idea to try to honor my cousin. I knew I would be good at it, that God wanted me to do it. And I knew you wouldn’t accept that.”

  “You couldn’t have known it because you never gave me a chance.”

  Was that true? She’d been so sure, but looking into his eyes now, which mirrored her own heartbreak and looked as though they hurt along with her, she didn’t know. Shiloh felt some of the anger leave her, and her shoulders fell. She blinked stinging tears from her eyes and pushed herself up from the sofa. “I think it’s time for me to go.”

  “Shiloh...” Adam stood but Shiloh had already turned away and started for the door.

  Then a hand grabbed her shoulder, and in one motion Adam spun her to face him, his palms on her upper arms, and kissed her.

  Shiloh tensed and almost pulled away, but he drew her in, and before she knew it she was kissing him back, deepening the kiss.

  This was perfect. Wonderful. The feel of his lips on hers made her dream of the future they could have—transported her back to the past and the relationship they’d had then.

  She watched a slide show of mental pictures of their relationship flash across her mind until she came to the night she’d left Savannah.

  Shiloh broke the kiss, pushed herself out of Adam’s arms, far enough that he couldn’t reach her.

  “We shouldn’t have done that.” She folded her arms over her chest, took a deep breath to slow the pounding of her heart.

  Adam opened his mouth to protest and then shook his head. “You’re right.”

  She’d expected him to tell her that she was wrong. To convince her to give their relationship another chance. Then again, hadn’t he let her walk out of his life before without the slightest attempt to get her back?

  Shiloh shook her head as though to clear the confusion from her mind. Not that she wanted him to try to get her back. No, if anything the kiss had proved that her feelings for him were stronger than she wanted to admit. He’d hurt her once by not supporting her, not believing in her abilities. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to do it again.

  ELEVEN

  Shiloh had half expected it to be raining today, since they’d planned to go to Blackbeard Island, yet the sky above was cloudless blue. She loaded her car with the last of the supplies she’d packed for the day and double-checked the boat trailer to make sure she had everything hooked up correctly.

  She heard a truck pulling in and glanced up from her task just to make sure it was indeed Adam. Almost unconsciously she rubbed her shoulder where the bullet had grazed her the other day.

  “Good morning,” Adam called as he walked across her driveway.

  “Good morning.”

  “Ready to wrap this up?”

  Her stomach fluttered at the possibility that they might be hours away from her ending this nightmare forever. Hours away from finally seeing justice done for her cousin’s death.

  “Ready is an understatement.” She checked the gas level in the boat one more time. It was full, almost brimming over. That should be plenty to get them from the public boat launch out to Blackbeard Island and back.

  “Do we have enough gas?”

  She slammed the tank shut. “Yep. Checked it twice.”

  They made the drive to the boat launch without much talking. Shiloh was sipping the coffee she’d brewed, and Adam appeared so deep in thought about something that she hated to interrupt him.

  “So do you get out on the water much?” he finally asked.

  “Not as much as I’d like,” she confessed. “I don’t have the time.”

  “You should make more time in your life to have fun. I know things are crazy right now. But you should be able to really live life and enjoy it, you know?”

  He had a point. Even though she’d escaped death in Savannah—unlike her cousin—Shiloh hadn’t really truly lived since then. She had been held captive by...she’d like to call it common sense. Or being cautious. But it was fear.

  Would she ever escape it? She didn’t know.

  After launching, Shiloh parked the car and then waded back through several feet of water to climb into the boat with Adam.

  “I still think you should have let me do that part.”

  Bless his chivalrous heart. “Have you ever launched a boat before?”

  His silence was more than an adequate answer.

  She laughed. “Thanks for the thought.”

  She eased the boat through the narrower parts of the marsh then went into a faster gear until the salty air whipped through her hair. She found her face relaxing into a grin. One day, when she had more time, she’d do this every day. Or at least the ones that she had off from work.

  “This is awesome!” Adam shouted over the noise of the motor and the waves.

  If she could ignore that paranoid part of herself that said they could possibly be heading straight for danger, this would be the perfect day. Out on her boat, the sun shining down, making the water glisten, with Adam by her side.

  With sudden clarity she saw how lonely the past few years had been and knew that it wasn’t the boat ride or the beautiful day that made her feel so content. It was being with Adam.

  Shiloh slowed the boat again as open water turned back to marshes and creeks, which she’d have to navigate through to reach the island.

  “It’s unreal out here. It looks different than anything I’ve ever seen,” Adam remarked.

  Shiloh looked around, trying to see it through his eyes. She hadn’t been to Blackbeard Island, but she’d spent enough time on Georgia’s coast around other barrier islands that the scenery, while breathtaking, seemed familiar to her. The wide creek they’d entered separated Blackbeard Island from Sapelo Island. Blackbeard was the one closest to the open sea, which was why it had the remarkable beaches she was looking forward to seeing in person.

  As she turned the boat around a sharp corner, following directions on a map of the island Adam had printed, she could see why this place made a likely hiding spot for pirate treasure. There were so many little creeks running off of the main creeks where gold could have been buried, not to mention the potential hiding places on the island itself. From this angle she could see the sand that met the water’s edge, and then tall pine trees standing guard like sentries over what was now a wildlife refuge, but could have once been, and probably was, one of the frequent haunts of the most famous pirate in American history.

  It gave her chills to think of the stories this place could tell if islands could talk.

  Shiloh piloted the boat to the designated dock where she and Adam anchored.

  “This is it?” He looked around, his features edged with confusion.

  “Did you expect something different?”

  “Not too different. Maybe just a little more...a little more.”

  She could see what he meant. There was no large visitors’ center, no hordes of tourists flocking. Just a docking space, really. And a sign denoting it as a wildlife preserve.

  “Let’s hit the trails.” Shiloh finished tying off the boat and motioned to her backpack, which was still in the boat with Adam. “Could you hand me my pack, please?”

  Adam grunted as he lifted it, and his brows rose in surprise. “Is ther
e anything you didn’t pack in this thing?”

  Shiloh did her best to look indignant. “It’s just things I thought we might need...food, a first-aid kit, extra water, a camera to document anything we find.” Her back would probably be killing her by the end of the day, but it would be worth it. Shiloh felt those excitement shivers again as she surveyed the area, trying to decide where they should start. “I think we should take the wilderness trails first. They form a loop, and then we can go back to the beach trails and up to the north end of the island.”

  Adam looked over her shoulder at the map and nodded. “Sounds like the best plan. Want me to carry that?” He motioned toward her pack.

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”

  “At least put something back in the boat. Is there anything you can take out?”

  She thought over the list again and shook her head.

  “How many ‘extra’ bottles of water did you bring? I have one here for me.” He lifted it in the air as if to emphasize his point.

  She’d packed five for each of them, just to be on the safe side. Wordlessly, she swung the backpack off and handed some of the bottles to Adam along with a key to her boat’s storage compartment.

  “If you use this key to unlock it, you can lift the lid on that seat there—” she motioned “—and I guess we can leave these here.”

  “Sounds good.” He climbed into the boat and did as she’d asked. Shiloh put the backpack on again. Much better.

  After only minutes of walking on the wilderness trail, Shiloh got the eerie feeling she had literally stepped back in time. It was a sunny day, and there were no doubt more people on the island, because she’d seen several kayaks at the dock. But out here it was impossible to feel that way. The gravelly dirt pathway was lined with saw palmettos that were as tall as she was, and the live-oak trees that grew along the track had large branches that overhung the trail and dripped Spanish moss down.

  The swordlike leaves of the palmetto and the gray Spanish moss dimmed the sunlight and made this path seem much, much darker than the rest of the island. Shiloh shifted the backpack a little and tried to reason away the uneasiness that had stolen her earlier sense of peace and contentment.