Found at Sea

by Anne Marie Duquette

  “Nothing yet, but—”

  Dorian began to cry, cutting her off. “You promised you’d help.”

  “I’m working on it, but it takes time.”

  “How much time?” Dorian demanded, her voice starting to break.

  “Well...”

  “Mom, knock it off,” Tanya ordered. “We can’t hear her talk if you’re bawling again.”

  Aurora looked over her sister’s shoulder to her niece. Blonde, blue-eyed, pretty—and ever the cynic. Full of teenage attitude. Tanya took after neither of her dark-eyed, dark-haired parents with their law-abiding ways.

  “Tanya, please. How are you two holding up?” Aurora asked. She tried to stroke Dorian’s shaking shoulders through the bars, but Dorian pulled away.

  “How does it look, Rory?” Tanya defiantly refused to call her Aunt. “I’m dirty, my hair’s a mess, the food stinks. My mother’s a nervous wreck.” Tanya gently drew Dorian away from the bars, led her to the prison cot to sit. “Wipe your nose, Mom. You look gross.”

  Aurora compared the two women as Tanya passed Dorian a piece of questionable-looking toilet tissue from a roll on the concrete floor.

  Dorian was tired and far too thin, despite Aurora’s regular deliveries of Dorian’s favorite nonperishable foods. Today she’d brought a bag of trail mix, some juice boxes and chocolate bars, which Tanya grabbed eagerly. Dorian wore a defeatist attitude along with her ill-fitting prison jumpsuit. Tanya, on the other hand, seemed more than just fine. She was actually thriving amid the adversity.

  Tanya’s tough—but tough enough to survive life in prison? She’s hard enough to love as it is. What would prison do to that small, remaining lovable part?

  Tanya wrapped a thin gray blanket around her mother’s still-shaking shoulders and patted them before returning to the bars.

  “Mom needs news about Dad, and better food. She can’t keep down the prison slop. Nerves, I guess.”

  “My nerves are just fine,” Dorian said.

  “And rodents get into the dry stuff you bring, and she won’t eat it. I’ve made arrangements with her.” Tanya jerked her stubborn chin in the direction of the female guard. “She’s got a sick kid at home. You give her fifty now and twenty a week, and she’ll give Mom more food, extra blankets, stuff like that.”

  Aurora gazed into eyes that reminded her so much of her own. “I see that sophomore Spanish course stuck with you.”

  “Despite failing it?” Tanya asked flippantly.

  “Grades aren’t the only indicator of intelligence,” Aurora replied.

  “And what about being in jail, Tanya?” Dorian threw in. “How smart is that?”

  For just a moment, Tanya looked like a little girl, then she was herself again. “Whatever, Mom. So what’s the deal? Any news from the lawyers? Or are they still milking you dry? You know I’ve got registration next month. It’s my junior year.”

  “You hope, kid.”

  “You don’t have everything arranged yet?”

  “The lawyers can’t get you out of jail. Neither can the U.S. embassy. You have to go to trial. They’re still working on getting access to the bank funds, but I’m having problems with the power of attorney. And I’m running out of money because I’ve been making your parents’ payroll.”

  “But I thought you told me Jordan Castillo was our ticket out of here,” Dorian cried.

  “I said maybe, sis. And he can’t do us any good if he’s dead. Someone’s trying to kill him. I—”

  Tanya interrupted, muttering something negative. Aurora felt her own temper rise.

  “I’m doing my best. And skip the tough-girl act with me, Tanya,” Aurora spat out. “I was on my own and self-supporting when I was sixteen. And I didn’t end up in jail, either.”

  “Yawn, big-time,” Tanya drawled.

  “Sorry you find me so dull, but frankly, I’m tired of your mouth. To be perfectly honest, my sister is my first concern, then her husband. You—Miss Gutless Wonder—are at the bottom of my list. Using and smuggling drugs, then letting your mother take the blame, doesn’t impress me one little bit.”

  “So I should shut up and listen?” Tanya asked, pantomiming a yawn this time.

  “Exactly. Now, here’s my plan.”

  Aurora gave a detailed and methodical explanation, starting with how she’d found the treasure galleon Jordan Castillo wanted. She practically held the diving rights in her hand. U.S. waters extended twelve miles west, stopped at the Canadian border to the north and ended at the Mexican Coronado Islands to the south. Any waters beyond those boundaries were classified as international. Salvage laws were basically “finders, keepers,” and the finders merely had to register their claims. Aurora hadn’t yet filed her claim; maintaining the location’s secrecy had prevented her from taking that step so far. Once Jordan agreed to a partnership, she would register.

  “So you think you’ll get enough to bribe our way out?” Dorian asked.

  “That’s the plan, if Jordan Castillo stays alive,” Aurora said. “He should be getting out of the hospital next week.”

  “You’ve got yourself a job and a half,” Tanya said, checking her mother again before turning back to Aurora. “Do you really think there’s treasure on the ship?” The teen’s cynical expression actually revealed some excitement.

  “Yeah, or I wouldn’t have been able to find the one piece I did so easily. There are no records of the San Rafael being salvaged by the early Spanish—the water’s far too deep for pre-scuba. Any deeper and it would almost be too much for modern diving.”

  Tanya’s hands clenched tighter on the bars. “But you did it, Rory. You found the ship. I know you can find more money.”

  “Bullion,” she corrected. “If it’s there. That’s my job. Yours is to talk to that guard with the sick baby and learn the going rate for escape bribes. The lawyers can’t do any more until your trial, and they said your conviction is a given, despite Dorian’s trying to take the blame for you. See if the guard has any connections that could get us information on your father, too.”

  “Oh, Rory, I wish I was going with you.”

  “Home or treasure diving?” Aurora asked, and Tanya flushed. “Get your priorities straight, you little fool.” Aurora patted her back jeans pocket. “I’ve got a hundred dollars you can give to your friend here. Get my sister eating—and get her another blanket. While you’re at it, ask for a bucket and soap and clean up this cell. Anything happens to her, Tanya, and—”

  “I know, I know, you hold me responsible.”

  “More than that. I leave you here to rot.”

  Tanya blanched. “You...you aren’t serious.”

  “You bet I am.” Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “You might be able to push your parents around, but when it comes to me—forget it. You accept blame for the drugs and get your parents out of jail, I do everything I can for you. You keep hiding your head in the sand...then you and Dorian are a package deal. She gets a guilty sentence, you go down with her. Your father gets a guilty sentence, you go down with him. If either one of them dies of illness, then vaya con Dios and adios, amiga.”

  “You coldhearted witch!” Tanya’s face was harsh and ugly.

  “She’d do it, too, Tanya. She always does what she says, ever since she was a kid.” Dorian’s gaze held unspoken animosity mingled with despair.

  “You’re old enough to know right from wrong,” Aurora said. “Better only one of you in jail than all three. Take care of my sister—or else.” Aurora deliberately moved away from Tanya and injected a pleasant note into her voice as she addressed her sister. “Dori, I have to go. I’ll be back in a week or so, okay?” Dorian slowly nodded, the animosity gone. The prison allowed only weekly visits, and Aurora needed to come up with more cash.

  She slowly pivoted and cautiously approached the guard. “You look after my sister and her child,” she said quietly in Spanish, “and my American dollars will look after you and your niño.”

  Aurora quickly tucked her cash in the woman�
�s unbuttoned uniform-shirt pocket. The guard carefully buttoned it, the money safely inside.

  “Niña. Es una niña,” she said.

  “Ah, sí. Nombre?”

  “Guadalupe.”

  “Lupe es una nombre bonita. Muy bonita.”

  “Gracias.” A tender smile transformed the guard’s plain, lined face above her name tag, which read simply, Olivia.

  Aurora headed for the exit and switched to English. “Let’s hope your daughter turns out better than my niece. And doesn’t carry grudges from the past like her mother does. Goodbye, ladies.”

  For once, neither Tanya nor Dorian had a thing to say. Silence followed Aurora out of the gloomy jail and into the blinding Mexican sun.

  * * *

  THE MOB OF CHILDREN assailed her as she stepped out the door, only to be driven away by a harsh command from her truck’s hired guard. He hurried up to meet her, gesturing toward her undamaged truck.

  “All okay, señorita. Not broken. Wipers, tires, you look.”

  Aurora looked, walking around the truck. “¿Cómo se llama?” she asked.

  “Roberto. Roberto Ortega. I speak English. Buen Inglés. You said diez dólares if truck safe. You owe me cinco.”

  Aurora nodded and paid him a second five. She unlocked the door, got in and then paused. Those lawyers haven’t helped one bit. I’ve gone through all the conventional channels. Time to start using the unconventional ones. “I have a problem,” she said with sudden inspiration. “I could use some help—and I’m willing to pay.”

  Roberto straightened. “I am your hombre, señorita.”

  Aurora switched back to Spanish and told him about Dorian’s missing husband, about Dorian and Tanya. “I need information about her esposo, Gerald Atwell. You get it to me and to the guard inside, and I’ll pay you. Ten now, ten later.”

  “Fifty later,” Roberto said, haggling in Mexico’s time-honored tradition. Rory, thinking of her diminishing bank account, determinedly haggled back.

  “Twenty more.”

  “Forty.”

  “Thirty.”

  “Sí.” Aurora removed a business card, along with another ten. “Call me at this number. Collect. Is there a number I can get from you?”

  “My friend works at a carneceria—how do you say, a meat store?” Phone numbers were exchanged. He studied the side of her truck. “What does this say?” he asked, pointing.

  Aurora translated her logo into the appropriate Spanish.

  “I dive, too,” Roberto said proudly. “With tanks, without tanks. I dive for lobster, crab, shellfish. You need help on your boat?”

  You don’t know the half of it, Roberto. Aurora shrugged, the noncommittal Mexican response.

  “I help you find this man, you hire me? Take me to San Diego? Sponsor my carta verde? Be my sponsor for citizenship?”

  Green card? Sponsor? Since she was a business owner, that was theoretically possible, but Aurora already had enough on her hands. She couldn’t possibly take the time to get a Mexican citizen a work permit, let alone sponsor him for American citizenship. The boy didn’t even look eighteen! She shook her head.

  “Please, I get this man out of jail for you, you hire me?”

  Out of jail? Aurora paused. She’d planned to bribe the guards, not the self-appointed parking-lot attendant. The boy—no, he was a man, despite his youth—made her reconsider. “How old are you?”

  “Diez y siete.”

  Seventeen. So young. “I don’t want any trouble,” she said in Spanish.

  Roberto nodded. “La inmigración, la policía, no trouble if you know which ones like extra dinero. I will see. I will soon be eighteen. With a carta verde, I can apply for California residence for my familia.”

  She hesitated. Mexico’s immigration and police departments were nothing like her country’s organizations. And she knew virtually nothing about the young man before her. “I don’t know you well enough to hire you. I only hire skilled workers,” she said. “People I can trust.”

  Roberto flushed an angry red. “You don’t believe I am skilled? Or I can dive?” He pointed to her black plastic dive watch. “Watch.” Roberto took in a deep breath and held it. And held it. And held it.

  In amazement, Aurora watched the digital seconds go higher and higher and higher. When Roberto finally gasped for breath almost four minutes later, lifting his chin high in triumph, Aurora blinked at the numbers on her watch.

  “I dive deep. Like dolphins. Like whales,” he said. “I catch plenty lobsters.”

  Aurora whistled. Even she couldn’t hold her breath that long. “I believe you.”

  “Then—believe this. I will help you get your familia out of jail. When I do, you hire me. I come to California with them and you sponsor my green card.” Roberto pulled out a worn work rag from his pocket, carefully wiped his right hand, then thrust it out. “We shake. Deal?”

  Aurora shook his hand. “Deal,” she said. “For now, you help me find Gerald Atwell. And then...we’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  WHEN SHE’D DRIVEN BACK to San Diego, she made her second stop of the day, at the office of a good friend. Donna Diamond, Private Investigator, was also Donna Padierezsky, a navy veteran who’d left Naval Intelligence Services for a private career in San Diego.

  Donna’s office was modern, her tools were high-tech and her sense of humor, so necessary in a job like hers, showed in her pseudonym.

  “Hey, I can’t have clients calling me at home or knowing where I live,” she explained once. “Plus, I want something clients can spell when they write out my check. Even the bank messes up Padierezsky.”

  Donna was presently searching for Jordan’s attackers—and would-be murderers. The women were old dive buddies, and Donna insisted on working for free. She’d asked Aurora to swing by the office after her prison visit. Donna’s very feminine looks—black curls, attractive face and petite body—led many to overlook her keen mind, a fact she often turned to her advantage. She had drinks and take-out food waiting as Aurora entered.

  “Come and take a load off. Chow’s here, too, Rory,” Donna said without preamble, her manner as brisk and no-nonsense as it had been in the navy. “How’s Dorian?”

  “She looks terrible. Tanya’s still full of herself,” Aurora said.

  “Figures. Here.” Donna passed Rory a set of finely designed, jade-inlaid lacquered chopsticks she’d picked up while on duty in Japan and a box of Chinese takeout. “You can fill me in while we eat. I want to hear everything.”

  Aurora did as requested, describing her time at the prison.

  “And you actually told Tanya you’d leave her there?” Donna asked as Aurora finished her story.

  “Yeah. Not that I would—but I needed to get through to her somehow. So much for tough love. I guess scare tactics weren’t the best solution. She doesn’t scare. And Dorian didn’t approve of my threatening her baby chick.”

  “Baby chick, yeah, right. You should send that child off to boot camp. If she ever gets out of Mexico,” Donna said bluntly. “Her parents can’t handle her, that’s for sure. Why don’t you take her in?”

  “I’ve offered, but Dorian won’t hear of it and Gerald doesn’t want to admit failure.”

  “They’d both better admit it now,” Donna replied. “Speaking of Gerald, I haven’t been able to get a message to him at all. If only he’d been arrested for theft or pimping...even murder—”

  “Donna, please.”

  “—I’d have a chance. But drugs...” Donna shook her head. “Makes it difficult when it comes to cooperation across the border.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ve given up on the lawyers. As far as I can tell, bribery is the only way to help Dorian and Gerald.”

  “If you get the money off Castillo,” Donna murmured.

  “But you said he was solvent!”

  “Solvent, yes. Able to fund a salvage operation based on his record and using his own boat as collateral, yes. But as for coming up with hard cash right now.
..I don’t know. Are you running low on funds?”

  “Rock-bottom low.”

  “I don’t know, Rory,” Donna said again. “You may be throwing good money after bad, and you can’t spare it.” Donna knew that Aurora had been financing the Atwell Computer Company’s staff salaries.

  “What else can I do? Tanya certainly isn’t going to confess.”

  “Even if she does, it’s probably too late now.”

  Rory nodded. “So we’re back to bribery. And that’s why I need to strike a bargain with Jordan. I know where the San Rafael is. Jordan doesn’t. But—as I happen to know from your research—he has the money to salvage. I don’t. This could be a perfect match. I’m guessing it shouldn’t be difficult to come to an agreement.”

  Donna’s eyes narrowed. “It will be, Rory, if someone ends up killing him. I’ve checked with the police. I know you cooperated fully with the investigation, but they’ve got nada. Jordan didn’t have much to say on the subject, either. From what I gather, he’s as confused as we are regarding a motive. You’re the only person who knows about the galleon—and you need him alive to salvage it. He’s been lucky so far, but who knows if that luck will hold?”

  Aurora’s blood ran cold. She was back on that deserted beach, watching Jordan Castillo fight for his life. “Yeah, I know. Still, he’s okay now. Thankfully, I was there.” She paused, frowning. “If only we knew the ship’s payload.”

  That drew a tiny smile from Donna. “Can’t help you there. I never had a course in Spanish galleon booty with the N.I.S.” Her smile faded. “That’s the least of our worries. Good thing Lucky seems to be Jordan’s middle name.”

  “I’m so glad Neil was in the right place in the right time. He even had a fancy surgeon on his fancy cruise ship,” Aurora added. Neil’s doctor had given up on trauma practice after burning out and fled to the usually tamer position of ship’s general-practice doctor.

  “How is my old navy buddy anyway? Is the good captain still playing big brother?”

  “My family and friends are forever trying to run my life. I wish you’d marry him and get him out of my hair. You two have been dating forever.”