by Rachel Lee
Looking at Veronica Coleridge was like looking in a mirror. Only she hadn’t yet figured out that life was an apple to be enjoyed. And maybe she never would. But she sure as hell was going to drive him crazy.
Maybe he needed to get her drunk for six days. Take some of the creases out of her personality. Yeah. Right. She was starched past hope. Single-minded.
Wounded.
That resonated in him in a way he didn’t like. The world was full of wounded souls; they were on every street corner. There was no reason she should stand out. But she did, and that scared him because he was by God never going to get close to a woman again. Period.
The bartender interrupted his gloomy thoughts. “Guy over there is looking to hire a diver.”
“Tell him to look somewhere else. I’m booked.”
“Have it your way.”
Hah. He’d been trying to have it his way for the last ten years, and somehow it never quite worked out. And now, idiot that he was, he was going to spend three months getting wet. Wet!
A man slid into the barstool beside him, and with a South American lilt to his English ordered a cognac. Dugan glanced his way and found the man looking at him. “Hi,” he said automatically.
“Hi,” the man said. His cognac came and he nodded to the bartender. Then he turned back to Dugan. “You are Dugan Gallagher, no?”
“Yes.” Cripes, the guy who wanted a diver. Probably couldn’t take no for an answer.
“I thought so,” the man said. “You work for the lady archaeologist.”
“So?”
“I am only curious.” He smiled. “My name is Luis Cortes. I am from Venezuela, and I am a bit of an archaeologist, also.”
“Small world.”
“Sometimes, yes.” He sipped his cognac. “Buy you a drink?”
“I already have one. Thanks.” He wondered how this guy knew about Veronica. She had said she wanted to keep the dives a secret, and he sure as hell hadn’t told anyone except Tam about it. Butch wasn’t a talker either. So maybe Veronica had told someone? Not likely.
Cortes smiled, not a very attractive expression, but still a smile. “So, this searching for treasure is a big excitement, yes?”
“Who said she was looking for treasure?”
He shrugged. “One assumes.”
“One assumes too much.”
Cortes shook his head. “In these waters? No, not too much. I am interested in wrecks, too. Would she like some more help?”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just sailing, that’s all.”
“Mm.” Cortes shrugged. “Okay.”
Dugan turned back to his drink, hoping the guy would buzz off. But Luis Cortes kept sitting there, sipping his cognac. And Dugan was growing uneasier by the minute.
He told himself he was just being paranoid. And the fact was, anyone at his office might have overheard something from his conversation with Veronica and her father, or Ginny or Tam might have said something to someone, and on this damn island a secret was harder to keep than a bottle of booze. Still, the most anyone should know was that Veronica was chartering his boat. Unless Tam had been flapping his jaws.
He turned back to Cortes. “You live around here?”
The man shook his head and ordered another cognac. “Visiting,” he said.
“How’d you hear about what I’m doing?”
Cortes shrugged. “As I said, I’m an archaeologist also. I keep, how you say, tabs? Tabs on the permits the state makes.”
“Ahh.” That sounded innocent enough. Dugan relaxed again. “Aren’t there a lot of wrecks down in your neck of the woods?”
“Neck of the woods?”
“Your part of the world. Off the coast of Venezuela.”
“Oh!” Cortes smiled. “Yes, of course. This is how I become interested. But I am interested in all wrecks.”
But why this one? Dugan wondered. “Just a general interest?”
“Yes. I am here on a visit, I hear about this, I decide to ask. Curiosity, no more.”
“Well, if you’re curious, you’d better speak to someone else. I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. I was hired to take a lady on a vacation.”
Dugan wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw an infinitesimal shift in Cortes’s posture, something that enhanced his uneasiness. But it was gone so quickly, he wasn’t sure of what he had seen.
“Well,” said Cortes after a moment, “it is of no real significance.”
“No?”
“No. I am on a holiday. If someone finds something of interest, I will read about it in the journals.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Cortes nodded and returned his attention to his cognac. A couple of minutes later, he bid Dugan farewell, and walked out of the bar.
It was nothing, Dugan told himself. Just some minor interest from a colleague of Veronica’s. The man hadn’t asked anything inappropriate, or pushed too hard for answers. It sounded like simple curiosity. He’d even had reasonable explanations for his interest and his knowledge. Veronica’s permits were a matter of public record, after all.
That thought suddenly didn’t feel too good either. She wanted secrecy, which now that he thought about it, bothered him. But she’d still had to get permits, which meant there was a public record, and any Tom, Dick, or Harry could have found out about it.
So why her insistence on secrecy? What the hell was she after? Something more important than a three-hundred-year-old gold mask? Because it seemed to him, if the mask was the thing she was after, she’d be better protected by publicizing what she was up to. The more people who knew, the less likely it was that anyone could pull a dirty trick.
And why the hell was he thinking about dirty tricks? A curiosity seeker had simply asked some nosy questions.
He ordered another beer and sipped it but hardly tasted it. All of a sudden he wasn’t in the mood for the beer, the bar, or anything else.
Because all of a sudden it occurred to him that he might be thinking of dirty tricks because of Veronica Coleridge.
What if she were the one up to dirty tricks?
Throwing some money on the bar, he got up abruptly and walked out onto the crowded street. The nightly revelries were in full swing, the crowds thick on the sidewalk and spilling into the street. A few cars were inching by slowly, trying not to kill anyone.
This whole secrecy thing was bothering the shit out of him.
Having nowhere in particular to go, he allowed the swirling crowds to carry him slowly along. Music blared out of open doors from every direction, mingling with the laughter and chatter of the people. There was a festival feeling in the air, but he was so used to it he didn’t notice that either.
Instead he found himself considering what ifs. What if the man who had just chatted with him was on the up-and-up. What if Veronica wasn’t? What if she was insisting on secrecy because she planned to do something illegal . . . like selling her finds? He seemed to remember that under current law, the state had first crack at buying anything a treasure salvor found. What if she had other plans? What if that Cortes guy was actually some investigator for the state, trying to keep up with what she was doing?
And then he knew he was getting really paranoid. Too much beer, he decided. Entirely too much. He was beginning to sound like a conspiracy freak.
Half an hour later, he ran into Tam on the street, and allowed himself to be drawn into a crowd of Tam’s friends. By the time he staggered home at one in the morning, he was convinced the wisest course of action was to ignore the whole thing. Veronica wouldn’t have bothered with permits if she wasn’t aboveboard, and that Cortes guy—well, he’d just been a curious tourist.
Maybe.
Luis Cortes, also known as Luis Gallegos, made two phone calls after he left the bar. The first was to Venezuela, to Emilio.
“Nothing yet,” he reported. “I still have some other leads to check out.”
A heavy sigh, then a snip. Emilio must be in
the hothouse again, Luis thought, and gave thanks that he was on the other side of the Caribbean. “Very well,” Emilio said. “But I want action, Luis. Action. I don’t want to have to be wondering what’s going on.”
“I’m working on it.”
When he hung up, Luis had a bad taste in his mouth, something coppery. Fear? No, he had bitten his lip. Besides, he wasn’t afraid of Emilio. Yet.
But what he was about to do scared him. If Emilio ever found out . . . But he couldn’t allow himself to think of that. Emilio knew only what Luis told him, and Luis was certainly not going to mention what he did next.
He dialed another number, one that had come to him through a circuitous pathway some months ago when he had started watching Veronica Coleridge’s progress with the permitting process. A state employee, for a price, had given it to him, telling him that this man had also paid to know if anyone started searching for the Alcantara. Luis had paid the state employee even more to keep his silence and not pass the information to the other person.
He had squirreled the number away, planning to use it when the time was ripe. At the very least, he had figured then, it would be useful to get some more money out of Emilio.
But now he was going to use it to his own end, to get a small fortune for himself.
When the phone was answered, it was by a machine that said only in flat, accented English, “Leave a message.”
So Luis left a message. “I have information about La Nuestra Señora de Alcantara. If you’re interested, call my pager. I will call you back in five minutes.” Then he left the number of the pager he had purchased only that morning. A pager Emilio knew nothing about.
The game was afoot. He’d expected to feel exhilarated. Instead he stood beside the pay phone and sweated more profusely than could have been explained by the humid night air.
He wished he knew something, anything, about the man he had just called. Instead, he had taken a leap into the dark unknown.
And just then he was sick with the awareness of it. What had he just unleashed?
Chapter 7
“You’re hungover.”
Veronica’s tone of voice was scathing, and it was the last thing Dugan needed when his head was pounding like someone was using a jackhammer on it. He put his hands on his hips, feeling the boat sway beneath him, and swallowed hard. “So?” he said with all the belligerence he could muster.
It was one of those perfect Key West days. The sun was rising in a cloudless sky, the trades were blowing gently and steadily, and the water looked so clear it was like crystal.
Well, it would have been perfect except for Veronica, Dugan thought sourly. She was glaring at him across two feet of the polished wood deck of the Mandolin. Apparently they weren’t moving fast enough for her royal highness.
“So?” she repeated. “So? I hired you! I have something to say about the condition you’re in when you’re working for me. We’re supposed to get loaded today so we can sail this afternoon. How are you going to do that if you’re hanging over the side of the boat?”
“I’m not hanging over the side of the boat. I have a headache. Take a chill pill, lady. It’ll get done when it gets done.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
She was shouting at him, and his ire was rising accordingly. He had to remind himself that she always spoke loudly, most likely because she was deaf, and at this moment in time she probably didn’t even know she was shrieking.
But because she was, and because he was having an instinctive reaction to it, and because they were going to draw a crowd if their shouting match kept up, he turned his back on her and stalked to the other end of the deck.
The Mandolin was a beautiful ketch, forty-two feet long and lovingly crafted. Her hull was fiberglass, but her deck, rails, and other appointments were hand-polished teak and mahogany, giving her the grace of a more elegant age. It also meant a lot more maintenance, but Dugan found sanding and varnishing to be a relaxing pastime. He figured he easily spent more time taking care of the boat than he spent sailing her. And he didn’t mind one little bit.
This was his haven, his private paradise, as sacred to him as his own mind. And now this woman was profaning it with her shrewishness. He resented the hell out of that.
“Where’s the other diver?” she asked. “Wasn’t he supposed to help?”
Dugan didn’t bother answering, because answering would require him to face her. He didn’t feel like doing that at the moment. Instead, he fixed his gaze firmly on the mouth of the bight, determined to pretend he was alone with the dawn.
But Veronica wasn’t prepared to let him get away with that. He heard her footfalls on the deck behind him, then she was beside him, tugging his arm.
“Look at me,” she said.
He didn’t feel like taking her orders at the moment. But then he remembered her deafness, and realized the order had held a note of panic. A faint note, to be sure, but it had been there. She was getting edgy because he had cut her off.
So he looked at her, resentfully. “Tam will get here when Tam gets here.”
“Is that any way to run a business?”
“It’s the way I’m running this business. If you don’t like it, hire someone else.”
“What?”
Trying not to grit his teeth, he repeated his words, speaking slowly and very clearly. “I said, if you don’t like the way I run my business, hire someone else.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“No, I’m being entirely reasonable. You hired me to do a job. I’ll do it my way. And while we’re on the subject, are you going to tell me how to dive, too?”
She blinked rapidly, and he couldn’t tell if she had understood him. He wondered if he even cared. The jackhammer was trying to put a crater right between his eyes, and the increasing brilliance of the sun wasn’t helping.
She drew a breath, a surprisingly shaky breath that penetrated his misery and awoke his curiosity. “I’m not going to depend on a drunk,” she said flatly. “I’m not going to let a drunk ruin any more of my life.”
Warning bells started clanging in his mind, adding to his unhappiness. There was something more here than a principled objection, and he found himself unsure of what to say. Finally, he said the only thing he could. “I don’t drink when I’m going to be diving. Ever.”
“You’re going to dive today.”
He shook his head. “It’s not going to happen. We have to stow gear and supplies, sail out and start surveying the area you’ve designated. The likelihood that anyone is going to get wet today from anything except spray is slim to none.” Which, now that he thought about it, was fine by him. His mood improved a little.
But hers didn’t. He could almost see the impatience oozing from her pores.
“We don’t have any time to waste.”
“I didn’t say anything about wasting time. But whatever happens today, we’re not going to be diving, okay? And Tam will be here soon.”
He hoped. Because Tam had been in even worse shape than he had last night, and when they’d parted after midnight, the guy had shown absolutely no inclination to head toward home. Dugan wasn’t even sure he’d made it home at all.
He glanced at his watch and saw that it was still early, though. Plenty of time. And he hadn’t exactly told Tam to be here at the crack of dawn, either.
He glanced at Veronica and saw her dubious expression. “He’ll be here soon,” he said again.
“Right.”
The jackhammer in his head kicked up a fuss. Enough was enough. He left Veronica and descended the ladder below deck. In the galley he hunted around until he found a bottle of ibuprofen. He dumped three of them into his hand and downed them with water. It would get better; it always did. But he found himself remembering why it was he hadn’t gotten drunk since his one bender ten years ago. It was no damn fun, when all was said and done, and he was devoted to fun.
Sort of.
He turned around and found Veronica st
anding in the doorway of the galley, watching him almost speculatively.
“I’ll be fine,” he said gruffly.
“Sure.”
He hated her. He absolutely hated her. He wondered if he was going to make it through the next three months without killing her. And he wished to God she wouldn’t fold her arms like that because all it did was make him aware that she had a really nice chest. Of course, the shorts weren’t helping either, because she also had some very nice, very long legs. He’d always been a sucker for long legs.
“You’d better wear more clothes than that,” he said irritably. “You’re going to be a crispy critter.”
“A what?”
“You’re going to get sunburned!” Realizing he was on the edge of shouting at her, he bit his tongue, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I can’t always understand you,” she said acidly. “But you don’t have to shout at me.”
“Why not? You shout at me all the time.”
He wanted to cut his throat. He wanted to grab his tongue and pull it out by the roots. Because as soon as the words were out, her face started to crumple and close, and her eyes, hitherto annoyed, were suddenly windows on a soul-deep hurt.
Without a word, she turned and headed up the ladder.
Oh, shit.
He stood there, wracking his aching brain, trying to think of something he could say or do to mend the hurt he had just inflicted.
Before he could think of anything, he heard a thud from the deck and Tam’s not-so-cheerful voice calling out, “Permission to come aboard, skipper?”
Dugan climbed the ladder partway and poked his head out the hatch. Tam’s duffel lay right in front of him, but Tam was still standing on the dock. Veronica had taken a seat on the stern bench and had her arms tightly folded, as she looked at Tam.
Dugan wished he didn’t have to look at Tam himself. The man was red-eyed, pale, and none too steady on his feet. “Cripes, Tam, are you drunk?”
“Hell no,” came the answer as Tam leaned to one side. “I’m sober. Mostly. Haven’t had a drink in two hours.”
