Dad looked right at me as he spoke. “Pablo Miranda.”
“You’re shitting me,” I said.
“The treasure cave was never found,” Dad finished.
“Until about six months ago, when you finally found it after years of looking,” Ezra chimed in. “But then you bragged to a couple of his friends, including my father.”
Dad crossed his arms over his chest and exhaled. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but trusting Stan Lamond was my worst mistake yet.”
I stared wide-eyed at my father. “Why didn’t you move the treasure from the cave?”
His shoulders fell slightly, and a crease formed between his eyes. “I wanted to take you on a scuba diving trip next time you came down to Florida, but you’re always so busy and it just never happened. I guess you’re just as ambitious as I always was.” He smiled weakly at me.
Oh good grief. My dad is having a “Cat’s in the Cradle” moment while I am worrying if we’ll make it off this boat alive.
The door opened, and The Muscle poked his head in. “We’re here.”
Ezra stood and nodded to the door. “Let’s go, gang. We’ve got some booty to plunder.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I squeezed myself into the wetsuit The Muscle had thrown at me—there was one for me and one for Dad. Ezra got one too, but his wasn’t tossed at him by a grumpy giant. His suit also looked like a higher-grade material than ours, to be quite honest.
Rhys and The Muscle had no scuba diving experience, so they would stay on the yacht. Once our suits were on, we all went up on deck to scope out the best diving spot. Rhys, hands still bound, leaned against the railing as the yacht bobbed in the gentle waves. He kept looking at me and shaking his head slightly, but what could I do? Nothing.
A spray of islands dotted the horizon. A few other ambitious divers were within sight, but none close to this nearly unnoticeable landmark.
I thought about what other shipwrecks might be around here and how long my father probably searched before finding Shy Key, a chunk of jagged rock sticking out of the Gulf of Mexico that most people would likely miss completely. But he’d found it.
And now his treasure trove was being raided by someone other than a Miranda.
Ezra’s stealing our family heirlooms. This feels wrong. This is a violation of what is ours. And yes. Don’t worry. I get the irony.
We finished getting our gear on and prepared to hop into the water.
“Don’t do this,” Rhys said quietly. “He could get you down there and kill you—”
Before Rhys could finish his sentence, The Muscle grabbed Rhys by the arm and tossed him off the boat and into the sea. It all happened so fast, but it felt like slow motion in my head, my heart hammering in my chest as I watched Rhys kicking for the surface, struggling to get his head above water with his hands tied. He managed to get his chin up on the bottom rung of the ladder on the side of the boat. I threw myself down on the deck, stretching my arms out over the side to help him, but Ezra grabbed my leg and pulled me away.
The Muscle peered over the ledge at him. “You were saying?”
Rhys hesitated, looking at me. “Don’t trust them for a second—”
The Muscle held Rhys’s head with his giant palm and pushed it under the surface of the water. Rhys thrashed, a stream of air bubbles rising to the surface above him.
“Stop it!” I screamed, getting to my feet and waddling over to The Muscle, the flippers on my feet making it really hard to move along the deck. I shoved him, but he didn’t even flinch. Pushing him was like pushing a boulder.
“Let him go, Kenneth,” Ezra said, rolling his eyes.
He did, and Rhys gasped for air as his head appeared above the water. The Muscle pulled him back up on board and threw him aside like a rag doll.
Salt water streamed off Rhys as he coughed and gagged, lying on his side on the deck.
Leaning down beside him, I put my hand on his cool cheek. “It’ll be okay.”
I didn’t know if it would be or not. But I knew if he kept trying to warn me, he might get killed in the process.
I joined Dad and Ezra on the edge of the boat, and we put on our face masks. My dad fell backward into the water first, then me, then Ezra.
Dad had been scuba diving ever since moving to Florida, and now I understood why. He’d been searching for that cave of pirate treasure the whole time, and I’d had no idea.
He’d also taken me scuba diving a few times, so I knew the basics. Ezra looked to be quite experienced too as we descended into the darkness of the deep.
Fish of various sizes and colors zipped around us. A yellow-green eel slithered out from the patch of coral below. Looking up, the water was the most fantastic blue. Sun glinted off the waves, letting a good amount of light down into the ocean.
Dad pointed to the corner of Shy Key, the area where the ragged edge met the sea floor, and headed that way. The water became darker, colder and felt denser as we neared the corner. A small shark swam away from us as we came upon his hangout spot near a very old, very fragile-looking Bermuda sloop.
The Nell.
The ship had seen better days, to say the least. On the day it sank, The Nell had landed on the seabed on its side. We floated around to the front of the ship from the hull. The ship’s masts had long disappeared, washed away by the waves over the course of almost three hundred years. The hull was in rough shape, mostly just a cluster of preserved wood, now only held together by coral and other underwater plants that encased the ship, gripping it tight. Brightly colored fish darted around us and around the chunks of the ship that had somehow managed to survive this long. Dad went right for the ship’s wheel half buried in the sand beside the ship, trailing his fingertips along the preserved wood.
A few skeletons lay among the wreckage. I cringed as a fish wove into the eye socket of a human skull and back out of its mouth.
Damn, little fish. That’s cold.
Dad waved us toward the end of the ship and pointed to two large pieces of wreckage leaning against the bank of the island. We lifted them up and gently put them to the side, the mouth of an underwater tunnel revealing itself. Pitch black inside, the tunnel entrance was about five feet high, seven feet wide and jagged and rocky like the rest of the key.
Ezra pointed to us and then at the hole. I looked at Dad for confirmation. I kind of wished communication underwater was easier, because I’d be yelling “Hell naw” right about now.
Uhhhh, there’s probably a shit ton of sharks and octopuses and krakens and poisonous shit in there. No way.
Dad nodded, turned on his fancy scuba flashlight and swam into the tunnel. Ezra pointed aggressively at me as Dad’s feet disappeared down the dark passage.
Okay, you poisonous Sharktopus. Let’s just be cool.
I swam in, following the glow of Dad’s flashlight. The tunnel was plentiful with tiny fish and the occasional eel, but there was mostly just coral coating the walls of the cave. The tunnel’s path turned upward, and I followed Dad, noticing the tunnel walls very suddenly getting narrower. We slowed our pace, careful not to bump our air tanks on the rough coral surroundings. Soon we reached the water’s surface and crawled on our knees toward the sand at the edge of the water. Ezra’s large flashlight helped illuminate the space so we could actually have a look at our surroundings.
About fifteen feet wide and long, the cave was damp and stale. Light, thin stalactites hung from the cave’s low ceiling. The floor was hard, tightly packed sand.
Dad pointed his flashlight at the far end of the tunnel. There it was, organized in a neat pile—the treasure.
Ezra ripped off his scuba mask and dropped it on his way over to the loot. “It’s actually real. I can’t believe it.” He knelt and looked closer at every piece.
An assortment of gold and silver plates were stacked beside an open chest of Spanish gold coins. A dagger with a jeweled hilt lay in an ornately carved wooden box. A ruby necklace on a gold chain hung from the corner of
the chest. Thick rings with enormous gemstones lay in a cluster in a silver bowl.
This stash would be worth millions.
Ezra stood up and nodded. “Alright. We’ve got work to do.”
It took us six trips, moving all the treasure from the cave to the yacht using a lifting bag. We quickly realized using a relay system was likely the best way to get it out of the cave—Ezra put as much as he could into a bucket, I took the bucket from the cave down the tunnel and Dad loaded the items onto the lifting bag. The Muscle drew that up to the yacht. Rinse and repeat.
Dad and I were exhausted by the time we finished, leaving only a few coins down there for another treasure hunter to find. We returned to the boat and took a moment to catch our breath on the deck.
Rhys looked relieved to see me back above sea level. He smiled as I leaned against the railing, still trying to get control of my breathing.
Suddenly, The Muscle grabbed my dad’s shoulders, forcing him onto his knees and then down to the deck. Dad grunted and wriggled under his weight.
“Get the hell off me,” he yelled, his words garbled as The Muscle held his face down, his bulky knee pushed hard against Dad’s back.
Ezra tied a brick to Dad’s feet and then wrapped a zip tie around his wrists, fastening them tight.
Okay. Can we knock it the fuck off with the zip ties already? It’s getting old.
“Wait!” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
Ignoring me, The Muscle lifted Dad up by the arm and tossed him overboard, back into the ocean. This time without an oxygen tank or a mask.
“Dad!” I shrieked.
I didn’t even look back at Rhys as I dove in after him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The salty sea stung my eyes as I dove in after my father. I couldn’t risk closing my eyes for a moment. I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Dad, just in case he disappeared into the darkness of the ocean.
He thrashed, his wrists and ankles tied together, air bubbles escaping his lips and nostrils. He was panicking and losing oxygen fast, slipping farther down into the depths faster than I could swim after him.
I pushed myself harder, my chest aching. I was still drained from moving all those items from the cave to the yacht. My lungs were beginning to ache for relief.
I kicked harder and pushed more water behind me, forcing myself farther down into the sea. In addition to his manic squirming, Dad was trying desperately to get his hands apart and the wire off them. His face was turning red.
I pushed myself deeper, just close enough to slip my arm under Dad’s. The pain in my lungs and my arms was so extreme. Dad and the brick attached to his ankle were heavier than I expected. Worse still, Dad was fighting to keep his eyes open.
A quiet, dull roar from above caught my attention as we ascended. The boat disappeared from view, replaced by a frothy white wake.
They left us. They still have Rhys.
Fury pulsed through me, giving me the incentive to push even harder, moving as much water behind me as I could with one arm, letting the buoyancy of the salt water help me as much as possible—that is, not much with a weight dragging us down. I kicked my legs hard, trying to focus on the bright light at the surface of the water.
My eyes stung, my legs and arms were more tired than they had ever been before and my lungs felt like they might explode. Dad’s eyes had slid closed, and a steady stream of air bubbles flowed freely from his nose.
For a moment I considered letting him go to save myself. The guilt was immediate.
He offered himself up to Ezra and The Muscle just to help you, just to help save Rhys. He didn’t have to do that.
The least I could do was get him to the surface or die trying.
With my last ounce of strength, I pushed us up, up, up and broke the surface of the water. I gasped louder than anyone has ever gasped for air.
Holy shit, oxygen is delicious. Oh man, air is the best. I’m sorry if I’ve ever said anything negative about air, because wow, it is really great.
Dad wasn’t waking up, though.
I dragged him along behind me as I swam toward a rocky little island close to Shy Key, struggling to keep his face above water as the brick on his feet continued to pull him down. I laid him on his back on a flat bit of rock near the water’s edge and stared at his face.
I don’t know CPR. Is that even what you’re supposed to do for someone who has water in their lungs?
I pushed down on his stomach a few times and blew air into his mouth while holding his nose closed, like I’d seen it in movies. It didn’t work.
I burst into tears. My body shook as I sobbed, hot tears running down my cheeks. I’d failed.
“Dad,” I whispered through my crying. “Don’t you do this to me.”
And then I slapped my father’s motionless face. His body’s response was to cough up some water, spilling out the side of his mouth. I rolled him over onto his side. Between his coughs and gasps, a quiet groan escaped Dad’s lips, as well as a lot of water and salty, frothy vomit.
“Dad!” I patted his back, trying to usher more fluid out of him.
He fell back onto his back with his eyes closed, his chest heaving as oxygen filled his lungs again.
His eyelids slowly lifted and he winced into the sunlight. “Hey, punkin.”
I chuckled, a few more tears escaping down my cheeks.
He smiled weakly up at me. “You shouldn’t have risked your life for me.”
“I had to,” I said. “Haylee wouldn’t let me live it down if I didn’t at least try to save you from drowning.”
Dad laughed, coughing up more salt water. I wanted to give him a moment to breathe, but I think he sensed that we were in trouble.
With his head still resting on the rock, his eyes roamed our surroundings.
“Ezra and Kenneth are gone.”
“Yup.”
“And they took Rhys.” He sat up a bit, digging his elbows into the sand.
I nodded.
“What do we have with us?”
I looked down at myself and then at him. “Two wetsuits and that’s it.”
Dad frowned. “They have your phone.”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MY PHOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!!!
With nothing better to do on that little island, I found a sharp rock and managed to cut through the zip ties on Dad’s wrists and through the twine holding the brick to his ankles. Red, raw, bloody creases had formed in his flesh from where he’d tried to pull them off.
Every few minutes, I climbed to the top of the jagged bit of land and surveyed the area for boats. Nothing. The sea was calm and quiet, and no one was around.
Neither of us had a watch, but the sun eventually skimmed the horizon line.
I peered into the ocean surrounding us, the water getting darker and darker. “Are we safe here?”
“I think so,” Dad said.
That night, I stared up at the starry skies while Dad snored softly beside me. During my travels, I was usually in locations where the light pollution from the city chased most of the stars away, but here? They were beautiful. And I couldn’t even appreciate them at the time. I was far too worried about Rhys.
They don’t need him anymore. What will they do with him now? If something happens to him, I’ll never forgive myself.
The next morning when I woke up, Dad was already looking around for early-morning boaters in the sea around us. He sighed and flopped back down on his rock.
I winced at the sun, studying its position. I hated not knowing what time it was.
“Good morning,” I said. “I have to pee.”
“Just go in your wetsuit.”
“No, that’s gross!”
“It’s a wetsuit. You’ll be fine.”
“I finally got it almost dry. I don’t want to make it wet in the crotch.”
Dad’s sighed, his mouth twisting, unamused. “Fine. There’s a big toilet all around us.”
“I don’t want to pee in front of you.” I cringed.
> “I promise I won’t look.” He turned around, facing away from me.
I went around to the other side of the island and peeled off my wetsuit, leaving it on a rock on the shore. Buck naked, I waded into the ocean water, submerging myself up to my neck.
As I treaded water, trying to relax my muscles enough to pee, I looked down into the clear water below me.
I’m sure these fish are totally stoked about me pissing in their house.
I closed my eyes.
Relax. Relaaaaaax.
I opened my eyes again as my bladder let go. But then my muscles tensed up again as I saw something heading straight for me.
“Dad!” I yelled. “There’s a boat!”
He didn’t hear me over the sound of the waves.
I waved both my arms over my head. “Hey! Over here! Hey!”
Of course I’d be naked as a boat came to our rescue. Because of course that would happen.
* * *
After a generally awkward boat ride back to the dock in Key Largo and a very long, shoeless walk back to Dad’s house, we broke in through the back door, because obviously Dad’s keys weren’t tucked into his wetsuit.
“There’s some of your old clothes in the dresser in your bedroom upstairs,” Dad said. “Unless you’d rather keep the wetsuit on, of course.” He smiled wearily and trudged upstairs to his bedroom.
Once I went to the guest bedroom, I sat on the corner of the bed. My eyes stung likely from a combination of exhaustion and salt water. My stomach growled for food. I zoned out for a moment, staring straight ahead at the wooden dresser.
I wish I had a way to contact Rhys. I wish I could’ve saved both Dad and Rhys. I wish I’d been the one to go downstairs at Rhys’s house instead of him.
I opened the dresser drawer to see what relics of the past I had available to me. Denim shorts, cool. Underwear, bra, fine. I settled on an old Foo Fighters T-shirt, faded by hours out in the Florida sun.
Honor Among Thieves Page 12
