I sat down next to her, my big form filling most of the space. “Okay,” I growled.
“What was he like?” she asked. “What were pirates like?”
I snorted. “Bunch of thieves. They wrapped it up in a lot of talk about honor and some of them stuck to some sort of a code. But they’re not what you’d call trustworthy.”
“More like Ratcher’s men than….” She didn’t finish the sentence but she nodded at me. More like Ratcher’s men than you. As if I was some sort of angel.
I scowled and then nodded. “Like Ratcher’s men,” I allowed.
Hannah turned and stared at the chest. The sweater pulled tight over her breasts and I caught my breath.
Her brow furrowed in concentration. “What’s the first thing Ratcher’s men would have done, if they’d found the chest before us? Or the first thing some gang of pirates would have done, if they’d found it before Esme?”
I reluctantly drew my eyes from her breasts and looked at the chest. “Helped themselves, probably,” I muttered. “Taken a handful of coins before they gave it to their captain. Slipped out a few more whenever they could.”
“What if that’s it?” asked Hannah. Her voice started slow as she worked the idea through in her head, but it gained in pace. “What if it’s something to do with...if pirates found it, they’d divide the treasure, and steal some, and lie to each other about how much there was...but if Esme found it, she’d—Oh God, she’d have every single coin! It’s the number of coins!”
I blinked and stared. That did make sense. No way would a pirate crew get a chest full of treasure aboard without a bit of pilfering going on. If the heading was the number of coins then even one or two missing would throw it way off. ”But we need two numbers,” I said. “Heading and distance.”
We stared at each other for a moment and then got it at the same time. “Silver and gold!” That’s why there were doubloons and pieces of eight.
“All we need to do is count the coins!” Hannah’s voice was tight with excitement. Then she looked around the boat and her face fell.
We hadn’t exactly been careful with the treasure, the night before. Most of the coins had spilled out of the chest and they’d rolled into every damn nook and cranny.
“Right,” I said grimly. “We need every single one.”
For three hours, we worked on our hands and knees, collecting up the coins, sorting them into silver and gold and stacking them in piles of ten for easy counting. It didn’t help that a rocking boat isn’t the ideal place to deal with coins that slide and roll. I chased coins into dark corners and banged my head more times than I could count.
And yet every moment of frustration was countered by the sight of Hannah’s perfect ass as she crawled to look under something, or the way she tossed her hair out of her face as she bent over the chest. I had to reach up and take hold of a hatch cover, at one point, just to keep from grabbing her and pulling her to me. By the end of it, I was bruised and sore-tempered and horny as a sailor on shore leave.
But we’d done it. There were no more coins anywhere and we had our two numbers. I grabbed a map, plotted the course..., and sighed.
“What?” asked Hannah, worried?
I showed her the line I’d drawn. It smacked into an island long before it reached its destination. “We’re missing some,” I said.
We both searched the floor for about the fifteenth time but couldn’t see a coin anywhere.
“Maybe someone found the chest, years ago. They couldn’t get it to the surface but they took a handful of coins,” I said.
“Or one of Mace’s men stole some, before Mace even hid it,” said Hannah in a small voice.
We were so close! I stood up, growling in frustration. Yoyo jumped onto my shoulder and snuggled in, probably trying to make me feel better.
Hannah suddenly got to her feet. “Wait,” she said. “Where does Yoyo hide the things he steals?”
I blinked at her. Then limped quickly along the length of the boat. “Up here,” I said, my voice hoarse. “He makes a nest, in this coil of rope—”
I felt inside the dark little hiding place...and pulled out two of Hannah’s hair clips, six bottle tops..., and a doubloon.
We raced back to the chart. I redrew the line, adding one degree...and this time, the course cut clear between two small islands and finished just offshore of a third. “Now that looks right,” I muttered. I turned to Hannah—
Only to find her right next to me, her chin almost on my shoulder as she stared excitedly at the chart. As I turned, my hand brushed hers and my fingers closed on it automatically. She looked up at me expectantly and God those lips…. It wasn’t just that I wanted to grab her and push her back against the wall, rip her panties off her and bury myself between those sweet thighs—
It was worse than that. I wanted to celebrate with her. I wanted to be a team with her, just like I’d been a team with Edwards.
Working out that clue had been damn near genius: I sure as hell wouldn’t have got it. But if I told her how much I thought of her then I knew I’d slip: I wouldn’t be able to stop myself telling her everything else I liked about her—
I silently cursed. More than liked about her.
So I just muttered, “That was smart, working that out.” And stalked off to get us underway.
When we arrived, I persuaded Hannah to wait on board while I did a quick dive to check things out. She was shocked when I surfaced after less than five minutes. “It’s a cave.”
“A cave?”
I nodded. “Underwater. About twenty feet down.”
“How do you know the final clue’s in there?”
I climbed up the ladder and onto the deck. She immediately started helping me off with my air tank: I resisted at first and then let her. “Because the water here’s too deep for Esme to get to the bottom. But she could get to the cave and follow it...if she knew where she was going.”
Hannah frowned. “It isn’t just a cave?”
“I shone my light in there and there are different passages leading off it. But there are symbols on the walls. I’m guessing they meant something to Mace and Esme.”
Hannah thought for a second and then ran off and returned with the diary. “Are these them?”
There were several pages filled with hundreds of elaborate, circular glyphs, each one subtly different. “Yeah.”
“Gypsy magic. Hexes and good luck charms, all that stuff. Mace taught Esme about sailing a ship: she wanted to teach him something in return, so….”
I sighed and glowered. Romantic nonsense. But exactly the sort of thing the love-struck couple would use. The good symbols would mark the way to the clue. The bad symbols would lead to dead ends. To Esme, it would be simple, but anyone else would get lost and run out of air. “Right.” I thought for a second. “We’ll need to copy that page onto something waterproof and I’ll need more lights and—”
“I know them,” she said.
“...what?”
She flushed. “I’m good at picking things up from books. And I’ve been over this page about a thousand times. I know which symbols are which. It’s not that hard, once you understand the rules.” She leafed through several dense pages of text. “Esme explains it all.”
I groaned. I knew what was coming. “You’re not going down there!” She started to speak but I cut her off. “Cave diving is the most dangerous sort there is. It’s dark down there—”
“We have lights—”
“Doesn’t matter, it’s easy to get confused. Before you know it, you’re in a dead end with no air.”
“But it can’t go on far. Esme had to be able to swim to the clue just holding her breath!”
I hesitated. She was right, but Esme had been a superb diver: she could probably hold her breath for at least a few minutes.
Hannah took hold of my upper arms. Her slender, cool fingers felt amazing on my sun-warm biceps. The temptation to just yank her towards me and kiss her was almost too much. “Look,” she
said softly, “you can go down there handfuls of paper and try to match the symbols and be there all day...or I can go with you and we can be done in a few minutes.”
I sighed and glowered at her but she was right. Any other time, I would have happily accepted the slower, safer method where she stayed on the surface. But she was overdue for another attack of the disease. We didn’t have a whole day to waste playing it safe. I put my hands on her shoulders, unable to stop myself squeezing gently. “You do exactly as I tell you….”
She nodded. And a half hour later, we dived.
39
Hannah
I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that I’d made a mistake. I knew it as soon as we hit the water but it wasn’t until we were at the mouth of the cave that I admitted it to myself.
It was dark. We each had a head-mounted flashlight but their beams just revealed how dirty the water was. There was no current to keep things moving and the water was thick with plankton and other debris: it was like swimming through thick soup, claustrophobic and unsettling. I could only see a few feet in any direction.
Rourke had given me some underwater flares for emergencies but I was trying hard not to think about them, or the sort of situation that would require them: trying not to think about rock falls or getting stuck or getting lost in the dark—
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and tried to slow my breathing. He was right. I shouldn’t be down here. But I had no choice, not if I wanted to save Katherine. We were running out of time.
A hand caught mine and squeezed. My eyes fluttered open and I found myself looking into Rourke’s deep blue eyes, his brows knitted with concern. Just his physical presence was reassuring: his wetsuit was stretched tight over the hard slabs of his muscled chest and the thickness of his arms. He was so solid and warm in the cold darkness. My breathing eased. As long as we stuck together, I’d be okay. Ten minutes. Fifteen at most and we’ll have the clue and be out of here.
Just as Rourke had said, there were passages leading off the main cave: three of them, each with one of the circular symbols carved in the rock next to them. Captain Mace must have spent days preparing this, holding his breath and diving down to carve the symbols a few minutes at a time.
I swum closer and hung in the water as I examined the symbols. Rourke had found me a wetsuit to wear and I was glad of its insulation: without the sun to heat it, the water down here was uncomfortably chilly. But the wetsuit had been sized either for a man or for a woman less curvy than me: I was a little self-conscious about how tight it was across my breasts and ass. Rourke definitely approved, though. When I’d come back above deck having struggled into it, his gaze had felt like it was melting the fabric right off me. He still wanted me as much as he had the night before...but now he was holding back.
And I knew why. He’d made clear that he wasn’t offering anything long term and, because he was an honest-to-goodness gentleman, he wasn’t going to tumble me into the hammock for sex. That left me half-frustrated and half grudgingly impressed with him being so honorable. I didn’t want it to be just sex, either. And the longer I was around him, the more certain I was that it could be so much more. If he’d only give me the chance and open up….
I shook my head. Focus. Two of the symbols were curses. The one in the center, though, was for good luck and I swam into that passage, Rourke right behind me. It was narrow enough that I had to be careful not to bash my elbows on the rocks and, when I looked behind me, Rourke’s big body almost filled the passage. The sight made me tense. There’s no way out, if he gets stuck behind you. You’ll be trapped here in the dark with your air running out.
Stop it!
I rounded the next bend...and stopped, frowning.
We’d entered a huge tunnel that went left to right across us. On the far wall were at least twenty other passages. Some were only big enough for fish but I saw at least seven that might lead to the treasure. I sighed. We’d have to swim across and check each one until we found a symbol.
I swam forward. Rourke suddenly grabbed for me but I was just too fast, his hand closing an inch from my forearm. I twisted around, still drifting forward, to see what had worried him—
And saw him firmly shake his head, eyes wide. He was making a savage sweeping motion with his hand from left to right.
That’s when I noticed something. All of the dirt in the water wasn’t just hanging there, anymore. Ahead of me, it was beginning to move, slowly at first but faster and faster, so fast it blurred. The big cross-tunnel was some sort of underground river...and I was drifting right into the current.
I screamed as it hit me full force in the side and carried me along with it. It was like I’d been hit by an invisible train, pinned to its cab as it thundered through the tunnel. I twisted and saw Rourke straining to reach me...and then he was gone, his light just a speck in the darkness.
I started to tumble, panic-breathing and flailing for something, anything to grab onto. But the rock walls were whipped by too fast. And they were terrifyingly close to my face. If I hit my head...I stopped trying to grab on and focused on just trying to stay clear of the sides.
I flashed past several dark openings and that’s when it hit me: these caves were much, much bigger than we’d thought. Captain Mace had laid his trail for Esme in one small corner of the maze, marking only the tunnels he needed. The rest of the tunnels weren’t marked at all.
I’m not going to be able to find my way out!
Even as I thought it, I tried to desperately memorize what I was passing. But there was no hope: the tunnel had already split and rejoined several times and—
The tunnel twisted sharply. The first warning I had was when I saw the rock looming out of the darkness ahead of me, my momentum carrying me forward. I desperately back-pedaled. No, no, no, no—
I slammed into the rock. There was a cracking sound and my light went out.
And then there was only darkness.
40
Rourke
For a second, I just hung there in the water, staring, as the woman I loved was ripped away into the darkness. An underground river! Cold, fresh water, rocketing through the caves under pressure. It would carry her god-knows how many miles underground….
Further than her air would last her.
I finally reacted, launching myself forward and letting the current grab me and carry me. Christ, it was fast. My stomach tightened as I saw that it branched: I had no way of knowing which way Hannah had been taken. All I could do was let myself go limp and pray the water carried me the same way. I checked my air and grimaced: I was already down to twenty minutes. Hannah would be using up her air faster: much faster, if she was panicking. And we’d need air to get back through the caves and up to the surface.
I had to find her. I had to find her now.
41
Hannah
Without light, there was no up or down. I could feel the force of the water blasting me through the tunnels but I had no way of knowing whether I was in a tight passage or a large room, except when an elbow or knee whacked against rock. Each time I went around a bend, my back or arms would grate along the wall: if it hadn’t been for the wetsuit, my skin would have been shredded. I wrapped my arms protectively around my head. My head was still ringing from the first hit: another one and I’d fully lose consciousness, drop my mouthpiece, and drown.
Suddenly, the current dropped away. I could still feel it tugging at me, but I could make progress against it and I could feel calm water off to one side. I clawed blindly at the water, trying to pull myself in that direction—
And then I came completely free of the current. The water around me went suddenly slack and calm. And for the first time in what felt like hours, I stopped moving.
It was absolutely black.
It was darker than the root cellar under the farmhouse in Nebraska, darker than the night I lost Mom. The terrifying realization hit me: I was deep below the rock and that was deep below the sea. I was separated from the nearest ligh
t by a million twists and turns of dark passageway and even they were filled with thick, dirty water.
There is no way out.
My whole body was shaking as I took deep, shuddering panic breaths. It was worse because I had nothing to touch. My weighted dive belt meant I just floated in the middle of the passage: I had no idea how close the walls were. Everything was silent: I hadn’t been aware of the rush of water in my ears, while I’d been in the current, but now that it was gone I wanted it back more than anything. The silence was terrifying. Between it and the darkness, it was like I was already dead.
Oh God.
I couldn’t feel the water through my wetsuit and that completed the sensory deprivation. I didn’t feel like I was underwater, anymore: I was just floating in suffocating blackness.
Oh God I don’t know what to do—
I lost all sense of time and place. All I could feel was my own panicked breathing, sucking air through the mouthpiece, exhaling it as bubbles.
And then something changed. The air I was inhaling felt different. Tight. Like I was sucking on a straw, chasing the last drops of soda in a bottle.
My air was running out.
42
Rourke
I checked my air again: less than ten minutes. Hannah would be scared, breathing fast: she’d be close to using up all her air already.
Maybe she already had.
The thought pushed me faster, legs driving me through the water, arms outstretched to grab hold of a passage opening and stop myself if I glimpsed her. But there were too many openings, too many points where the river divided. I might already be a half mile away from her, heading in the wrong direction.
My chest ached with the need to call for her. On the surface, it would be so simple: one good shout and she’d hear me and answer and I could home in on her voice. But down here it was just silent blackness. Jesus, she’ll be terrified!
Captain Rourke Page 18
