Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  Charlie harrumphed. “Harley Dugan gives me a call now and again.”

  That old buzzard. Of course, Shane knew these fishing guys were like a big club. It’s why he’d called Charlie in the first place, to tap into that network.

  “Then you’ll probably be interested to hear that Harley’s bar burned down last night.”

  “Damn. What are you mixed up in, boy?” Charlie paused. “On second thought, don’t tell me on the phone. Get up here and tell me in person. It’s been too long.”

  And Shane realized he wanted to go. Needed to, even if Charlie gave him hell. Which he probably would. He’d been awfully quick to assume the fire at Harley’s had something to do with Shane. “I’d like that. I’m glad you asked.”

  Charlie cleared his throat. Twice. Shane’s had a pretty big lump in it.

  “So, tell me about this job, and what kind of wheels need greasing.”

  Thank God. They had skated awfully close to the edge of Talking About Feelings; time to skate around another circle.

  “It’s a salvage job, trying to locate an old shipwreck and recover something from it.”

  Charlie was all business now. “You looking at next summer?”

  “This month. By the end of September.”

  Another long pause, and Shane waited for it.

  “That’s the goddamned most idiotic, damn-fool thing I’ve ever heard. You know how cold and rough that water is this time of year?”

  Yep, exactly the response he expected. “I agree, but it’s complicated. I’m retrofitting my boat—it’s a 47-foot live-in trawler.” He held out a carrot. “Maybe I could stop in Wilmington on my way up.

  Charlie huffed a snorting noise into the phone. “That’s a cheap bribe, Shane. How senile do you think I am?”

  He was right. “Sorry. I need your help, though. I thought you might still know someone up in Nova Scotia who could help us with the local authorities.”

  “Help you, like, with permits? And who is ‘us’?”

  Here was the big carrot. “Cal Mackie’s son, and I think Harley’s coming.”

  “Did Cal Jr. ever cut his hair and admit those Rolling Stones had nothing on the Beatles?”

  Shane laughed. “That would be a ‘no’ on both counts.”

  “Okay then. I know some folks outside Louisbourg, in Main-à-Dieu, but a salvage permit, especially for an American crew, is gonna take a while. Not going to work in your short time frame. You know how federal agencies work here, and they’re the same in Canada.”

  Shane took a deep breath and plunged. “Well, we kind of want to avoid the feds, both ours and the Canadians.”

  Okay, this pause was epic, but Shane knew his uncle had to think it through. If he was still the same Charlie, he’d figure it out pretty quickly.

  “Sounds like this is an under-the-table job. Any chance you’re going to get yourself arrested or dead?”

  Dead was more likely, either at the hand of the sick freak whose game they were playing or beneath the waves of the North Atlantic. “There’s a chance, yeah.”

  “I got some people who can probably help you, but I have a price.”

  Money? Knowing Charlie, probably not. “What is it?”

  “I ain’t giving it to you over the phone. You come here and get it. When you get here, you tell the truth about what you’re up to, and I’ll decide whether or not to help. And while you’re here, we’ll get your boat up to snuff.”

  Shane closed his eyes with a relief so profound it made him dizzy. “Agreed. We’ll be there in three days, four tops.” Which took them down to a deadline of just over three weeks to retrofit, scout, and dive. “Make it three days. We’ll leave tonight and provision when we get there.”

  After ending the call, Shane considered calling Gillian but decided to wait until she had a chance to talk to her uncle.

  Then he and Jagger and Harley would slip out of town, and he’d call her from Charlie’s. She’d just have to get over it.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I don’t trust that man as far as I can throw him.” Gillian tossed clothes into her small red rolling suitcase without refolding them. “Seriously, Tank. You should’ve bitten him this morning. He thinks I’m not going with him to do this job? I was an alternate on Team USA in swimming five years ago, for God’s sake. I’m a certified scuba diver. Who does he think he’s dealing with? Arrogant oaf.”

  Good kisser, but an arrogant oaf nonetheless.

  Tank sat between Gillian and the door—his way of telling her she wasn’t going anywhere without the dog. Every time she even looked at a suitcase, he went on door patrol.

  “Don’t worry, you’re going. He’s not leaving me behind, and I’m not leaving you. So you’ll probably still get a chance to bite his ass.” She’d never had Tank on a long boat trip but he’d do okay; it wasn’t like they’d be spending days on the open ocean.

  First thing she had to do, though, was try to call Zeke Campbell.

  She tried the number from the letter she’d found among her grandmother’s things, but got another person who said they’d had the number for several years.

  On a whim, she used her smartphone to do a WhitePages search for Zeke Campbell in Paducah, Kentucky, but came up with only an obituary. Damn it. She clicked on the obit link and said a prayer of thanks that this Zeke Campbell was a forty-year-old. Then she prayed an apology for being thankful that anyone was dead. Except Tex and Son of Tex and their employer who was too chickenshit to do his own dirty work. She didn’t apologize for hoping all three of them, and whoever else was involved, keeled over where they stood.

  Zeke was probably short for Ezekiel, so she typed in “Ezekiel Campbell” and widened the search to a hundred-mile radius of Paducah. Bingo! The age looked right for an Ezekiel across the river in Metropolis, so she jotted down the number, said another prayer, and called.

  A man answered on the second ring. A very old man who Gillian suspected was hard of hearing because he shouted so loud into the phone she had to put him on speaker. It hurt her ear to hold the phone close.

  A few attempted explanations later, Zeke said, “Let me get my hearing aid,” and the call ended.

  Gillian opened the door for Tank. “This could take a while. Go and chase something. If you see Shane, bite him.”

  She waited a few minutes and then called Zeke again.

  This time, he answered on the first ring. “Where’d you go?”

  Gillian decided to let it pass. “Can you hear me better now?”

  “Clear as a bell. Tell me who you are again?”

  “I’m your great-niece.” She went through the connections again, now that he could hear her. “We’ve never met, but my dad told me you might be able to tell me more about Duncan Campbell.”

  “The thief! I been looking for information on that rascal for almost sixty years. Always wished I could get my hands on that cross.”

  Gillian considered telling him the cross was her ultimate goal but decided against it. Instead, she claimed to be a budding genealogist, trying to track information on their notorious ancestor.

  “’Course we don’t know the story of the cross was true,” Zeke said after rambling through the places he’d gone to do research—including several spots in Europe. “We only have his son’s word for it, passed down from generation to generation.”

  Gillian paused in her note taking. “I thought his son was a baby when the ship sank, and one of the ship’s crew saved him.”

  “Not a baby. He was eight or nine years old, according to the ship manifest—found that over in France. We thought for years it had sailed from Spain or Portugal, but we finally tracked it to France, and let me tell you that took some sniffing out. So my guess is, and it’s just a guess, that the little boy knew what his daddy had done and went on to tell his children and so on. Was it true, or did he make it up, or did he misunderstand? We’ll never know.”

  What if this whole thing—all the threats, all the hurt, all the fear—was based on something t
hat never even happened? She’d warned Tex about that from the beginning and, if she had it to do over, would never, ever mention the Campbell curse to anyone, ever.

  “I wrote all this up, if you’ve got one of those computers.” Zeke paused for a phlegmy cough that echoed through the phone.

  Gillian leaned forward in her chair; this was the first thing Zeke had said that excited her, except maybe that she had to extend her search to France for ship records. “It’s online?”

  “My son put it up on one of those genealogy sites. Figured your daddy knew about that. Hold on, I got it written down somewhere.”

  And the call ended. Gillian beat herself in the head with her own phone. Zeke needed a few lessons about the difference between “hang on” and “hang up.” She gave him a few seconds, and hit the “Redial” button.

  “Where’d you go?” Zeke either had Caller ID or just assumed it was she. Or he didn’t get that many calls.

  “Did you find the genealogy information?”

  He slowly read off a web address for a popular genealogy site, and Gillian felt like beating herself in the head for not checking those places herself.

  They talked a while longer, and Gillian wished she had time to fly up to Kentucky and meet him in person. Families got scattered and fell out of touch and lost track these days, not that she’d made much attempt at maintaining ties. After Sam and Ethan died, she’d thrown herself into her work, bought herself a trailer in the woods, and become a self-imposed hermit. Or as much a hermit as one could be with Vivian Ortiz living next door.

  Gillian vacillated a few moments. Though she wanted to search out the website, she also had a feeling Shane was going to bolt. He’d gotten way too closed off the two times she’d mentioned the dive trip, and there was nothing to prevent him from moving The Evangeline somewhere else to do his retrofits.

  She’d play the game first and call him. Tell him what she’d learned from Zeke. Make him think she planned to spend the afternoon using the Internet at Cedar Key’s little public library. See if he let anything slip.

  “Hey there.” He answered just as the call was about to be forwarded to voice mail. In the background, loud clanking noises were almost as jarring to her ear as Zeke had been, pre-hearing aid. She put him on speaker as well.

  “What’s that racket?” A wrench banging against a metal drum, maybe. Or a really bad marching-band percussion section.

  “Harley’s doing some work on the plumbing system. Wait.” The knocking and clanging grew muffled. “Is that better? I went up to the pilothouse.”

  “Yeah, much better. How’s Harley doing?”

  “Jagger was right about him keeping busy.” Shane lowered his voice, and Gillian took him off speaker so she could hear him better. “As soon as we told him about the dive and asked him to come along, it was like he had been dead and suddenly came back to life. He needs this now.”

  Sounded like he’d be a handy guy to have along anyway. “How much did you tell him?” Gillian worried about spreading it too far. She’d told Viv, and now Jagger was in the middle of it. She wasn’t sure if it was safer for Harley to know everything or know virtually nothing.

  “I thought about telling him everything, but right now I think it would put him in more danger,” Shane said. “If we were leaving him behind, I’d tell him. But I think he’s less vulnerable if he’s with us.”

  Gillian bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. What a hypocrite. Wasn’t she also less vulnerable—all of them, really—if they were together? Maybe she’d misjudged him. Maybe he had no intention of leaving her behind. Or maybe he was going to find the cross and take off with it, make his own deal for more money. She didn’t think so, but either way, she didn’t plan to risk it. She was going. And just in case he decided to be heavy-handed, she didn’t plan to ask his opinion.

  “Did you get in touch with your uncle?”

  He paused. “Yeah, it was good to talk to him, and I think he has a lead on someone who can help us get the cruise permits for Canada, do some of the bigger retrofitting jobs, and maybe help us when we get to wherever we’re going. Where are we going?”

  Maybe she should withhold that information—Zeke had said the area offshore from Louisbourg wasn’t thought to be where the Marcus Aurelius foundered, but farther east, near the village of Main-à-Dieu and offshore Scaterie Island. “There’s even a cove just north of there called Campbell’s Cove,” Zeke had said. “Don’t know the connection but there’s gotta be one. You’re young; maybe you can find it.”

  “I don’t know where we’re going yet.” Accent on the we. “I’m off to the library to do some Internet work, follow up on some solid leads I got from Zeke.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what they are? I have a computer with wireless Internet here on the boat; we can both look.”

  She wanted to trust him; she really did. But she didn’t trust him. There was too much at risk. “I’ll stop by tonight and let you know what I find. Dinner about seven? I can bring the pizza.”

  His very long pause told her what she needed to know. He was over there at the marina, getting The Evangeline ready to sail—probably to where his uncle lived in North Carolina. Maybe Charlie had promised his nephew they could get the retrofitting done faster there than in Florida, which was probably true. They would have to take the boat farther south, to Tampa, or north, into the Panhandle, to get it done nearby—if they could find anyone who knew how to prepare a boat for rough Atlantic seas.

  Finally, he said, “Yeah, seven’s good. Don’t bring dinner, though. We’ll order here.”

  In other words, don’t waste your money on food for four because the three of us menfolk are going to be long gone.

  Okay, maybe she was putting words in his mouth. She’d have to see.

  She optimistically didn’t take everything with her—just clothes and toiletries she’d need. She stuffed every available nook and dead space in her rolling bag for Tank’s stuff. Food, treats, his favorite stuffed frog, and a stack of plastic lined pads for onboard bathroom emergencies. Tank was much better equipped than she by the time the packing was finished.

  She lugged everything to the truck and didn’t have to call Tank. He’d been trailing every step she took, especially when he saw his stuff going into the bag. When she opened the passenger door, he leapt into the front seat and assumed the riding position, hanging his head out the window as soon as she lowered it.

  She was halfway out of the driveway when the phone rang, and she answered it without looking at the screen. Maybe Shane had had a change of heart and realized they were better on this trip with her going along.

  “Checking on your progress, Ms. Campbell.” The dulcet tones of Tex made her skin crawl. “I trust Mr. Mackie understands where we’re all coming from on this mission?”

  Anger that she’d transferred to Shane most of the morning rushed to the surface like lava, and this particular volcano was set to blow. “I don’t think any of us has any doubt where we’re coming from. Do you have no morals? This is all a game to you, but look how many innocent lives you’re trying to destroy.” Already have destroyed, in Harley’s case. “And for what? I can’t even confirm that Duncan Campbell ever had that cross.”

  “I’ll be sure to let my employer know that you don’t feel you can complete the job.” Tex’s voice was cold and passionless. “Whether he feels further incentives are needed…well, we’ll see, won’t we? By the way, your friend Vivian Ortiz and her ex-husband arrived in Honolulu this morning. I thought you might want to know where they’d decided to go. I’ll check in with you t—”

  “Wait.” Gillian would never forget the sight of Viv lying in that hospital bed. She’d been lucky—not going very fast and wearing her seatbelt. She’d rebounded quickly. But a little faster, a little more rain, a different place to lose control, and the outcome could have been a lot different. And Tex, or his employer, had been willing for Viv to die. There was no reason to think they couldn’t get to Viv and Jimmy in Hawaii.
/>   “We don’t need more reminders. Believe me, we are taking you seriously. In fact, we’ve already begun the retrofits on The Evangeline to take her to Canada, and I am tracking down leads on where the ship went down.”

  Tex laughed, and that made Gillian madder than ever, but she had to hold it in. This gator was too dangerous to poke. “Good answer, Ms. Campbell. I’ll be in touch.”

  Gillian sat in the pickup for a couple of minutes, willing her hands to stop shaking so she could drive without ending up wrapped around a tree herself. Tank whined and put an oversized black paw on her arm.

  She gave him a hug, burying her face in the ruff of his thick, soft fur. “I’m okay, buddy. Let’s go for a ride.”

  He went back to hanging out the window before she cleared the block, and the five-minute drive gave her the chance to plan a strategy. She hoped she could get to The Evangeline in time to stow away.

  Once the boat got underway, Shane Burke couldn’t do a thing about it.

  CHAPTER 12

  “No way she’s going.”

  Shane took the bolt from Jagger and replaced one in the bottom of the watertight door. This door could seal off the aft end of the area amidships. Three sections of the boat would then exist independently in case of emergency, each with its own self-contained air supply. The first rule for retrofitting was getting everything as solid and tight as possible in the most basic areas: nuts and bolts and screws.

  He and Jagger had been arguing for the past hour about Gillian and whether she should go with them to North Carolina. It was already 3:00 p.m., and he wanted to be away from Way Key by 5:00. Yes, he was an absolute asshole. He knew Gillian would be standing on the dock two hours later, realizing he’d lied to her deliberately. She’d probably think that he was blowing her off because she wasn’t one of the boys.

  He wouldn’t admit a big part of his reluctance stemmed from his attraction to her.

  “She has a right to go. Hell, if anybody has a right to go, it’s Gillian.” Jagger handed him the wrench and looked at the next bolt. “Damn it, half these are stripped. I might have to go back to the hardware store.”