Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  Great. “Still, if Tex doesn’t want us with him, there must be a good reason to stay with him.”

  Shane pulled her closer. “Damn straight. How’s your head?”

  “Never mind me. Jagger needs a doctor.”

  Twisting around to look in the cab’s back window, Shane nodded. “Chevy wants to let his wife take a look at him and if she can’t help, they’ll drive Jagger to Sydney. Problem is, Canada has the same law as the US. A hospital or doctor has to report a gunshot wound to the police. I’m not sure we want anybody looking at our customs status that closely.”

  Damn Tex and his assessment of who was expendable.

  “How much does Chevy know?” Gillian wanted to get her story straight before they got to wherever they were going—which apparently was uphill. The truck took a sharp curve onto a winding, unpaved road barely wide enough for the pickup. If the grade got any steeper, she and Shane might slide out the back.

  “Everything,” Shane said. “Charlie told him everything. And Chevy knows it’ll put him in danger—thus, him coming to the harbor armed.”

  The truck had continued its steady climb, but now Chevy made a sharp hairpin turn and Gillian leaned forward. “Look—it is a lighthouse.”

  Shane whistled. “Sweet. That’s even cooler than living on a boat. Wonder if it’s still in use?”

  Chevy cut off the dirt and gravel road and drove along a dirt trail toward the lighthouse, circling it and pulling the truck into a steel detached garage behind the building. He got out and slammed the door behind him. “Help your friend out and bring him to the second level,” he told Shane. “We talk after dinner.” He strode toward the lighthouse without a backward glance.

  Shane grinned again as he walked around the truck. “Quite a character, huh?” he asked Jagger, who struggled to stand and finally let Shane help him. “Did he talk to you about aliens or his other visitors?”

  “Yeah, they’re in league with the communists and politicians. Can’t wait to hear what he thinks of our buddy Weston Flynn.” Jagger waved Shane away and winced as he rounded the truck and joined Gillian on the path to the lighthouse entrance. They stopped to wait for Shane, who was collecting Jagger’s bag.

  Gillian stared up at the lighthouse. It was a classic cylinder, wider at the base, maybe seventy or eighty feet tall, and painted white with red stripes around it. Three stacks of windows rose up its side, probably each belonging to a separate floor. What looked like a glassed-in observation tower circled the top. It was a beauty, and she couldn’t wait to see what it looked like inside.

  Gillian glanced back at Shane but her comment about the lighthouse faded when she looked over the cliff beyond. A golden-orange sunset cut through a fog bank that was rolling toward them across the Atlantic. It was beautiful, mystic, eerie. A wooded island in the distance looked familiar. “Is that Scaterie?”

  Shane nodded. “We’re not far from Moque Head. I’m anxious to see why Chevy had us dive there, but first I guess we better make sure Mrs. Chevy doesn’t kill Jagger.”

  * * *

  “They’re kind of sweet, aren’t they?” Gillian sat curled up on a sofa next to Shane, and his arm around her was as warm and comforting as the room around them. It felt wrong to feel so content when the world was going to hell in a clamshell.

  It was hard to be anything but comfortable here, though. The high-ceilinged, round living area on the second level of the lighthouse managed to be cozy, thanks no doubt to the earthy touch of Cleopatra Huckaby McKnight. Cleo and Chevy were huddled in the adjacent kitchen and dining area, whispering furiously. Jagger was asleep in one of the bedrooms on the third level.

  “Sweet?” Shane made a scoffing grunt. “They’re like a geriatric Mr. and Mrs. Smith, only Cleo’s a lot scarier than Angelina Jolie. They’re probably planning World War III in there.”

  “I like her. And she patched up Jagger.” Cleo Huckaby had been a nurse before she decided on a career as a lobsterwoman and got a job on Chevy McKnight’s crew. He’d hired her to prove a woman couldn’t last a season and ended up marrying her. She’d worked alongside him ten more seasons before she hung up her lobster boots. They’d just celebrated their thirtieth anniversary.

  She’d poured Jagger full of whiskey until he passed out with “Hand of Fate” on his lips, heated water to sterilize a wicked knife, dug around in his shoulder until she pulled out the bullet just as he woke up, plied him with more whiskey, and finally stitched him up. She kept antibiotics on hand for the odd injury, and he’d be taking those to ward off infection. Apparently, lobstermen had a lot of accidents involving hooks.

  Gillian yawned, wanting to sleep now that she’d had the hot shower and enough home-cooked food to fill her up for days. Cleo had prepared enough hearty fare for a week, with thick chowder full of local mushrooms and briny oysters and corn, served with bread she’d baked herself. They’d even drunk mead, a brew Cleo concocted from her own supplies of honey, then bottled and sold during tourist season.

  Gillian couldn’t sleep yet, though. They needed to come up with a plan to find the cross. An hour after they’d arrived at the lighthouse, she’d gotten an email from Tex using the “Charlie Burke” email address: a photo of Holly, this time not at daycare but playing on her backyard swing set. Gretchen could be seen in the background, sitting in a lawn chair. The message contained only one word: Remember.

  A quick phone call to Gretchen assured her they were okay and nothing weird had happened except she’d noticed a guy in a van parked on their street for several consecutive days. Three or four days ago, he’d disappeared.

  Gillian would lay odds the van driver was Son of Tex, and that he’d disappeared because he was here with Tex. At least it made her feel better to think they’d followed her and left her family unwatched. Shane had checked in with Charlie, and he’d finally answered his phone. He hadn’t seen anything amiss—but was keeping his shotgun by the door just in case. Tank had settled in and taken over the house.

  Chevy and Cleo joined them in the living room, with Chevy taking the recliner and Cleo perching on the black wrought iron staircase that spiraled the full height of the lighthouse from the first-level mudroom all the way to the lantern room-turned-observation deck. They’d finished watching the eerie, fog-shrouded sunset up there before dinner. Chevy had encased it in insulating hurricane-safe glass, and Cleo had furnished it with comfortable chairs and a wet bar.

  “Where do we start?” Cleo asked. She was a tall, slender woman with graying hair, as warm and sweet natured as her husband was crusty. They both had a lot of laugh lines, though, and Gillian found herself envying their easy affection.

  “Tell us what happened today,” Chevy said. “None of the bullshit, either. Why’d you end up coming ashore still in diving gear and hurt?”

  They all looked at Shane, and he blushed under the scrutiny. Gillian loved that about him. He genuinely didn’t like to be the center of attention.

  He went through the story quickly, not mentioning the fact that Gillian had dived against his wishes, or that she’d been injured after getting distracted by a coin.

  “Hmph.” Chevy scratched his head, causing a clump of white hair to stick up. “Find anything of interest besides the silverware?”

  Gillian wanted to show off the coin and hoped Chevy and Cleo wouldn’t report her to the authorities for taking an artifact from its watery resting place.

  From what she could tell so far, though, the McKnights weren’t exactly the authority-loving type. They lived up here in their rehabbed lighthouse—built in the late 1800s and never put into commission. They minded their own business, made a decent living by brewing mead and catching lobster, and thought politicians were minions of Satan. No one had mentioned aliens again. She decided to take the plunge.

  “I did find something, and it was the reason I got blindsided by the current.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the coin, which she’d been relieved to find tucked safely in her BC. “I’m sorry; I know it’s illegal to
take things off of wrecks, but it had been washed free and I grabbed it without thinking.”

  Chevy walked over to retrieve the coin, turning it over and rubbing it. Then he took it to a desk in the corner, turned on a lamp, and pulled out a magnifying glass.

  “We don’t think much of treasure hunters trying to get rich, but we also don’t think much of what they call in situ preservation,” Cleo said. “The government should let scientists remove and save as much as they can from the wreck sites. They’re pieces of our history that the ocean will eventually destroy, what it hasn’t destroyed already.” She sounded as if she’d made that speech a few times before. “Besides, that coin of yours didn’t come off a wreck site; you said you found it on the ocean floor. That probably makes it fair game.”

  Gillian relaxed. Neither of them seemed to be bothered by her theft.

  Chevy rejoined them, handing the coin to Cleo. “Looks like French silver, with a date of 1688,” he said. “Worth a bit of money.”

  Gillian didn’t care about the money. She might one day, but not now. “Does that, plus the silverware, mean we were on a wreck site?”

  Chevy returned to his recliner and sipped his mead. “This damn batch is too sweet, woman. Don’t put so much honey in it next time.” He didn’t wait for his wife to respond, which was just as well. “Woman” was examining the coin and ignoring her husband.

  “Scaterie itself is a wreck site—all around it,” Chevy said. “Shipwrecks are piled two, three, four deep out there, one on top of another. Newest ones are usually on top, but not always—depends on storms and currents. Last estimate I heard was that only twenty percent of the wrecks off Scaterie had been found.”

  “Most of them would be gone now, right?” Shane leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “I mean, the wooden ships…”

  “Wooden ships were kindling before they had time to sink.” Chevy got up again and retrieved a map from the desk. “Come in here and let me show you a few things.”

  They gathered around the table, where Chevy spread the map showing Cape Breton’s east coast. Gillian recognized the Main-à-Dieu harbor, with its breakwaters extending on the sides to help protect ships and residents both. And the largest of the many offshore islands: Scaterie.

  Chevy tapped a spot with his finger. “This is where you went in today. Current’s bad on that passage between Scaterie and the mainland, and I wanted you to get a feel for it so you could decide how you want to do your real dive.” He slid a finger to the east. “Here’s where I think your best chance of finding that old wreck you’re looking for. If it’s there to be found.”

  Gillian looked at all the circles and lines and numbers on the map, showing depth and geological formations. “What makes you think it’s there?”

  Chevy tapped his finger on the map again. “This here’s a ship-kill zone. You got two big sunkers offshore, with a narrow passage in between. Ship wanders into that passage, it’s done for. You ever heard of The Feversham?”

  They hadn’t, so for the next half hour, Chevy told them about the HMS Feversham, a 32-gun British warship that left Quebec in 1711, bound for New York and followed by three supply ships. “They all sank in this corridor during a storm,” Chevy said. “Feversham hit the rocks, and it was too late for the supply ships behind her to change course. More’n a hundred died, but there were enough survivors that made it to Scaterie to know what happened.”

  It was an interesting, haunting story, but Gillian didn’t see the connection. “What does that have to do with The Marcus Aurelius? It sank years earlier, and as far as I know there were no records that survived.”

  Cleo poured Chevy another glass of mead and if he thought it too sweet, it didn’t stop him from taking a big swallow. “My grandfather grew up on Scaterie.” He led them back into the living room. “The island had quite a few residents back then. Now, of course, it’s uninhabited. But I remember taking a boat out there to visit him, and I spent a lot of time rambling around on those rocks. There were stories, too. One of them was about an old wreck that lay beneath the British warship. There’s an even newer one on top of The Feversham now. But in that old wreck below it, the old folks would tell us, almost everyone died except a couple of children.”

  Gillian’s heart rate sped into overdrive. “That could be it! Has anyone recovered anything from it?”

  Chevy shook his head. “No, and I don’t know if it’s even true. Tales get taller as they get told, eh? And if I remember the stories, there are bound to be lots of other old-timers who remember it as well. Could be there’s just nothing left of it.”

  Shane had pulled the map closer to study the site of The Feversham wreck. “This is a really shallow dive, but it looks like the ocean floor takes a big dip not too far behind it, down to one-hundred-plus feet. Has anyone dived that area?”

  “That, I don’t know.” Chevy finished his drink and set the mug back on the table with a smack of his lips. “Folks’re still fighting over that freighter that ran aground on the island a few years ago. Still sitting out there on the rocks, it is. But deepwater diving’s come a long way in the last few years. Could be a man with the proper equipment…” He shrugged. “Maybe he could find something back there.”

  “Or her,” Cleo said, giving her husband a narrow-eyed smile, and Gillian spotted his smile before he pasted on his stern look again.

  “How long before Jagger can sail The Evangeline?” Shane asked. “We have less than two weeks to come up with either a cross, an idea, or both.”

  “Not for at least a week,” Cleo said, and her voice brooked no argument. “He needs to stay still and let himself heal.”

  Gillian sat back in her chair, deflated. “We can’t wait that long to start.” She looked at Chevy, trying to put as much beseeching charm into her expression as she could. “Could you take us out?”

  “Hell, no. I have business to tend to.” His voice brooked no argument either. So much for Gillian’s questionable charm.

  Cleo cleared her throat. “What is wrong with you people? The answer’s obvious.”

  They all looked at her, and Gillian had a dawning suspicion of what she meant.

  “I’ll take you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Shane stared at the clouds moving in from the southeast, threatening a squall. Make that another squall. He sat opposite Gillian on the inflatable Zodiac they were using as a dive boat. Once Jagger had recovered enough to get back on the water, Cleo handled The Evangeline and Jagger took over the inflatable, which could get in and around the rocks more easily. Today, with Cleo off to purchase her supplies for the week, they were leaving The Evangeline at anchor untended.

  For the past twelve days, he and Gillian had been diving in and around The Feversham wreck site, fanning farther out each day, dodging the worsening weather. The storms were coming more frequently, lasting longer, and stirring up more of the ocean floor each time.

  They’d found a lot of artifacts, mostly pieces of cannons or silver or coins embedded in the concretions between and below the forest of underwater boulders. He’d even taken Gillian into the deeper water farther out, where it was darker, colder, and decompression issues came into play. She’d handled it well, but her nerves were on edge the closer they got to their deadline.

  Hell, his weren’t much better, and even Jagger—the most stoic of them all—had gotten twitchy.

  Shane turned to Gillian. “Okay, a storm’s coming in tomorrow, so we’re going to make today count. You clear on protocol?”

  She nodded, tugging at her collar. When Chevy had gone to Sydney to replace Shane’s fins, coming back to surprise them with the Zodiac, he’d also gifted Gillian with a drysuit. She hated it. “Get over it,” Chevy had told her. Shane agreed that they were bulky and not as comfortable as the wetsuits, but even the shallow waters had grown cooler. The deep water was downright frigid.

  He moved to the edge of the boat, strapped on his mask, and went through his short predive ritual. Closed his eyes, steadied hi
s breathing, calmed his system. Then he stuck in his regulator mouthpiece, rolled backward into the water, got his bearings, popped up and gave Jagger the “okay” sign. Gillian followed a few seconds later.

  Then they swam. Shane hadn’t had a dive buddy in ten years, and even before the incident with Kevin, he’d done most of his diving alone. He’d been surprised to discover how much he enjoyed diving with Gillian. She was curious and observant and careful.

  Careful was key out here. Shane had dived from the Zodiac earlier and secured a line from the boat to a big piece of iron they’d found concreted onto a rock formation behind The Feversham site—maybe part of an old ship railing. Now, as they approached it, he pulled a long, coiled red line off his weight belt and held it up so Gillian would take hers off as well.

  These were their tethers; he’d insisted on them once they began diving into deeper water. If the seas got rough or they got disoriented, all they had to do was follow the line back to the ship railing and then follow the anchor line up to the inflatable boat.

  He tied his line around his weight belt, checked his knots, then checked Gillian’s. They’d been splitting up the past few days to cover more territory. He turned to leave, but twisted back when she grasped his arm. Once she caught his gaze, she pressed two neoprene-gloved fingers to her lips and then placed them on his.

  They were both still smiling as they gave each other the “okay” sign and swam in opposite directions. They’d been together every night of the past two weeks, not saying anything when Cleo made the assumption that they wanted one room. Jagger hadn’t commented, either, and Shane kept thinking he should bring the subject up. The more he was with Gillian, the more he wanted her.

  But what could he say? He didn’t know if he loved her, but thought he might. He didn’t exactly have a wealth of successful relationships to use as models. He hoped they’d survive this mess and have a chance to see if what they had could survive outside crisis mode, but surviving felt like a long shot right now.