Emerald Fire

by Monica McCabe

  “Somewhere safe to recover,” Chloe answered for him.

  “You know, I’m getting more than a little tired of your interference.” She turned an angry glare on Chloe. “Making my life miserable isn’t enough for you, is it? You had to steal the Fire from thieves and cause everybody trouble.”

  “Me?” Chloe asked incredulously. “You’re the one who hired them to begin with. You had Mike and Brett murdered, nearly succeeded with Uncle Jon, too. If the pirates are now after you, it’s exactly what you deserve.”

  “Enough!” Owen stepped over, journal in his hand. “Jonathan Banks is a problem we’ll deal with later, so are the pirates. How about we finish with the right now?”

  Chloe shrugged one shoulder. “I hate to break it to you, but Hosea is mad. And he’s coming for you.”

  Lisa stilled, body language going wary. Owen’s head swiveled back and forth between his cousin and his accomplice. “Who is Hosea?”

  “You don’t know the man your girlfriend hired to do the dirty work?” Finn asked.

  Owen glanced at Lisa in question.

  “I didn’t work with him directly,” she told him.

  “But he wants the money you haven’t paid him,” Chloe pointed out. “We had a messy encounter with him while in the Bahamas. He said something about coming to Boston.”

  Lisa paled, her face glowing chalky white under the moon. “I don’t know what you are trying to pull,” she finally spat, “but I’m not that gullible.”

  Finn saw an opportunity to turn the tables and jumped on it. “She’s telling the truth. I don’t know how they found us, but they intended to do some damage. As threats go, I’d say they’re your biggest worry.”

  “I thought you said it was all anonymous?” Owen asked Lisa.

  “It was supposed to be,” she replied.

  “That’s the trouble with hiring criminals,” Chloe said with a sigh of mock sympathy. “It’s so hard to find ones you can trust.”

  Finn saw it coming this time and jumped out of the way just as another blast of Lisa’s gun took out his left front tire. Son of a bitch! Much more of this abuse, and his SUV wouldn’t survive. Their odds weren’t looking all that great either. The damn woman just killed their chances of a quick getaway.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” Chloe snapped.

  “Your smart mouth,” Lisa said bitterly, pointing the gun directly at Chloe. “Shut up or the next bullet is yours.”

  Lisa Banks let Chloe get under her skin much too easy. There had to be a way to use that to their advantage. In the meantime, Chloe had a grip on his arm that, if any tighter, was going to break something.

  “Can we stop shooting long enough to get back to the emeralds?” Owen snapped at Lisa. “If your friend Hosea is after us, we’re wasting time out here. We need to get ourselves lost.”

  Finn appreciated the assistance, even if Owen didn’t realize it.

  “They don’t know anything,” Lisa argued. “Why bother with them?”

  This was about to get ugly, so Finn held up one finger. “We know the pirates are angry and probably in Boston.” Finn held up a second finger. “There’s the fact the two of you are probably already up on murder charges.” A third finger. “And three, we think we know where the emeralds are hidden.”

  That got a moment of silence. It was a lot to process, being wanted for murder.

  “Where?” Lisa demanded.

  This was the trump card, and Finn desperately hoped it worked. “NorthStar.”

  “Nice try, but we aren’t taking you home.”

  That’s exactly what Finn had planned. The emeralds were there, maybe, but so was his dad, an armed and seasoned sailor well used to traversing rough ports of call. There was a wounded Jonathan to consider, but maybe that could work in their favor, too, if played right.

  “How about some proof?” Finn said as he pulled out his phone. He scrolled to the photos, selected a picture of the chalice, and showed it to Lisa.

  “A goblet?” Lisa scoffed. “You’ll need to do better than that.”

  He widened the photo until the maritime star stood out strong. “That is NorthStar’s crest.” Finn turned his attention to Owen. “Look in the journal.”

  “Toward the back,” Chloe offered. “Want me to hold the light?”

  Owen shot her a dirty look. “Stay where you are.” He stuck the penlight between his teeth and started flipping the pages. He found the drawing and held the journal up next to Finn’s phone, shining his light on the identical image.

  Lisa’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “Chloe and I share a historical connection,” Finn explained. “About eight generations ago her ancestor was an English nobleman who served a queen. My ancestor was Irish and served the nobleman. Long story short…the queen gave emeralds to the Englishman who gave them to the Irishman who hid them at NorthStar.” Not entirely true, but Lisa didn’t need the finer points.

  Owen closed the journal with a careless snap. “If that’s so, why haven’t you found them before now?”

  “We’ve only made the connection recently,” Finn said. “Can we finish this conversation in the car? I might’ve broken Hosea’s nose, and he’s not really the forgiving type. It probably won’t take long for him to make the connection and come calling.”

  Sadly, that possibility was all too real.

  * * * *

  It was turning into the longest two-and-a-half-hour drive of Chloe’s life, despite Finn’s constant push for speed. They were in Owen’s Dodge Charger, a flashy muscle car he’d bought a couple years ago. Chloe saw it as classic overcompensation, a way to make up for his lack of stature. The fact that Finn looked like a natural behind the wheel probably had her cousin fuming. Good.

  “I don’t understand you anymore, Owen. Why are you doing this?” Chloe shared the back seat with her cousin while Lisa kept the gun trained on Finn as he drove. “You’ve been offered plenty of opportunity, yet no matter what was given to you, it was never enough.”

  The rear seats of the Charger were like hiding in a cave. Not even oncoming headlights penetrated the gloom of its darkened windows. The high-backed front seats blocked what little dashboard light there was, too, but enough dispersed around them for Chloe to see the resentment on Owen’s face.

  “Your whole life has been a gravy train,” he bit off. “You’ve no concept of what it’s like to be constantly struggling for every scrap thrown your way.”

  “That’s not true.” She grew up with the same family issues as everyone else. She also had the loss of her parents as a teenager. Being an orphan was no picnic, but she never felt the need to kill anyone over it. “So you had a crappy childhood. That’s not an excuse for criminal behavior.”

  “Don’t judge me,” Owen snapped. “I’ve been living in your shadow my whole life, and I’m sick of it. No matter what I do, you win.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Chloe grabbed hold of the door handle to steady herself as Finn took a long curve a little too fast.

  “You always had the highest grades in school, got into the best college. And when your rich parents died, you went to live with an even richer uncle. You drove a new car and spent your summers on a yacht. What did I have? An alcoholic mother, a dad who skipped town the minute things got tough, and pity handouts from your dad whenever it was convenient for him.”

  She knew he had resented her as kids, he never kept that a secret, but she had no idea the level of animosity he’d been carrying. Was it her fault that Owen had rebuffed every attempt her dad made to help? Her cousin had a lot of the blame here. No matter how bad a dish life served you, it was how you reacted, your personal choices that shape the person you become. He had allowed envy and greed to dominate.

  Chloe didn’t think she’d ever forgive him for the death of Mike and Brett, no matter how hard she tried. But it didn’t stop there. She no longer knew the person who shared the backseat with
her, but she had a pretty good idea the lengths he’d go to get his hands on money. She and Finn were in the crosshairs, along with Ronan and Uncle Jon. “Please, Owen, things don’t have to be this way.” She doubted her words would have any impact, but she had to try. “Put the guns and the animosity aside and join us. Share in the search.”

  It was far too late for that. The dam burst, and any pretense of civility vanished. Owen poured the venom out.

  “I’ve been watching you chase those damn emeralds for years, waiting for the chance to cash in on a lifetime supply of wealth. You were getting nowhere, and I got tired of waiting. When Sarah died, I saw an opportunity.”

  Chloe couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She suspected Owen and Lisa were together in this, but she had no idea how deep that went.

  “You had the idea but I’m the one who made it happen,” Lisa piped up from the front seat. “I’m the one who charmed the old man.”

  Lisa sounded proud, and Chloe’s jaw tightened in anger. She’d let concern for Uncle Jon’s feelings cloud her gut instincts. She regretted that now. Lisa Banks was a heartless gold-digger who threatened the one decent person Chloe had left in this world. Maybe if she had acted on her suspicions, none of this would be happening now.

  “Lisa kept us supplied with a money stream, but it was too slow. So we came up with the plan to use insurance money from the Emerald Fire to set us up for life. I should’ve known you’d find a way to ruin that, too.”

  “Two good people died because of you,” Chloe said quietly in the gloom of the car’s interior. “Doesn’t that bother you at all?”

  “Don’t lay the guilt trip on me, cousin. It won’t work.”

  “She’s been doing that since the day I met her,” Lisa spat. “Snooping, making snide comments, and trying to trip me up.”

  Chloe gave a humorless laugh. “With obvious good reason.”

  “I think you were just jealous of the fact that Jonathan was spending his money on me and not you.”

  “That’s because you have the mental capacity of a petulant child,” Chloe said sharply.

  “You little bitch.” Lisa moved the gun’s aim into the backseat.

  Finn chose that moment to punch the gas pedal and roughly swerve into the opposite lane to get around a slow-moving sedan. The maneuver jerked them all sideways, and before they could settle, he cranked the wheel again and lurched back into his lane.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Owen yelled.

  Finn had defused the situation in his usual efficient way. She should take a page from his playbook and stop baiting the deranged twit holding a weapon.

  “We’re in a hurry,” Finn replied. “And that car wasn’t moving fast enough.”

  “The next time you get reckless like that,” Owen snarled, “I’m going to open the car door and shove your girlfriend out. Got it?”

  Finn rounded the next bend with fluid grace. “Your effort would be better spent worrying about when your hired help will strike. Pirates tend to get even first. If you survive that, then they’ll get down to business.”

  He was right. Chloe had already been on the receiving end of their furious determination. If Hosea found out about NorthStar, and there was every chance he would, then it was entirely possible pirates could be stalking NorthStar right now. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t yet dawn. Fighting the pirate gang again scared the daylights out of her. They’d be angrier this time around.

  No, she’d take Lisa and Owen any day. They weren’t exactly a walk in the park, but they didn’t carry knives meant to inflict a lot of pain and suffering before death. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use Hosea to torment her step-aunt. The possibility of coming face to face with revenge-seeking pirates that one owed a large chunk of money to would unnerve any sane person.

  It certainly worried Chloe. If Owen hadn’t taken their cell phones before they’d climbed in the Charger, she would have tried to find a way to send a message to her uncle. But then again, by not calling and checking in, Uncle Jon and Ronan should be on alert. And hopefully prepping for all-out war.

  Chapter 28

  Dawn was still an hour away when they reached NorthStar. Finn made the first pass of the driveway without slowing down, traveled another half mile, and then turned around. This time he killed the lights and slowed to a crawl as he drove right past the entry again. There was nothing to see, but he didn’t think there would be. Too many trees and one long curve lay between his place and the highway.

  Finn drove a short distance and pulled into the darkened front lot of Walker’s Hardware. He put the Charger in park and relaxed back in the driver’s seat. It was for show, the impression of being under control. He was anything but. For the last two hours, he’d raked through every contingency he could imagine. He’d discarded most of them as they risked Chloe and her uncle too much. He didn’t want to take this battle to NorthStar either, but there wasn’t much choice.

  “Why are we just sitting here?” Owen leaned forward in his seat, practically snarling.

  “Because we need a plan,” Finn fired back. “Right now all we have is the four of us and one gun.” He pointed to Lisa. “Do you have more ammunition?”

  “We are not in this together,” she replied. “Don’t talk like it’s us versus them. This is my gun and my bullets. I don’t care about you.” She used the gun to point toward him, then Chloe. “And I especially don’t care about her.”

  “No offense, but I don’t like you or him either,” Finn stated, thumbing toward Owen in the back seat. “But I’ll share a secret with you. If the pirates are waiting, they are armed to the teeth and out for blood. If we have any chance of surviving, I need more than just my bare hands.”

  “We’ve got more guns,” Owen declared. “But no one is there, so how about we just shut the fuck up and get there first?”

  Owen was wrong. Finn’s crack-shot dad was there. So was their ace in the hole as long as Jonathan Banks stayed hidden. But that contingency could be compromised if Hosea had connected the dots, going from Emerald Fire to Lisa Banks to Boston Marine to the bounty hunter who broke his nose. It was possible, not probable, but stranger things had happened. Like finding out you were half of a two-century-old mystery and running into the other half while working a job.

  Finn twisted around to meet Chloe’s eyes, wanting like hell to find a safe place for her to hole up until this was over. She wouldn’t do it anyhow and, truth be told, if they had to enter the line of fire, she was the one person he knew for certain would have his back. And the woman could shoot like a pro. If she had a weapon, that was.

  “Keep your head down,” he told her. “And watch out for Hosea. If he’s there, he’s going to be carrying a grudge over being cold cocked in that alley.”

  “He’ll be carrying that knife, too.” Chloe shuddered.

  “Fuck Hosea. Get moving!” Owen shoved the driver’s seat for emphasis.

  The very second Finn had the chance, he was going to teach that little bilge rat some manners. He might have the upper hand right now, but Finn was behind the wheel. He faced forward again and smiled in anticipation. He kept Owen’s prized possession in park and revved the engine, partly to annoy its owner and partly because it really had a lot of horsepower under the hood. If circumstances were different, he’d enjoy putting the Charger through its paces. He revved it once more then slammed it into gear, peeling out of the parking lot just for the sheer hell of it.

  The sound of Owen swearing in the backseat was worth the effort. Finn piled on the aggravation and surged the gas, though mostly to feel the car jump in response.

  Reluctantly, he slowed to a crawl as he turned in. Last year he’d paved the entryway and had cursed the cost, but he was grateful now. Wheels crunching over gravel would’ve announced their arrival. So would headlights. He switched them off. In reality, it didn’t matter if anyone was watching. They could easily be seen, but he didn’t want to advertise. As quietly as a gas-guzzling
muscle car allowed, Finn coasted up alongside the office and cut the engine.

  A quick scan of the yard revealed nothing amiss. No unfamiliar vehicles lurked, and nothing was out of place or disturbed. Lights were on in the old house, which meant his dad was up. Finn couldn’t see any movement inside, but he didn’t doubt that Ronan knew they’d arrived.

  “Well?” Lisa had a grip on the door handle. “What are we waiting for?”

  Finn shrugged. Nothing as far as he could tell. He climbed out and circled the car, meeting up with Chloe.

  “It feels wrong,” Chloe whispered. “I don’t like it.”

  He didn’t either. The sky was beginning to take on that blue-black hue signaling dawn wasn’t far off. He had no workable plan and no weapon, just a burning desire to kick some ass and a hope that whatever was going on inside the house involved a solid plan.

  Owen now had a gun, too, and was busy walking around his precious Charger, looking it over in the yellow glow of the porch light for any egregious scratches or dents. Like having Finn behind the wheel somehow had turned the pristine paint job into a beater. It was clean and clear so he turned his attention from the car to the house, then the dry dock and outbuildings. He frowned. “I don’t like this place. Too many hidey-holes.”

  “Well we’re here,” Lisa said nervously, like she’d rather be just about anywhere else, but the lure of priceless royal emeralds trumped her fear of pirates. “Where’s the treasure?”

  The back screen door slammed shut, startling them. His dad rounded the corner of the house and stopped at the sight of Owen and Lisa holding them at gunpoint.

  He took in the scene and nodded at Finn. “You’re getting in the habit of bringing home strays, son.” He glanced at them all before adding, “Must say, though, these two don’t look friendly.”

  “Stuff the commentary, old man,” Owen snapped. “Get over there with them.” He waved his pistol toward Finn and Chloe.

  Ronan gave him a flat stare that clearly stated exactly what he thought of the younger man’s lack of manners, but he moved over as directed.