How long would it have taken him to hone in on Lizzie Dare if he hadn’t caught her in the lab? Not long, because he’d have honed right in on her anyway as soon as he met her. She might not have the lingerie model’s body that Alita Holloway had, but there was something much more attractive to him about Lizzie.
He glanced over to watch her glide through the water, her concentration unaffected by a school of bluefish that swam between her and her magnetometer, her attention focused so intensely it was like watching a machine work the hunt.
The soft beep of her detector sounded, and she reacted. Instantly, he swam over, reaching her in two long kicks, setting his device down to move the dirt by hand.
She worked the detector like it was an extension of her body, following the speed of the beeps, faster, louder … closer.
He brushed a chunk of coral out of his way, and as it rolled, the underside glowed bright gold, like it had just been polished and put under a light.
Their hands smashed together as they lunged for it, but he was faster, closing his fingers over the metal and gently nudging it free. He heard her loud and furious grunt of frustration.
Con held it out for her to see, carefully brushing some loose bits of sand to reveal the shape as he turned it in the water.
Frustration gone for a moment, Lizzie just floated closer, drawn to the two-inch round brooch or medallion, a purplish crust around at least a half-dozen gemstones and something that ran straight down the center.
She reached out to loosen more coral, her fingers reverent and her movement slow. Through the water, he heard her low moan of reaction. Surprise and disbelief widened her eyes. Recognition.
She knew this piece.
Con closed his other hand around his hose, but Lizzie reached out, stabbing her fingers through the water to stop him from signaling, her eyes flashing at him.
She held up her hand as if to say, Wait.
Why wait to tell the ship they’d made an amazing recovery?
She put her hands together as though to plead with him, her eyes soft and begging. Then she reached for it, tentatively, holding up one finger as if to ask for just one minute with it.
As her fingers moved toward the treasure, her eyes met his with nothing but desire, and he couldn’t deny her the moment. Obviously she couldn’t steal it right in front of him. And he couldn’t care less about having the “first hands” touch the treasure and getting credit for the find.
He let her take it, rewarded by a smile in her golden brown eyes.
She brushed the coral-encrusted piece with a gentle finger, holding it toward the sunlight that streamed through the water, examining it carefully. She turned it over, ran her fingers along the sides, counted the jewels, including the dent where one had been lost.
Her fingers trembled with awe, and her shoulders rose and fell as her breaths were obviously tight and quick.
Still holding it, she pointed at the spot where he’d found it, as if to say they should look for more.
No way. Part of his job was to protect the treasure, and this piece was a major find. With an easy snatch, Con took the medallion from her, getting a fiery look through her mask.
He tugged four times on his hose.
She twirled away and kicked hard, straight up. He unzipped the pouch on his weight belt, slid the medallion in, then bent over to pick up his detector.
She was already being pulled onto the dive platform by Kenny and Dave, and a group was gathering on the main deck, the excitement and noise palpable the minute Con popped through the surface.
“What did you get?” Alita called out.
“Hand over the goods,” Charlotte said as she climbed down to the platform, a cloth spread out like a baby’s receiving blanket.
“Gold or jewels?” Dave demanded, his voice rising with excitement.
Con hoisted himself to the platform and looked at Lizzie, who was shaking out her wet hair after pulling off her mask.
“What?” she said, a little hostility in her voice. “Just show them.”
As he unhooked his air hose and flipped up the mask, Flynn Paxton came across the deck, the first time he’d made an appearance since Con had arrived. He had the same sun-bleached hair the divemaster sported, but his looked more salon-styled than surfer dude.
“What do we have?” He lifted sunglasses as he strode to the dive platform.
Alita put her hands on her hips and gave Con a glamour-shot smile. “We have beginner’s luck, that’s what.”
“No beginner’s luck,” he said quietly, unzipping the pouch and kneeling down next to where Lizzie sat. “I just brought it up. Lizzie found it.”
He felt her bristle, but she didn’t say a word. He reached in, slid the piece out, then looked at her.
“Lizzie had first hands,” he said.
Her expression softened momentarily.
Paxton clunked clumsily onto the platform. “Nice work, Lizzie.” He seized it out of Con’s hands and waved the medallion. “You brought us good luck, Con! Welcome aboard.”
“Hey!” Lizzie choked, grabbing Paxton’s arm. “Be careful. It’s a hundred and fifty years old!”
“We don’t know that yet, Lizzie,” he said.
But Lizzie did, Con thought. She knew exactly what the piece was.
Con stood and turned to where Charlotte held out the cloth. “Let’s handle it with the appropriate care, Mr. Paxton.”
Ignoring the chastisement, Paxton put the piece in the cloth, bending close to it. “What is it?”
“A religious artifact,” Con said. “Hard to tell until that crust is gone, but it looks quite distinctive.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Kenny said, joining them with a brand-new hat, still folded from being in a box. “But I recognize greatness when I see it. That right there could pay for this whole excursion. Here you go, Ms. Dare.” He handed her the cap with a flourish. “You are officially a Gold Digger.”
For a moment, she just stared at the cap, then looked at Con.
He nodded. “Take it. You earned it.”
She did, reluctantly. “It was kind of a tie,” she said softly, still looking at him.
Paxton nodded to Charlotte. “Start the cleaning and conservation process,” he ordered. “I want to get it off the boat.”
“There’s a lot of chloride on this,” Charlotte said quickly. “I need twenty-four hours, then you can take it.”
“Fine.” Paxton glanced around as though sizing them up, and landed on Con. “You sleep in the lab tonight—we’ll get a cot. I’m not taking any chances until we get this thing off board.”
Kenny shot Paxton a disgusted look. “No one’s going to take it.”
“I’m not worried about the crew,” Paxton said. “But after what happened on my dad’s boats last summer, we’re not taking any chances. Putting a person on guard is just added security.”
Everyone on deck looked like they thought it was added bullshit, except Lizzie, who was staring at the piece as though she could memorize it, as though she would never see it again.
“And Lizzie,” Paxton added, “we need to make an excursion to the mainland with Brady to get some supplies. I want you to come with me.” Then he pointed to Con. “You don’t leave that piece, and you have my permission to kill anyone who tries to touch it.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
POWER. SOLANGE BETTENCOURT could swear she could feel the power of the scepter every time she picked it up, every time she stroked the plum-sized blue diamond that formed the handle. Maybe it was magical. Maybe it was imagined. Maybe it was just the fact that this stunning work of art was originally designed to be held by a king or queen, and used to force others to bend to their will.
Or maybe it wasn’t power that Solange could feel, as she sat inside a three-hundred-year-old pile of stone cradling the scepter. Maybe it was just irony.
And irony made her laugh, something she’d stopped doing until she found this. Irony was a wonderful thing.
&nbs
p; Especially the irony that Jaeger Bettencourt IV had shamed her, accused her of unspeakable things, then exiled her to a rock in the middle of the ocean … and that she had been stumbling up a hundred stairs on her way to throw her miserable body over a cliff and prove him right when she fell—literally, fell—on a loose stone and uncovered the very thing Jaeger wanted most in the whole world.
That’s when the balance of power had shifted from Jaeger to her.
She had the greatest treasure ever lost, then found. Well, half of it. And if all went according to plan, she’d beat him to the other half.
A shiver skimmed up her arms when she thought about it.
Fortune had finally, finally smiled on her. And spat on the demon who made her an outcast. And all the despicable liars who called themselves friends as they whispered about her at fund-raisers and balls.
Solange is crazy.
Solange is suicidal.
Solange is taking a mental health break at one of the Bettencourts’ vacation homes in the Azores.
As if this three-hundred-year-old dump and dingy old windmill would be a Bettencourt vacation home. He’d stuffed her away, made her take drugs she didn’t want, planted a simpering fool of a nurse next to her, and stolen her life.
And inadvertently given her the treasure he wanted more than anything. She laughed out loud. Irony was pure fun.
The sound of her laughter bounced off the round stone walls, almost as loud as the never-ending groaning of the wheel and the cogs and the never-ending sweeps that blew the never-ending wind.
It had all seemed so never-ending … until she found this.
She tried to hold the scepter aloft, the way a queen might, but it was too heavy for her slender arm to manage. With two hands, she returned it to the white velvet bed she’d made for it, her attention shifting to the parchment papers spread over the rough-hewn wooden table. The words, despite the flourish of hundred-and-fifty-year-old script and a language barrier, were burned into Solange’s brain now.
She’d even gone to that pathetic little library in town, found a Portuguese-English dictionary, and translated almost all the pages. Then committed them to memory.
She rubbed her arms against the coolness from the stone walls that surrounded her. Standing, she walked to the single door, the only opening in the whole windmill structure, looking out at the dark waters, blackness as far as she could see.
Was this the way it looked when Aramis Dare stole away in the night like the pirate he was, taking half of what he’d been paid to leave? Taking what belonged to the Bettencourt family, what now belonged to her?
She returned to the table, where the satellite phone sat silent. Ring, damn it. Tell me what I want to—
The soft beep of the phone thrilled her.
Oh, yes … she had power. And, God in heaven, she was going to use it to bring her husband the deepest form of misery he could imagine. As deep and miserable as the pit in her heart.
She answered, making sure she sounded commanding, and not breathless. Not crazy. This man was one of the only people who knew the truth about Solange. That she wasn’t crazy, merely devious.
“I think we’ve got something.”
His words tightened her insides. “Did you find—”
“No,” he interjected. “But we found some proof that we’re in the right spot. We’re very close. The map you have is correct.”
Of course it was. She’d copied it long ago from Jaeger’s files—the minute she suspected that he was cooking up his plan to get rid of her. “What did you find?”
“There’s a large jeweled pendant in the drawings. Are you familiar with it?”
“I’m not paying you to find a necklace,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I know, Mrs. Bettencourt, but this is an important find. It tells us we’re in the right place. Or at least, we have the right wreck. I need you to confirm some details.”
“I have the papers here. I was just studying them.”
“You shouldn’t be touching them,” he warned her. “Do you know how delicate they are? They could disintegrate in your hands. Be extremely careful. No oils should touch them. Keep them stored in the stone hold where you found them.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed the urge to snap at him. They’d survived a century and a half under a stone stair in a windmill. A few hours in her hands wouldn’t wreck them. But she needed this man too much to lash out.
“Describe the pendant,” she said, carefully sliding out the parchment pages with the drawings.
“Look for something oval shaped, trimmed with jewels, with a crucifix on one side and the mother of God on the other.”
Mother of God was right. Her heart kicked a little as her eyes landed right on the image. They’d found it.
“The Our Lady of Sorrows pendant,” she read the centuries-old script. “Seven jewels. Lots of curlicues and filigree. Is that it?”
“It could be,” he replied. “Describe the shapes of the jewels.”
“The top three are oval, the two on the sides are square, well….” She squinted at the faded drawing. “You could call them rectangular. The two on the bottom are round.”
“That’s it. We’ve got it. We’ve got it in our hands, Mrs. Bettencourt.”
She was one step closer to seeing Jaeger weep with regret. “What kind of jewels are they?” she asked, more out of curiosity than anything. This piece wasn’t important to her. She might use it to pay him off if—no, when—they found what she really wanted.
“One is missing, but the rest are diamonds on the side, and rubies. Decent size, and it’s not sand-worn at all. The fact that this ship went down ten miles offshore is really in our favor,” he said. “Much less damage from the coral reefs, and the stuff is buried so deep it should all be here—not picked over and not spread around. Now that we’ve found one piece, we’ll start to bring up bounty every day.”
Another thrill shot through her. They were getting closer. “Then dive and dig and call me every single time something is found.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“And when you get the scepter, you know what to do.”
“I do. I won’t let you down.”
“What about the crew and the other divers?” she asked. “Is everyone following orders?”
“Everyone is doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.”
She was dubious. People never did exactly what they were supposed to do. Wasn’t she proof of that? Wasn’t her famous and mighty fall from the pinnacle of society to a damn cow farm in the Azores proof of that?
“Remember, you are my eyes and ears,” she reminded him. “That’s what I’m paying you a lot of money to be. Someone could get very anxious to leak this activity now. If anyone—I mean anyone—leaks one word or shows any indication that they know or could beat us to it, then—”
“I’ve handled that in the past.”
“Yes, you have. And what about Malcolm Dare’s daughter?”
“She’s right here, Mrs. Bettencourt. Ignorant and under constant watch.”
“She’d better be ignorant.” Of course, if Malcolm Dare had shared what he knew, his daughter would never have stayed quiet. Getting Lizzie on that boat was more proof of Solange’s power and luck.
“I’ll call you as soon as we make another recovery. In the meantime, this one will be hand delivered to safety and security on dry land.”
“See to it that it is.” She signed off and dropped the phone on the table, her gaze on the drawing of the pendant. A lovely piece. Very valuable. But not even close to what she wanted, and planned to have.
She lifted the scepter again. One without the other was like … well, a queen without her king. And Solange Bettencourt was willing to do just about anything to be queen again. And crush her king.
She gathered up the papers, heeding his warning to handle them with care, then put them in the metal box she kept them in. She took them first, glancing at the velvet-covered scepter. Should she try to carry b
oth? No, it wasn’t safe. Ana was in the kitchen and wouldn’t renege on their agreement.
Ana gave her an hour alone each evening in the windmill, where Solange claimed to be “meditating” while Ana cleaned up after dinner, probably happy for the little reprieve from her charge.
Box in hand, Solange entered the darkened stairwell that encircled the inside of the windmill. Carefully, she climbed up, counting the stairs as they wended around the structure. The walls were rough, and the smell of the sea and old grain permeated everything.
When she reached the ninety-seventh step, the gears just a few feet away at the top were almost deafening. She bent over and lifted the stone on top.
Was it power or luck that made her trip over this stone the night she’d come up here to kill herself—her third failed attempt? How close she’d come to ending what was going to be a glorious existence.
She’d secretly stopped taking the meds, and of course the blackness in her heart had taken over her body like a cancer. It was going to be so easy … just throw herself from the windmill over a cliff hundreds of feet above the rocks of the Atlantic Ocean.
Proving every lie Jaeger had spread to be the truth.
Then she’d tripped. And there, like a miracle, lay the scepter. And then she’d checked every other step for secret hiding places and found the paperwork.
She gently laid the box in the hole.
“Senhora Bettencourt? Are you here, ma’am?”
Ana.
Her first thought was the scepter, out in the open on the small worktable. Oh, Lord, what if she found it?
Solange stayed very still, listening for movement. How could she explain it? A gift from her husband? Ana would know if something had been delivered. She remained still, flattened to the wall. Listening for the sound of Ana leaving.
But if she left and took the scepter! No, that just couldn’t happen.
“Senhora Bettencourt?” The voice was closer, the Portuguese-accented English echoing over the stone as the young woman rounded the stairwell. “Are you fine, ma’am?”