let’s see what I can tell you. It seems that Sandy and Brad—or whatever their real names are—have been stealing yachts and murdering people. They probably changed their appearances and came here to scout for their next victim. They somehow decided that I had them pegged, probably when they saw me here with you, so they attacked me. They’re out there somewhere, but Keith Henson—if that’s his real name—has decided to go back…somewhere. I hope to find them.”
“There’s already an APB out across the country for them,” Ashley said.
“Well, they were here. Right here, on land,” Beth said. “And there was a skull on the island. Keith was in the clearing right after I discovered it. Did he take it? Did he bring it in somewhere? Did it belong to one of the Monocos?”
Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Beth shook her head in disgust. “Great detective I would have made. I figured Eduardo Shea must have had something to do with it…someone who was profiting off the dance studios. Or Amanda. I probably just wanted her to be guilty of something.”
She fell silent.
Had Keith Henson been questioning Amanda? Had she misread that whole thing?
Jake reappeared. “Amber will be fine,” he assured Beth.
“Jake, I don’t care what it costs. I’ll pay it. You called people you really trust, right?”
“Beth, I called people I’d trust with my own life, Ashley’s life—my children’s lives,” he assured her. “And they’re friends, doing me favors. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Yes, I do,” she said firmly. “But the point is, until…Brad and Sandy are brought in, Amber has to be kept safe.”
She felt deflated suddenly. She’d been so angry, so frightened. And now she felt as if she were a balloon that had been suddenly popped.
“Beth, are you all right?” Ashley asked. “You look pale.”
Beth lifted her hands in a shrug. “At least he isn’t a criminal.”
“Keith? No, he isn’t a criminal,” Ashley said.
“Beth, the FBI, the local police, the Coast Guard—everyone is looking for Sandy and Brad. They will be caught,” Jake told her.
She forced a smile and nodded.
Sure.
But when?
That was the question of the hour.
WHEN JAKE AND ASHLEY HAD gone to bed, Beth found that she was still too restless herself to sleep. She went online and looked up the island. To her surprise, there was a great deal written about Calliope Key. Apparently almost everyone since Columbus had put ashore there. Ponce de León had stopped by. The Spanish had claimed it, then the English. Despite its proximity to the Bahamas, it had remained part of Florida after trades between the Spanish and English, the Spanish and the Americans, and the English and the Americans.
When the Spanish had held the island, they had often lain in wait to surprise English ships and lured them onto the reefs. Apparently the welcoming sight of the island, and the sound of the wind on the water and through the trees had beckoned them onward, and thus the name, Calliope Key. Sadly, the islet had been like a siren, enticing men to their deaths.
There had been too many wrecks to count, but as she read, Beth came across one very specific incident. A battle between an English ship and a Spanish ship, the Sea Star and La Doña. Captain Pierce had battled Captain Alonzo Jimenez. All had been lost, including the innocent travelers aboard, seeking to reach Spanish ports in Central and South America.
Beth stared blankly at the screen.
The ghost story, the tale that Keith had told that very first night around their campfire, had been true, or at least based on truth.
She was suddenly certain that meant something.
That it just might be at the base of everything else.
But what did it mean? Treasure seekers were always combing the coast of Florida. There were so many known wrecks that had yet to be found. The legend of the Bermuda Triangle had sprung up because so many had been lost and no trace ever found.
She hesitated, then began combing the article again. Both ships had been lost with treasure aboard, as had so many ships before their sad encounter. But these treasures had been worth millions, even at the time. Heaven only knew what they would be worth now.
Enough to kill and die for, certainly.
THEY WERE STILL ANCHORED in the bay.
Matt was pacing the cabin. “All right. Sandy and Brad are guilty. They’ve been stealing yachts. They have a base somewhere, and they’ve managed to get the boats to this base, where they’re being done over. Every law-enforcement agency out there is onto them. So…what is the difficulty now? Why don’t we just come out with the big guns—major league underwater equipment?”
“We’ve got to be back out there in the morning, and we have to find it,” Lee insisted. “It’s ridiculous that we haven’t been able to.”
“Maybe our coordinates are wrong,” Matt said.
“I don’t believe that,” Keith said firmly. He was the one who had studied the accounts of the wreck, taking into consideration every storm that had ravaged the area since. He had also been the one to study and calculate what had possibly occurred after they had received the new records, only recently turned over to the United States by the German government. He had figured in time and tides.
Keith stopped pacing. “Why do you think they didn’t try to steal this boat?” he mused.
“Huge boat, three men. Witnesses,” Lee suggested.
“Just two of them,” Keith mused. “Tough guys when they’re armed, against a retired couple, one friendly diver…”
“But they hung around out there,” Matt said.
“Maybe they were looking for the right opportunity,” Lee said. “Hoping we’d eventually show some vulnerability.”
“They won’t dare show up out here again,” Matt said. “They must know the law is onto them.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Keith put in.
“I just don’t get it. Why are we still tiptoeing around?” Matt said.
Keith rose. “Because we work for a company with a government contract and this is what we were hired to do. Not to mention that we’ve got another dead diver on our hands.”
“Who might never have been anywhere near Calliope Key,” Matt reminded him. “Plenty of assholes put on dive gear.”
“This man was experienced,” Keith pointed out.
“And didn’t own a yacht,” Matt added.
“Accidents happen,” Lee murmured.
Keith kept silent on that score. He had seen the body.
There had been no accident.
ON SUNDAY MORNING, the newspaper carried an account of a diver found dead in the Keys.
Beth found herself obsessing over the article, reading it over and over again. When Ashley awoke, she stuck it beneath her nose.
Ashley shook her head. “Beth, everything in the world isn’t related to a missing couple and pirated boats. Those two couldn’t have been everywhere.”
“It was idiotic of them to have been in Miami,” Beth said.
“Not really. Think about it. The area is huge, boats everywhere. Hide in plain sight.” She looked at Beth. “He didn’t have the kind of