JAKrentz - The Pirate, The Adventurer, & The Cowboy (27 page)
"Given the way it all turned out, I'm more than willing to let bygones be bygones. What's a little matter of kidnapping and impressment among friends?" Kate's wedding ring gleamed in the reflected glow of a late afternoon sun. "I just wish you two could be as fortunate." She looked at Sarah. "Do you really think this Trace person is going to be someone special?"
"Yes." Sarah knew her sense of serene assurance was evident in her voice. "Very special."
"Don't be mislead by a few cryptic letters," Margaret advised. "The man publishes a low-budget, treasure-hunting magazine, for goodness sake. It caters to a bunch of gung-ho males of questionable intelligence who actually believe they're going to find a lost gold mine or Amelia Earhart's plane. Frankly, that puts Gideon Trace just one notch above a con artist."
"That's not true," Sarah said quietly. "He sells dreams. Just like I do."
"Never discount the value of a good dream," Kate added with a note of satisfaction as the doorbell rang. "I'll get that."
Sarah watched her friend walk across the room to open the door for her husband. No doubt about it, Jared Hawthorne was just right for Kate. Those gray eyes and that wicked grin made Hawthorne a real-life, walking, talking pirate who could have stepped straight from the pages of one of Kate's historical romance novels. What was more, he had the forceful personality a man needed to run a tropical resort or deal with a woman like Kate. Jared did both very well.
"Hi, honey," Jared bent his head to give his wife a brief, enthusiastic kiss. "All set? I told the cab to wait. We've got a plane to catch."
"I'm ready." Kate smiled at her stepson. "How was the Space Needle?"
"It was great. You could see the whole city and the mountains and everything," David Hawthorne enthused. "I told Dad we should build one on Amethyst but he said all we had to do was climb to the top of
"He's got a point."
"Yeah, but I like it here. I hope we come back to
"So do I," Sarah said from the other side of the room.
"You and Margaret will have to come on out to Amethyst one of these days," Jared said easily. "Don't worry, we've got plenty of room."
"A whole resort," David clarified. "I'll show you how to snorkel, just like I showed Kate."
"Sounds terrific," Sarah said.
"Promise me you'll both make plans to visit us soon," Kate said. "I miss you both."
Jared's brows climbed as he glanced at his wife. "I don't see why. You spend enough time on the phone talking to them."
"Got to keep in touch with the business," Kate informed him loftily.
Jared grinned at Sarah and Margaret. "As I said, come on out for a visit. The airfare's bound to be less than the phone bills the three of you are running up."
Kate wrinkled her nose. "That's not true."
"Wanna bet?" Jared moved toward the pile of luggage in the corner. "Come on, Dave, give me a hand with this stuff. You know Kate never travels light."
"Okay, Dad." David threw a quick grin at Kate as he hurried toward the luggage.
Sarah hugged Kate at the door. "Don't worry, we'll get to Amethyst, one way or the other," she promised as she blinked back a few tears.
"Thanks," Kate whispered. "And thanks again for sending me on that first trip to the island. I owe all my happiness to you and Margaret."
"Oh, Kate, I'm so happy for you." Sarah smiled mistily and stepped back as Jared and David started through the door with the luggage.
"It's been great to see you these past two weeks, Kate," Margaret added, getting to her feet to give her friend a farewell embrace. "It's good to know we'll be able to visit with you at least once a year when Jared brings his son to the States to see his grandparents."
"Don't worry, you'll see her more often than that," Jared said from the doorway. "But right now I'm taking her home to Amethyst. I've got a resort to run. Place has probably started crumbling into the sea during the two weeks I've been gone."
"It wouldn't dare." Kate slung her purse over her shoulder and followed Jared and David through the doorway. "Goodbye, you two. It's been a wonderful visit. Can't wait to see you on Amethyst. Sarah, good luck with your treasure hunting. Margaret, take care. And thanks again."
Sarah went out into the hall to wave the small family into the elevator and then she returned to her apartment. She shut the door behind her with great care and walked over to where Margaret stood at the window.
"Well, you were right when you said
"She's happy and relaxed." Sarah watched Kate, Jared and David pile into the waiting cab.
"Good for her. Now, about your plans for the immediate future…"
"What about them?"
Margaret frowned, turning away from the window. "You're really going to look him up?"
"Gideon Trace? Absolutely. I'm driving over to the coast at the end of the week to try to find him."
"You've got an address?"
"Just the post office box number on the envelopes he's sent me. The towns on the coast are all small. The one he's in is barely a dot on the map, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else. Someone will be able to tell me where the publisher of
Cache
magazine lives."
"You haven't told Trace you're coming, have you?"
"No, I plan to surprise him."
Margaret looked at her ruefully. "You're always so blissfully sure of that intuition of yours, aren't you?"
"It's only failed me once. And that was my own fault. I wasn't paying attention to the warnings it was giving me." Sarah walked toward the kitchen. "How about a glass of wine before dinner?"
"Sounds good. Well, at least Trace hasn't tried to talk you into investing a few thousand dollars in some crazy expedition to find a lost World War II plane that supposedly crashed on a Pacific island with a load of gold on board."
Sarah giggled. "You mean the way that guy Slaughter did?" Jim Slaughter, owner of a business called Slaughter Enterprises, had been one of the professional treasure hunters she had contacted five months earlier. She had found his ad along with several others in the back of a sleazy adventure magazine for men.
He had written her several letters on impressive letterhead and tried phoning a few times in an attempt to interest her in his scheme to find the plane full of gold. Sarah had politely declined several times.
"He was a slick one, wasn't he?"
"I'll say. But that's my whole point, Sarah. People involved in the business of treasure hunting are probably all borderline hustlers or outright crazies. They just want you to pour thousands into their projects to find lost gold mines or something. Then they take your money and disappear."
"Not Gideon Trace. He's different." Sarah managed to find two clean wineglasses in the cupboard. She made a mental note to run the dishwasher soon. She was almost out of clean dishes. "Trace certainly hasn't tried to convince me to invest a dime in any crazy treasure-hunting scheme. In fact, he's tried to discourage me from wasting my time going after the Flowers."
"I don't know, Sarah. I just don't like the whole idea. But it's your decision." Margaret sauntered after her, pausing to glance at the evening paper that was lying on the counter amid a motley collection of yellow pads, romance novels and pens.
Sarah felt a twinge of uneasiness. Hand on the refrigerator door, she turned her head just as Margaret flipped through the newspaper to find the business section, "Margaret, wait, I don't think you ought to read that section."
But it was too late. Margaret was already staring down at the photo of a hard-faced man in a western-style business suit. "Don't worry about it, Sarah," she said quietly. "He makes headlines in the business world. He always has. You can't expect me to stop reading the paper just because I'm occasionally going to run across an article about him." She refolded the paper and raised her head, smiling grimly. "Besides, that's all in the past."
"Yes." Sarah busied herself with a bottle of Chardonnay and sought a way to change the subject. "Want to go out for a bite to eat in the Market?" she asked as she tossed the cork in the vague direction of the trash basket. It missed. Sarah promised herself she would pick it up later.
"All right. Then I think I'd better go back to my own apartment and get some writing done. I haven't accomplished much in the two weeks Kate's been visiting us and I've got a deadline coming up next month."
"You'll make it. You always do." Sarah poured two glasses of the clean, polished Washington Chardonnay and handed one to Margaret. "Here's to Kate and her new family."
"And here's to your treasure-hunting expedition," Margaret added as the glasses clinked. She took a sip and her gaze turned serious. "Promise me you'll be careful, Sarah."
"Hey, my middle name is Careful."
"No, it's not. Your middle name is Impulsive and I'm afraid that one of these days that intuition of yours, which you trust entirely too much, is going to land you in a heap of trouble."
"I'm thirty-two years old, Margaret. Trouble is starting to look promising. Now, no more lectures. Let's get down to serious business. What do we want for dinner and where do we want to go to eat it? I vote for pasta."
"You always vote for pasta."
T
WO HOURS LATER
, pleasantly stuffed with hazelnut tortellini, Sarah turned the key in the lock of her front door. She wandered through the cheerful, vividly decorated one-bedroom apartment, turning on lights as she went.
When she reached the desk where her computer sat like some ancient monolith rising from a sea of notes, magazines, empty tea mugs and research materials, she stopped.
It only took her a minute to find the stack of Gideon Trace's letters. Margaret was right, Sarah thought with a small smile as she reread one of them. Gideon's notes did tend to be a bit cryptic. An uncharitable observer might even call them somewhat dry. There was certainly very little hint of the fascinating man she just knew he had to be.
Dear Ms. Fleetwood:
In regard to your most recent inquiry concerning the legend of the Fleetwood Flowers, I'm afraid I have very little to tell you that you don't already know. The tale dates from the late eighteen hundreds and is not unlike many other stories of lost treasure. Such stories tend to become greatly exaggerated over the years.
The Flowers were supposedly five pairs of earrings fashioned from gemstones. According to the legend, Emelina Fleetwood, a spinster schoolteacher, spent a summer searching for gold in the
At any rate, she is said to have discovered a small vein, worked it all summer and then went back to teaching the following year. She never told anyone where her strike was or if she'd gotten anything out of it. But the legend claims she had the earrings, which she always referred to as her Flowers, made up by a
Before she died, Emelina Fleetwood is said to have buried her earrings somewhere on her property and drawn a map showing the location. If there ever was a map, it has long since disappeared.
I'm surprised you are familiar with the legend. It is an extremely obscure one. My professional opinion is that there is not much merit to the tale. Any search for the Flowers would probably be a waste of time.
If I can be of any further help, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for your check. I have renewed your subscription to
Cache
for another year.
Yours,
G. Trace
P.S. Thank you for the recipe for pesto sauce.
"Well, Mr. G. Trace," Sarah said as she put the letter back down on the desk, "I appreciate your professional opinion but I'm not going to abide by it. I'm going to find the Flowers and what's more, you're going to help me."
I
T WAS THE BIGGEST
, ugliest cat Sarah had ever seen. A true monster of a cat, twenty or twenty-five pounds at least and none of it fat.
Its fur was a mottled, blotchy color somewhere between orange and brown with here-and-there patches of black and tan for added color interest. It had one torn ear and a few old scars, but otherwise looked to be in excellent physical condition. Sarah decided this particular cat probably won most of the fights it chose to start. She doubted it had ever purred in its life.
"Excuse me," Sarah said to the cat, which was sprawled across the top step, effectively blocking the entrance to the porch. "Would you mind if I knocked?"