Severed Threads (26 page)

“A deal is deal, darlin’. But I’m sure hopin’ yer the generous sort.” He cast a dark look in Chase’s direction – a silent warning to back off. “With yer help, we jest might warm up this motley crew,” he told her. “By all accounts, they could damn well use it.”

Chase turned back toward the open sea. Years earlier, after a heated exchange with Rachel, he’d stood on this very spot with a half-empty bottle of scotch, wallowing in his self pity. Sam had wandered outside to join him with the pretense of taking in the view. When the sun finally touched down, setting the horizon ablaze, he tossed his cigar aside and stole Chase’s bottle. He gulped down the last swallow before reaching into his pocket and handing Chase a folded paper. “My wife copied that out of a book,” he explained. “She left it on my nightstand the day she moved out. Been keeping it in my wallet, hoping to pass it on to the right person one day.” He slapped him light-heartedly on the back and disappeared inside the ship.

Chase was left standing there, alone and confused. Just like now. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He extracted the same folded page – the same treasured quote he’d read numerous times over the past four years.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. - Corinthians

Wise author.
Chase glanced at the glowing cabin where his crew had gathered. Rachel stood among them, laughing and filling their shot glasses with her well-earned reward. He longed to be the man in her life – her loving, devoted hero. To be the leader among men Sam had always been.

“Treat them like thoroughbreds,” Sam once told him. “Jab ‘em if necessary, but always keep a carrot in your pocket.”

Chase chuckled at the memory – a classic Sam colloquialism. A self-serving anecdote that could bring a blush to his daughter’s face and a snappy retort from her beautiful lips. How he wished Sam were here now. Standing beside him, handing out his fatherly advice. Keeping him and his crew in line and their ambitions fixed on Neptune’s prize.

Ian cracked the cabin door, releasing the noise in the room. “Aye, mate… you plannin’ on joining us anytime soon?”

Twenty

Boom!
In the distance, thunder clapped and the heavens lit up. A cloudburst erupted sending rains slamming into
Stargazer
. The ship rocked to and fro with the swells of the sea. Aside from Mika, who had the good sense to go to bed early, the crew was fully secured in the galley where beer and scotch had been flowing for hours. The storm’s intensity unnerved Rachel, but it did little in detouring A.J. from his fixation on maritime history. He managed to circumvent every conversation that circled the dinner table and turn it into another sunken treasure story. She’d had her fill of both for the night, but being jammed between Ian and Wade in the white leather booth left no avenue for escape.

"Yesterday, while reviewing
Wanli’s
manifest records
,”
A.J. was saying. “I came across this article about the
Soleil D'Orient
which belonged to the French East India Company. In 1681, it set sail with three ambassadors and twenty valets who were assigned to look after sixty crates of presents from the King of Siam that were for French royalty and the Pope, and among these tokens were hundreds of diamonds from the King of Bantam. Most accounts say she hit land and broke up near the southeast tip of Madagascar, so the wreckage may be in shallow water. The first to find her could end up with a 1,000-piece gold dinner set from the Emperor of Japan and a shit-load of silver."

Rachel glanced at Chase, seated across the table from her. His cool blue eyes remained faintly amused. As if prompted by her chafed look, he lifted his drink in salute. "Sounds like a job for our fair maiden."

Get a life.
She was blanketed in warm fuzziness – the result of three shots of Hennigans scotch, the finder’s reward she would have gladly forfeited.

Wade tapped her arm. "I understand you know a lot about the Mai Le treasure. I’d like to hear about that."

Chase peered at him over the rim of his glass. "What are you talking about, Hawkins? We combed every inch of that ship. Get it in your head, it doesn’t exist.”

“But Captain, Doc was right about the
Wanli.
Maybe we’re not looking in the right place.”

“We need to focus on bringing up what we’ve already found."

Rachel glared at Blaine, curled up like an innocent kitten on the floor – his soft snores the only indication he was breathing. She was still angry with him after he’d broken her trust by spreading rumors over the letter from the professor’s file she’d been foolish enough to share. If she wasn’t careful, Chase could change his mind and issue a bounty on finding the heart of the dragon next.

Ian snickered. "Hey, I’ve got one for ya. An old salt was sittin’ at a pub when a young lady sits down and announces to one and all, ‘I’m a lesbian. I don’t care a bit for men. I love women! I love everything about the female body – lips, tits, and ass. I jest can’t get enough of ‘im.’ She tosses back her whiskey and leaves. Ten minutes later, a tourist couple enters the fine establishment and sits down next to him. ‘We’re jest wondering,’ they say, ‘are ya a real ol’ time sailor?’ The old salt tosses back another one, stands and replies, ‘I thought I was but I jest found out I’m a lesbian.’

The room roared with drunken laughter, the loudest coming from Ian. When it quieted down, Wade reclaimed the floor. "It’s Rachel’s turn,” he insisted. “She’s the ship’s official historian. Come on, Rachel. Tell us what you know about Mai Le.”

"I know something better," A.J. claimed. He started to spill his third story of the night as fast as he could get the words out. "Three hundred years ago, there was this British seven-mast schooner equipped with – ”

“Yes, Rachel," Chase interrupted. "We’re up for a nice bedtime story. Huh, guys?”

While the men around her elbowed one another, Chase reached across the table to collect her glass. He filled it a fourth time and set it before her.

She shook her head in protest. “I don’t want any more.”

A mischievous smile spread across his lips. “Oh, really? Guess I didn’t hear you right then. You know…when you told Ian you wanted to be treated like one of the guys.”

His challenge left her biting her lip. The man was a rounder – willing her to knuckle under. Daring her to embarrass herself in front of his men. But she was Sam Lyon’s daughter. Stubborn to the end. She wasn’t about to back down. Not when her endurance was being put to the test.

She looked down at the fried chicken and hash browns still sitting on her plate, basking in their own grease. A lard coagulating heart attack in the making. “All right,” she finally said. “But this is the last one.
Understand
?” She lifted the amber threat and hesitated before tossing it back. She choked, coughed and teared up as it blazed a fresh path down her throat, igniting full force in her chest.

Shouts and guffaws erupted in the room.

“
And ya thought she didn’t have it in her,” Ian directed at Chase. They shared a mutual smile, confirming her suspicion of a maligning plot.

“
Now what about that story?” Wade asked.

“
Yeah, lass,” Ian prompted. “If yer still able, that is.”

Chase winked before empting his glass.

Would this never end?
A roomful of eyes was now fixed on her, waiting for her to deliver an incredible yarn – to best the dozen or more she’d heard over the past few nights. With the challenge made, she had no choice but to deliver. Especially if she hoped to maintain every ounce of respectability she’d earned from her fellow crew members. She leaned back against the cushion and stared in a daze at the oil lamp’s orange glowing flame. Flickering and dancing…tempting and taunting. Urging her to divulge the secret tale.

“
Mai-Le was one of many wives and concubines in Emperor Wanli’s court,” she began. “Although appreciated for her beauty, intelligence and grace, she was treated like a swan in a pond, untouched and isolated from the world. She thought of herself often as a tiny, insignificant gnat in the Qinghui Garden – a place where the mere glance from a handsome Portuguese sea captain had set the stage for her ruin.”

Wade braced his head on his elbow and gazed expectantly at her. “
This
should be good.”

“
With each of his biannual visits, passing smiles, hidden touches and secret meetings, her devotion shifted away from the Emperor to Captain Vito Brunelli. And for these treasonous acts, for her veiled betrayal, the gods had bound her soul in despair. In the wake of the foreigner’s final departure, she endured months of melancholy. Her silence and loss of appetite resulted in an order for her chamber confinement. For days on end, the disapproving murmurs of fellow concubines permeated the suffocating prison of her room and spiraled into the hollow shells of her ears. She pounded on carved elm doors and clawed at decorative scrolls and silk-covered walls, fruitlessly demanding her release.

Early one morning, a eunuch’s whisper carried news that due to consumption her dear captain would never return. The Imperial doctors, with their herbal potions and bloodletting, could find no cure for the young woman’s anguish that plagued her broken heart. However, in her delirium, her love for Brunelli was revealed to her handmaid. Realizing, come morning, the cause of her despair would be known, Mai-Le circumvented death at the hands of the Emperor’s executioners by taking fate into her own hands.

Dressed as a eunuch – in a young boy’s attire, she made her way through the mountains to a sheltered bay. Glowing lanterns from distance fishing boats glistened on the water’s surface, as she stepped into the waves. They wrapped higher and higher around her legs and the peaks of her breasts before slamming into the shore.”

Chase retrieved his cigar from the ashtray. “Nice imagery.”

“
Shhh!” Ian hissed.

Rachel remained undaunted. “Mai Le wasn’t chilled by the autumn breeze or the Yellow Sea’s frigid temperature. Instead, she felt the warmth of the ocean’s tempting pull…cradling and rocking her. Moving like silk across her skin. When her footing eventually fell away, she relaxed and laid her head back, allowing her long black mane to sway like a painter’s brush in the current. As she gazed into the heavens, every twinkling star was a painful reminder of the price she’d paid for the captain’s love and her insurmountable freedom. But he would never return and the fact that she’d been a trusting fool was painfully clear.”

Chase looked away. His reaction to her thoughtless jib gave Rachel pause.

“
Go on,” Wade encouraged. “What happened next?”

She forged a smile before continuing. “Mai Le’s only means of escape and redemption rested in the ocean’s depth. As her tears mingled with trailing salt water, the last of her anger drained away. No longer would she damn the priest who had brought the outside world into the Forbidden City or the captain she’d so willingly given her heart to. She would forgive them both – forgive their lack of compassion and life’s cruel reward. ‘I will love you for all eternity,’ she whispered into the night. Then with a final exhaled breath, she sank into her watery grave.”

The room was still for along moment. Then Ian finally broke the silence. “Ah…what a forlorn tale it tis.”

A.J. humphed. “You didn’t say anything about her treasure. How do we know what we’re looking for?”

Rachel looked at Chase. “Like the captain said, it’s only a fairy tale.”

With his golden tan, five o’clock shadow and cigar in place, his handsome profile resembled Leonardo DiCaprio. A twisted thought when she remembered the actor starred in
Titanic
.

“
She wins it,” Ian announced.

Rachel was puzzled. “Wins what?”

Chase faced her. “Prize for best story, of course.”