A Whisper of Danger (8 page)

Jess crossed her arms and stared into the treasure hunter’s eyes. “You don’t know McTaggart as well as you think. And you don’t know me at all. I guarantee I’ll get him off my back, and when he’s gone, you’ll have no choice but to leave me in peace too.”

Anger, fear, and bitterness curled into a hard ball inside her stomach as she turned from Wallace and started toward the steps. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. She didn’t know why she’d bothered to pray the night before. It hadn’t done a bit of good. It never did. Look at this mess! Rick was back in her life. This stupid wreck was causing trouble. Things couldn’t be worse.

At that moment Splinter bounded down from the bottom step on the cliff wall and jumped barefoot onto the white sand. Spotting his mother, he threw up his arms and danced around in crazy circles.

“Our beach!” he shouted. “Mom, this whole place is ours! It’s great! It’s the best!”

He raced across the sand, slammed into her with a bear hug that almost knocked her down, and turned her around and around. Unable to resist his joy, she wrapped both arms around her son and allowed him to dance them toward the water.

“I love this place!” he said. “I love Zanzibar. You’re the best mom in the world! I’m going in, okay? Okay?”

“Sure,” she said with a laugh. “Go on. Mr. Wallace says it’s safe. Just stay where I can see you.”

“Come on, Hunky!” Splinter shouted over her shoulder. “Come on in. I’ll show you how long I can stay under. I won first place at the swim meet last year!”

Before she could catch her son and tell him she didn’t want him anywhere near the treasure hunter, Splint grabbed the man’s hand and began tugging him toward the ocean. Chuckling, Hunky Wallace tore off his white hat, tossed it onto the beach, and splashed into the tide behind Splinter.

“Looks like he’s found a friend.”

She would have known Rick’s voice anywhere. Jess swung around to find him standing on the sand two paces away. Her joy evaporated.

“I have just one thing to say to you,” she said, unable to make herself meet his gaze. “Get off my land. Stay away from my son. And take your treasure-hunter friend with you.”

“That’s three things.”

She looked at him for the first time since the afternoon before. Her breath caught in her throat. He was the same. The same man she had loved with such reckless desperation. The same deep-set blue eyes. The same brown hair. Same straight nose, same square jaw, same mouth that was reluctant to smile but always on the verge of humor.

And yet, he looked different, too. Ten years in the sun and wind had etched fine creases at the corners of his eyes and painted his skin a deep golden brown. Was he taller? Or had his shoulders just broadened and his waist narrowed? The flaxen down on his jaw had been replaced by the shadow of dark whiskers. Hair sprouted from the V-neck of his white safari shirt. “That’s
one
thing,” she said before his physical presence overwhelmed her. “Get out.”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. His eyes locked on hers, even and unwavering. She could feel her pulse slow, and she knew her blood was sinking to her knees. She couldn’t suck in enough air to fill her lungs.

“What are you staring at?” she managed. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I hadn’t forgotten how beautiful you are.”

“I told you to leave.”

“I thought I’d forgotten. I was sure I’d buried your memory. I was wrong.”

“I mean it. I didn’t come all the way back to Africa for this.”

“I’d given up hope of finding you again.” He took a step toward her. “Jessie.”

“I am not about to let you—”

“Jessie, I need to—”

“Don’t come another inch!”

“—talk to you. I want to—”

“Stay back!”

“Jessie.” He touched her arm.

She let out a muffled cry and jerked back. “Don’t! Don’t call me that.”

“Jessie.”

“No!” She fought the tears that hung in the corners of her eyes. “Get out of here. Get out of my life, Rick. I don’t want you. I can’t—”

“Jessie, I have to talk to you. I have to tell you how I feel about what happened between us.”

“Nothing happened. Okay? Nothing.” She drank in a trembling breath. “Look, this whole thing is a nightmare. You’re a ghost out of the past, and I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“I’m no ghost. I’ve been looking for you for years, Jessie.”

“You’re a liar. A sick, drunken, lazy, hopeless liar.”

“I was.”

“You sure were. You’re the biggest mistake I ever made. Okay, I’ve looked you in the face. I’ve met my demon. Now what will it take to get rid of you again?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and studied the sand for a moment. “It’ll take about half an hour.”

“What?” She shook her head. “You just walk up those steps and get in your car and head back to whatever hole you crawled out of. That ought to take about five minutes.”

“I need half an hour. That’s all.” He met her gaze. “Give me thirty minutes to talk. You listen. Then I’ll go.”

“Thirty minutes of your lies? What’s the point?” Anger welled up inside her. She relished it. The heat of her rage gave her power. “I don’t have another second for you, Rick McTaggart. I’m going up to my house, and I’m calling the police. If you’re not gone by the time they get here, they’ll arrest you for trespassing and throw you into the Zanzibar jail.”

She whirled away from him and ran toward the steps. She was halfway up when she realized she didn’t have a telephone.

Splinter waded through the foamy tide. The sand felt spongy beneath his feet. In one hand he trailed a long string of black seaweed he intended to examine under his microscope. In the other, he held a small empty shell he had decided to put on the shelf in his new bedroom. He planned to collect one of every type of shell he could find, use his brand-new shell encyclopedia to identify them, and label them for future reference. Maybe he’d even find an undiscovered species and become famous.

Ahead on the beach, Splint’s two new friends were deep in conversation. Hunky Wallace, still dripping seawater, was attempting to sign a sheaf of papers that Rick McTaggart supported on his leather case. They were talking. Arguing, really. It seemed to be the mode of speech in Zanzibar. If his mother wasn’t shouting at Hunky or Rick, they were shouting at each other or at her.

“What’s going on?” he asked the men as he approached.

“Mr. McTaggart here is applying a noose of bureaucratic red tape about my neck, with which he will slowly strangle me until he has drained every ounce of blood from my body.”

“Can I watch?”

Rick laughed. “From a distance. It won’t be a pretty sight.”

“Are you guys going to hunt treasure together?”

“Hunky hunts treasure, Splint. I document underwater archaeological sites. Those are two very different things, but we’re going to attempt to work on this shipwreck together. If I can keep the old buzzard from blasting holes in the wreckage and turning the seafloor into something that looks like a field full of exploded land mines, I’ll be happy.”

“And if I can get my hands on enough gold and silver to make the venture worth my while, I’ll be a happy man too.”

“Don’t count on it, Splint,” Rick said. “The only time Hunky’s really happy is when he’s raking in pieces of eight and gold doubloons—and he knows the government of Tanzania has the legal right to most of what we pull out of that wreck.”

“Aye, well, the only time this bloke’s truly happy . . .” The Scotsman paused. “When
are
you happy, McTaggart? You don’t drink, you don’t frolic with the women, and you’re as pious as a priest. In fact, I doubt you’ve ever had a moment’s fun in your life.”

“You’re wrong there, Hunky.”

“Am I?” He gave Splinter a nudge. “This chap goes about looking as if he’s lost his one true love, if you know what I mean. Works all the time, day and night. Never plays. Never sings. Never dances. You’d think he was paying penance with his life for something terrible he’d done.”

“Unlike some people, I take my work seriously.”

“And you’ll work yourself into an early grave, too.”

“I have a peace you know nothing about.”

“Aye, you’re at peace. I’ll grant you that. But you have no joy. None at all.”

The Scotsman scrawled his name on the final page of the contract Rick was holding for him. He tucked the pen back into the pocket of his new partner’s shirt and turned toward the sea.

“I’ll be out there with my men the rest of the day,” the Scotsman said. “And whatever I find will be mine. Our contract begins tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here at dawn. And, Hunky, try not to move anything around down there today, okay?”

“Oh, you’ll put it back together the right way ’round. That’s your job, isn’t it?”

The treasure hunter hailed his men on the small white boat bobbing a short distance from shore. Without a final glance, he crossed the sand and waded into the waves. Splinter watched as the heavyset man grabbed hold of the boat and swung himself onto the deck. As the boat’s small engine coughed to life, the Scotsman busied himself putting on his flippers and arranging his air hoses.

“Has he really found gold and silver coins?” Splint asked the tall man at his side.

“A few.”

“I’m going to be a treasure hunter like Hunky when I grow up.”

“Your mom might not be too happy about that.”

“My mom hasn’t been too happy about anything since we got to Zanzibar. I think something’s bothering her.”

McTaggart studied Splint until the youngster started to feel like a specimen under a microscope. “Any idea what’s wrong?” the man asked finally.

Splint shrugged. “My mom is tough. She went from coloring pictures at a card factory to designing the cards themselves to illustrating famous books. She’s gotten us through winters where we didn’t have much heat in the flat and months where she cooked beans at every meal. Nobody messes around with my mom.”

“She sounds like a strong lady.”

“She is. I don’t worry about her too much. If something’s bothering her, she’ll get rid of it. She always does.” Splint glanced down at the limp seaweed in his hand. “I’m going up to the house to put this under my microscope.”

“Maybe I’ll show you the microscope at my laboratory sometime. It’s pretty amazing.”

“All right!” Splint couldn’t remember when he’d felt so happy. A bona fide treasure hunter was diving around a shipwreck in his own bay. A bona fide scientist had offered to let him see a real lab. Treasure might wash up on the shore at any moment. How could life get any better than this?

“Hey, Spencer,” Rick said, catching him as he headed for the cliff-side stairs. “Tell your mom I’ll be coming up to the house to talk to her in a few minutes.”

“Taking your life in your own hands, huh? Okay, I’ll tell her, but I get the feeling she’s not too crazy about you.”

“I’m afraid you’re right about that.” Rick gave him a smile that filled a spot in Splinter’s heart with a strange warmth. “Tell her I just need half an hour. Thirty minutes. After that, I promise I’ll leave Jessie alone.”

F
OUR

By the time Jess got up to her bedroom, Miriamu had already made the bed and unpacked two suitcases. Hannah had joined the young African woman in attempting to sort and arrange the vast numbers of pastels, colored pencils, markers, ink pens, paints, and other art supplies the new owner of Uchungu House had brought from London. As Jess entered, she could hear the two women laughing over some shared joke, their Swahili chatter filling the cavernous room.