Deep Blue (9 page)

He had left his New York high-rise apartment three days ago. He was sick of the cold, cursing himself for not leaving sooner, but he liked the city during the holidays. And there was this girl he’d been seeing, a Broadway actress named Ginger Adair who was a stand-in for the female lead in
Annie Get Your Gun.
Ginger was great in bed, but he’d been with her a lot and she’d started to get demanding.

A little time away would be good for both of them. And if she still didn’t get her act together, well, he would just have to find a replacement.

Brad pushed his wraparound Armani shades up on his nose, so relaxed that when his cell phone rang, he nearly jumped out of his tanning-bed-tanned, carefully-sun-screened skin. Very few people had his private number, certainly not Ginger. He reached over to the table and picked up the phone, flipped open the receiver, and pressed it against his ear.

“Yeah?”

“It’s the Sinclair woman,” the familiar voice said. “She’s at it again. This time she’s hired a detective, a man named Jimmy Deitz. He’s been sniffing around, asking questions. I thought you said the woman wouldn’t cause us any more trouble.”

Brad sat up in his deck chair. “I can’t believe it. Are you sure she’s the one who’s paying this guy?”

“Looks that way.”

“Well, don’t worry about it. Whatever she’s paying, I’ll pay more. We’ll get him to stop working the case and that’ll be the end of it.”

“If you do, she’ll just hire someone else.”

Stupid broad probably would.

“I want this guy to stop poking around,” the deep voice said. “You told me you’d make these problems end.”

“Hey, I said I’d get this handled and I will. Relax, all right? Go have a drink or get laid or something.”

The line went dead and Brad redialed the phone.

“Feldman,” said the man on the opposite end.

“There’s another snag on the Hartley House deal. It’s nothing that big, just some private dick sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

Jack Feldman was Talbot Enterprises’ head of security, which was a fancy way of saying he did whatever Brad told him to and got paid an outrageous sum for doing it. Anything out of the ordinary, anything the least bit unpleasant, Feldman handled.

And he was good at his job.

“The guy’s name is Jimmy Deitz. Hope Sinclair hired him. Whatever she’s paying him, we’ll pay double. Triple, if he’ll feed her a little false information. We need him to drag his feet, come up with a big, fat zero. We want him working for us, not her, but we don’t want her to know it. Do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Feldman hung up and so did Brad.

He couldn’t believe Hope Sinclair was still giving them trouble. Brad made an ugly sound in his throat. He didn’t like a woman interfering in men’s business. He liked a woman who knew how her bread was buttered and did what she had to do to make that happen. Those were the ones that were easy to handle.

Maybe he ought to make a little trip down to Pleasure Island, check things out himself. It wasn’t that far away and he could get a look at his treasure-hunting operation while he was there. If he had the time, maybe he’d take another shot at getting Hope into bed, give her a taste of what she’d missed the first time around.

At least he could find out if she was up to anything else that might cause them trouble.

Brad leaned back in his deck chair and propped his feet up on the stool. He made a mental note to have his secretary check his calendar, see if he could squeeze in a quick trip down to Pleasure Island.

Awake till just before dawn, Hope slept late that morning. She still felt miserable when she woke up. She popped a couple of Advil, got dressed, and headed for the galley, praying King might have something left from breakfast and that if she ate, she would start feeling better.

It was well past ten, with no sign of Tommy—thank God—when she descended the ladder to the galley, hoping to find something to settle her queasy stomach. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of last night. Joe and Pete, obviously also done in, sat quietly around the dinette.

King was working as usual, turning pancakes and frying bacon, setting heaping platters of potatoes, eggs, and toast in the middle of the table. The men heartily dug in, but the smell of the food made Hope’s stomach roll.

“Looks like we all had too much fun,” King said in his deep, husky voice.

She glanced in his direction. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

King cracked a huge white smile. “Sure was a good time, though.”

Hope managed a nod and the semblance of a smile. “Sure was.” Actually, she’d had a terrific time—so much so that she’d lost her inhibitions entirely and wound up half naked and nearly in bed with Conn. She wondered if he’d be the kiss-and-tell type, but somehow couldn’t imagine him in the role.

Joe moved over so Hope could sit down on the padded seat and she slid in beside him. King set a mug of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of her, food she could actually manage to eat.

Hope closed her eyes and inhaled the warm, mild, welcome scent of the oatmeal. “Oh God, King, you’re my hero.”

“Made some for you and dat poor kid, Tommy. He was really hurtin’ this mornin’. So far the boy ain’t made it outta his bunk.”

At least the island tour was off. She silently thanked heaven again. And by the time she finished her oatmeal and juice and actually ate a couple of pieces of toast, she felt almost human. She wondered if Conn was still sleeping, if maybe he’d been drunker than she thought.

“Conn’s been up for hours,” Joe said as if he’d read her mind. “The man’s got an iron constitution. Always has. I don’t know how he does it.”

Probably because he paced himself better than the rest of us.
She had noticed that last night. Conner Reese seemed to be a man of iron control. He was also very bad news. A diver, an adventurer, a man with no ties and no steady income. He was the kind of guy women found wildly attractive, the perfect man for a short, meaningless fling—if a woman had the nerve—but nothing that would go any deeper. The trouble would come in trying to remember that.

He walked into the galley just then, tall, handsome, healthy, suntannned, looking far too good, as usual. Which only made her think of last night and what might have happened if Tommy hadn’t knocked on her door. She tried to control the flush creeping into her cheeks but didn’t think she succeeded.

Conn cast her a mildly condemning glance. “I guess your friend wasn’t quite up to his tour.”

The barb went right through her, sending her chin into the air. “I don’t think any of us are feeling quite ourselves this morning.”

“I guess not.” He didn’t say more, just poured himself a cup of coffee, turned around, and pounded back up the ladder to the deck.

When Hope went into the chart room to use the computer, she found him leaning over a stack of maps spread out on the table, plotting the seas around Pleasure Island.

For a while she ignored him, just stood next to Andy, waiting for him to finish up at the computer. Finally, her curiosity got the best of her and she padded over his way.

“So what are you working on?”

He barely lifted his head. “I’m taking a look at the south end of Pleasure Island.” He pointed toward the map, running a long, tanned finger along the line that marked the edge, then moving outward to another set of lines.

“See this?”

She nodded.

“That’s a sandbar, a shallows that runs parallel to the shoreline out about three-quarters of a mile. In places, the sand’s as close as five or six feet beneath the surface of the water. Be a bad place for a ship to get caught in a storm.”

She shivered, thinking of all the people who had drowned when the four ships of the fleet went down. “I can imagine.”

A few feet away, Andy Glass shoved back his chair and got up from behind the computer. He was the only member of the crew besides Conn who didn’t look a little green.

“If you need to use this, be my guest. I’m finished for the time being.”

“Thanks, Andy.” Ignoring her faint, persistent headache, a continuing reminder of her folly last night, Hope sat down and went to work. With a last glance at the stack of maps, remembering the crew’s disappointment in not finding the
Rosa,
she decided to do her Internet research first.

Steering her way through a maze of sites, she finally found the
Archivo de las Indias
in Seville. The site was very well put together and she was able to locate an area dedicated to the Spanish treasure fleets. The information was in English as well as Spanish, but fairly general, nothing of any particular help. Before she signed off, she e-mailed the curator, told him she was a writer for
Adventure
magazine, and asked if there was any help he might be able to give her regarding the
Nuestra Señora de Rosa.

Once she sent the message, she went to aol.com, opened her e-mail, and began to go over the waiting messages. There was one from Charity, one from Patience, and one from her dad. She answered each one, glad for the satellite link that enabled them to keep in touch. Then she spotted the message from Buddy Newton.

Hope clicked it up.

Hope smiled for the first time that day. She e-mailed him back.

It was afternoon by the time she saw Tommy, weaving his way along the deck, still looking pale and shaky.

“Sorry about standing you up,” he said, a little sheepishly.

“Hey, no big deal. I had a ton of work to do and I didn’t feel all that great this morning, either.”

He gave her a pasty smile. “I guess I made an ass of myself last night…coming down to your cabin, I mean. What you do is your business, not mine.”

“Actually, I’ve been wanting to thank you. I had too much to drink. You saved me from making a fool of myself.”

Tommy shook his head, his short-cropped red hair glinting like neon in the sun. “I don’t think that’s true. You’re attracted to the guy and he’s attracted to you. That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s the problem, Tommy. That’s all there is to it.”

“Yeah, well, I guess guys look at things a little different. If I wanted a woman and she wanted me, I’d go for it and not have any regrets.”

“I just don’t want to make a mistake.”

“You’re no fool, Hope. You should probably just trust your instincts.”

Hope looked out across the harbor, watched a pair of sailboats heeling over in the wind. A glass-bottomed tour boat prowled the harbor, heading out to the site of an old Brazilian freighter that sank in the fifties.

“If you remember, Tommy, I followed my instincts before and look where it got me. When it comes to men, I don’t think my instincts are all that good.”

They talked for a few minutes longer, then Hope went down to her cabin to organize some of her notes for the second article in the series.

The last, if the search for the
Rosa
came to an end.

The
Conquest
stayed in Jamaica three more days, while Conn waited for the professor to come up with something that might give them hope the
Rosa
could have sunk somewhere near the island.

To keep herself occupied, Hope did a little shopping at the Musgrave Market on West Harbour, which specialized in local crafts. Woodcarvings, inlaid boxes, straw hats, Jamaican dolls, shells, pottery, and colorful baskets were sold all over Jamaica. The islanders were persistent, at times even pushy, trying to get her to make a purchase, but they were also smiling and friendly. She gave a grizzled old Rastafarian man with dreadlocks past his waist a dollar to let her take his picture, bought a few items, and headed back to the boat.

In the afternoon, she did some work on a freelance article she hoped to eventually sell. The piece involved a study of women using homeopathic drugs for menopause relief instead of prescription medicines—anything to keep herself busy.

Mostly, she made it a point to stay away from Conn, who seemed to be trying equally hard to stay away from her.

It was late in the afternoon when she went down to the chart room to check her e-mail, hoping to find a reply from the Spanish museum. She was thrilled to discover that today one had arrived.

Unfortunately, as she had feared, the lengthy pages of documents attached to Señor Ortega’s return e-mail message were all in Spanish. Hope printed the pages, then left to find Joe Ramirez, hoping he’d be able to translate them for her.

She spotted him on deck, working on some diving gear. “Hey, Joe!” Hope waved to him as she walked over to where he worked.

“What’s up?” He set aside the tank he was adjusting.

“I was hoping I could ask you to do me a favor.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Actually, it’s kind of a bigger favor than I thought it was going to be.” She held up the stack of printed pages. “This is from a museum in Seville that Professor Marlin mentioned, records that deal with the
Rosa
. I thought we might find something useful.”

“I imagine the professor already knows all this stuff.”

“I know, but I don’t, and I thought I might want to put some of it in my article. The bad news is the documents are all in Spanish.”

Joe grinned, digging dimples into his cheeks. “Tell you the truth, my Spanish is pretty bad. My father was one of those guys who wanted his kid to be completely American. We only spoke English at home. I took Spanish in high school, though, and again in the service, but my French is a whole lot better.”

“You speak French?”

“French and Arabic. So does Conn. And he speaks Spanish like a native. He can talk to my mother better than I can. You ought to get him to translate these for you.”

Conn Reese spoke four languages.
Amazing.
Hope could speak a little French, enough to get by, but she wasn’t really fluent. She envied anyone with a talent for languages and grudgingly admitted she had underestimated Conner Reese.

“All right, you both speak a number of foreign languages, including Arabic. I’m obviously missing something here. What is it?”

Joe shoved a lock of jet-black hair back from his face. “I figured you knew. Conn was my lieutenant when we were in the SEALs.”

“You guys were Navy SEALs?”

“Yeah. Conn never says much about it. I figured in your case he might have talked about it, though.”

Hope’s mind was spinning. Conner Reese was an ex-Navy SEAL. He wasn’t just some beach bum, an adventurer without much of a past and only a gambler’s hope for any sort of future. It took four years of college to become an officer in the military. And becoming a SEAL required a lot more than that. From what little she knew, a man needed rigid self-discipline and no small amount of brains.

She wished she weren’t so impressed.

“You know why he didn’t tell you?” Joe asked.

“Why?”

“Because he likes you. He wants you to like him for who he is, not because he was a SEAL. Some women are that way, you know, impressed by the job and all.” Joe grinned and the dimples appeared again. “Now me, on the other hand, I’ll use whatever tactics it takes to get a woman in bed.”

Hope laughed; she couldn’t help it. “Utterly ruthless, are you?”

“That’s me. A completely conscienceless rogue. I love the ladies and they love me. What can I say? That’s just the way it is.”

She studied him, the beautiful dark eyes, the high cheekbones, the mouth that curved so sensuously it almost made him pretty. “You know what? I think you talk a good game but if the right woman came along, you’d be putty in her hands.”

Joe laughed. Reaching out, he brushed a finger along her cheek. “You know what? I like you, Hope Sinclair. Give Conn a chance. He’s a great guy—the best. And he’s had his problems, too.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“I hate to end this charming little discussion,” Conn interrupted, casting a hard look at Joe, “but don’t either of you have work to do?”

“Sorry,” Joe said without a bit of remorse. “We were just discussing this little problem Hope has.”

One of Conn’s dark eyebrows went up. For an instant, his cool blue gaze met hers and even that brief contact made the bottom drop out of her stomach. Why couldn’t Joe Ramirez make her feel that way?

She saw Joe slip quietly off down the deck, taking the tank he was working on with him, and the thought arose that there was something lonely about him.

Hope shook her head. Guys who looked like Joe rarely lacked companionship. Which made her think of Conn, who was also incredibly good-looking.

She turned her attention to him. “I was talking to Joe about some documents I got over the Net that pertain to the
Rosa
. Unfortunately, they’re all in Spanish. Joe thought you might be able to give me some help with them.”

His eyes darkened. “There are lots of things I could help you with, Hope, if you’d give me the chance.”

She ignored the innuendo and shoved the papers toward him. “I know the professor has probably seen this stuff, but it couldn’t hurt to read them ourselves. There might be something there that could be useful, even if it’s just for the article I’m writing. Would you mind taking a look at them?”

He took hold of the papers. “I’d be happy to.” He eyed her a long moment more. “About the other night…”

“What about it?”

“You were right and I was wrong. I was taking advantage, though I didn’t really think so at the time.”

“Neither of us was thinking very clearly. I guess we ought to be grateful to Tommy Tyler.”

She caught the hint of a smile. “I don’t think I’m willing to go
that
far.”

Hope laughed as he held up the papers.

“I’ll take a look, see what these say. I’ll translate anything that looks interesting.”

“Thanks, Conn.”

He made no reply, just nodded, turned, and padded off down the deck. The professor had called a couple of times, but apparently he was still working on the problem, so they weren’t yet ready to leave. Which gave Hope a chance to accomplish the mission she had set for herself.

If it looked as if the search were going to continue, she wanted to join the divers, do some diving herself. True, she was an amateur, but she really had enjoyed the sport when she had been in the islands before and she thought that actually being under water might add a new dimension to the articles she was writing.

As soon as the dive shop opened the following morning, Hope was going to buy herself some gear.

Conn spotted Hope walking along the wooden dock, struggling to carry a load of diving equipment. He didn’t know whether to curse his bad luck or thank his lucky stars.

Hope was an amateur and that could spell trouble—he sure as hell didn’t want her getting hurt. On the other hand, he had never dived with a woman before, at least not socially, and the idea was kind of intriguing.

As long as he went with her, she would probably be all right. And it might be fun to share some of the mystery and awe he discovered every time he went beneath the sea.

He met up with her halfway along the dock, reached out and took the tank out of her hand. “I gather you plan to go diving.”

“I guess that depends on whether or not you’re going to continue your search, which I suppose depends on what the professor has to say. If you’re not going back, I made sure I could return it. If you are, the bill goes on my expense account.”

“We’re going back out—no matter what Doc Marlin has to say. At the very least, I want to take another look at the area where the
Santa Ynez
went down. According to the professor, the passengers onboard carried a lot of valuables. Mel Fisher found some fabulous jewelry at a couple of different Spanish wreck sites. Who knows what we might turn up.”

He hefted the tank over his shoulder, grabbed her inflatable vest, and both of them started walking. Once they got aboard, he set the stuff down on the deck so he could examine it.

“You’re pretty small.” He studied the vest then had her put it on. “Sometimes it’s hard to get the proper fit.” But the shop here, Gilligan’s, was good and the vest had been properly sized to Hope’s small frame.

“The face mask and regulator cause the most trouble.” To check the fit, he placed the mask over her nose and eyes to see if it was tight enough to prevent any leaking. “Yeah, that looks good.” He set the equipment out of the way, satisfied it was safe.

“Did you find anything useful in those documents I gave you last night?”

He turned away from his study of the gear. “There was a lot of information about the ship itself, stuff that could be useful for your article.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t remember all of it, but it said the
Rosa
was a four-hundred-ton galleon, made of oak and built in Viscaya, Spain. She carried six anchors and four hundred passengers. The most interesting stuff was the treasure registered aboard. The professor showed me the list when we first started the venture, and we used it to win Brad Talbot’s support. But it isn’t something you get tired of reading.”

Hope’s eyes lit up. “Can I see it?”

“Sure. I’ll go get it. Be right back.” He headed down to his cabin, grabbed the stack of papers, and returned to the deck. He had translated some of the more interesting stuff and written it in the margins. He hoped she could read his lousy handwriting.

“Here’s the list.” He looked down at his notes: “849 registered silver bars; 250,000 silver coins in boxes; 1,788 ounces of gold in disks and bars; 1,000 gold coins in boxes. It says here the ship was also carrying 10,000 pounds of tobacco and four tons of copper in slabs. The professor thinks the contraband treasure aboard was also considerable, probably mostly gold chains and gold coins.”

“Contraband is treasure the ship’s captain didn’t report and therefore didn’t have to go to the Spanish king, right?”

“Yeah. According to Doc Marlin, it was pretty common practice. On the
Atocha
it turned out to be quite a sum, to say nothing of the incredible gold-and-emerald jewelry they found. On this ship, there’s also supposed to be some Inca artifacts—a gold statue called the Maiden is supposed to be aboard.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Finding the Maiden is the professor’s secret obsession. He says it’s worth millions of dollars.”

Conn looked up, broke off as he spotted Doc Marlin coming toward them along the dock. His pant legs flapped in the breeze with each of his hurried steps and he was holding a sheaf of papers.

“I think he’s smiling,” Hope said.

“He’s usually pretty cheerful. That might not mean much.”

The old man hurried up the gangway, and Conn and Hope went to meet him.

“Conner, my boy! Good news! Let’s go down to the chart room and I’ll show you.”

Conn tried to clamp down on a jolt of excitement, but with the professor practically skipping across the deck, it wasn’t that easy to do. They made their way down the ladder to the chart room, Joe falling in behind them, as eager as Conn to hear the news.

The oceanographic charts of the area around Pleasure Island still lay open on the table, and the professor headed straight for them.

He turned to Conn. “See this?” He held up a printed sheet of paper.

“What is it?”

“A translation of a sailor’s account of the storm that sank the four ships of the 1605 Tierra Firma Fleet. It came from a man on one of the galleons that survived the storm.”

He laid the papers down on the table. “On one of my research trips to Spain, I developed a friendship with a museum director at the National Bibliothèque in Madrid. I remembered discussing this document while I was there, but at the time, I didn’t pay it that much attention. Like everyone else, I believed the
Santa Ynez
had gone down on the Serranilla Banks, so the sailor’s references to her seemed unimportant.”

He tapped the papers with a bony finger. “After I saw the iron cannon, I remembered the sailor’s account, mentioning the
Santa Ynez.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t recall exactly what the man had said, but I thought it was worth another look. After I left here the other day, I got hold of my friend, Dr. Marquez, and asked him to send me the translation. His fax arrived just this morning.”

“What’d it say?” Conn asked, still trying not to get his hopes too high.

“In his account, the sailor mentions his last sighting of both the
Santa Ynez
and the
Nuestra Señora de Rosa.
Apparently, it struck him how close the two ships were traveling together. He mentions saying a prayer for their safety and wondering if they would both end up facing the same terrible fate.”

Conn could feel his heart beating. “You’re saying that if the ships were sailing that close together, there might be a chance that
both
of them sank off the island.”

The professor nodded. “
Isla Tormenta
is seven miles long. There is definitely a chance.”

His pulse was hammering now, his adrenaline pumping. “Take a look at this, Doc.” He moved around the chart, pointing toward the sandbar running south along the west shore of the island. “These shallows begin a mile or so south of where we found the cannon. They lie three-quarters of a mile offshore and run nearly the length of the coastline. According to some info Hope got over the Internet last night, the
Rosa
drew eighteen feet of water, right?”