Treasured Lies (10 page)

The entire time they were carting the pieces from the boat to the saloon, Alessandro could hear Jimmy putting his case forward about going back out for another dive today. Rosalina, on the other hand, didn't agree, she wanted to move on and voiced her opinion to that effect. Occasionally she let that fiery Italian temper of hers surface and a wise man would back down when she did. Alessandro wasn't sure if Jimmy was aware of the debate he was getting himself into. Alessandro had no idea how Jimmy had so much energy. He was supposed to be recovering and relaxing. But there was little chance that was going to happen now. Not when there was treasure to recover and a rich, crazy man trying to beat them to it.

Between the four of them, they quickly carted the new haul of valuables up to the saloon and soon the impressive collection occupied the entire dining table. Alessandro was on his feet by the time they finished. No pounding headache was going to stop him from viewing these firsthand. The quantity and variety of the items took his breath away.

‘Alessandro, I wanted to show you this.' Rosalina, standing across the table from him, reached for a silver box.

‘Oh, let me.' Ginger tugged the box away from Rosalina's outstretched fingers. ‘You're going to love what's in here.'

Alessandro admired the curved lid and the box. The craftsmanship behind the design was exquisite. As Ginger tugged on the lid, Alessandro felt Rosalina's gaze on him. He glanced over the table at her and a quick smile danced on her lips before she turned her attention to the box.

Alessandro helped Ginger prise the lid off, and he resisted looking at it in more detail as he placed it to the side. Ginger didn't even pause. She reached in and removed a bracelet.

Alessandro gasped and stared wide-eyed at the beautiful piece of jewellery. ‘The Arte Di Calimala insignia.' His eyes met with Rosalina's and her grin was now a full smile, but she quickly tugged on her lower lip as if trying to stop herself. He reached to take the bracelet from Ginger and turned it over in his hand. Each one of the little plaques on the bracelet were crafted into their own narrative. The bracelet was designed to tell a story. His breath hitched at holding such a distinguished piece of history. ‘
Questo pezzo solo è magnifico.'

Ginger giggled. ‘I thought you'd be speechless, babe, not talking in tongues.'

Alessandro hadn't realised he'd spoken in Italian. ‘Oh sorry. I was just saying that this is truly magnificent.'

‘I knew you'd love it.'

‘Love it! This one piece alone is proof that these valuables are part of the Calimala guild.' Alessandro clicked his fingers. ‘Oh, that reminds me.' He glanced from Rosalina to Archer and back again. ‘I meant to tell you all something. While you were diving I made an interesting discovery.' Alessandro paused and waited for a response from one of them.

‘So spit it out, Galileo.' Jimmy was quick to return to his creative name-calling.

Alessandro shot Jimmy a ‘wise-guy' look. ‘But—,' he rubbed his chin, ‘—maybe I should check these pieces first. That way I am certain.'

Jimmy huffed.

‘Perfect.' Rosalina ignored Jimmy's melodramatics. ‘I need a hot shower.'

‘How long do you need, Alex?' Archer looked at him with a troubled frown.

‘Half an hour should be sufficient. I won't be able to check all of them, but with what I'm working on, the pattern should re-establish quickly.'

‘Jesus, Alex, do you have to be so cryptic? Just spit it out.' Jimmy was an impatient man sometimes.

‘I don't blurt things out. I confirm data first.'

‘Okay, you guys, calm down. Half an hour.' Archer glanced at the clock in the kitchen. ‘Then we'll meet back here.' With that comment, Archer and Rosalina left the room.

Jimmy spun on his heel and silently strode after them too.

‘What do you think it's worth?' Ginger said as soon as Jimmy was out of sight.

Alessandro felt her fingers on his and he looked down as she removed the bracelet from his hands. She nudged it over her delicate fingers so it was now on her wrist and the gold flashed in the saloon's discreet LED lighting. The bracelet was much too big for Ginger's tiny build, in fact, it would be too big for most women. The possibility that the bracelet may have belonged to a man became an idea he rolled around in his mind.

‘So?'

He frowned at her. ‘So what?'

She huffed. ‘How much is this worth?'

The question was impossible to answer. In reality, the piece was priceless. It should never be sold. This was a unique piece of Italian history and deserved a place in one of the best museums in Florence or Rome. Alessandro was going to make sure of that. Ginger looked up at him with big blue expectant eyes.

‘It's worth so much, it's literally priceless.'

Chapter 11

Archer reached for Rosalina's hand and guided her away from the table and towards the Hamilton suite.

Rosalina squeezed his fingers as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘I can't believe Iggy found us. I'm so sorry.'

Archer frowned at her. ‘Why're you sorry? It wasn't your fault.'

‘We were just sitting on the beach. We should've been hiding.'

‘Where would you hide? Honey, it was only a matter of time before he found us. Now we just have to figure out how much time we have before he comes back.'

Rosalina latched onto his arm, dragging him to a stop and he looked down at her. ‘Arch, I think we should stop this and go home, before someone really gets hurt.'

His eyes drilled into hers. ‘We can't give up now, we've only just started.'

‘But nothing is worth getting hurt over.'

He placed his arm on her shoulder. ‘Rosa, I need to do this. I have to finish it.'

‘Finish what?' She glared at him; her clenched jaw amplified her anger. ‘What your father started all those years ago? That's crazy.'

The look in her eyes scared him, he'd seen it before. It was the same look that marred her face when they broke up last time. ‘Honey, my father died because of me—'

‘No, Archer. He didn't.' He was shocked at the way she spat the words out. ‘We've been through this. Maybe this treasure hunt wasn't the best idea after all.'

He eased back from her and forced his shoulders to relax. Finally he breathed in a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘I can't let this go until I find it all. My father worked on this for years, he deserves the recognition. I want the world to know …' He swallowed hard. ‘Babe, we're this close.' He held his thumb and finger slightly apart. ‘Once we've brought it all up. That's it. The end. I'll take you home. I promise.'

Before she could answer, he clutched her to his chest. As he listened to her ragged breathing, he silently wondered if it would ever end.

***

After a quick shower, they returned to the saloon and Archer pulled out a chair at the dining table for Rosalina to sit. She smelt divine, all citrus and vanilla. She was addicted to that soap and he was pleased she was. When they were separated for those torturous eight months, her beautiful scent was just one of the many things he missed.

When Archer looked up, his mother walked into the room. It was rare to see her so early in the day and Archer raced over to help her. ‘Hi, Mum, lovely of you to join us.'

She nodded her head but it was impossible to tell if she'd understood a word he'd said. Archer led her to the table as Rosalina rushed to set another place for her. It would be a nice treat to have his mother sitting with them for lunch, she'd only done it a couple of times since she'd moved permanently onto
Evangeline
recently.

Ginger had made a couscous salad and sweet potato fries to go with the left over Thai fish cakes Rosalina made last night. As the dishes were handed around, the conversation was stilted. In fact, there was barely any conversation at all. It could be they were just tired and hungry but then it occurred to him that maybe no-one wanted to mention what happened this morning in front of his Mum. It probably wasn't a bad idea.

Archer placed a fish cake on Helen's plate. ‘So, Alex, how about you tell us your new theory?'

The Italian put the food already loaded up on his fork into his mouth and chewed quickly. ‘
Grande
idea
.
' He placed his cutlery down and when Alessandro rubbed his hands together, Archer knew they were in for one of his dreaded lectures, and as a university professor, he was an expert at dragging out the details. Even so Archer was sure the lecture would be worth it. Without Alessandro's help in Florence they would never have found the ancient diary that led to the treasure in the first place.

‘I thought a visual display would explain my theory better.' Alessandro stood up and walked towards the portable white board that he must've dragged from the office. He spun it around to reveal a series of A4 sheets of paper taped to the board.

‘So, here are duplicates of the pages in the diary that detail each piece of the Calimala treasure. There are forty-eight pages with a total of 892 items.'

‘Holy shit, Archer, you didn't tell me there were that many pieces.' Jimmy's eyes lit up like flashing dollar signs.

‘Actually I hadn't realised there were that many either.' All Archer could do was stare at the pages and pages of listed treasure.
Could there really be that much?
His mind flipped to a mental picture of what that amount of treasure would look like. He'd found treasure before, small, insignificant finds, especially in comparison to what they were onto now. But this was the treasure that'd been haunting him since he was eleven years old. He reached for the pendant around his neck. This one piece started the hunt for it. His Dad died chasing it. Now it was Archer's job to finish it. And no fool in a helicopter was going to stop him.

Alessandro cleared his throat, attracting Archer's attention again and re-establishing his professor mode. ‘I have placed the pages in the same order they are in the diary. The first page is here.' He pointed to the page taped at the top left-hand corner. ‘Then second and third.' He pointed at each page, going left to right. ‘The final page is here.' The last page was at the bottom right corner.

Archer cut up his mother's fish cake and loaded a portion onto her fork. So far he hadn't been able to work out if her reluctance to eat was because she wasn't hungry or she couldn't be bothered. Or worse, she just didn't want to be around anymore. He shoved the unpleasant thought aside. Archer liked to think that finding her again after twenty years was destiny. He was meant to save her from her own living hell, and he was determined to do it. Getting her fit and healthy was at the top of his ever-growing agenda.

Alessandro tapped his pen on the whiteboard. ‘I have successfully identified nearly all of the items you've recovered so far. The descriptions in the diary are quite detailed and each piece is very unique. But—' he held up his index finger and cocked his head, ‘—a distinct pattern has emerged.'

Alessandro picked up a sheet of paper. ‘To date, you have recovered sixty-four pieces. Once I established a match with the description in the diary, I highlighted it in yellow. For example, here's page nineteen.' He taped the sheet over the top of the original page nineteen. When he moved away, Archer noticed six highlighted lines on the sheet.

‘Here's another.' Alessandro taped page after page on the whiteboard. He repeated the process over and over until he had taped up seventeen pages. Then he stopped, turned at them and grinned like he'd solved a complex riddle.

Jimmy pointed his fork at the board. ‘What about the rest?'

Alessandro cocked his head. ‘That is exactly my point. There are no others. Every one of the pieces you've recovered from the
Flying Seahorse
are listed in the diary from pages nineteen to thirty-three only. Not one piece from any other page has been discovered yet. You can see them clustered here.' He waved his hand over the centre of the board.

‘Okay, professor, it all looks very colourful. But what the hell does it mean?' Jimmy rolled his eyes at Archer. Archer had a bad feeling he knew where this was going.

Alessandro rolled his eyes right back at Jimmy. ‘What it means is we need to entertain the possibility that the treasure was divided at one point.'

Everyone sat in silence. Jimmy suddenly slammed his fist on the table and Archer noticed even his mother jumped. Her eyes darted to Jimmy and for a second Archer thought he saw a whisper of emotion. He didn't care if it was anger, any kind of reaction from her would be good.

‘I don't believe it,' Jimmy hissed. ‘I reckon the whole lot's down there wondering what the hell we're doing up here blabbering, instead of bringing them up.'

‘The evidence is clear, Archer.' Alessandro commanded Archer's attention and he gave it by looking squarely into the Italian's eyes. ‘I believe more than one ship carried this treasure. You only need to look at the volume—'

‘Three ships.' Helen's words were barely a whisper yet the conviction in her voice was stunning. It was a statement of fact. She knew what she was talking about and wanted them to know it.

‘What did you say, Mum?' Archer wanted her to repeat it, he needed to be sure he'd heard her right.

She sat back, her shoulders rod straight. ‘Don't you remember, Wade? There were three ships.'

Out the corner of his eye, Archer saw Rosalina cover her mouth. And Archer supported that move. To get anything quite so lucid out of his mother was a miracle. But her thinking he was Wade was troubling. He'd already been told he looked like his father, but it was distressing to hear his mother's confusion. He decided to let it slide this time.

Archer placed his hand over his mother's. ‘You think there were three ships carrying the treasure, Mum?'

‘No.'