Treasured Lies (36 page)

Jimmy rolled his clenched fist in his other palm. ‘Lucky he's dead. Or I'd kill the bastard myself.'

Alessandro walked into the room and the solemn look on his face turned her heart to ice. ‘What is it? Did they find Archer?'

Alessandro's eyes bulged. ‘Sorry, Rosa. No. I still haven't heard anything. I umm, just checked downstairs.' He clutched his temples. ‘Ignatius took everything. The whole lot.'

‘Not everything.'

Her eyes darted in the direction of the all-too-familiar voice.

‘Archer!'

Archer stepped from the hallway and an avalanche of emotions bombarded her. Shock and disbelief were at the top. Fire and ice flooded her veins. She wanted to run to him, to wrap her arms around and crush him with her embrace. But her body was jelly.

He looked ashen, ghostly even. Dried blood smeared his chin. Dark smudges lined his eyes. As Archer hobbled towards her, tears spilled down his cheeks. Every step he made looked crippled with pain.

He fell to his knees at her side and they clutched at each other. She couldn't breathe and the lump in her throat was impossible to swallow.

‘I love you so much, babe. When that helicopter crashed I …' He let the sentence hang.

‘I thought I'd lost you too. You didn't resurface … and I thought … I thought you'd drowned.' She sat back and slapped him on his shoulder. ‘Where the hell have you been?'

‘I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened. I woke up in an ambulance.' He cupped his hand behind her neck. ‘They were dragging me off to hospital and I couldn't make them stop. The first chance I could, I snuck out and grabbed a taxi back here. I couldn't even get a message to you, my phone's dead.'

Jimmy placed his oversized paw on his buddies shoulder. ‘Jesus, mate, you sure know how to give a man grey hairs.' Archer stood up and winced when Jimmy tugged him into a firm bear hug and slapped him on the back.

‘Just keeping you on your toes, buddy,' Archer said.

Alessandro took his turn hugging Archer and welcoming him back from the dead.

‘How did you guys find out what happened?'

‘Rosalina rang us and said you'd gone off screaming towards
Evangeline
like a crazy man.'

Rosalina only vaguely remembered that call, she must have sounded hysterical. And that was before she'd even seen the helicopter.

A wave of exhaustion brought heat and burden to her body. She'd almost been awake for twenty-four hours now. And it had been a crazy twenty-four hours too. Her legs felt alien. Foreign in every sense of the word. They throbbed, but were numb. They were stiff yet felt strangely loose. She resisted the urge to draw back her skirt and witness the trauma she knew would be there. Archer was the one who needed help, before he passed out in front of them all.

Alessandro cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me, Archer. What did you mean Iggy didn't take everything? There's nothing downstairs.'

Archer pointed to the end of the bar. There, glistening in the bright galley lights with its big swollen belly and cheeky facial features, was the monkey statue.

‘Yes.' Jimmy punched the air. ‘They missed the one thing that wasn't hidden.'

‘Oh, and we still have your father's notebooks and the diary,' Alessandro said with a renewed glint in his eye.

“I bet he couldn't take the cannon either,” Jimmy said with a grand grin.

It suddenly occurred to her that Ginger wasn't here. ‘Where's Ginger?'

‘She'd already gone to sleep when you called, so I left her,' said Alessandro. ‘She doesn't even know about all of this.'

A line of suspicion cut through Rosalina's thoughts. ‘She must've fallen asleep quickly, weren't you with her?'

‘Not when you rang.' Alessandro shook his head. ‘I was helping Nonna with the dishes. You know what she's like, I couldn't convince Nonna to leave it to the morning.'

Rosalina wanted to punch herself for thinking such horrible thoughts. Ginger was a sweet girl and her mistrust towards her was unfounded and appalling. Rosalina's head was a painful staccato. She needed caffeine to straighten her brain.

‘Alessandro, could you make me a coffee please?'

‘Oh sure.' He scooted off to the kitchen.

Archer drew up alongside Rosalina and it took all her might to curl her legs aside so he could sit on the lounge. ‘So,' Archer said, ‘Iggy may have taken this lot. But there's still two thirds of that treasure just begging to be found. Now that both the crazy priest and Iggy are gone, we're in no danger to search for it now.'

‘I don't know, Arch,' she said.

Archer turned to face her. His hooded eyes pleading.

She shook her head. ‘I'm beginning to wonder if the Calimala treasure is cursed.'

‘Cursed. No way.' Jimmy waved away her comment.

‘Now, Jimmy.' Rosalina drilled her eyes into him. ‘Before you dismiss it so quickly, let me summarise. First, way back in 1348 when the treasure was stolen, there were plagues and earthquakes. Then the
Flying Seahorse
sank, probably killing everyone on board and now, in the short amount of time we've been chasing it, four people have died.'

‘Four?' Alessandro ferried a coffee from the galley towards her.

‘Yes. Four. Nox. Brother Bonito, the man who helped Nox. That thug who drowned. And now Ignatius. Four.' She held up four splayed fingers for emphasis.

‘But they were all bad.' Jimmy's mischievous grin lit up his face.

They all fell into silent contemplation. Finally and with great care, she reached up for the coffee Alessandro handed down to her. As she clasped the steaming mug between her hands the anticipation of what she was about to say drove adrenalin through her weary body. ‘I have a suggestion.' She blew on the black brew and took a sip. ‘How about we forget about the Calimala treasure for a while—'

‘Hang on a minute—'

‘Jimmy! Wait till I'm finished.' She glared at him and he huffed. Rosalina waited until his clenched jaw relaxed before she continued. ‘It will take some time to get
Evangeline
repaired and shining again. But after that, I think we should forget the Calimala treasure for a while and follow the
Awa Maru
trail instead.'

Archer squeezed his hand on her thigh.

‘Hell yes.' Jimmy slapped his palm on the dining table.

Archer turned to her, drawing his beautiful gold-bedazzled eyes to her. ‘Are you sure, babe?'

She nodded and ran her hand up his arm. His skin was on fire, but it was the fire in his eyes that convinced her she was doing the right thing. As much as she needed a very long rest, and as much as she would have preferred to keep her feet on solid ground for a while, she couldn't leave it like this. The three men before her, Alessandro, Jimmy and especially Archer, looked like their hearts had been torn out by what Iggy had done. If they left it the way it was now, the bad guys won. ‘We can't end it like this, with nothing to show after months of hard work. And now like you said, with Nox and Ignatius gone, it's safe.'

Alessandro cleared his throat. ‘Well, on that note, I think we need to get the both of you to hospital and healed quickly, because … I didn't want to mention it before but … after chatting with one of the modern history professors at the Accademia yesterday, I think I may have some information to help find the
Awa Maru
treasure!'

Archers palm was a furnace that he placed against her cheek. His gaze flicked from one eye to the next, searching her for the truth. She nodded, smiled and her shoulder was pure agony as she raised her coffee mug. ‘To treasure hunting.'

‘Okay then.' Archer raised his mug and winced. ‘To treasure hunting.'

 

Thanks for reading
Treasured Lies
. I hope you enjoyed it.

If you'd like to know more about me, my books, or to connect with me online, you can visit my webpage
http://www.kendalltalbot.com.au
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Reviews can help readers find books, and I am grateful for all honest reviews. Thank you for taking the time to let others know what you've read, and what you thought.

You've just read a book in my Treasured series. The first book in this series is
Treasured Secrets
and the next is
Treasured Dreams
.

If you liked this book, here are my other books:
Lost In Kakadu
,
Treasured Secrets
and
Double Take
.

This book was published by Escape Publishing. If you'd like to sample some more great books from my fellow Escape Artists, please turn the page.

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