Treasure

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and fiddled with the seventeenth-century gold coin he carried everywhere. His first real find, the coin had always seemed to help him center and refocus his priorities. Turning the coin over and over between his fingers, he contemplated the aerials and the stack of research she’d accumulated. The idea of a landlocked museum curator putting together pieces of a puzzle that had stumped hundreds of men for hundreds of years was absurd.

She had a secret. Jake glanced at her face. Eyes that sparkled with mischief. Features that grew prettier every time he looked at them. Most likely, she was another amateur treasure hunter with big dreams.

A stranger, an archaeologist, a woman. And those lips… He’d be crazy to bring her onto his boat. Then again, for a chance at the Concha, he’d be crazy not to.

The coin warmed in his hand. This one was for Dad. And Sam. “When can you be ready to head out?”

Dear Reader,

I had so much fun writing Treasure. The idea for it came to me after I read a newspaper article about a tenacious and visionary man named Mel Fisher. After many years of searching, he, his family and his crews finally discovered the real mother lode of all Spanish galleons, the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, that sank off the coast of Florida close to four hundred years ago. The Atocha eventually yielded $450 million dollars worth of gold, silver and gems. Wow!

But the more I researched, the more I realized that Mel Fisher’s discovery hadn’t come without a price. He devoted sixteen years of his life to this venture, and near the end lost his son and daughter-in-law in a tragic accident. No doubt I’ve oversimplified the treasure-hunting process and pushed the limits of poetic license, but I hope I’ve succeeded in giving you the sense that treasure hunting is an all-consuming, complicated and dangerous undertaking. This is Jake and Annie’s world. May they become as real to you as they are to me.

I’d love to hear what you think of my first book. You can e-mail me at helenbrenna@comcast.com, check out my Web site at www.helenbrenna.com, or chat with me and several other well-established authors on ridingwiththetopdown.blogspot.com.

Enjoy,

Helen

Treasure

Helen Brenna

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Helen Brenna grew up the seventh of eight children in central Minnesota. Although as a child she never dreamed of writing books, she surely assimilated the necessary skills from her storytelling brothers.

With a B.S. in accounting, she started career life as a CPA and thought she’d end career life as an old CPA, but the decision to stay home with her kids made all things possible.

She lives near Minneapolis with her husband, two children, two dogs and three cats and would love hearing from you. E-mail her at helenbrenna@comcast.com or send mail to P.O. Box 24107, Minneapolis, MN 55424.

For Mark, my moon

No writer is an island. I can attest to that more than most. My sincerest appreciation goes out to everyone who has ever supported and encouraged me along this decade-long, often boulder-strewn road.

In the beginning there was Susan Kay Law, Connie Brockway, Taylor Kristoffe Jones, Judi Phillips and Nancy Leonard. They taught me how to write and, boy, did I need them. Then along came the princesses, Rosemary Heim, Becky Klang, Christine Lashinski, Monica McClean, Mary Strand, Tina Plant, Katie Quay, Roxanne Richardson, and Sara Tieck. They taught me how to enjoy writing and help me enjoy life.

I’d also like to thank Rosalie Brenna and Connie Lillibridge for their unflinching support through the years and for being good liars. If they’d told me the truth about my first amateurish, awful attempts at writing you wouldn’t be holding this book in your hands.

Big, sloppy thanks to my agent, Tina Dubois Wexler, and my editor, Johanna Raisanen, for believing in my work. You two are the best!

A lot of research went in to writing Treasure. If I’ve made any mistakes with the scuba diving details, you can blame Kurt Wahl. He won’t mind. Any other mistakes are solely mine.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“BLOOD,” the Aztec prince whispered in the twilight. “The gods will require it.”

I knew then his intention to make a sacrifice.

Annie Miller, a curator at Chicago’s Field Museum, sat at her desk engrossed in the Spanish soldier’s nearly four-hundred-year-old diary. A group of coworkers approached the hall outside her office, and she prayed they wouldn’t stop to make the requisite once-a-month lunch invitation. Though they tried including her in their outings, even amidst this group of introverts Annie was a bit of an oddity.

She leaned over the ancient book, letting her long brown hair fall like a privacy fence over her face. Thankfully, they passed by, and, in no time, the office white noise all but disappeared. She was lost in the wild jungles of Veracruz, Mexico. 1621.

The right place. The right time.

“Huitzilpochti!” The prince softly summoned his god of war and raised his arms to the sky. “Hear me. Defend your people!”

Hidden amidst the brush, I was both mesmerized and frightened. Duty demanded I stop the prince, and yet had I not borne witness to the heinous crimes perpetrated against his people? Native boys and men, beaten and slaughtered. Women, raped and enslaved. Did this man not deserve a measure of revenge?

“Make all who would have this gold,” the prince cried, now uncaring as to who might hear him, “those greedy of heart and wicked with intent, know your wrath and die! Make them suffer as they have made my people suffer!”

Annie swallowed. All these years she should have known. She might not be dead, but in looking at her life she might as well be.

I watched in horror as he set his shoulders and dug a sharp rock across each wrist. Thick, menacing clouds swirled above my head as he poured his lifeblood over a golden cross. His blood oozed over the pearls and emeralds set within the cross’s frame, casting the largest, clearest stones I had ever beheld in deep, red glory.

Gold. Pearls. Emeralds. Annie’s neck tingled with dread. The Santidad Cross. It had to be. She wasn’t crazy after all.

Having heard the disturbance, several guards came quickly to find the prince collapsing to the ground. Lieutenant Sanchez kicked over the dying man and seized the cross. The storm gathered strength. Rain fell hard and fast. Lightning split a nearby tree, scattering the guards, but I remained rooted to the spot, watching as a large limb sundered from its trunk and crushed Sanchez, the cross still in his grasp.

The gods had listened.

Annie closed her eyes. Gripping the diary in her shaking hands, she remembered another time, another place. Other deaths. The curse was real, and this proved it. She picked up the diary, drew a small, heavy box from her briefcase and went in search of the head curator. He had to see this.

“Aaron!” She knocked on the way into his office, a large, white space filled with artifacts, book after oversized book and curious pieces of what most normal people considered junk. “I need to show you something from these newest acquisitions.”

A prime focus of her work at the museum, many called it an obsession, involved acquiring Spanish artifacts from Central America. She was always searching, always hoping. Upon hearing of the death of an elderly man in the area who’d brought back many relics and such from his travels to Belize and surrounding countries, she’d jumped at the opportunity to acquire his collection.

Aaron stood behind his untidy desk pulling on his suit coat. “You made it through that stuff already?”

Annie nodded. “A lot of what he owned belongs in antique stores,” she said, “but this—”

“Annie, I’m sorry. I’m already late for a lunch meeting.”

“Read this one passage. Please?” She held out the diary. “It’ll only take a second.”

Sighing, he scanned the excerpt and handed it back. “Intriguing. Let’s talk about this when I get back.” He didn’t believe her. No one did.

Unwilling to give up, she followed him down the long, antiseptic hall. “I’ll walk out with you.” Though the museum was filled with rich historical artifacts and lavish decorations, its administrative offices lacked a speck of personality.

“You’re thinking Santidad Cross,” he said, “aren’t you?”

“What else could it be?”

They reached the outside grounds and were greeted by a perfectly warmed summer day. As they came to Aaron’s parking spot, he slowed to face her. “I thought you’d decided to quit obsessing over that cross.”

“This is it, Aaron.” She glanced up at him, squinting against the noonday sun. “The validation I’ve been looking for all these years.”

“Annie.” He reached for her cheek, stopped, and instead squeezed her shoulder. “This…fixation is ruining your life.”

What life? She had no life to ruin, but it was sweet he cared. She’d tried caring back, really she had, but as attractive, intelligent and financially stable as Aaron was, she felt nothing romantic toward him. There had to be something wrong with her.

“We don’t even know if there is a Santidad Cross.” He tossed his briefcase into the passenger seat of his convertible.

“Did you read the soldier’s description?” She jabbed the old book. “No other such cross existed at this time.”

“You can’t accept it, can you?” Clearly frustrated, Aaron ran both hands through his light brown hair. “The Santidad Cross and its curse are myth. Speculation. Rumor. The cross isn’t listed on one single manifest, let alone the Concha’s. There’s no port master’s record of it. No ship record. Nada.”

She held out the diary. “What about this?”

“No official document ever mentions the Santidad Cross!”

“Maybe it wasn’t listed on anything official because no one wanted to scare the crew of the ship carrying it. News of the curse could easily have spread from one port city to the next.” She shook the book in his face. “And because of the rumors, the Concha’s captain may very well have kept the cross hidden in his private quarters.”

“Annie.” He gripped her shoulders with both hands. “The cross…doesn’t…exist.”

Her breath lodged in her throat. She’d known he’d say this, but all the same it blindsided her. She’d allowed a part of herself to hope Aaron, of all people, would believe her. He was her friend. And he’d given her no choice.

As he climbed into his car, she loosened the string on the box she’d been carrying. “Here.” She drew back the cloth coverings. “Look at this.”

He put the keys into the ignition and, obviously humoring her, glanced halfheartedly at the contents of the box. In an instant, he grew completely transfixed, didn’t tremble, didn’t breathe. Only his hair ruffled slightly from the breeze blowing in off Lake Michigan. “Have you shown this to anyone else?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Aaron, we have to lock it away at the museum. Put it somewhere no one can touch it.”

“This is yours? You came by it honestly?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t want it?”

“No!”

He grabbed the box and tossed it on the seat. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Aaron, don’t!”

“We’ll split it.” He started his car and revved the engine. “Fifty-fifty.”

“No—”

He grinned at her, pointing to his ear as if he couldn’t hear her, and zoomed out of the parking lot.

“Wait!” She raced after him, hoping to catch him at the red light. The stoplight turned green before she got to the intersection. He sped across Columbus. She saw the truck. Heading north. The driver wasn’t slowing.

“Aaron!” she screamed, running.

Tires screeched. Metal crunched. Aaron’s body flew across the road. He hit pavement with a sickening thud. Cars slammed on brakes. The busy street hit gridlock in seconds.

“No, no, no!” She reached Columbus and bent beside his still body. His blood poured onto the hot, dry asphalt. Frantically, she tried stopping the flow. Brushing away the tears clouding her vision, she felt his wrist. No pulse. Felt his neck. Nothing. “Aaron! Oh, Aaron!”

It was starting all over again, and the truth hit her with sickening awareness. She was the only person who could stop it.

CHAPTER ONE

“WHY DID YOU PULL IN all four survey ships?” Jake Rawlings strode into Oceanic Exploration’s largest corner office and slammed the door behind him.

Harold Puttlim, OEI’s head honcho, glanced up from the maps and surveys strewn in front of him. “You tell me, Jake.” He tossed his pen aside and leaned back in his chair, folding his bent, arthritic fingers over the small paunch of his stomach. “For two months you’ve been running all four ships practically nonstop looking for the Concha. What have you got for me?” He nailed Jake with his characteristic show-me-the-money gaze. “Are you any closer to finding it than you were two years ago? Ten years ago?”

No. Jake couldn’t truthfully make that claim. But then neither could anyone else. Treasure hunters had been climbing all over themselves looking for the shipwrecked Spanish galleon Concha since it went down in a hurricane off the coast of Florida almost four hundred years ago. With a main cargo hold loaded with enough gold, silver and gems to fetch close to a billion dollars, no shipwreck was more coveted, none more elusive.

“I made a promise,” Jake said evenly. “Don’t stand in my way.”

Harold seemed to chew on that, his cool gray eyes warming with sentiment. “Your dad and I were partners long before you owned your first set of flippers. I know how much he wanted the Concha.” He paused, all trace of emotion draining away. “But a personal promise made on a death bed holds no place in business.”

He knew Harold was right. Still, there was the little matter of that smile on his dad’s grizzled face after Jake had sworn he’d find the Concha. The glint of pride in the old man’s eyes as he lay in that hospital wasting away had stuck with Jake like barnacles on the hull of an old wooden boat.

“We were close this time.” Jake resisted the urge to slam his fist against the antique mahogany desk. “I know it.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, Harold. I know. The way a man knows his best friend just slept with his wife.”

Harold raised his bushy white eyebrows. “Considering that happens to be your area of expertise and not mine, it doesn’t do me much good, now, does it?”

Jake bit back a nasty comeback and walked across the plush gray carpet to the wall of windows, keeping his gait as normal as possible. His ankle was aching to high heaven today, but he wasn’t about to show any manner of weakness to Harold, or anyone else for that matter.

“The fact is you’ve exhausted your crews,” Harold continued. “Pissed off everyone from cook to captain. Spent millions this summer. And all you’ve got to show for it is a feeling you’re close.”

Flipping back his baseball cap, Jake said quietly, “I never said this search would be cheap or easy.”

“You did commit to finding it this diving season. With that tropical storm brewing and another one right behind it, you’re running out of time.”

“I’m doing everything I can.” Since his dad had died, responsibility for OEI and its employees nipped at Jake’s heels like sharks after bloody prey. He’d pumped most of his savings into the company and quit taking a salary months ago, but the debt continued growing. They had to find the Concha. Soon.

Several seagulls fighting over a washed-up fish carcass distracted him for a welcome moment. Although this time of year the surf still rolled gently onto the sand, it was already the end of August, well into hurricane season. They were diving on borrowed time.

“If my survey crews chart for four hours—” Jake paced, edgy to get back on the Mañana. To do something, rather than talk “—I chart for six. If my divers are under for six, I’m under for eight. What more do you want from me?”

“I want you to open up that hard head of yours and consider another approach.” Harold rested his knobby fingers on the desktop. “The right on-board marine archaeologist, someone with a history background, might help locate the Concha.”

So that’s what this was about.

Jake stopped in the middle of the room. “We’ve been having this discussion for years. Archaeologists do nothing but slow down operations. They want you to document everything. Pick up everything. Pottery, utensils, wooden planks, every piece of crap. I can’t afford to waste time salvaging anything that doesn’t pay the salaries at this company. We’re looking for gold, silver, gems. Period.”

“Well, I got news for you. Milly and I agree on this one. Period.”

Jake couldn’t believe his mother agreed with the old coot about anything, much less planned on marrying him. Jake’s dad hadn’t been gone that long.

Harold threw his pencil onto the desk. “You think you’ve got to prove something since Sam died—”

“Don’t,” Jake said, thrusting out his hand, “bring Sam into this.” At the mention of his younger brother, the pain in his foot turned to all out throbbing.

Now it was Harold’s turn to sigh. “I miss him as much as you, Jake, but you’d better hose down the fire in your belly, or it’s going to burn right through you and everybody else in its path.” He picked up his phone, dialed an internal extension and said, “Come on in here and bring your stuff.”

“You’ve already hired somebody?” Jake asked.

“Three days ago.”

“Great.” Jake ran his hands over the stubble on his cheeks. “Just great.”

If Sam were here, he’d have old Harold sweet-talked out of this archaeologist nonsense in the time it took to form a simple hitch knot. Sam had been the charmer in the family. Charismatic and easygoing, men, women, young and old, had followed him around like puppies eager for a scratch behind the ears. He’d been the star, the risk-taker and, although it had been unspoken, the one expected to find the Concha.

Jake, on the other hand, had always been OEI’s backbone. A responsible, if not boring, workaholic by most people’s standards, he was known for his calculated precision and clocking long, hard hours. And that was before the accident. Since then, no one seemed to understand the forces driving him. He worked hard…so what? The way he saw it, he merely did what he said he was going to do, and said what was on his mind, straight up, no embellishments, no sugarcoating.

With Jake, you always knew where you stood. With Sam, you’d have liked standing where he put you.

Sam. Oh, Sam.

A soft tapping sounded on the door, yanking Jake back from his thoughts. The archaeologist in question walked into the office, carrying an armload of oversized charts and other documents.

“Annie, come on in.” Harold stood and smiled in a fatherly kind of way, surprising Jake. Harold never smiled at anyone. Except Jake’s mother and occasionally Claire, Sam’s widow. “Jake Rawlings, meet Dr. Annie Miller.” The old man’s gruff voice mellowed a notch.

“Hello, Jake.” She reshuffled her load and extended a hand.

Jake considered ignoring her. There was no point in making nicey-nice. OEI couldn’t afford her salary let alone the time she’d cost them. But then base-level manners took over, and he shook her hand.

When she turned to Harold, Jake took the opportunity to size her up. Mousy-brown, shoulder-length hair. Tortoiseshell reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. Short-sleeved white linen shirt and black pants. No earrings, no necklace. Only a barely noticeable silver bracelet on her right wrist and a serviceable watch on her left.

Annie Miller, hell. Annie Hall was more like it. Except for those lips. They belonged on a Victoria’s Secret model. As for the rest of her, he couldn’t tell exactly what form hid beneath the baggy clothing, but with the way she moved, the way the fabric slipped over her skin, he had the distinct impression she’d be a killer in a bikini. With all those hormones in such close quarters, no doubt she’d wreak havoc aboard his boat.

Harold cleared his throat and said, “While Annie was a curator at the Field Museum in Chicago—”

“The Field Museum?” Jake snapped his head back toward Harold. “What do they have to do with marine exploration?”

“I know it isn’t the typical route—”

“Not typical? That place’s about as far away from marine life as an archaeologist can get.” The last thing Jake needed was an inexperienced woman on his boat during hurricane season. “Harold, we need to talk about this. In private.”

“Anything you need to say can be said in front of Annie.”

Jake hesitated. “Find someone else.”

“Dr. Miller’s perfect for your crew. She has degrees in both marine archaeology and Spanish history.”

“I don’t care if she can hold her breath under water for ten minutes a shot,” Jake said. “Give me a week and I’ll find an experienced archaeologist.”

“No, you won’t. Not with this kind of research.”

Annie dropped her armload onto Harold’s desk. “Can I say something?”

“No!” They both turned on her in unison.

“Look!” She faced Jake. “I have no problem with making my employment provisional. Give me two weeks. If I don’t succeed in enhancing your operations within that time frame, you can deliver me to the nearest island, and I’ll secure my own way home.”

Damn. She not only looked the stuffy museum curator part, she talked it. In spite of himself, he gave her credit for standing her ground.

“That’s reasonable, isn’t it?” she asked.

Whoever said he was reasonable?

“Jake…” Harold prompted.

“Fine, Harold. You want to throw Annie Hall here into the shark’s den, I’m not saving her. Just remember it was your idea.”

“Annie,” Harold said. “Show Jake what you showed me the other day.”

She spread maps and charts on top of Harold’s desk. “There were six ships in the Concha’s flotilla, and all except the Concha have been found within this vicinity.” She leaned over and pointed at a spot near the Florida coast. “You’ve been performing magnetometric surveys in a ten-mile radius surrounding this area. Correct?”

He walked to the desk and stood next to her, close enough to feel the heat emanating from her pale skin. At this very moment Jake’s four crews sat idle in the harbor, waiting for him. “If you got a point, make it.”

Turning toward him, she rested her hands on her hips, as femininely defiant a gesture as he’d ever seen. “You haven’t located the Concha because it didn’t sink with the rest of the flotilla. You’re off the mark in excess of a hundred miles—”

“Impossible,” he interrupted. “Historical eyewitness accounts state that all six ships, including the Concha, went down in 1622 in a hurricane off the coast of Florida.”

“If you’d give me a minute, I could explain.”