“For what?”
“For believing me and not letting me search alone.”
“I’m having a good time,” I said. And it was the truth.
“Me too.” He lowered his mask. “Ready?”
Taking several deep breaths, we went under.
As the sand settled, so did the disappointment that sank into the pit of my stomach. The first case had a collection of embossed leather books that contained a muck of emptiness; the second held the same; the third one had fragments of fabric, perhaps silk, that disintegrated as soon as I touched it; and the fourth held gunk and filth.
“This couldn’t be it,” I said, as we withdrew in defeat and slumped on the rocky beach. “The riddle describes this place. So, what the hell?”
Hunter tossed his mask on the sand and pulled water bottles out of the bag. He gave me one. I drank half of it, some freshwater drops escaping my lips, mixing with saltwater, and running down my neck.
“That was not the treasure. Maybe import documents, government secrets,” Hunter finally spoke. “They must have made a mistake and confused chests. This is the only explanation I can come up with. They meant to hide something else here. Something that wouldn’t turn into soot.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
I swallowed hard. “Sorry.” I wasn’t sure what else I could say to comfort him. It really sucked. I barely slept last night, anticipation keeping me up and constantly checking if it was dawn. If anger and disappointment had crushed me down like a heavy boulder, what Hunter felt must have been ten times worse. I’d searched for treasure for a few days, whereas he’d spent years roaming the ocean looking for it.
Hunter shook his head, and lay on his back. “It’s fine,” he said, staring up at the skies through the opening in the ceiling above us. “I don’t think I told you that my grandfather and Edward weren’t the only two obsessed with treasure hunting.”
I tore my eyes from his toned body, where abdominal muscle flexed with each breath he took, and looked at his face. “They weren’t?”
“No. Unfortunately, two of Edward’s brothers met their tragic demise while also searching for this godforsaken treasure. The older brother, Kevin, died after a grey reef shark attacked him during a dive in the unexplored territory between this island and Bora Bora.”
I sucked in a breath. “Fuck, that’s horrible.”
“The younger brother, Joseph and two of his friends, ventured for a two-month-long expedition before his thirtieth birthday. Their fates remain a mystery to this day. My aunt blames Holden’s family curse, like we’re some kind of Kennedy family of the oceans.” He rubbed his face, muffling a groan. “When Edward and Annie took full custody of me, she made him give his word that he would never drag me into this bloody treasure-hunting mess that put my grandfather into a madhouse and took so many away from the Holden family. She made him stop searching for it too. When I left for college, Edward left to live here, and Annie divorced him because she wasn’t going to be the widow of a crazy man.”
I reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Now you have proof they weren’t madmen.”
“Sort of.” Hunter eyes cut to me, mouth lifting at one corner. “What we found is dust.”
“Yes, but we found proof that the riddles are real. And nowweknow that treasure is real and somewhere hidden on Teaku. We have three more chances to find the rest. Hopefully, it will be in solid form.”
ChapterEighteen
That afternoon, Hunter and I cooked lunch and went over everything we (mostly he) knew about the island, debating about the next best place to look. The island was several square miles, mainly mountainous, and the possibilities for hideouts camouflaged by nature were endless.
We tried to think like the captain who’d arrived here two hundred years ago. He could have easily noticed the entrance into the grotto while scouting, as it most likely hadn’t been overgrown with vines and flowering bushes. Or perhaps he’d uncovered the cave as he passed the island on his ship, during low tide, when the gap on the ocean side was wider. The ocean level was probably also much lower back then. Were there other caves easily accessible from the water? The island’s outline curved outward, making it impossible to see the mountainside from the land. Hunter and I needed a boat (that we didn’t have) to go around the island and look closer at the cliffs from the water.
We had to work with what we had: the jungle. A lot of it. Some areas were so dense with vines and trees that it was impossible to see through. The thick, perpetual canopy stripped the day of its sunlight, throwing an extra layer of dark shadow over the ground, but at least it provided cool relief. And that was what we agreed to focus on. The more challenging the place was to reach, the better our chance of finding something there.
“Let’s work on the two riddles that mention death or dead,” Hunter said, offering me a palm leaf with a fish fillet and a small amount of rice. “Snakes are not deadly, despite your wrong opinion, so we can dismiss them. The other deadly creatures around here are sharks and possibly sea urchins, but those are in the ocean.”
“What if a huge boar lived here when the captain arrived?” I blew a wisp of hair out of my eyes. “From what I know, it can be very deadly when you come face to face with a wild pig.”
Hunter’s hand paused midair to his mouth, rice pinched between his fingers. “How would a pig get here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. How did snakes get here?”
“They could have been water snakes at first.” Hunter arched an eyebrow.
“Wild pig could have evolved from merpigs.” I stuck my tongue at him, and he snorted. “Okay. Fine. What if death or deadly doesn’t mean a live creature but the way to get to the treasure,” I suggested. “Another trap. Difficult journey. Or a challenging journey full of traps. Why did John fall into the pit? What was he looking for in that area? Since he was the captain’s friend, he might have had more insight than riddles. The captain could have simply left him directions that said, ‘Travel west until you reach a big rock, then turn right. Bring a mate because it’s a lot of crap to carry back.’”
“Yet, his friend fell to his death into the trap?”
“John could be like any other man and didn’t read the instructions.” I smiled, earning an eye roll from Hunter.
