Chapter 1
HOLLYN OATES HELD THEcircular chunk of gold up to the light, turning it back and forth with her thumb and index finger. With her other hand, she took a swig of the amber ale the bartender set on the bar in front of her.
Her voice was barely a whisper as she turned to the person on the stool next to her and mumbled, “Found this and a trove of others in the remains of a shipwreck off the coast of the Carolinas.”
But, as low as she’d said it, she knew he hadn’t really heard her in the noisy atmosphere. So, she decided to show him what she’d found instead. She grinned as she handed the piece of metal over to Fencer, the contact that helped her find a buyer for the treasures she found in the ocean. It wasn’t his real name, but he didn’t know hers either. They used code names, and she only reached out through other channels when she was on to a possible treasure hunt.
She couldn’t help but get excited this time, though. She’d reached out a couple of days ago, and she was glad she did. This finding was one of the biggest she’d ever found. But now, things were getting strange. Fencer seemed more fidgety than usual, and Hollyn couldn’t get a hold of the one person she trusted whole-heartedly to figure out what price she should ask for the mountain of Spanish gold she had hidden away in a nearby location. She knew what she wanted to ask for, but Jesse was always able to negotiate a little more realistically.
She’d radioed her aunt Jesse as soon as she was back on board the rented passenger boat she’d used to get to the site of the shipwreck. However, Jesse hadn’t responded. It had been unlike her not to be waiting at the dock. She hadn’t even answered her cell phone, but that wasn’t unusual if she’d decided to look up one of the “dates” she frequently hung out with when she felt particularly...lonely.
But Jesse had known Hollyn would contact her as soon as she had what they were looking for. It was supposed to be the big one they’d dreamed of. With this finding, they planned to finally buy the sailboat they’d been dreaming about and sail around the world.
Hollyn looked at the time. She had stayed out longer than usual, pushing her dive earlier to a little over forty-five minutes. It was the absolute limit she knew she could push her scuba equipment, but it had been necessary to load everything into the box that was connected to a crank and reel on the boat before she surfaced and pulled it all up into the boat. She wasn’t leaving without all the pieces of gold she could find. But Jesse had already known that the process could take a while.
But even when she’d docked the rented boat an hour ago, Hollyn had expected Jesse to be standing on the dock, waiting to help her offload the gold in secret. Instead, Hollyn had had to toss her scuba gear overboard and hide the gold at the bottom of her clothing bags. It had been painful to lose her equipment, but she couldn’t chance someone tracing it back to her if she’d left it on the boat to be found.
Fencer ran a nervous hand over the back of his neck, as if the hairs there needed smoothing down. “Um...could we hurry this up. I’ve got another job to get to.”
Hollyn set down her drink and pulled out the small pad of paper she always carried with her and used the nearby pen that one of the last patrons had used to sign off on the credit card payment used to settle up for drinks. She scribbled, “How much for all of it?”
Fencer was used to her odd methods of communication. He didn’t even question it as he answered, “I’ve got a buyer lined up who’s willing to pay $500,000 a coin if there are Tricentennial Royal coins contained within.”
“Why so special?” Hollyn wrote her question and slid it in front of Fencer.
“They were minted for King Philip V of Spain, and there were only six of them made. One was found in a shipwreck off of the Bahamas about ten years ago, but there are still some out there just waiting to be discovered.”
The door to the bar opened and slammed shut with a loud thunk. Fencer jumped on his stool and swiveled his head to stare at the laughing couple entangled with each other as they made their way inside. He continued to scan the dim barroom, making Hollyn suspicious that something was definitely wrong.
She pulled the pad of paper back and wrote, “Why are you so nervous?”
He pursed his lips and cocked his head to the side as he explained, “I screwed up, Jones.” He used her codename. It was a silly reference to her role in their relationship. She was Indiana Jones and Fencer was Marcus Brody. Right now, though, she was getting more anxious about having a connection to anyone. She’d been so careful over the past ten years to move around often, to stay off the grid, to be an unknown, to practically be a ghost.
Now, fear gripped her as she realized that her whole world was about to come crashing down.
Her hand flew across the page as she wrote the words, “What did you do?”
“You can’t blame me! Not really.”
She pressed so hard on the page as she wrote, “What happened?”
“A month ago, a man approached me. He said he was your father. I doubted his story at first, but he knew things about you that were specific. He knew what you looked like down to the clothing you’re wearing tonight. He knew about the scar on your chin.
Her father should have known about the scar. He’d been the one to give it to her.
How had he found her?
She scribbled, “Is he here tonight?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. He told me a story about a bad break-up between your mother and him. He said he had not been able to see you and wanted help surprising you with a meeting. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that, and I thought that was the end of it. But...”
She nodded her head and waved her hand for him to continue.
“Last week, I saw one of his guards in a restaurant. It was enough to make me watch my surroundings a little more closely. Sure enough, the same guard was with another in a store I ran into to get a few items. Clearly, I’ve been followed here.”
She stood up from her stool and pocketed her coin. With determination, she wrote a final message. “I’ll be in touch when it’s clear.”
Before she could go very far, though, Fencer grabbed her arm and nodded toward the door. It was blocked by two, muscular men, arms crossed, eyes scanning the barroom.
