Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3) (28 page)

Ari didn’t answer, closing her eyes as puzzle pieces snapped into place. “They wanted the crate.”

“The one full of seashells?” Gussie choked out the question. “I hate to break it to you, hon, but no old tools are worth that much.”

But gold is.
She thudded her elbow on the table, covering her mouth with her hand. She had to tell Luke first.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter,” Gussie said, picking up her cell phone. “I’m calling the sheriff.”

“Wait.” Ari put her hand on Gussie’s arm.

“For what? You were robbed! They have to dust for fingerprints and take pictures and do…whatever sheriffs do.”

“Wait for Luke.” Already impatient to talk to him, she stood. “There’s more to this than a simple robbery.” So much more.

Gussie blinked at her, but Ari managed to escape when she heard a man’s footsteps on the stairs. It was Tom.

“There’s no one up there,” he said, then put a hand on Ari’s arm. “But it’s pretty bad.”

“I need to talk to Luke,” she said, slipping out of his touch, and then throwing a warning look at Gussie. “Don’t call anyone yet, okay?”

Gussie agreed with a single nod, and Ari darted outside, running up the stairs to see Luke in the doorway, stuffing a gun in the back of his jeans.

“Did you send the e-mail about the necklace?” he asked.

She came up the last few steps. “It came back as a nonexistent address.”

“Do you still have that message?”

“Of course. But, Luke, this isn’t about a necklace.” She reached for him, aching for those strong arms around her again.

“They were searching for something, Arielle.” He wrapped her in another embrace, and she hugged him back, looking over his shoulder into her demolished apartment. At the sight, her stomach turned. Sofa cushions sliced, all her art off the wall and cut up, every book torn from the shelves, and even her coffee table had been smashed with a hammer and taken apart.

“Luke, they wanted…gold.”

Luke drew back, looking at her. “What do you mean, gold?”

She sighed, not even sure how to tell him. “I’ll tell you inside.” She gathered up her strength, taking a few steps, but keeping one arm around Luke for support.

“Be careful,” he said. “There’s some glass and shards of wood.”

She stole a glance at her kitchen, letting out a little moan at every open, broken cabinet. They’d even gone through her dishwasher.

“Tell me about the gold. Did you have valuable jewelry?”

“Remember when Cutter’s uncle told him he was sitting on a gold mine?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She swallowed and picked up a broken mug. “Well, he is. At least, he’s sitting on some gold that was apparently taken off a ship that wrecked on that coast in the 1500s. A Spanish galleon called the
San Pedro
, which had been in Mexico and the Caribbean, loaded with gold and pearls. It was in a battle with a French ship, and they both sank.”

At Luke’s silence, she turned, seeing him as slack-jawed as she’d been when Dr. Marksman told her the story.

“It’s been rumored for years in the archaeology world,” she told him, all the information she’d been given spilling out faster than he could likely process. “The ships are still out there, but have never been discovered. But there’s folklore, and possibly some archaeological clues to support it, that when the
San Pedro
was going down, the sailors managed to get some of the gold off the ship and drag it through shallow waters to a small island. A small island, Luke.”

“Like Mimosa Key.”

“Yes. An offshoot tribe of the Calusa lived here, as proven by many of the artifacts in that box. They may have hidden the gold.”

“That’s insane.”

No kidding. “Speaking of insane, Dr. Marksman was out of his mind with excitement. This would be a monumental find, obviously. He called it the Lost Gold of the Calusa, and he said archaeologists and even treasure hunters have been looking for it for years, but much farther north. No one ever thought there were Calusa Indians living this far south until we found all that stuff hidden in the house. Oh, and Luke, that core sample? It’s not even from Mimosa Key!”

“I know,” Luke said gruffly. “And Marksman thinks this legendary ‘lost gold’ is on Cutter’s property?”

“Some of it, at least. The rest is at sea. But, Luke, if there’s gold on that property, it technically belongs to Cutter, although I suppose there are legal hoops to jump through.” She managed a smile. “But I have a feeling he won’t be too upset about the delay.”

But Luke didn’t smile. If anything, he looked angry.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you, Arielle, look at this place. Someone is willing to go to a lot of trouble and”—he practically growled with anger—“I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“I won’t stay here tonight,” she assured him. “We need to report this, and we have to tell Cutter. He’s going to want to search the land, and once this gets out, we can expect Barefoot Bay to be inundated with treasure hunters.”

He wasn’t even listening. He kept looking around the room, as if thinking, a storm brewing from the inside out. “It’s always like this,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“People lose their wits, their ability to think.” He sliced her with a gaze darkened by a world of hurt. “Gold makes people stupid and dangerous and deadly.”

Maybe it did, but something was making him furious. “Deadly?”

“Where there’s gold, there’s…murder. Always.”

A chill crawled up her back, a menacing ice pick of a sensation that matched the tone of his voice. “No one’s been murdered, Luke.” She said it almost to reassure herself because he looked so certain.

“And no one’s going to be. Not on my watch.” He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a nudge. “Let’s go. And not a word about gold, Arielle. Not to the cops when you report this robbery, not to my sister, not to anyone. Do you understand? Has Dr. Marksman told anyone?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so…” She slowed her step and took a moment to feel the low level of something dark and scary, not just in his words, but all through the apartment. It wasn’t like the greed she’d felt at the house on the hill, though it was similar.

No, this was deeper and darker and far more sinister. This was more like…desperation. Extreme desperation.

Chapter Twenty-two

It was late and Luke was starving by the time they finished with the two deputies from the Collier County Sheriff’s Department who took a report and walked through Arielle’s apartment. Gussie and Tom had whisked Alex off to Tom’s house, both of them wanting her as far away from the robbery as possible. Of course, they’d insisted Arielle and Luke stay with them for the night, but Luke had a few things he wanted to do first.

He whipped his truck into the Super Min’s parking lot for errand number one.

“Why are you stopping here?” Arielle asked.

“I need to talk to the lady who owns the place. Does she work nights?”

“Sometimes, but if Charity’s not here, someone can find her. Why do you want to talk to her?”

“I want to know more about that guy who said he was going up to the property,” he said vaguely, climbing out. “Come with me.”

She didn’t ask any more questions, but then Arielle had been pretty quiet for the last few hours, answering the deputies’ questions, staying close to Luke, barely talking to Gussie as the evening’s events progressed.

He hustled around the truck to help her out, but when she slipped her hand into his, he felt an involuntary shudder. There was a time when he would have thought that little shudder was the impact of their mutual chemistry. Now, he saw fear in her eyes.

And all he wanted to do was erase it.

A teenage girl looked up from the counter when the bell dinged to announce their entry, her age making Luke wonder how difficult it would be to get information out of her, but Arielle instantly smiled.

“Ashley, I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Oh, hi, Ari. I come in every once in a while when Charity is in a bind.” She leaned forward and whispered, “She can’t keep good help. Shocker, huh?”

“This is Lacey Walker’s daughter,” Arielle told Luke. “Ashley, this is Luke McBain, Gussie’s brother.”

Luke didn’t wait for the introduction formalities to be over. “Do you know how we can reach your boss?” he asked. “I need to ask her a few questions.”

“She’s in the back doing the books.” Ashley pointed over her shoulder to a locked door. “And if I know Charity and her closed-circuit cameras, she’ll be—”

The back door popped open. “What do you want from me?” Charity wasted no energy on a friendly smile, which, at the moment, suited Luke just fine.

Ashley bit back a smile and shared a look with Arielle, but Luke walked closer. “Do you remember you told us about a man who was going up to the North Barefoot Bay property the other morning?”

Her brows furrowed, but she nodded.

“Did you get his name or personal information?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“None of your business,” he shot back. “But I know you like to gather personal information, so don’t even try to tell me you didn’t.”

An eyebrow—well, a dark line painted to look like a brow—arched up over her reading glasses. “Everything is my—”

“Not this,” he said, cutting her off. “This is a matter of grave importance. Did you or did you not get his name?”

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, meeting his gaze in challenge. But he flattened her with one of his own, knowing the power of how important this was coming through every cell in his body.

“No,” she finally said. “He was a miserable prick who wouldn’t tell me his name.” She threw a look at Ashley. “Sorry, kid.”

Ashley shrugged. “Believe me, I know what a miserable prick is.”

“Can you describe him in more detail?” Luke asked. “Clothes, hair, size, anything distinct about him?”

“If I know why you need to know.”

Arielle stepped forward. “My apartment was broken into this afternoon, Charity. We think that man who you said came in here and bought Red Bull and a newspaper might be able to help us.” She reached out and put a hand on Charity’s arm. “I feel so violated,” she admitted softly. “And I want to find out who did this to me and my apartment.”

Her technique worked better than his, making Charity soften visibly.

“Bastard,” the woman mumbled with another apologetic look at Ashley. “I suppose you know what that is, too.”

“All too well,” Ashley said.

“No, I didn’t get his name,” Charity told them. “He was big and husky, talked on the phone the whole time.”

“I thought you said he told you he was going up to the property,” Luke said.

She managed to look sheepish. “He said it into his phone, not to me.”

Irritation rocked him. “What else did he say into that phone?”

“Nothing I remember,” she said. “But his fingernails were filthy.”

“His fingernails?” Arielle asked.

“Like he’d been digging in dirt?” Luke suggested.

“Exactly,” Charity said. “Stubby, dirty nails and a big hairy chest. Sorry, but that’s all I got. And next time y’all are pickin’ at me for asking questions”—she pointed one of her long nails at Arielle, then Ashley—“remember that some people want answers.”

Luke thanked her and put his hand on Arielle’s shoulder to guide her out, aware that she was looking hard at him. “What is it?” he asked.

“I totally forgot to tell you about the weird note I got in the mail.”

He blinked at her. “What weird note?”

“A couple of days ago I got this typed note in snail mail that said”—she frowned, remembering—“‘Put the pearls back where you found them.’”

He drew back, not even sure where to begin with that information. “Why didn’t you tell me that? Who knows you found those pearls? And where are they now?”

She stopped the onslaught with a raised hand. “I said I forgot. I didn’t think anyone was looking for pearls in my apartment because I was focused on the gold. And you’re the only person who knows about the pearls.”

“Did they take them?”

She shook her head. “I put them in a safe-deposit box after I got that note.”

He guided her up to the passenger seat in his truck. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“And here I thought I’m the one with all the feelings.”

“Not anymore, Little Mermaid.”

* * *

Ari curled into the overstuffed guest chair in the corner of the Barefoot Brides office, watching Luke silently tap away at her computer. He was searching for a tech trail on the e-mail that she’d sent to the person who’d run the ad looking for the pearl necklace. On the conference table, she’d laid out the unsigned note and envelope she’d saved.

Threads of thoughts, knots of possibilities, and a few loose ends threatened to tangle in her head as she went through what they knew and didn’t about this situation. There was gold, there were pearls, there was land, and her apartment had been trashed. The pressure of stress, exhaustion, hunger, and worry made her close her eyes and drift off.