Three Tequilas (Althea Rose 3) Read online

  Which meant we were awfully damn close.

  Turning, I tugged on Trace’s fin and he glanced back at me. I laughed into my regulator as his eyes went huge behind his mask.

  We’d done it. We’d found treasure. Maybe not the prize we were looking for, but as far as I was concerned, this was still part of our haul.

  And it was stunning.

  Trace grabbed my hand and did a little dance under the water. I handed him the emerald and watched as he held it up, turning it over so that it caught the light. On impulse, I picked up my camera and shot his picture. In moments, Trace had handed the emerald back to me and was already beginning to scour the rest of the ocean floor with the little time we had left at that depth. I saw him shoot his hand in the air as he uncovered something else. Turning, he held out his hand.

  Another emerald.

  It was happening – this was really happening. We’d found treasure – most likely the treasure. I tried to contain myself, but a squeal of excitement still escaped me as we began our ascent.

  With a total of eleven emeralds tucked in our bags.

  Chapter Thirty

  I squealed as soon as we broke the surface and Trace laughed at me. We rocked in the waves, kicking towards the boat, laughing in excitement. I grabbed the ladder and pulled myself up with Trace following close behind.

  Nicola was curled on the floor, her hands wrapped around her knees. She dragged her face off her knees and looked at us dully.

  “Please tell me your smiles mean you found something.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, do a bunch of big freakin’ emeralds count?” I asked, pulling one out of my carry bag. The emerald caught the light and gleamed, its green color mirroring the hue of sea water over a sandy floor.

  Nicola’s mouth dropped open and she jumped up, but then steadied herself with a hand on the pole as the boat dipped with the waves. Centering herself, she waved me over.

  “That’s… wow, that’s stunning,” Nicola said, awe lacing her voice. She grimaced as another wave crashed into the boat and I looked around for the first time.

  “Ah, Trace, I think we’ve got some weather coming up here,” I said, pointing to the dark clouds hovering ominously on the horizon. The waves had now turned into full-on whitecaps, and I could tell that Nicola wasn’t going to make it through these swells.

  “Why don’t we go back in and see how the weather turns out this afternoon? Usually these storms blow over fairly quickly,” I said, gently pushing Nicola to sit back down on the bench.

  I was surprised when she nodded her agreement. I’d figured they’d be so hell-bent on finding El Serpiente that she would insist we push through, now that we’d found actual treasure. Another wave smashed the boat and I glanced over at Trace.

  “Trace? Want to call it?”

  “Yes. These waves are getting nasty. Let’s get in before we end up like the wreck we’re trying to find.”

  Nicola closed her eyes at his words and leaned back, wrapping both arms around the pole that held the canopy up. Nodding at Trace to go, I secured our equipment. At the last second, I snagged a marker buoy and dropped it – just in case.

  “Let’s go.”

  Trace hit the throttle and the boat raced towards shore, slamming into the high waves, the storm at our back. I braced myself and kept an eye on Nicola, worried she was going to let go and go bouncing overboard. Turning, I looked back, and could just make out the small orange dot of my marker buoy flailing in the swells.

  We should have checked the weather before this dive. Though, now that I thought about it, I was certain I’d checked it on my phone this morning, and nothing had registered other than sunny skies.

  Or had the curse of El Serpiente reached us – and was just now rearing its ugly head?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Once we were docked, Nicola seemed to perk up considerably. The ginger ale Trace handed her probably helped as well.

  I had laid the eleven emeralds out on deck of the boat and was racing against the storm to take pictures of them all. They looked stunning, the depth of their color all the more striking against the white of the deck.

  “Okay, you’ve got enough images,” Nicola said, reaching over and grabbing one of the emeralds.

  “I’ll say when I’m done,” I said, hip-checking her and making her stumble back.

  “Althea,” Trace warned from behind me, but I didn’t look up, just continued to click away.

  Silence fell, the only noise coming from the wind and rumbles of thunder behind me, and the occasional shout from fishermen docking their boats.

  “Althea,” Trace said again – sharply this time. I looked up from my camera to find myself facing my second gun in less than twenty-four hours.

  “You’ve taken enough photos,” Nicola said softly, and I stepped back, my camera in my hands.

  “By all means, take the emeralds. All yours, darling,” I said softly, my eyes on hers. Nicola stepped forward, but then realized she’d have to drop the gun in order to gather the emeralds.

  “Step back, both of you. On the benches.”

  I went and sat on the bench next to Trace.

  “Take the emeralds, Nicola; I don’t really care. Do you, Trace?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Trace said easily, leaning back and looping his arm over my shoulders. I leaned into him as the storm raged out at sea, coming closer by the minute.

  Nicola put the gun down and hurriedly shoved the emeralds into her pack, taking care to constantly scan the dock as well as keeping an eye on us. When they were all packed away, she came to stand before us.

  “We won’t be needing your services anymore. Thank you for your time. I’m sorry I had to pull my gun on you,” Nicola said.

  I did a quick scan of her energy to see if she was being sincere. She was.

  “We didn’t find El Serpiente, though,” Trace said.

  “I’m telling you that your services are no longer needed. And I must insist you stay away from that dive site. Unless you want to die.”

  I jerked my head around to meet Trace’s eyes. What was this woman playing at?

  “But our contract says we only get paid if we find El Serpiente.”

  “Yes, and the contract also states we can terminate as needed. It’s terminated. Althea, please hand over the SD card to your camera.”

  “I don’t think so, sweetie. I own the copyright to those images.”

  Nicola sighed, clearly annoyed with me, and reached for her gun, tucked in her waistband.

  “Fine, fine. I don’t really care. Take the pictures, take your damn emeralds. It doesn’t matter to me. Good luck making it out of here alive yourself,” I said angrily as I pulled the SD card from my camera and handed it to her.

  Nicola stopped as she was about to step off the boat.

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No, I’m not threatening you! I don’t want your stupid stones. I’m telling you that I’ve been threatened, and the ‘other interested party’ is not messing around. Watch yourself.”

  Lord knows why I was even telling her to take care of herself, after she’d just pulled a gun on me, but my read of her was still unclear, and there was something inside me saying I needed to warn her. Frankly, it was no skin off my back. At this point, we were all playing for our own lives.

  “Who threatened you? Why didn’t you inform me?”

  I looked at Nicola incredulously. “Why would I tell you? I have no idea what team you’re on.”

  “I’m on the team that’s trying to keep everyone alive,” Nicola bit out.

  She was telling the truth, too. I wished I could read her thoughts, but her mind-blocking game was excellent.

  “His name is Tlaloc. You can’t miss him. Big snake tattoo on his neck? He’s after the same stones you are. He’s offered us triple your rates. Maybe I’ll go tell him what we found today.”

  I said the last part as an empty threat, but the very real fear that flashed across Nicola’s face surprised
me.

  “If you tell him, you’re signing your own death warrants.”

  And with that she was gone, racing through the first drops of rain as they began to fall with the big fat plops that signaled an impending cloudburst.

  I opened my mouth to speak to Trace, but in that instant the sky opened up, drowning my words as we ducked for cover under the canopy. We held on as the winds raged against the boat.

  I stared out at the black horizon, and wondered just what game we were really playing here.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “I honestly can’t believe we’re going back out. We’re crazy. We must be crazy,” I said to Trace later that night as we motored away from the dock in the darkness.

  “Oh, we’re for sure crazy. As crazy as you are for giving her the wrong SD card.”

  Yeah, about that. I’d decided early in the week that I couldn’t trust Nicola, so I’d been switching SD cards throughout the week. The one I’d given her only held the pictures from the ocean floor – I still retained the one where I’d photographed the actual emeralds.

  “We signed a contract,” I pointed out.

  “Somehow I feel like people who’ll hold you at gunpoint aren’t going to care much about contracts.”

  “Fine, maybe not. But I’ve got all this downloaded and on file with Miss Elva. If anything happens to us, Chief Thomas will have evidence.”

  Even as I said the words, I realized how crazy they sounded.

  Trace sighed as we motored quietly into the dark water, his eyes scanning for any other running lights. There was only a slip of a moon tonight, so we were cruising in near-total darkness.

  “And yet, here we are,” Trace murmured.

  “Here we are,” I agreed.

  We sat in companionable silence for a while, me thinking about why Trace and I got along so well, and Trace – well, who knew what the hell Trace was thinking about.

  “Talk to Cash at all?”

  Ah. Well, there you go.

  “He texted me today to check in on me. I told him I was fine,” I admitted. That had been the extent of our communication, but it had been enough to put a little crack in the armor I’d put around my heart.

  Damn it, I missed him.

  But at the same time, I didn’t miss him at all. I loved diving with Trace and it had been a fun – if somewhat insane – week of being able to dive all day long. Even if it was for nefarious purposes, diving was always fun in my book.

  “That guy,” Trace said, shaking his head. I nudged him with my shoulder.

  “Shut it,” I said.

  “Pretty cool finding those emeralds today, huh?” Trace asked, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t believe it! I was just waiting on you, looking at this little fairy basslet, and then boom! I realized the green I was seeing wasn’t actually from the reef.”

  “I can see where the excitement comes in. Man, what a rush,” Trace said, running his fingers over his chin.

  “Think we’ll find something tonight?”

  “I think we’d better be prepared for anything,” Trace admitted. He reached up and flicked his running lights off, plunging us into darkness. The only glow came from his GPS screen, and he pressed the button to dim that to the lowest level as well. In seconds we were traveling in virtual blackness.

  “Want to go up on the bow and keep your eyes peeled?”

  “Yeah, that would probably be best. Jeez, I had no idea how weird it is out here with no lights at all,” I murmured, feeling my way forward until I found the edge of the boat. Following it to the front, I laid down on the deck so that my head was at the front of the boat and began scanning the water.

  Pro tip here – when you’re on the water with no lights on, bring your head close to the water level. Not only will your eyes adjust to the light and be able to see anything that disrupts the water – but you’ll be better able to hear the water slapping against the hull of a boat in front of you.

  Assuming that boat also had their lights off. Otherwise, Trace would be able to see the boat far before we reached it. And wasn’t it just ironic that I was pulling some James Bond stuff this evening?

  I stayed quiet as we motored along, my eyes constantly scanning, until Trace whispered to me.

  “Almost there. You can come back.”

  It had taken us longer than it normally would to get to the dive site, as Trace had kept his engines on low. I didn’t mind, though – it was actually quite beautiful once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. And the water had calmed down after the storm that had blown through earlier.

  I tried not to let anxiety about what we were preparing to do get into my head. I mean, any normal person might think going out on a dive in the dead of night – with nobody minding the boat above and in the middle of some high-stakes treasure hunt – might not be the smartest thing in the world to do.

  But far be it from me to point out the obvious.

  Trace had checked all our gear and set it up prior to leaving the dock, so all we had to do was slip our wetsuits on and click into our BCD vests. In a matter of moments we stood at the back of the boat.

  “Remember. No light until the bottom.”

  If I clicked my dive light on at the surface, any boat in the area would immediately see us. But if I waited until we were at the bottom, they’d need to be right over us to see that we were down there. I’m not saying it decreased our risks by much, but it helped. Marginally.

  “Got it,” I said and we held hands as we leapt from the back of the boat.

  Now, let me tell you something. There is nothing that really prepares you for an eighty-foot descent in pure darkness. You keep blinking as your eyes scramble to find any source of light – anything at all.

  Instead it’s like sinking into a void. The only light was the glow coming from Trace’s dive computer. His lit up – mine didn’t. I didn’t do enough night dives to justify the expense of a fancier computer. As we neared the bottom, Trace clicked on his light, immediately illuminating the world around us. I blinked for a moment at the shock, the brightness hurting my eyes, but quickly clicked my light on as well.

  We stayed close together, kicking our way along until we came to kneel in the sand, and took a moment to allow ourselves to adjust. Night diving is a whole different beast. Your vision is limited to the scope of your light – and even as strong as they make dive lights, it isn’t much. In other words, a predator – such as a curious shark – may literally be dancing just outside the beam of your light, and you would have no clue about it.

  I shivered for a moment, then shook my head. The likelihood of me getting picked off by a shark after the week I’d had was slim, so I focused on the task at hand.

  We began our scan, staying neck and neck, sweeping the beams of our lights back and forth as we carefully catalogued the reef and the ocean floor before us. And, boy, was the reef teeming with activity. I wished I’d brought my camera with me, because the entire reef was out feasting. All the cool stuff that stayed tucked away and hidden during the day came out to feed at night.

  Trace and I froze at the exact same instant. Call it diver’s instinct. Call it experience. But we both heard the sound of a boat engine at the same time.

  Without hesitating, we began our ascent.

  I tried to breathe easily as we stopped at fifteen feet for our safety stop. We hadn’t been down on the floor for very long, so we wouldn’t have to decompress for as long. But there was still no way we’d shoot right to the top. Trace reached over and looped his arm through mine; then, reaching down, he clicked off my flashlight.

  Together we floated in the water, holding onto each other, as the noise of the engine drew closer.

  I almost choked when Trace jerked me up, pushing me towards the ladder. I rushed from the water, ducking low as I scurried to the bench, and moved so that my tank slid into its slot. Keeping my head down, I unclipped my BCD and slid out of it, dropping to my knees on the deck of the boat. I crawled across the floor and
put my hand on the key. I waited as Trace climbed the ladder and moved quickly to get his tank off as well. In seconds, he was by my side.

  “Stay down,” he whispered, putting his hand over mine and turning the key to start the engines.

  Now, you can be as quiet as you want, but sound travels over water. The rumble of an engine starting up is unmistakable.

  As is the sound of gunfire.

  “Go!” I hissed, and Trace floored the throttle.

  I toppled back, catching my arms around the rung of the captain’s chair, and held on for dear life, burying my face into the deck.

  Shots kept firing and I wanted to scream, but couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than hold on and pray to the goddess to put a bubble of protection around us. Trace held the steering wheel in one hand, his head barely peeking over the top to see, as we roared across the water at full speed.

  Neither of us said a word until we’d drawn close to shore. Trace flicked on his running lights and decided to mix in with some of the other boats taking a nighttime cruise around the water. Obviously he wanted us to intermingle with the other boats for a while before docking, in case we were being tracked.

  “Did you see anything?” Trace finally asked, looking down at where I crouched on the floor.

  “Not a damn thing,” I admitted.

  “That was insane.”

  “I’m just glad you and I reacted the same way,” I admitted.

  “As soon as I heard that hum of the engine,” Trace said, and motioned shooting upwards with his hand.

  “Yup, I thought the same thing. Get out now.”

  “That was scary as hell. I’ll be having nightmares for weeks,” Trace admitted as he finally brought the boat into dock. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but my entire body was trembling with those little shakes you get from adrenalin surges.

  “It was like those ghost stories around the campfire – you know the ones, where they hold the flashlight up, but suddenly it goes dark?”