6. Six
The excitement on her features shouldn’t have sent a thrill through him. But somehow seeing the emotions he kept deeply buried mirrored on another evoked instant camaraderie.
Daniel widened the secret door to let in the light from the study’s nearby window, and Camilla leaned close to him to look inside. She smelled of fresh air and something sweet. With the slightest undercurrent of mechanical grease. He almost chuckled. Charming. In a way only Captain Lockhart could be.
“It’s empty.” Camilla’s features fell, and she jabbed him with a questioning look.
As though he had tricked her into signing a contract for nothing.
Defensiveness swelled. He never swindled anyone. Regardless of what the newspapers might have said. “A hidden room isn’t nothing. What if the treasure was here? And—”
She pulled away from him, taking her contradictory scent and partnership with her. “This is the only clue you have? How can you think this will lead you to a treasure?”
He gripped the bookcase. “You have a terrible habit of not letting people finish. Do you know that?”
She blinked and then puckered her lips. “I do. I’m sorry.”
Her easy apology shocked him out of his annoyance. Most people would have struck back with some excuse or pointed out one of his flaws. Instead, she gave simple honesty. What was he supposed to do with that?
Clearing his throat to reset himself, he gestured inside. “When I found this room, it wasn’t empty. There were a couple of discarded boxes and evidence there may have been several objects here that hadn’t been moved in a long time.”
“But how could you know—” She bit off the words, shook her head, then motioned for him to continue.
He withheld a smile. “There was a lot of dust on the shelves. Except in little squares and various other shapes. Which led me to believe those items had been recently moved. Probably right before my grandfather’s passing.”
Camilla stuck her head back into the closet to examine the shelves. He hadn’t changed anything.
Well, almost. “There was only one thing left in there. A ledger.”
Her bright eyes found his. “The one with my father’s name?”
He stepped away from the opening, and after she did the same, he closed the door. The shelf blended back against the wall. Discovering it had been a miracle. At the desk, he opened the third drawer to his left and hefted a thick volume.
Camilla accepted the proffered tome and ran a finger down the leather cover. “My grandfather had a book like this. He kept detailed notes on the river. It’s one of the advantages he passed to my father and on to me.”
Her words carried such reverence that he paused. How much importance did captains truly put on such details? He’d heard that, if one wasn’t intimately familiar with the Wicked River, they could find themselves lost at the bottom of it within moments. He’d never given much credence to the idea until now.
“At first, the only thing I read in there was business notes like you might expect.” He kept on topic, instead of focusing on the way her features softened with memories of her family. “Which I found odd. Why keep a business-expense ledger hidden in a secret room?”
She flipped open the cover and scanned the contents to verify.
“Then I noticed something different toward the back. Riddles. Puzzles.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m afraid we’d begun to question Grandfather’s sanity in his final days. He’d started to forget things, and some days, it seemed he thought he lived in the past. His former cook said she’d hear him wandering the halls in the middle of the night, shouting about Rebels coming to burn the house like he was still a young boy during the war.”
Camilla thumbed to the back of the book and frowned at a drawing scribbled in one of the margins. “Did you ever see any of these episodes yourself?”
“A time or two. I think he knew his mind had started to slip. That’s when he sent for me. Said he wanted to make sure I transitioned into the family estate before he died. And since my sister had recently lost her husband, I brought her and my nephew with me. He passed a week later.” Why had he volunteered all that extra information? It had little to do with the book or what he’d found inside.
“If I may.” He reached for the book and flipped to the page. The one that had sent him to seek out Captain Lockhart. “I found this. It looks like Grandfather hired an investigator to follow my father. If Father suspected anything, that could explain why he used a different name. There wasn’t much love between them, I’m afraid.”
“Couldn’t have been too terrible if he chose to leave everything to you.” She scooted closer, and her sleeve brushed his.
Her nearness sent a tingle along his spine. Most people didn’t stand this close to relative strangers without unwelcome intent. Yet Camilla didn’t invade his space out of threat or false seduction attempts. Curiosity and excitement drove her actions in a way akin to Lucas. No wonder Solomon showed such fierce protectiveness over this spirited woman.
“I wish sentimentality had something to do with it.” He focused on the conversation he’d let lag. “In Natchez, families keep their money close and their names in high regard. One does not sell an estate if he can bequeath it to an heir of any kind. Such things are frowned upon. And my grandfather insisted only a blood heir would inherit, so he cut my father from his will.”
He pointed to the place on the page for her to read.
Camilla squinted at the line. “‘Harry has hired a boat captain by the name of Lockhart. Captain of the Alma May. This man might be the key to finding the Carolina. He’s close. Too close. Can’t let him see what died with the gold. This must end with me.’”
She read the last part again. “What does he mean, died with the gold? And the Carolina is a boat. If he thinks the treasure went under the Mississippi, you’ll never find it. When boats and people are lost on the river, they are never found again.”
“If that’s true, then why were our fathers close to a discovery?”
“Gamblers and treasure hunters always think they are on the verge of a win regardless of how many losses they’ve sustained.” She plopped into a chair. “I’m not sure what you want me to do here, Mr. Gray. I can navigate you down the dangerous currents of the river, but I can’t help you find anything at the bottom of it. That’s impossible. The water is too deep and too full of silt. Even if you could survive the current to get five feet below the surface, you wouldn’t be able to see anything.”
She shook her head when he opened his mouth to protest. “Even if you managed to anchor down in the exact right location where your boat went under, the wreckage could be miles downriver by now. Or it could be buried under ten feet of shifty silt. No, sir. If your treasure sunk, then it’s well and truly lost for good.”
The seriousness of her tone left no room for argument. His mind churned. “If we find the information that convinced my father the treasure can be found, then we can pick up where he left off.”
“You mean pick up with whatever he was doing right before he died.” She crossed her arms and pinned him with a serious look. “Likely as a direct result of looking for this treasure.”
He took a moment to close the book and set it down. Then he leaned against the desk and matched her demeanor. “Then the treasure must be real if it got him killed.”
If he really is dead.
He shoved the thought aside. Harry Gray was most likely deceased, even if they’d yet to find his body and the law withheld an official declaration of death. If he’d been alive, he’d have returned or sent word by now. No. He’d do well and good not to let such ideas fester.
Camilla flipped her long braid over her shoulder and propped her elbows on her knees in her study of him. “Men only need the idea of money to kill for it, Mr. Gray.”
“Daniel.” And he knew that plenty well enough. He’d seen firsthand what greed could do. His father had apparently sold everything he owned to pursue it.
Her tone softened. “Daniel. I know finding this treasure, whatever it is, means a lot to you. I can see that, even if I don’t know why. Something tells me your determination runs deeper than greed.”
A sharp pang radiated through his chest. How could she know anything about the real motives driving him to finish what his father started? Everyone could see they needed the money. Most people would have considered that reason enough.
She turned out her palm before he had to come up with a response. “Your reasons are your business. But it would be unfair of me to take you down the river knowing there’s no possibility you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“What if it ran aground and didn’t sink?” He grabbed the book and flipped to a new page. “It says here that it disappeared. Not necessarily that it sank.”
Camilla tapped a slender finger on the armrest. “I suppose that’s possible. But if we are talking about a treasure missing for at least two generations, don’t you think someone would have noticed an abandoned boat on the banks by now?”
“I’m given to understand there is a dense network of channels apart from the main river. Places that are not easy to navigate. Is that correct?”
A thought line formed between her dark brows. “Yes, but only a few you’d ever get a large steamer down.”
“Didn’t the Union army send gunboats up shallow channels during the War Between the States?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I suppose.”
If they had taken the boat down one of the many channels, then even if it sank, the shallower water would be easier to search. “So the channels could be a possibility?”
“They could, but you have hundreds of miles of back channels. Not to mention all the oxbow lakes from where the river has changed course since then. That’s an impossible amount of territory to search.”
“But if we know where to start, we can trace the path the Carolina would have taken.” He flipped to another page in the book. A tingle ran through him. This had been what it’d been like in the courtroom. Finding evidence, following logic and clues. Garnering information from witnesses to build his case.
“So, we’ve established the back channels could be a possibility.” He pointed to his grandfather’s script and avoided her tight expression resembling a witness who’d been deftly walked down the lawyer’s line of questioning and suspected they’d been guided there for a reason.
He read his grandfather’s words aloud. “‘They say she went down, but I know better. Oh, I know better. She crept into the backwaters and birthed her illicit cargo. Bad blood there is. Bad blood. Can’t let them know.’”
He withheld a wince. Now that he read the words out loud, they sounded less cryptic and more like the ramblings of a madman. Was he gambling his sister’s and nephew’s future on delusions?
Camilla pursed her lips. “What makes him think they took a back channel?” Without waiting for him to answer, she snapped her fingers. “Of course. How dull of me not to think of it. I know what we need to do.”
“What?”
She popped to her feet and scrambled out the door.
Daniel placed the book back in the drawer, checked to ensure the bookshelf had securely latched, and followed his exuberant companion. Satisfaction simmered. He’d constructed his case and established merit to his father’s search. And given Camilla’s hasty departure, her idea might wrap this up sooner rather than later.
He hoped.
One month. If he didn’t find the money by then, their lives would be forfeit.
But he didn’t need to worry about that now. Not when Camilla had a lead.