Chapter 36
Gabby opened her eyes to find herself lying on a dusty wood floor she didn’t recognize. Reflected light pulsed across the room at regular intervals, not from inside but from outside.
“How does your head feel, my dear?” asked a soothing voice she recognized as Tamara’s. Wincing as she turned her neck, she saw the old woman kneeling next to her.
She sat up and realized that her purple sweater was tucked under her chin, covering her torso. The last time she’d seen it, it had been snagged in the blackberry brambles in the southwest woods.
“My sweater…”
“Something told me to bring it with me when Kieth put me into his boat. I never ignore my intuition.”
“I lost it in the blackberry brambles.”
“It called to me. We had important things to discuss.”
Gabby stared at her, wondering if that bump on her head was still causing problems.
Heavy footsteps interrupted. Gabby scrambled onto her feet, still woozy, but determined to meet her fate from a standing position instead of a vulnerable one.
When the room stopped spinning, Detective Hooper stood before her, large and paunchy and frowning. He wore a baseball cap He held a duffel bag that gave her the creeps. Killers liked such bags, didn’t they? They were convenient for holding ammunition and body parts and spare clothes.
“You’re Keith Garner?”
Looking closely at him, she saw a distant resemblance to that long-ago photograph, mostly around the eyes and the jutting jaw.
Come to think of it, they looked different today.
Hadn’t they been brown before? They were a gray-ish blue now.
Had he been wearing contact lenses? That would make sense, if he was trying to make sure no one on the island recognized him.
“Used to be.” He opened the duffel bag and pulled out a binder. Handing it to her, he said, “The old lady’s useless. She doesn’t know shit, or at least she puts on a good act.”
“I don’t know shit,” Tamara agreed. “Not what you want to know.”
“What is this?” Gabby opened the binder and saw the answer to her question in the photocopied pages within. “Marianne’s journal.”
“Yes. It’s the key, at least you better hope it is.”
“Key to what? Are you talking about the pirate treasure? I already know there’s nothing in here about that.”
“Look again. You’re curious about that treasure too. That’s why you were hanging around that witch.” He jerked his head at Tamara.
“Wait,” Gabby exclaimed. “That’s why you set up those cameras? You thought Tamara knew where it was?”
“I knew she’d never tell. Thought maybe she’d show me, the old bag. She never did, but I found out other things. Like where she kept the castor beans.”
Tamara’s eyes widened in worry. “My castor beans? You used my beans to poison people?”
“I was just doing the same thing the Carmichaels did. Poetic justice, that’s what they call it.
My mother told me how Annabeth Carmichael stole castor beans from you and gave them to your daughter.
She didn’t want your people polluting the Carmichael bloodline, she thought it would ruin the family’s reputation.
She wanted to frame you for the murder of your own daughter. ”
Tamara cried out and bent over, gripping her stomach, as if feeling the same pain Sophie had.
Relentless, Hooper went on. ”But you got your revenge on the Carmichaels, didn’t you? Helping Fiona in secret, behind my back. Killing my baby.”
“No! No revenge. Fiona wasn’t ready.” Far from being intimidated, Tamara lifted her head and held her ground. “She begged me to help her. I listened and I followed where my intuition and the signs led me. She was not yours to control. It was her decision.”
Enraged, Hooper hauled Tamara to her feet. He was such a beefy man, it took him barely any effort at all, as if she were a kitten he was picking up by the scruff of her neck.
With his free hand, he pulled out his gun and held it to her temple. “I might have a child right now if it wasn’t for this witch,” he growled to Gabby. “I don’t care one way or another if I have to kill her. And I will, if you don’t figure something out quick.”
Gabby’s heart froze, then started pounding again in double time. “Just let Tamara go. The two of us will work on it, I promise. We’ll figure it out. But I need her help. Let her come over here and help me.”
As if she were prey, Hooper tossed Tamara in Gabby’s direction. She barely managed to catch the older woman’s frail form. With her arms tight around Tamara, Gabby lowered them both to the floor and spread open the binder.
“I read this whole thing already,” she told Hooper. “All it says is that her dearest possession is on the island somewhere, and whoever has it must wield that power wisely. Does that really sound like buried treasure to you?”
“Yes,” Hooper said stonily. “And I want it. I deserve it. This island has fucked me over in every way. It took the only girl I ever loved. It took my baby. It took my family. My home, my future. This fucking island owes me.”
“Why did you have to kill Amelia? What did she do?”
“Another evil old crone past her time. She took our house, made us live in a shed. Besides, she was terminal, so who cares? I needed a reason to arrest the witch and make her scramble to get the money she’s been hoarding.”
“Are you talking about the treasure? You thought Tamara had it?”
“I thought I could scare her into giving it up. Make her look for it. I didn’t know Barnaby Carmichael would give a shit about her.”
“I promise you I don’t know where it is,” Tamara said wearily. Gabby wondered how many times she’d already told Hooper that.
“That’s why you better figure it out fast. I always thought it was in this lighthouse somewhere, but if I’m wrong, I’m wrong and we need to get gone.”
Hooper hovered, his gun still trained on them. Gabby willed herself not to get distracted by it. Her brother had made sure she knew how to use a gun, but that didn’t mean she liked it.
“Come on, Tamara, let’s put our heads together. Do you remember your mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, anyone like that ever saying something about treasure?”
Still shaken from being thrown across the room, Tamara whispered ‘no.’
“Okay then, let’s look through this journal one page at a time and see if anything rings a bell. Take your time.” The longer it took, the better the chances that someone would come after them.
Hooper lifted the gun and very deliberately pointed it at Gabby. “No delays. You have until we hear a boat engine. No longer. Then she dies.”
Fighting back the fear that threatened to overwhelm her, she focused her gaze on the photocopied pages. After they’d scanned a few and found nothing about any treasure, she murmured, “Let’s go straight to the section about the most precious possession and start there.”
Tamara gave a nervous nod. Gabby flipped through the pages until she found it.
My love has not returned to me. Now I know he never will.
I am alone in this foreign land where the ocean hisses secrets to me and the trees are dark against the sky.
I will never see my homeland again, I know this now.
How shall I reach it save in my dreams? I will never see my love again.
I have been abandoned by the men. All that is left to me is my sweet girl, who knows nothing of where we truly belong.
She climbs the rocks barefoot and dives into the ocean like a fish.
This world will belong to her when I am gone.
It is all I can give her, along with my most precious possession.
Let us hope she can wield it wisely for it brings much power.
From Joshua, she inherited cleverness, his laugh, his bright eyes, so many precious gifts.
I pray they will be enough for her, that they will bring her what she needs and repel what she does not.
The fog is our savior. Some days it’s thick as smoke, especially in the winter when it rises from the ocean.
I hear faraway bells that warn sailors of rocks and reefs.
Sometimes, when I gaze at the ocean from my favorite spot, pining for Joshua, for a moment I think I am in Martinique where the water is clear like glass, reflecting everything clearly, and the mountains rise to the sky.
But then I know it was a trick of light and I am forever stranded in this faraway land.
Gabby was caught up in the spell of Marianne’s mournful prose. She could practically see the little girl playing on the rocks and hear the distant fog bells. But Tamara must have noticed something else.
She crouched down closer to the binder and tilted it so the light fell across one particular section. “Do you see that?” she whispered.
Gabby shook her head, not sure what she was supposed to be noticing. Tamara pointed to a mark under the word “pining,” and another under “trick of light.”
“I think these marks were added later.”
“Really? What makes you think that?”
“The ink is more modern, and it’s not as faded as everything else.”
Gabby could see now that she was right. “It could be just a result of the photocopy. Or a trick of light.”
Trick of light.
She sat bolt upright. If someone later on had marked the words “trick of light,” was that a reference to the lighthouse?
This structure hadn’t been built until the late eighteenth century, a good hundred years after Marianne’s journal had been written.
So maybe one of her descendants had buried the treasure to keep it safe—from smugglers?
Islanders who feared witches? Thieves? Maybe that descendant had left clues in the journal, which was passed down from generation to generation, almost like a bible, until it ended up in Denton Simms’ safe.
“What do you see?” Hooper demanded.
She looked up at him, at the menacing black firearm in his beefy hand, his overgrown football player physique, the heavy jowls that made his face nearly unrecognizable from the handsome teenager he’d been. “It’s not here. But the lighthouse does point to it. That’s what the ‘trick of light’ means.”
“Where is it, then?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it’s near a pine tree.
See how ‘pining’ is underlined? It’s on a spot overlooking the ocean, probably a calm spot where you see the tree’s reflection in the water.
Something about the lighthouse beam will show where.
We have to go there. Tamara might know it when we see it. ”
Tamara nodded, just as refracted light beyond the open door turned her hair to white fire. Then it passed; another flash of the lighthouse beam.
“Get up, then. Both of you.” The drone of an engine had them all jumping to attention. “Just in time. Go around back to the maintenance dock and get into the boat while I take care of this.”
He pointed the direction he wanted them to go, then went the other way, turning left out the open door.
Fear gathered in Gabby’s stomach as she helped Tamara to her feet. Whoever was in that boat didn’t know what they were getting into. What if it was Barnaby? Or Heather? She couldn’t let them get hurt.
“Follow my lead, okay?” she whispered to Tamara. “If I make any moves, just get out of the way.”
Tamara’s wide eyes rolled from side to side. She looked terrified. Gabby realized she’d be better off doing this next part alone.
“It’ll be okay,” Gabby reassured her. “Go to the boat, I’ll be there in a second. I won’t do anything reckless.”
Tamara squeezed her hands tightly, whispered something in another language, then toddled across the scrub grass that extended from the lighthouse base to a tumble of sharp rocks that made up the perimeter of the island. The dock must be around the corner, out of sight.
Gabby ducked low and followed after Hooper, who had taken up a foxhole kind of position in the rocks.
To stay out of his line of sight, she stayed directly behind him as she crept across the rocks.
He was using a chunk of granite as a stabilizer for his arm.
His weapon tracked the path of a lethal-looking watercraft zooming toward them.
It had to be a Carmichael speedboat. No one else around here would have a boat that fast and expensive. In no time, the boat was practically on top of them. It rooster-tailed to a halt as Barnaby’s voice rang out.
“Hooper, it’s over. We know who you are and what you’ve done. Give it up.”
She spotted no one besides Barnaby in the speedboat. What was he doing? Did he think he could handle Hooper on his own? Was his arrogant Carmichael side taking over? Or had he simply not wanted to wait for Luke or Chen?
Without a word, Hooper opened fire.
As he sprayed it with bullets, holes appeared in the hull, one after another, dot dot dot. Barnaby ducked out of sight, but had he done so in time?
With her heart in her mouth, ears ringing, Gabby crawled across the rocks to get closer to him. She needed a loose rock, or maybe she could just push Hooper off balance. You can’t budge him, he’s a heavyweight.
She heard a splash and peeked above the rocks in time to see Barnaby disappear into the ocean on the other side of the speedboat. Something dark streamed from his leg and formed clouds in the water. Oh my God, he’s been hit!
So had the boat, many times, and now its nose was pointed in the air and it was sinking down below the surface, nearly vertical in its final plunge toward the ocean floor.
Barnaby! She wanted to scream. But she held her tongue and scrambled behind a rock as Hooper lurched to his feet.
He shot a few more rounds towards the boat, then took off at a lumbering jog toward the back of the lighthouse, where his boat was docked.
He didn’t catch sight of her, which gave her a chance to…
what? Chase after him? He still had a gun.
Still, it was worth a try, so she grabbed a handful of seaweed to pull herself up the rocks, only to feel it slip through her hands.
She caught her balance just in time to keep herself from tumbling down the rocks.
Heart hammering, she decided to stay where she was for now. She crouched down until she heard the sound of a boat engine zooming away from the lighthouse rock.
Then she clambered up to the grass and ran to the spot where she’d last seen Barnaby.