Chapter 30
Isend a message to Giselle asking her to round up the posse. Ten minutes later, they’re all on a video conferencing call.
It’s a weekday morning so Giselle is at her middle school where she’s the principal. For our video call, she’s inside her car in the parking lot. I giggle to see a teacher knock on her driver’s side window asking if she’s okay.
Giselle nods and waves the teacher away.
“Must be nice to be the boss,” I say to her.
“I’m not the boss of anyone here. I’m more like a circus master.”
Katana giggles. She’s breastfeeding her newborn while her toddler plays on the floor in the background. “No nanny today. We’re trying something new.”
“What’s new about having a nervous breakdown?” Mikah, our fabulous freelance model friend weighs in.
Katana sucks her teeth at Mikah. “Some of us can handle the pressure of doing meaningful work.”
“I get my titties sucked all the time,” Mikah retorts.
Katana and Mikah have a relationship based on pure and simple jealousy. Somehow it works for them. They’re best friends.
“Oh my God, you two. I swear you should be switched like in the movies. Try out each other’s lifestyles and shut the hell up.” Giselle’s principal voice forces them to stand down.
Or maybe it’s the fear of an actual switch.
“Okay, what’s up?” Lisa asks. “I’m here trying to solve a great mystery of the universe.”
We all grow silent. None of us ask her what the mystery is because we usually don’t understand any of her words in relation to each other. Like we know “star” and “telescope” and “celestial” and “pattern,” but when she starts stringing them together, we’re lost. Which is why she had to marry another astrophysicist.
“That’s wonderful, Lisa,” I check in. “Thanks for being on my call.”
“What’s going on in paradise, girlfriend?” Katana switches the baby to her other nipple while Mikah rolls her eyes.
“Show off,” she mutters.
Giselle eyeballs all of us. “Hit it. Lunch period is coming up soon.”
I run through everything that’s happened during the past twenty-four hours starting with finding Charlotte Campbell’s diary from 1803, which hints at the location of the centuries-old hidden pirate treasure.
They ohh and ahh!
“And I believe she definitely was a Scottish noblewoman in love with the Black pirate king, Kipson. She mentions him as her beloved a few times.”
“No way!” Mikah shouts. “This is better than Bridgerton!”
The others agree, even Katana who is an avid Bridgerton fan.
I tell them about Tabitha showing up and flirting with Keston in front of my face at the beach bar. And my wondering if there was something going on there.
“Probably not,” Mikah chimes in. “Some people are just flirty types.”
“Like you,” Katana adds.
I hurry on so they don’t start arguing. “And finally, Keston is hiding a secret brother from me. Remember how I asked if he had any family on the island and he insisted he didn’t? Well, that’s fake news.”
All mouths drop open.
Giselle is annoyed. “What’s he hiding that for?”
Katana is too preoccupied with placating a toddler who wants a turn at her breast to give her two cents.
Lisa contemplates the ceiling, then asks how I found out about the relative.
“Met him last night. On the beach. No one else was around. He appeared out of nowhere.”
Lisa frowns. “No one and nothing appear out of nowhere. Evidence of their presence is always there if you know how to look. Maybe he was following you. Or had information that you’d be on the beach.”
“Who’d tell him that?” I ask. “Oh wait, he told me there are two diaries and two treasures. I totally forgot that.” I smack my hand on my forehead. “He says he knows I have the other diary.”
“Whoa!” Lisa sits up straight. Usually, our dramas don’t require her to use her million-dollar brain. “Who has the first diary, if you have the other one?”
“Is he definitely Keston’s brother?” Mikah interrupts, waving a hand in the air. “Because I’d be interested.”
“I thought I was your best friend,” Katana pipes in.
“You’re my other best friend,” Mikah teases.
I bite my bottom lip trying to recall the full conversation with Kelley Kips last night. My brain hurts it’s so jumbled with details.
I snap my fingers. “He has the other diary. It was left to him by Viola Kips his grandmother. He said Viola wanted to split up the diaries and the clues to the treasure so her grandsons would not try to find it. It’s how her son died. Keston and Kelley’s father.”
I gulp a sip of cool water from my bottle.
My girlfriends are mulling it over as Katana juggles her kids, Giselle glances at her watch, Lisa stares at the ceiling, and Mikah stretches like a cat.
“Well?” I ask. “I know I sound ridiculous and overly dramatic, but I feel as if everything is connected. My biggest concern is why Keston is lying to me about his brother. I don’t know how to deal with that.”
The crack in my voice gives me away. I care a lot more about my relationship being true than I do about pirate treasure or ex-girlfriends or secret brothers.
Mikah wants to know what the brother looks like. “He’s not as sexy as Keston, huh?”
“Hotter,” I say matter-of-factly. “The man is the most handsome of his species I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“What species is that?” Mikah asks coyly.
I swat her face on the phone. “He’s just your type. Tall, lean, rugged, and tatted up.”
“Sounds like every heterosexual woman’s type to me,” Katana wipes her brow.
“And he carries around a flask of his homegrown and handmade dandelion wine.”
Mikah pretends to swoon. “I’m on my way, CJ. You need help.”
“I forgot the most important part.”
Four faces stare at me.
“He’s white.”
As I could have guessed, all hell breaks loose.