Make Her Pay

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JET LAG MUST have hit her hard. Brianna turned on the lumpy down mattress, blinking against the sunshine that warmed the third-floor bedroom of the farmhouse. From the looks of the light, it was darn near afternoon in the Azores.

Good Lord, how late had she slept? She pushed up on her elbows, squinting into the brightness to make out the view of an ancient windmill through the dusty panes of glass. Far, far from home and not a soul knew she was there.

The adventurous thrill that gave her was tempered by a splash of guilt. At some point she’d have to tell Lizzie where she’d gone, but right now…

She stretched, wiggled her toes under the puffy down comforter, and drank in the heart-stopper of an ocean view.

Mrs. Bettencourt had been chilly at first, but then she warmed to the mission and promised to help today. She did have a library-all these old houses did-and maybe the final piece of proof that they wanted would be there.

In the meantime, Lizzie could explore and sightsee. Not that there was a whole lot to see. Too bad Carlos Bettencourt wasn’t from Monaco, or somewhere slightly more exotic than godforsaken little Corvo.

Still, she was free and unencumbered and doing her part for Dad, instead of just sifting through the mountain of papers that just made her miss him more.

“Ms. Dare?” The call was accompanied by a soft tap on her door. “It’s Gabby, with coffee. Our kind of coffee, American.”

“Just a second.” Brianna threw off the fluffy comforter and went to the door in her thigh-high T-shirt. “Oh, you’re a lifesaver, Gabby. I crave my caffeine fix.”

The woman, easily five foot nine and the size of a truck, nodded and barreled into the room, setting a tray on the ancient dresser. “No need to thank me, hon. The madame,”-she said in an affected British accent to drag out the word-“would have my head if I didn’t.”

Brianna smiled, moving some personal items on the dresser to make sure Gabby had room for the tray. “She seems like she might be…” A total bitch. “Tough to work for.”

The other woman shrugged. “I’m just stepping in for a few days because she’s desperate and I can gouge her for extra cash. Not that I’m trying to exploit the circumstances, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.”

“What circumstances?”

“She didn’t tell you? You haven’t heard?”

Brianna shook her head. “Heard what?”

“About her nurse, Ana. She liked to call her a housekeeper, but the whole island knew that Ana was a nurse hired by Mrs. B’s husband to keep an eye on her.”

Brianna looked up from the coffee she poured, intrigued. “What happened? And why does she need someone to keep an eye on her?”

Gabby pointed to her temple and made the universal twirl for nutso. “She’s a little…”

“Off her rocker?”

Gabby smiled. “That’d probably be the medical term for it.”

She didn’t strike Brianna as crazy, but who knew? “What happened to Ana?”

Gabby made a face. “It’s so sad. She killed herself.”

“That is sad.”

“Right there.” She pointed to the gray stone windmill perched at the cliff’s edge, the rotors circling rhythmically. “Threw herself right over the cliff.”

Brianna’s eyes flew open. “Oh my God. When?”

“A few days ago.”

“Seriously?” A chill shot the hairs on the back of her head to a stand. “How old was she?”

“Twenty-six.”

Brianna’s heart turned over. My age. She shifted her gaze to the windmill, suddenly more ominous than picturesque. “That is so, so tragic. Did you know her?”

“Everybody knows everybody in Corvo. There’re like three hundred and fifty people in the whole place, all of them related somehow, going back two centuries. The whole island is devastated.”

Brianna sipped, studying the sturdy woman who looked as though she belonged on a farm in Iowa. “How did you end up here?”

“Well, for one thing, I didn’t ‘end’ up here; I’m leaving as soon as this job for Mrs. B is over. I was about to leave when I heard about it. But to answer your question, I’ve been traveling around Europe for a year, after a miserable divorce from a cheating… Never mind, it’s a cliché. I’ve been here in Corvo for about two months, ’cause I think it’s one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen. I was just about to head off to Spain when I heard about Ana, and figured I could scare up some cash working for this lady who apparently never made her own bed in her life.”

“Wow, it sounds like a fun adventure.”

Gabby laughed, fluffing the comforter into place. “I had to get out of Indiana, that’s for sure. When my husband left I was all weepy and miserable, with nothing but half of the cash from selling our split level. Then, one of my friends gave me this book about a lady who went and lived in Italy and India, trying to find herself after a divorce. I thought, why not? I’m fifty and I’ve never been east of Pittsburgh. So here I am.”

Brianna gave her a warm smile. “I love adventurous spirits.”

“How ’bout you? Is that research project the only thing that brings you to our lovely rock in the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“How is Mrs. B involved?”

“Her genealogy is involved, and I was hoping to have access to her library. She said there’s one in the house.”

“I don’t know if I’d exactly call it a library, but there is a room with some books.”

“How did Mrs. B end up here?” With a nurse, no less.

“There are a lot of rumors about that, but I’ve become friendly with a cousin of a friend of the man who was Ana’s fiancé…” She laughed at how that sounded. “Trust me, you live here long enough and you know everyone. Anyway, evidently her husband is some big-time Wall Street guy whose family has owned this property forever. She apparently tried to kill herself more than once, so he sent her here.”

“Like, he shipped her off and exiled her? Without offering psychiatric help or counseling?”

Gabby held out her hands in a “who knows?” gesture. “They’re off-the-charts rich and he’s got a big-time reputation. Maybe she preferred this to an institution.”

“She doesn’t strike me as that whacko.”

“She’s whacko enough to have tried to kill herself a couple of times since she got here.”

“Whoa.” What was this place, Suicide Island? “How?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I heard Ana was really good with her. That’s why it’s such a shame…”

Brianna nodded, a wisp of sadness curling through her. It was a shame. Life, whether you ended it yourself, or a broken regulator in a cave dive did it for you, could be short. “Gabby, do you know if there’s any Internet access here? I really need to e-mail somebody at home.”

“It’s tricky, but Sousa’s has a computer and they can get satellite Internet. That’s the one and only restaurant in town, and I’m living in one of two rooms above it. It’s spotty, but it’s your only chance without taking a ferry to a bigger island. Terceira has all that.”

Brianna stood and looked out the window, her gaze drawn to the three-bladed windmill. “Maybe I’ll go into the village later. I just want to see what Mrs. Bettencourt has planned for me.”

“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t go into town today. It’s Ana’s funeral and the place is completely shut down.”

“Oh, okay.” Brianna shook her head, imagining someone throwing herself into the water. “How bad could life be on this little island, that you’d want to end it?”

“That’s just it.” Gabby snapped the pillowcases tight and smoothed them as she followed Brianna’s gaze. “Nothing was wrong with her life. She had a nice young man, was going to get married, came from a wonderful family, seemed completely happy.”

Brianna turned, cold despite the warm sunshine. “Really? Did she leave a note?”

“No. But why else would someone climb up to that thing? She sure didn’t go up to work the machinery.”

“Does Mrs. Bettencourt know what happened to her? Maybe it was an accident.”

“She said the girl spent the day crying. And her mother did pass, but well over a year ago.”

“Oh. Grief can make people do very strange things,” Brianna said. She’d ached so badly when Dad died- but she’d never considered suicide. Of course, she had Lizzie.

Guilt twisted in her again. “Are you sure I can’t get into the restaurant today? I really want to send my sister a message.”

“Tell you what, I’ll send your message for you. What’s her e-mail?”

“That would be wonderful.” Brianna grabbed her handbag and a small notebook, tearing off a page to write down Lizzie’s e-mail. “Just tell her I’m fine and that I’m… working on Aramis. She’ll understand.”

“Aramis?”

She wrote the name on the paper. “Yeah. Just let her know I’m safe and that I’ll be in touch with her as soon as I can. And tell her I love her.”

Gabby took the paper and nodded. “Happy to help you.”

When she left, Brianna finished her coffee and stared at the windmill. Death that didn’t make sense was so hard to accept.

She closed her eyes and said a little prayer for the girl, then got dressed to go meet with eccentric, if nutso, Solange Bettencourt.

It would take a while for Con Xenakis to find her here. Safe in that knowledge, and in the fact that she could get the scepter to her safe-deposit box in just a few hours, Lizzie walked through the minuscule rooms that Dad had called his workplace. Less than a thousand square feet, the five-room beach house had survived numerous hurricanes. At his office door, she almost laughed. Hurricanes outside and in.

Brianna had tried, but they’d need a bulldozer to clean out the man-made mountain in Dad’s office.

Inhaling the whisper of Old Spice that lingered in the air, she stepped into the office, imagined him turning in the old desk chair and beckoning to her: Lizzie Lou, look at you.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yeah, look at me, Dad. Duped by a hot guy. You’d be so proud.”

She dropped into his chair and clicked on the computer, praying Brianna had replied to the e-mail she’d sent from Con’s phone. While she waited for the system to come to life, she fluttered through the papers. All of the pertinent stuff was gone; just old notes and Christmas cards from diving friends remained.

She clicked on the Internet browser bar, getting a list of the last sites visited. She recognized most of them, but not the top site-something about genealogy. Out of curiosity she clicked on it, and scrolled down the home page to a flashing link.

Welcome back, MDare, you have private e-mail waiting in the forum. Please read.

She hesitated for a minute, her finger over the mouse. Should she go there? Did this person not know that her father had died?

Possibly not. A treasure forum would know. But genealogy? She clicked on the link.

MDare-I have the information you are seeking for Carlos Bettencourt, circa 1860. Please respond by private e-mail mrdbgenserv@gmail.com.

She was tempted to just let it go, but that wasn’t right.

She hit reply and typed, Thank you for contacting MDare. I’m his daughter and am sorry to inform you that he has passed away. Can you forward the information to me at the following e-mail address? She added her own e-mail and tapped Send, then opened up the program for her own mail-which did not include a message from her sister.

She wrote another note, pleading with Brianna to write. Just as she hit Send, the ding of incoming mail sounded.

From mrdbgenserv@gmail.com. Wow, that was fast.

I’ve already given the information to your sister when I met her in Lisbon. I believe she’s going straight to the source in Corvo now. Maria Rossos Della Buonofuentes.

Corvo? Where was that? Lizzie grabbed the mouse to hit Google, but froze at the sound of a car engine slowing outside the house.

Damn.

Could he have found her already? He didn’t know where this house was, and even his almighty connections wouldn’t be able to find a house that was in her mother’s maiden name, which he didn’t know.

Still, she wrapped her arms around her waist as she headed to the living room. The bungalow was at the end of a dead-end street in a little-known section of Vero Beach. There were only two other houses on the street, and traffic was extremely rare.

She peeked through the window, seeing only the overgrown shrubbery smashed against it. They had to hire someone to hack it away before the jungle overtook the house.

A car door slammed on the street.

But he drove a bike. She let out a little breath, still braced for his deep voice calling her name. Lizzie! I know you’re-

“Lizzie, honey, are you there?”

“Sam!” The voice of a friend was so welcome, she threw the door all the way open and practically hugged him. “How did you know I was here?”

“I know you pretty well, Lizzie,” he said with a smile. “You shouldn’t come over and roll around in memories, honey.”

She invited him in, shrugging. “I didn’t want to go up to my apartment in Cocoa just yet.” Con would look there for her next, no doubt.

“So you came to your refuge.”

Smiling, she conceded with a nod. “How’s Charlotte doing?”

“She’s upset about Alita, and all the questioning. Sorry that the dive is over. Worried about you. She sent me here to fetch you and bring you to our house.” Sam surveyed her face and uncombed hair. “You look like you could use some TLC.”

“I’m just exhausted. It’s been a helluva night and morning.”

Sam glanced around. “Where’s Brianna?”

She settled on one of the two rickety bar stools and rested her elbow on the yellow countertop. “Europe.”

He drew back. “Really? Where?”

“Lisbon, I think.”

“You think? She didn’t tell you?”

Lizzie shook her head. “And probably for good reason. I’m too protective, I know that.”

“Did she go with friends?”

“I really have no idea. I have a feeling she’s following some genealogical lead that my father was tracking for…” She hesitated, torn. “A project he was working on. She’s gone somewhere called Corvo.”

Sam practically fell off the stool. “The island in the Azores? Brianna went there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I had an e-mail from a genealogist my father was in touch with, and she said she’d given my sister what he needed when she saw her the other day in Lisbon, then she said something about Bree taking it to Corvo.”

Sam looked as dismayed as she felt. “Never been there myself, but from what I know it’s tiny, the farthest of the Azores, about a thousand miles from Portugal. That ought to please the adventuress in Brianna’s soul.”

A thousand miles from Portugal? “That’s the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.” Her heart swelled with worry. “I really need to find her.”

“Why don’t you get some help from Con? He seemed like a resourceful guy, and…” Sam gave her a sly smile. “Char told me you two were pretty close.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Lizzie said, popping off the stool at the soft ding of an e-mail from the office.

“Oh? Why was he a mistake?”

Because he was a lying, thieving, underhanded, undercover cheating bastard who works for Judd Paxton.

“I just… misjudged him,” she said, purposefully vague as she headed to the office, praying the e-mail was from Bree.

Sam followed. “He seemed pretty upstanding to me.” “He seemed like a lot of things he wasn’t.”

She bent over the keyboard and clicked, clenching a fist in hope, but it was an advertisement from Office Depot. Disappointment punched her, and she dropped into the chair with a sigh.

“Honey, why don’t you come and stay with us for a while? This place is too depressing for you. All those shrubs smashed against the windows make it dark and dreary in here, along with the memories that are dragging you down. Char and I have plenty of room.”

It was only a matter of time until Con figured out her mother’s maiden name, and his research team at the Bullet Catchers tracked her down.

And once he found her, he’d find the scepter.

If she left the house empty, he’d tear it apart until he got what he wanted.

Then all the answers came to her.

“Sam, I need to trust you with the biggest secret you can imagine. The one thing that mattered most to my father in the whole world.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “El Falcone?”

“You know about that?”

“Lizzie, I was very close friends with your father. Of course he talked about his search.”

“Did you realize that we were diving on El Falcone?”

He gave her leg a squeeze. “Why do you think we invited you? We wanted you to be there when the recoveries were made. I knew how much it mattered to Malcolm, and how much he’d want a family member there.”

“You knew and didn’t tell me?”

“Charlotte thought it best not to tell you until we knew for sure. Now it’s all kind of moot, isn’t it?”

It was so not moot. “How did you know?”

“Malcolm showed me his map and told me his conjecture. When I heard where this dive was, and that it was supersecret and taking place off-season, I figured that once again, Judd Paxton was one step ahead of everyone else in the treasure world.”

“You should have told me. It would have been a lot easier if I knew you’d known.”

“Well, I listened to my wife on that one. When that Our Lady of Sorrows medallion came up, I was pretty sure, but then all hell broke loose with Alita’s…” His voice trailed off. “What would have been easier?”

“Bringing up the scepter.”

He frowned in confusion.

“And the diamond that was in it,” she added softly.

Sam’s eyes popped open. “Excuse me?”

“Come with me.” Lizzie tugged him up and back to the kitchen, popping open the freezer and shoving ice trays and frozen pizzas out of the way.

“Char will die if you put it in the freezer,” he said.

“Just temporarily. I’m taking it to my safe-deposit box later.” But would Con track it down, and somehow figure out how to get it from the bank? The man-and his company-seemed to be capable of anything.

She reached for the butcher paper she’d wrapped it in, pulled it out, and handed the package to a stunned, visibly pale Sam. “I found it the second day and sneaked it off the boat.”

“How?”

She grinned. “Blondes find the gold, Sam.”

He laughed, still bewildered. “Can I see it?”

She had a better idea. “Can you keep it? is the question. I think it’s dangerous, and obviously valuable. And I’ll warn you, Con Xenakis is looking for it. That’s why I’m hiding here-he doesn’t know about this house. But like you said, he’s resourceful. By the time he figures it out, I want to be gone.”

“Gone where?”

The rightness of her decision settled around her like a warm blanket, making her smile. “To find my sister.”

“Can you leave in the middle of this investigation?” he asked. “The FBI agent instructed us to stay.”

“They already have Alita’s killer.”

He almost dropped the scepter. “Lizzie, if you drop one more bomb on me, I’ll have a heart attack. How do you know this?”

“Long story, but Flynn and Alita were having a fling. He was stealing treasure and she was helping him. We think he killed her.”

“We?”

She felt a soft flush. “Con and me.”

“So are you working with this guy, or do you hate him?”

“I hate him,” she said definitively. “And the FBI agent told me I could leave town for an emergency. I call finding my sister an emergency if I can be reached. If you have this, I can go knowing it’s in safe hands.”

“Of course, but what if Con comes looking for it? He might suspect you gave it to me.”

“Hide it. And don’t tell anyone, not even Charlotte. That way she won’t be lying when she denies everything.”

Sam pulled the scepter closer. “You have my word it’ll be safe.”

“Good. Because when Paxton files the claim for the shipwreck, I don’t want this to get lumped in with everything else. My hope is that someone will recover the mate, and then I’ll go public and shame him into putting them into a museum, instead of selling to a collector. And when I do, the real story of my ancestor will be told.”

Sam beamed. “Your father would be so proud, Lizzie.”

Lizzie hugged him, the butcher paper crunching between them. “Thank you, Sam.”

“So, now what? You’re off to Europe?”

“I’ll let you know. Hopefully I’ll hear from Brianna first, before I go.”

“Hopefully,” he agreed.

After Sam left with the treasure, Lizzie went back to the office, feeling better than she had in hours. She checked her e-mail, and then started clicking around the airlines for flights. There was nothing under a couple thousand, and even if she paid that, she couldn’t get on a flight for two days.

The day and her decisions hit her hard and, yawning with exhaustion, she climbed onto the bed in the tiny back room. Curling on top of the spread, she tucked her knees into her chest and closed her eyes, asleep before her next thought formed.

The pressure on her foot almost pulled her out of sleep, but it wasn’t enough. Her head was heavy, her limbs aching with fatigue. She instinctively shook her foot, a million miles from consciousness, but the pressure just got heavier.

She fought to wake, but sleep won, keeping her eyes glued and her body still.

And that cold weight on her leg…

In her dream, she imagined it was Con. He’d slipped into her room, looking for more…

Reality punched. Awareness squeezed. And Lizzie jerked up, yanking her leg free and flipping over… and stared, a strange moan of horror coming out of her mouth.

Two and a half feet of slithering black, red, and yellow stripes. As soon as she jerked, the snake did, too, circling into itself and lifting its head to her with a long, threatening hiss.

Fighting for calm, and losing, she inched her legs away, staring at the distinct bands of color.

Red touch yellow, deadly fellow. Red touch black, okay Jack. The rhyme taught to every Florida child screamed in her head. Shaking, she inched back to the headboard as slowly as possible, staring at the snake. Each red band was lined with yellow.

Her throat closed out a scream, her chest bursting with an unreleased breath.

The snake slithered closer.

Damn! All that brush around the house was like an open invitation to snakes.

Could she vault off the bed fast enough?

The snake hissed again.

She pulled her legs up and stood, just as the snake lunged.

She flattened herself to the wall and screamed, knowing it was probably the last sound she’d ever make.