The Danger

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kaz knocked on the door of the small cottage in the center of the village of Côte Saint-Luc.

English greeted the four interns and ushered them inside. “You leave tomorrow. This is what I hear, yes?”

Star grinned. “Poseidon has officially invited us to go home. Gallagher finally turned his back on the camera long enough to kick us out.”

“Yeah,” Dante said bitterly. “So he can hire lawyers to go after our billion dollars.”

“Ah, the money.” English dismissed this with a contemptuous shrug. “You are better off without it. It brings only complications.”

“And private jets,” Dante added feelingly.

“Two lives are lost,” English reminded him. “No treasure is worth that.”

“He knows,” Kaz said gently. “He just wants to sulk. It’s like therapy.”

“We brought you a going-away present,” Adriana announced.

English cast a disapproving glance at the enormous shopping bag that was being carried between Adriana and Star. “Then give it to someone who is going away. Me, I stay here.”

“This one you’re going to like,” Adriana promised. She tore the bag away, revealing the wooden object she had found buried with the treasure at the wreck site. “It was the only thing the government didn’t impound. They prefer gold, I guess.”

English examined it with mild interest. “It is a carving,” he observed. “Like the one I already have.” He picked up the figure and turned it over in his arms. “The body and hindquarters of an animal. The head is missing.”

“No, it isn’t.” Adriana was almost dancing with excitement. She crossed the small parlor and lifted the other piece from the fishnet hanging in the window. “The head is right here.”

The dive guide frowned. “But this is impossible. The head is a bird. The body is some kind of beast.”

“There’s a mythological animal with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion,” Adriana explained. “It’s a griffin. This artifact comes from the wreck of a ship called the Griffin.”

Holding the eagle out in front of her, she walked up to English and lowered it on top of the carving in his arms. The jagged ends fit together like two puzzle pieces. One half was bleached by sun, the other blackened by centuries underwater. But there was no question that this had once been a single sculpture. Now it was whole again after more than three hundred years.

She stepped back and admired the effect. “This is the figurehead from the bow of the Griffin. If your ancestor floated ashore on part of it, then he was from that ship.” She looked at him long and hard. “The Griffin was English, which means you are, too. Your family legend — it’s all true.”

Menasce Gérard was not often overwhelmed, but this was one of those times. At last, he managed, “You American teenagers—”

“I’m Canadian,” Kaz reminded him.

“You bring me my history,” the guide persisted. “I — I have no way to repay you.”

Star regarded him solemnly. “I think saving our lives a thousand times probably counts.”

English gazed at their faces as if committing each one to memory. “I will never forget you.” The giant stood there for a moment awkwardly, and then opened his arms.

There was room for all four of them.