Читать книгу Better Than Gold - Mary Brady - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

MIA RUBBED HER shoulder and asked Daniel, “Do your records mention Liam Bailey?”

“He was an early landowner. The assumption is made that the town was renamed after him, but there is no record as to why.” Dr. MacCarey, Daniel, withdrew his gaze from the harbor and turned it on her. His eyes were definitely that deep dark earthy brown, the kind created to hold sensuality and mystery at the same time, and right now they held a keen kind of interest.

“Anything else?” The words croaked a bit when she spoke, so she picked up her coffee cup to break eye contact.

“The library at the university has some factual information, but it’s pretty—” he paused “—bare-bones.”

She sputtered coffee and had to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand to keep from dripping on the front of her coat. “Bare-bones. I can’t believe you said that.”

He held her gaze again as he spoke. “Even anthropologists use humor—from time to time.”

She shouldn’t have looked at him again. His face was definitely much more relaxed than when he’d first arrived. He looked more accessible.

“I tried to find information about Liam Bailey.” She turned away and forced herself to search the harbor for something to latch on to. After only a moment, she spotted what she knew, even from this distance, to be the Calvins’ boat, the Lady Luck, the one with the for-sale sign. So much for luck.

“There doesn’t seem to be any information out there, not about our Liam Bailey anyway,” she continued, and then realized she had a white-knuckle grip on her coffee cup.

“It’s hard to find specifics about someone from two hundred years ago.” He sounded pensive. “Unless they were famous or notorious.”

Famous or notorious. If he never found out Archibald Fletcher was a usurper and not the original founder, he’d have no reason to suspect this body was anything more than a minor mystery, just a minor player sealed up in a wall, and Dr. MacCarey would leave out of boredom. Archibald Fletcher had a gravesite, after all, and had never gone missing. Liam Bailey, the ship’s captain who originally started the settlement and called it South Harbor, had a story, a legend.

It wasn’t boredom that made the townsfolk leave. It was desperate circumstances. The Calvin brothers weren’t just selling the boat. They were selling their traps, their federal permit, their livelihood, and diminishing Bailey’s Cove by yet another good family.

Mia quietly sipped her cooling coffee.

“Does your museum have more information?”

This time when he brought up the museum, she looked into his eyes to see if she could read what might be in his heart. He matched her gaze beat for beat with the deep earthy color that seemed to warm her soul and body. She snapped her gaze away—again—before she embarrassed herself. Drooling would not be good.

“The museum does have a little information, but much has been lost to time and the salty air.”

She should just send him there, not tell him the secrets of the town. Heather Loch, who ran the museum, would not tell him tell more than a few facts and maybe he’d be satisfied with that.

“But you know. Don’t you?” His tone grew soft, seductive.

...and she was such a sucker.

“It’s much more interesting when one thinks of Liam Bailey as...the town’s founder, and not Archibald Fletcher.” She sighed. “And as...”

“As?”

She didn’t dare so much as a look at him right now. “As a privateer.”

“A privateer in the early 1800s was usually a—”

“Pirate,” she finished.

He laughed out loud. As much as she hated it, she liked the sound. He had a nice laugh, friendly, with a touch of boisterous.

“I know. I know.” She grimaced.

“So the town’s secret is a pirate’s treasure?”

“I feel like such a traitor.”

“You don’t think I would have found out?” His voice carried a teasing lilt now.

“Maybe, but it would have taken you a couple of years to pry enough information out of the folks around here to be able to put things together and come up with pirate’s treasure.”

“Why do I get the feeling you have much more to tell me about this pirate?”

“Because you’re smart.”

“That’s true.”

When she chanced a glance, there was a hint of a smile in his eyes. “And humble.”

“So my Aunt Margaret used to say.” The corners of his mouth turned up again.

“I need to know you understand, the more I tell you, the more I feel my remodeling project slipping away. The more I hold off telling, the more dishonest I feel, but right now it’s no longer a matter of betraying a town’s trust. If this town doesn’t survive, there will be no one to betray.”

He looked at her for a long time, as if measuring her, and then said, “Mia, I will be judicious with what you tell me.”

She dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “That Liam Bailey founded the town of Bailey’s Cove, and that he had been a privateer, seem to be anchored in truth, as far as the people of Bailey’s Cove know it. What has been passed down through the generations is that there was a young woman in whom Bailey showed a particular interest, and she in him. Some say he was paid off by the young woman’s disapproving father, Archibald Fletcher, and with the cash in his pocket couldn’t get out of town fast enough. He was never heard from again. The story goes, Fletcher maintained Bailey went back to sea and some say he went west to find gold.”

“You don’t think that’s what happened?”

She gave a sharp laugh. “I have no idea. The other side of the story is the girl’s father started the rumor that all Bailey wanted was her substantial inheritance, and what really happened was the man had Bailey killed. It isn’t much of a leap to get from that to Liam Bailey being entombed in the wall of the hotel he built as part of the settlement’s initial push to become a town. Ironic.”

She held up her coffee cup in a sweeping motion and continued. “As you can see, Bailey’s Cove hasn’t grown too terribly much since that time, so we can’t blame the world for ignoring us.”

He poured more coffee. “And the treasure?”

“Ah, the treasure. It’s custom here in Bailey’s Cove, like prayers before a meal or removing your hat before entering someone’s home. You don’t tell outsiders about Liam Bailey and especially not his treasure.”

He gave her an honest and open look of interest.

“The chief said he knew that when the university showed up, tongues would start flapping. Well, he actually used the term ‘troublesome gossip.’ That your arrival would give folks ideas about digging for treasure...again, and that didn’t turn out so well for the town last time.”

“So if the pirate buried his treasure and then was killed before he could dig it up...”

“Bingo. Until now, it was just a body in the wall. Chief Montcalm asked me not to talk to anyone about it, which I didn’t, well, mostly I didn’t. He made my workers quake in their boots, so I’m sure they only told a couple dozen people what they saw.” Something about this man made her want to spill her guts, to bare all. Oh, for pity’s sake. “Since the place hasn’t been raided, I believe official word has not leaked out from the chief’s department. The chief’s people say the bones are old. Will you be able to tell how old the remains are with carbon dating?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Oh, wow. That might be very helpful.”

“I’ll be able to tell the age of the body to within a couple hundred years.” He shot a disarming grin at her and some unseen barrier between them seemed to fall away. “Carbon dating so touted in the media is much more accurate when dating eras—when it’s confined to thousands of years. Some archeologists believe it’s been fine-tuned to be able to pinpoint up to within a few hundred years, but it’s always under scrutiny. Telling how old a person was at the time of death is relatively easy nowadays, but the decade or even the century gets dicier. Though finding pirate’s treasure might help.”

“Oh, please, don’t. Please, don’t.” She was absolutely sure she didn’t want to hear his answer, but she had to ask the next logical question. “If you suspect this is Liam Bailey, will you bring in a team of people?”

“I could, but usually the more people, the more time spent processing a site, and more confusion.”

“So you might still be able to get what you need and leave today?”

“The more I hear about Bailey, the more complicated this investigation is getting.”

Mia blew out a breath. “Of course it is.”

She might have to gag that angel on her shoulder.

* * *

WHEN DANIEL GLANCED at the woman beside him on the bench, she looked deflated, as if she were tired of shouldering the bravado necessary to keep a project this size on schedule.

“Was it something I said?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, it was.” Her light blue eyes reflected the morning sky and for an instant he thought he might be able to gaze into them over a cup of coffee or even a glass of wine. Something he never thought he’d do again—stare into a woman’s eyes.

He quickly changed his thoughts. “I think I said something like, the more I hear, the more complicated this whole investigation is getting.”

“That’s the gist.”

“Wouldn’t finding out a pirate was buried here be beneficial for the town, a tourist attraction?”

“Yeeees,” she drew out the word. “The town needs the monetary boost tourists will bring. Skeletons were not part of the timeline for—well—for profitability.”

He watched her closely, trying to figure out if there was something else behind her words. On the surface they seemed self-serving, but there was also an almost bleak tone to her voice, which made him suspect there was much more. “Earlier, you mentioned a dining room. A restaurant?”

“That’s my goal.”

“Are you a chef?”

“Oh, no. Creating food takes more imagination and certainly more skill than I have. I’m a businesswoman. Can’t you tell?” She gestured to her demolition attire. “Hotel and restaurant management.”

“Does the place have a name?”

She gave a soft snort. “I chose it before all this got started and now I’m a bit mortified. I thought I’d be clever and call it Pirate’s Roost.”

Her smile, though embarrassed, shined bright like the sun off the water. It was clear to see she was proud of what she was doing here, had great hopes for success.

“So a pirate in your wall would complicate things?”

She brushed the toe of her shoe against the concrete of the sidewalk. “I’m on a tight timeline. There have already been so many delays, and if the Roost is not finished in time to draw tourists this season it will be hard to keep things going over the winter. Plus things can get a little sketchy around here when the hopes of treasure stirs things up.”

“So if I got out of the way, the Pirate’s Roost might have a chance to stay on schedule.”

“It would help a lot.”

“I’ll check out the crypt. I might only need a few days with the site, a week at the most.” She might have masked a gasp with a cough, but he wasn’t sure. “I’ll need to get the contents of the boxes examined to see what the remains can tell me.”

He sat back and watched the goings-on in the harbor. Sometimes gathering information on a site meant letting the indigenous population say what they needed to say. He let silence ask the next question.

“I really need to get the demo and remodeling finished as soon as possible.”

He nodded.

A dingy bounced against the hull of one of the fishing boats as someone on board worked to secure it to the side of the boat.

“In a way,” she continued, “the town’s survival depends on getting the village brought up to the twenty-first century. This is, we hope, the first of many projects.”

“And if this turns out to be a pirate who hid a treasure?” He glanced at her. “Will the whole town turn up?”

She leaned her chin in the palms of her hands. The sun glistened golden in her hair and the wind blew the loose curling locks across her cheek, made pink by the morning breeze. He wanted to tuck the hair behind her ear. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right, but he knew he did not have that power anymore, in fact never had that power.

“Not all of the folks here are crazed by pirate lore, but enough to make my life difficult, and maybe yours.” She nodded across the street at the two teenagers with their heads together. Their glances kept turning to where he and Mia Parker sat on the bench.

“You’d like to toss me out of town, wouldn’t you?”

She snapped her eyes to his face. “Yes.”

He laughed at her honesty. “Then I’d better get started on finding out about what went on in there.”

“Please do.” She picked up the empty coffee cups and carafe and stood.

“I need to do the preliminary examine by myself.” And then, so there could be no misunderstanding, he added, “I’d like it if you left for a half hour or so.”

There was a time in his life when she would have been just the type of woman he would have sought out. She didn’t have to give him any information he had not found at the university, but she did. She could have been bitchy about wanting him to get in and get out, but she wasn’t. Yet, if she had come into his life years ago, he would have hurt her, too, just as he had Mandy.

“I have a few things to do. I’ll be back in thirty minutes...or so. My phone number is inside, on the back wall.”

He notched an eyebrow.

“That way my workers have no excuse not to call me when they need me.”

She walked quickly away and he wondered how much she had invested in this project, and even more, how valuable a historical site this might turn out to be. The more significant each of these factors, the greater their problems would be.

With a toss of her head, she flicked the hair from her face and climbed into a small green SUV.

He wondered how she’d feel about him and the guy in the wall if she knew the state had given the university, and therefore him, the power to keep her site for as long as he deemed necessary. How she’d react if the university asserted its right to the Power of Eminent Domain. With that power, they could buy her building at fair market price, which in this depressed town would pay her only a fraction of what she had already invested in the remodeling.

She wasn’t even a part of his life and already he could do her harm, he thought, as he went back inside the building. Flashes of old memories, the smiling face of a little boy, the feeling of proud parents when the child was born. And the pain when it all fell apart.