The Anderson brothers, Uncle John and Leo’s father, James, originally hailed from the Crescent City. Like their father before them, they’d trained to be shrimp-boat captains in the Gulf. But a chance discovery during a simple afternoon dive off the coast of Geiger Key had changed everything. They’d found a small Spanish gunboat equipped with all manner of archeological riches, from muskets to daggers to swords, and the treasure-hunting bug had bitten them hard. The following year, when Leo was just five years old, the brothers moved to the Keys to use their vast knowledge of the sea to search for sunken riches instead of plump, pink shrimp.
Unfortunately, they never found another haul that could compete with that of the gunboat. Uncle John gave up the endeavor after a decade, settling in to run one of Key West’s many bars until his retirement six months ago. But Leo’s father had continued with the salvage business, splitting his time between jobs and hunting for the Santa Cristina until he suffered a heart attack during a dive. Leo took solace in knowing his old man had died as he’d lived, wrapped in the arms of the sea.
“Ulysses S. Grant? So that had to have been, what? Sometime in the eighteen seventies?” the brunette asked.
“You know your presidents, Sophie.” Uncle John winked, taking another draw on his cocktail.
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Leo really should have paid more attention to the introductions. I mean, seriously? What was his problem? If a woman’s name wasn’t Olivia Mortier, it just went in one ear and out the other? For shit’s sake!
“I teach history at the Girls’ Academy of the Holy Saints High School in Tuscaloosa.” She hooked a thumb toward her friend. “Tracy teaches home ec.”
Leo nearly spewed his beer. It wasn’t high etiquette, but it was damn close.
“Ah.” Uncle John nodded sagely. “Well, that explains it. And you’re right. It was in the eighteen seventies.”
“So then”—Sophie’s lips pulled down into a frown—“you’re kicked out in, what? Five? Ten years?”
“Eh.” Uncle John shrugged. “We can’t really get kicked out because it was never really ours to begin with. Besides, this crew will have found the Santa Cristina by then.” John had moved out to Wayfarer Island under the auspices of “helping” Leo search for the ship. But really Leo suspected the old codger was just bored with retirement and looking to take part in one last hoorah. “And,” he continued, “they’ll have enough money to buy whatever house or island they want. Am I right, or am I right?”
“Hooyah!” Doc and Romeo whooped in unison, lifting their beers in salute.
Leo didn’t join in. He wasn’t a superstitious man by nature, but the ghost galleon brought out the avoid-the-black-cat, throw-salt-over-my-shoulder in him, and he didn’t want to jinx their chances of finding the wreck by treating it like it was a foregone conclusion. He also didn’t like to think that in a few short years he and his uncle would lose the lease on the island that had seen generations of Andersons for spring breaks and summer vacations, for Fourth of July weekends and the occasional Christmas getaway. It wasn’t until Leo arrived with his merry band of Navy SEALs that anyone had attempted to live on the island permanently; it was just too isolated.
“And speaking of the crew…” Uncle John said. Crew. Leo rolled the term around in his head and figured right. I reckon that’s a label I can work with. “The other half of ’em just called on the satellite phone.”
Because when Leo said isolated, he meant isolated. The nearest cell tower was almost fifty nautical miles away. Which begged the question: What the ever-lovin’ hell had Tracy and Sophie been thinking to let Romeo sail them out here? They were damned lucky Romeo was a stand-up guy and not some ax murderer. Had Leo felt more obliging, he’d have given the women a well-deserved lecture about the ill-advisedness of hopping onto a catamaran for a four-hour sail with a dusky-skinned gentleman sporting a too-precisely trimmed goatee. But right now, he had more important things to discuss.
“What’d they say?” he asked his uncle, referring to his three friends who’d spent a week across the pond in Seville, Spain.
“They said they finished photocopyin’ and digitizin’ the images of the documents in the Spanish Archives yesterday afternoon and sent all the data to What’s-his-name, that historian you’ve been talkin’ to online.”
Online via the Internet connection Leo had established using the satellite he mounted to the top of the house. Because while he and the guys might’ve been fine to forgo cellular signals, there would have been serious mental and emotional fallout had Mason “Monet” McCarthy not been able to watch his beloved Red Sox play on their lone laptop or Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse not been able to Skype with his bazillion loving relatives back in Oklahoma. And the satellite was one more reason Leo’s savings account and the savings accounts of the others were barely in the black.
God, we need a salvage gig. A big one. Because they only had enough funds left to fuel the search for the Santa Cristina for two, maybe three more weeks. And that wasn’t going to be enough.