“iFollow?” Ben ear-tucked his hair. “Maybe someone hacked our videoconference.”
“Is that possible?” The idea disturbed me.
Shelton shook his head. “We formed a new group with a new password. That program has tough encryption. Believe me, I checked. It’s extremely unlikely.”
“And why bother?” I said. “Who’d want to spy on us?”
“Kill us,” Hi corrected. “Whoever followed us underground was willing to create a pile of dead bodies. Chew on that for a second.”
“We sure know how to attract psychopaths,” Shelton muttered.
“It’s connected to Bonny’s treasure somehow,” Ben said. “That’s the only logical explanation.”
“There’s another possibility.” Hi sat forward, face tight with concern. “What if someone else knows about our flares?”
“What?” Shelton pulled his earlobe. “How?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t just discount it.” Hi avoided my eyes. “Not every move we’ve made has been private.”
I opened my mouth, but Shelton spoke first.
“You did the mind thing again, Tory.” Fingers tugging double time. “In the tunnels, underwater, I heard your voice inside my head.”
“Me too,” Hi said.
Ben hesitated, then nodded. “You flared a second time, too. How?”
“I don’t know.” Thinking back, I shuddered. “I was panicking. Couldn’t find air. Then something twitched in my brain and the flare exploded through me. It was more unconscious than anything.”
“How come only you can touch minds?” Shelton asked.
I shrugged. Of course I had no answers.
The room fell silent.
“Well, you saved our lives,” Ben finally said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Excellent point.” Hi shuffled over, grasped my hand, and deposited a sloppy kiss. “I’m in your debt, milady.”
“Quit being a spaz.” Shelton’s eyes met mine. “Thanks, Tor. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Done.” I smiled. “Should be easy, since I have no idea what I did.”
Tensions eased slightly, but the good vibes didn’t last.
“Now what? Should we call the cops?” Shelton sounded unhappy with his own suggestion.
“With our track record?” Ben scoffed. “We can’t report another ancient skeleton and another mysterious gunman. After the monkey-bones fiasco on Loggerhead last May, we’ve got zero credibility with the police.”
“Hello Officer Hates-Our-Guts,” Hi mimicked. “You remember us! Last night we used a stolen artifact to break into a historic city landmark. Which cell will be mine?”
“Hi and Ben are right,” I said. “We’d be arrested, then committed.”
“Someone’s gonna find that gap in the dungeon wall.” Shelton tapped his watch. “It’s a matter of hours.”
“Then we need to hurry,” I said. “The Exchange is closed on weekends, so that buys us some time.”
The boys glanced at each other, but not at me.
“What?”
“Tory, it’s over.” Ben’s voice was firm.
“Over?” I was caught by surprise. “Of course it’s not over. We have the next clue!”
“Shelton’s right,” Ben said. “On Monday, someone will notice the stone we dislodged. By lunchtime, everyone in America will know about Charleston’s secret tunnels.”
“Crap!” Shelton sat upright. “We still have the treasure map!”
Bonny’s drawing lay upside down on the table. A little worse for wear, but nothing too dramatic. Amazingly, the Ziploc kept it dry during our aquatic escape. The foreign words I’d copied onto its back were still visible in bright blue ink.
Hi rubbed his forehead. “We have to return that, pronto. It’s about to be very popular, and it won’t take the Fletchers five seconds to figure out who stole it.”
“We’re screwed anyway,” Shelton griped. “Tory wrote on it.”
“I was a little short on options.”
“When the news breaks,” Ben said, “treasure hunters will flock to Charleston from all over the world. One of them will find the stash.”
“No!” I said sharply. “Think! The pool chamber flooded. No one else will have Bonny’s last poem.”
“Which we can’t read,” Hi mumbled.
“I’m working on that!” Their constant resistance was starting to irk me. “Quitting is not an option. Don’t you see? We’re the only ones with the final clue to the treasure’s location. We can find where Bonny moved it!”
“What makes you think it’s still there?” Ben asked. “Maybe the pirates divided up the loot and skipped town.”
“Then why leave a clue at all?” Snap decision. I’d share my pet theory. “I think Bonny left the poem for Mary Read.”
“But Read was dead by then,” Shelton said. “She died of fever in a Jamaican prison.”
“Maybe Anne didn’t know that. Or maybe Mary survived.”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” Hi said.
“Anne drew her signature cross next to the poem. I think she was letting Mary know the clue was genuine, like she did in her letter.”
The boys remained mute, but I sensed a slight softening. I scratched Coop’s belly, allowing my argument time to sink in.
Then I pressed forward. “The treasure wasn’t discovered, guys, it was moved. And we hold the only clue to the new location.”
Nothing.
“We can still win. We can still save Loggerhead.”
Shelton rubbed his chin. Ben seemed skeptical. Hi had a speculative look.
“It’s out there,” I insisted. “Waiting for us. All we need are the guts to take it.”
Shelton and Hi nodded, the former reluctant, the latter suddenly eager.
“Fine.” Ben picked up the tennis ball and lobbed it my way. “Where do we start?”
I made the catch without looking. “We find out everything there is to know about Anne Bonny.”
I SCANNED THE handout and dialed the number at the bottom.
A female voice answered after two rings.
“Charleston Ghost Tours.”
“Sallie? This is Tory Brennan. My friends and I took your tour last night?”
“Hi Tory, how can I help you? Did you lose something?”
“No, nothing like that.” Breezy. Casual. “I actually have a question, if you’ve got a minute.”
“Shoot.”
Careful. Don’t remind her about the treasure map.
“I was thinking about our conversation at the Charleston Museum.”
“I’m manning the info desk as we speak,” Sallie said. “This is my cell number.”
“Oh! Then I’ll be quick. I was just wondering where I could find more info on Anne Bonny.”
“Hmm.” Brief pause. “There’s a bit online, and some decent books I could recommend, but so little is truly known about Bonny that most sources are repetitive, even contradictory.”
“That’s been the problem.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“I have a school project,” I lied. “We’re supposed to trace the background of a Lowcountry historical figure, and I figured Anne Bonny would be fun.”
“Did you try the Karpeles Manuscript Library? It has genealogies dating back to the first settlers. Their document guy is a bit pretentious, but he really knows his stuff. Sorry, his name escapes me.”
“Thanks, Sallie. I think I know who you’re talking about.”
“We appreciate your assistance, Dr. Short.” I flashed my most charming smile. “Especially on a Saturday.”