“Calm down please, Mrs. Rameau. I’m only trying to help. How long have you been here? What is this place?”
But the woman only snarled and growled in return. “Something is definitely not right with her, Cassandra. She looks really out of it. And her skin, it looks really weird.”
“Really weird? Is that your professional medical opinion?” Clearly, Cassandra took offense at something negative being said about her patient.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean anything personal by it.”
Suddenly they heard the sound of a car engine approaching outside. Cassandra pointed back the way they had come. “We should get out of here.” She tried to ease the patient back onto the cot, speaking soothing words to her, but the woman was in a frenzy, non-responsive and thrashing around.
They moved as fast as they could without bumping into things through the patient area and back into the plant lab. Fabi eyed the strange ferns, fluorescing odd colors as she passed through into the lab stocked with equipment. There was a computer in here, and Fabi lit it up to check for an Internet connection. Dial-up, a very slow connection, but a connection nonetheless. She began to type.
Cassandra was impatient. “What are you doing? Let’s go.”
“Sending Maddock and Bones an email with what we’ve seen. We’ll have to go to the police, I’m afraid, but I want him to know. Just in case…”
“You mention him a lot. Did you know that?”
Fabi ignored her. She typed out a few cursory lines. “Okay, good enough.” She clicked the Send button. “Let’s skedaddle!”
She snapped the email window closed and flipped off the machine.
The pair of coworkers moved through the lab until they reached the hidden bookcase entrance. They exited into the clinic proper and then Fabi shut the keycoded door and swung the bookcase back into place. Moving through the clinic as quickly as they could with all lights off, even the flashlight, they came to the front door. Cassandra peeked through a window.
“Car’s parked out front now!”
“See anyone?”
“No, no one’s in it.”
Fabi put her hand on the door. “Let’s go.”
Cassandra nodded and the two women stepped outside. No sooner did Fabi turn around to close the front door than Cassandra shouted, “Look…” But that was all she got out before a strong hand covered her mouth. A black man wearing a white lab coat threw Cassandra hard onto the ground.
Fabi, meanwhile, had taken stock of the situation and backed up enough to assume a fighting stance. She feigned a kick and the man smiled, thinking she was faking it. He moved in. Fabi spun around and closed with a foot to the man’s throat that dropped him instantly.
“You recognize him?” Fabi panted as the man lay gasping.
Cassandra shook her head. “I recognize we should go.”
With that, the two ran off into the night. When they had made it a safe distance away and it was clear no one else was pursuing them, Cassandra turned to Fabi while they walked toward their car.
“Remind me never to piss you off, by the way. I’ll never make you wait to use the printer again, I promise. I had no idea you could fight like that.”
Fabi smiled. “I was in the Navy for a bunch of years. It’s where I met Bones.”
“Ah, so I take it Bones is a fighter, then, too.”
“He’s a terrific guy. But let’s just say you don’t want to get on his bad side. Cassandra, look out!”
A van, headlights out, came around a curve in the road. The side door slid open and four men, their faces concealed, leapt out. Cassandra never had time to complete her sentence before the two women were desperately fighting off the new arrivals. A single man quickly subdued Cassandra, leaving Fabi to take on the other three. The ex-Navy girl held her own at first, landing some crisp punches, but she soon found herself overwhelmed by the sheer weight of superior size and numbers.
“What do you want?” Maybe she could reason with them, talk her way out of this. At first she had been concerned this was a random violent crime, perhaps even attempted sexual assault, but combined with the events inside the clinic and the strange happenings surrounding her cousin’s death, she wasn’t so sure.
While the three men held her, the fourth approached her slowly. “Maybe we can solve this right now. Answer one question for me, and we will let you and your friend go.” He jerked a thumb back at the van, where Cassandra’s muffled cries now emanated.
Fabi didn’t hesitate. “Okay. What is it?”
“Where is the treasure?”
A chill coursed through Fabi’s veins as the full extent of what she had gotten herself into with this treasure hunt slugged her like a fist to the gut. Immediately she feared not only for herself and Cassandra, who was especially innocent, but also for Bones, Maddock and Willis. She should have made it more clear that the locals would be more interested in the treasure, and more vicious when it came to going after it.
“What treasure?”
“Please do not waste my time. The treasure your cousin sought.”
Fabi saw there was no use in prevaricating.
“I have no idea!” She hoped the truth in the statement would add to the conviction in her voice. But with the ringleader’s next words that hope was destroyed. He addressed his men while walking away.
“Throw her in the van.”
Chapter 29
Bones stretched and yawned as he stared at the electronic display for the device they towed behind the Sea Foam that would signal them when they had found metal on the seafloor.
“Tired of ‘mowing the lawn’.” The phrase was a reference to the fact that the boat was running back and forth in a grid pattern in long, predictable swaths as it dragged the instrumentation behind it, searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Hundreds, thousands of square miles of ocean to search for a near pinpoint deposit of gold and silver coins, although the ship’s cannons and cannonballs could be a telltale giveaway, too.
Maddock turned the wheel as he brought the vessel into yet another U-turn to begin searching down a new lane. Willis exhaled heavily as he eyeballed the magnetometer monitor while Bones watched the sidescan sonar. “Can’t we just hire some nerd to watch the screens?”
Maddock eased the boat into its new lane and looked over at his friend. “Tell you what. If we find this treasure, we’ll hire one, okay?”
This seemed to satisfy Willis and Bones as well, both of whom went back to monitoring the instrument displays without further complaint. Time marched on, however, and as Maddock watched the needle on the fuel gauge slowly lean to the left, he began to wonder himself if they should call it a day. He was about to suggest one more leg to drag the instrument package when Bones let out a holler.
“Hold up! Got something here.”
Maddock slowed the boat. Bones’ eyes were still riveted to the display. “Right here! Take a look.”
Maddock saw Willis’ eyes bug out as he checked Bones’ screen before quickly moving back to his own. Maddock eyed the dense array of shadow lines on the screen, and then concentrated on the region Bones’ finger pointed to. Sure enough, an easily discernible anomaly interrupted the repeating pattern.
“What’s it look like for you, Willis?” Maddock took a look at the magnetometer readout, and it, too, signaled the presence of something unusual — and metallic — in the seabed below their hull.
“What’s our depth?” Maddock asked.
Bones eyed his screen again. “Ninety feet.”
“That’s divable!” Maddock jumped back to the helm, cut the engines and hit the switch to drop anchor.