Cassolette Page 5

  "He is being secretive, which is not surprising considering that he believes Adelaide was murdered."

  "Rank paranoia and nothing else," Chris retorted with a disgusted expression. "Or, he has some devious reason for spreading about such false rumor." It was much the same conclusion that Brad had reached upon hearing Angus' allegations about Adelaide.

  It was well past midnight, but Chris was still in the Museum putting the finishing touches to a new exhibit called "Smoking Paraphernalia through the Ages," and Jaye was helping him.

  "I had no idea when I began this project just how large it would become," he admitted, wedging a silver cheroot case in between a brass tobacco jar and an ornate table lighter. "So many lovely things for such a filthy habit."

  Jaye laughed and arranged a stack of cigarette cards beside a cigar cutter in the shape of a champagne bottle. "It's an ill-wind that blows no good," she said.

  They shared a bottle of wine afterwards on the terrace of the Smugglers' Inn, where they watched the frothy waves slip like satin fingers over the deserted beach.

  "Fancy a spot of spelunking?" Chris asked with a wicked grin. "There would be no danger of being disturbed at this time of night."

  "But it's the risk of discovery that adds the spice," Jaye winked, uncrossing her legs and running her toe up the inside of his calf. She hadn't made love since the night she had spent in Vancouver with Brad, and her nerve endings were fervid and eager to play. e was also feeling quite tipsy, and a devil-may-care daring had kicked in. "I have a better idea, trust me," she said seductively.

  King Burgers Drive-in was open twenty-four hours, and far enough out-of town that there was no risk of being recognized. "I'll have a hamburger and fries," Jaye said, opening just enough of the SUV's tinted window to make the transaction possible. The front seat had been pushed well back and there was a car rug close at hand in case of emergencies.

  "What about me?" Chris whispered mischievously from his position on the floor, where he was enthusiastically licking the insides of her thighs. "Don't I get to eat?" "Shush…" Jaye whispered. "You've got deluxe pussy pie, that should be

  enough." There were other customers walking close by the vehicle, and it thrilled Jaye

  to think she was having her cunt licked and them none the wiser. "Ah…that's good…good…" she murmured approvingly, spreading her legs

  further apart in order to better accommodate him. A couple of youths jostled each other as they came so close to Jaye they almost touched her. "Yo, wassup, blondie?" one of them remarked, and showed her his arm muscles rippling with tattoos.

  She felt strange and otherwordly engaging in this brazen act of public sex in a garish fast food restaurant reeking of charred meat and gasoline fumes. Roll the window down even an inch further and Chris would be clearly visible to one and all.

  The orgasm that sought to explode ever since this erotic adventure began now threatened to overwhelm her. "I can't hold back," she whispered.

  "Yes, you can," Chris insisted and withdrew his tongue from her clit. It was the plan to time their orgasm to the moment when the carhop returned with the order.

  Jaye gasped and clenched her teeth. It had been torment to have a climax that promised to be such a tumultuous one suddenly short circuited in that way. "You're cruel," she scolded. Yet, she was secretly glad that their plan was still on track.

  "As soon as she comes back go for it," Chris murmured, and as if on cue the girl returned and clipped the tray to the window.

  "Can you roll it down a bit further?" she asked. But Jaye shook her head and said that it was stuck.

  Chris was giving her a tongue licking the likes of which she had only fantasized about before. And it took every iota of the will power she possessed not to gyrate like a dervish and moan like a banshee. "Are you alright?" the carhop asked. "Yes…yes, of course…" she murmured, just as the thundering climax thwarted for so long crashed through her. Powerless to stop it, a moan of sheer ecstasy escaped her lips.

  "Do you think she knows?" Chris asked as they sped away from the scene of the crime giggling like teenagers.

  "She suspects," Jaye replied cautiously. Recalling the questioning look on the girl's face as she backed away from the vehicle and walked off with an uncertain gait, turning around once or twice with the same puzzled expression. * * * The next morning over breakfast, a now sober Chris was quite appalled by his daring and lack of judgement. Of course he hadn't much fancied the idea when Jaye had first suggested it. But, not wishing to appear like a wet blanket, he had allowed himself to be carried along by her enthusiasm.

  Curator Caught Performing Cunnilingus in Fast Food Restaurant. He could see the garish headlines in his troubled mind's eye. It would shatter his career and any hopes for advancement that he might have. But, it would be having to face his shocked family and friends that would be the most horrifically embarrassing part.

  And yet, he himself had suggested an encore in the caves. Also a public place, but much less risky late at night. Did he want to be caught, subconsciously, that is? Then he would be truly free to kick over the traces and go where destiny led him.

  He didn't honestly believe so. He was, in fact, perfectly contented with his life in Pendle Harbor. And yet, all during the course of a punishingly busy day, the niggling little doubt persisted that at some level far beneath the mundane, a wild side existed to his nature, that even he was unaware of. And that Jaye Ferris, "just like the wheel I go round," as she was wont to say, was slowly but surely bringing it out. The thought both terrified and thrilled him at the same time. * * * Across town on Bell Island, Jaye was also having second thoughts about her reckless behavior of the night before. Too much wine, she decided, picking up a pebble and tossing it into the water. She would have to be more careful in future. She did, after all, have a position to uphold in Pendle Harbor, where she was now the owner in residence of "Treasure" Island.

  Sheesh, it had been exciting, though. The close proximity of others and the ever present fear of being discovered increased the arousal and subsequent orgasm exponentially.

  Why, she had actually been handing the carhop the money and looking directly into her eyes when her orgasm came. Intoxicating stuff, but best reserved for only the rarest of occasions.

  "We'll do it again on your birthday," she joked to Chris. "My treat, of course." And she left him fantasizing about how it would feel to have his cock sucked while ordering a hamburger. * * * "Once we get the cofferdam in place," Angus said, "high power pumps will soon get rid of the water currently in the shafts. Then we can just scoop up the treasure." He rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation.

  Jaye was mildly amused by his use of the term we. For it was her money alone that was financing the enterprise.

  "And don't tell a soul about it," he cautioned, his face stern. "The fewer that know about what we're doing the better."

  They stood on the cliffs overlooking Pendle Bay as the setting sun dipped beneath a livid horizon. Jaye had been making arrangements for the past week and expected work to begin before the end of summer. And now that they were so close to realizing what so many treasure hunters had been seeking for over two centuries, she felt a sense akin to awe, as well as a bad case of nerves at her own audacity. She was putting millions of dollars of her aunt's money at risk.

  "It's exactly what Adelaide would have wanted," Angus insisted, when she voiced her fears. "She devoted over twenty years of her life trying to get at what is buried here. And she would have succeeded, too, if it hadn't been for that damned flooding feature."

  "Why do you think Adelaide was murdered?" Jaye asked, hoping to catch him off-guard by the suddenness of the question. But Angus was not so easily daunted.

  "Because she was getting very close to the treasure," he replied at once. "News somehow leaked out that she was negotiating for a cofferdam, and once that is in place, it'll only be a matter of days."

  "But I still don't understand," Jaye persisted, raising her voice against the squawking
of sea gulls. "Why would that make anyone want to kill her?"

  Angus took his time replying, the secretive look she had noticed before rolled down like a shutter on his ruddy features.

  "Because, whoever owns the island at the time the treasure is found will be rich beyond imaginings. It will be the greatest cache in history." "So?" "Those who have been trying to buy the island for years were not about to let

  a chance like that slip through their fingers." He called on Ben, who was foraging in the underbrush after a squirrel, and

  the three of them began to walk slowly through the gathering dusk towards home. "But who, Angus? Who were they?" A dark look of anger merged with fear before hardening into a mask of resolute stubbornness. "Midas Holdings," he rasped out, as if the very name itself was toxic.

  "And who owns this company?" Jaye asked sharply, to which Angus laughed bitterly, before replying. "Aye, well, that's the million dollar question, lassie."

  * * * "I can't come up with a thing on them, either," Jaye admitted, running her fingertip around the edge of an icy margarita cocktail caked with salt. "And I've gone through all the usual channels."

  "However, if Angus is right," Chris said. "About this shady company wanting to buy Bell Island, then why on earth haven't they approached you?"

  "Perhaps they're expecting me to put it on the market, at which time they can present an offer without raising suspicion. Because if they did have anything to do with Aunt Adelaide's disappearance, they won't want to draw attention to themselves."

  Chris nodded while munching on a pretzel. It was cool on the terrace of the Smugglers' Inn, although the sun beat down with a vengeance on the scorching beach beyond. "Well I don't believe a word of it, Jaye. I think it's just a figment of Angus' wild imagination."

  "But the company does exist," Jaye protested, "and has more layers to it than an onion. All leading back to one John Dorian—which is almost definitely a fake name—care of a mailing address in Vancouver."

  "Look I have to get back to the Museum," Chris said. "There's a busload of tourists expected at four. But why don't you contact Brad about this? I'm sure he'd be able to find out more about Midas Holdings than just John Dorian at a mailbox."

  "Perhaps I will," Jaye agreed, although reluctantly. Angus had been convincing in his belief that Brad knew more than he should about the whole sinister enterprise. And she didn't want to divulge this to Chris, who was his oldest friend.

  "But you're surely not suggesting that he had anything to do with Adelaide's disappearance?" she had asked Angus incredulously. "He was her solicitor, for heaven sakes."

  "Well, that's just it," he had shot back angrily. "You'll never get a more crooked, self-serving bunch than lawyers. I wouldn't give you a dime for the works of them."

  And she remembered how Brad had defended himself against Angus' earlier accusations by claiming it was because he had served him with an eviction notice to vacate Bell Island.

  "I already did a search on Midas Holdings for your aunt," Brad explained, catching her by surprise. "And I'm afraid I reached the same dead-end as you have."

  "So Adelaide was suspicious of them, too. And as she wasn't the type of woman who was prone to wild flights of fancy there must be something to it."

  "I understand that they made her an offer on the island," Brad said, his voice sounding pleasantly close across the telephone wires. "And she just wanted to have them checked out."

  "Then they must have sent her a letter, and I haven't found anything like that amongst her papers." Before Brad could answer, she added, "Perhaps we should call in the police?"

  "I think that would be uncalled for under the circumstances," he answered curtly. "You've obviously been listening to Angus Burns again."

  "But the police would surely be able to track down this Dorian character," she insisted, ignoring his remark about Angus. "I mean if he did have anything to do with Adelaide's..." She let the remainder of the sentence trail away unfinished.

  "Don't even think that," Brad stated firmly. "That's pure Angus Burns speak. Just his usual brand of nonsense." * * * She sought Angus out after the disturbing telephone conversation with Brad, finding him quietly fishing for trout on the west side of the island with Ben at his side. The reflection of the old lighthouse at Renfrew Point shimmered in the placid waters.

  "We don't want the police snooping around here, lassie," Angus declared, echoing Brad's misgivings but for a different reason. "We want to keep everything very low key and under wraps until after the treasure has been found."

  When Jaye did not respond, he added peevishly, "I've been waiting almost thirty years for this."

  "But if this company is as criminal as you've said, and will not stop at murder to get what they want, then we both must be in danger."

  "We need quiet or the fish won't bite," he cautioned, abruptly signaling an end to the conversation, which was clearly not to his liking. "What's at stake here is a sight more important than fish," Jaye rebuked,

  before stalking away angrily. "We're talking life itself." That night she had a lucid dream in which she was being pursued around the island by unknown assailants. She struggled awake in a sweat to a room eerie with moonlight and the call of a loon wailing from the distant marshes. There was a strange sense of timelessness permeating the atmosphere and she was unsure if she was truly awake or not.

  She got out of bed and walked over to the window with the zombie like movements of a sleepwalker. She felt as if she were being propelled there by some unseen force.

  Almost knowing what she expected to find there, she was still surprised when she did.

  For there by the gate, in exactly the same position as before, was the tall figure of a man wearing a tricorn hat and cape.

  Four

  Afterwards, Jaye could not be sure if she had dreamed the strange episode or not. When she awoke with dawn spilling into her room it was with a definite sense of never having left her bed. And yet, the suspicion persisted that she had, indeed, walked to the window in the wee small hours and voila, there was the same spectral figure that had so startled her before.

  For fear of being thought crazy, she refrained from mentioning the incident to anyone. Although, she was tempted to confide in her friend and business partner, Joanna Thornby, when she telephoned later that day.

  "We miss you, hurry back," Joanna said. Then, sensing Jaye's hesitation, asked if anything was the matter.

  "No, I'm just a bit tired." She did feel quite washed out from her nocturnal adventure, whether real or imagined. But the thought of returning to Toronto and taking up the threads of her life there was becoming more inconceivable all the time. Bell Island captured her spirit. It was as if her life hadn't truly begun until she took up residence there. * * * "Angus, have you ever seen a man around here wearing strange old-fashioned clothes," Jaye picked her words carefully, while assuming a casual manner. "A cape and a weird three-cornered hat?"

  A cormorant came to rest on the rocks above the Eastern Shore and Ben romped into the water to retrieve his twig. "I can't say that I have," he replied cautiously. "Why do you ask?" "Oh, I just thought that I saw someone like that near the gate," she replied noncommittally. Quickly she stepped aside to avoid being splashed with water by the vigorously shaking dog. Angus threw the twig far down the shoreline and Ben tore after it. "Sounds like you saw a ghost, lassie," he commented with an enigmatic

  expression. Jaye laughed awkwardly and asked him if he believed in that sort of thing. "Well of course I do," he replied without hesitation. "I'm a Celt."

  * * * S.W. Packard, the author of The Bell Island Mystery, was the recognized authority on the subject. A tall man with a shaved head and goatee, he exuded a sort of infectious optimism and boundless energy.

  Jaye had read the book several times, familiarizing herself with every aspect of the story. When she found out that Packard lived locally she made immediate arrangements to see him.

  "Scott, call me Scott," he invited, ushering her into an unt
idy den with a breathtaking ocean view. "So, you are the new owner of Bell Island. You know, I've been meaning to pay you a visit."

  Jaye explained about her plan to install a portable cofferdam and recover the treasure. "But please keep this under wraps. The fewer people who know about it the better." Scott nodded, and Jaye noticed that his eyes were as green as her own.

  "Mum's the word," he promised and made a sealing gesture across his lips. He served brewed coffee in mismatched mugs and offered a slice of really delicious pound cake as if in compensation. "My housekeeper makes it," he explained. "She comes in a couple of times a week, just to keep me sane."

  "What are you working on now?" Jaye asked, noticing the mountains of reference books and stacks of notes.

  "A comprehensive history of the Pendle Harbor area," he replied enthusiastically. "But I'm sure it won't be anything as exciting, or popular as The Bell Island Mystery."

  "You didn't give a personal opinion in the book," Jaye said, "of what you believe is buried on the island, if anything. And, of course, who put it there and how to best recover it."

  "No, I thought it best to just lay out the facts and let the reader decide for himself."

  Jaye nodded and helped herself to another piece of cake. "But you must have a theory of some sort, after spending so much time researching the subject."

  "Actually, I've been poking around the island ever since I can remember," he laughed. "I grew up around here, and it always fascinated the heck out of me."

  He told her that he had come to the conclusion that the treasure wasn't buried down the main shaft at all. "I mean, can you imagine leaving something that valuable in a place where it's going to be subjected to constant flooding?" Jaye looked puzzled, but agreed that this was indeed a good point. "I believe that after digging the original shaft down to a hundred feet, a tunnel was driven on an uphill gradient until it was twenty or thirty feet below the surface, and that's where the cache was left. This left the ground above it virginal. And it couldn't be recovered via the treasure pit because of the flooding feature."