Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 01 - Wendy and the Lost Boys (20 page)

I looked down at him remembering all the grief he gave me during our brief marriage. “Please…! You aren’t trying to save me. You’re just after Hook’s treasure.”

“Wendy, darling… I want to parlay.”

“What?”

“That’s pirate for ‘talk.’ Let’s talk. Help me up.” Twirling in the breeze, he kept banging his butt on the hull.

Turning away from yoyo man, I headed for Roger to tell him we were about to be invaded again. If he told me to “be prepared” one more time, I’d have to pop him. If he didn’t man up soon, I’d have Kit give him a pedicure. I was not in a good mood.

Chapter Forty-Six

Once again I crept up on Roger as he watched Hook who stood on the bow of the
Predator.
The investigator put his index finger to his lips.

I could hear Hook’s voice. He was on the phone again. “I want to be there when you do the wire transfers. Yes, I’ll be there right after noon. Correct, eight accounts. If I’m not there by two o’clock, you make the transfers without me. You heard me! If I’m not there by two, then something’s gone wrong on my end. You wire the money – don’t let anyone stop you. And shut that damn chicken up!” He clicked off and stared out to sea.

“Go back,” Roger whispered, nudging me down the staircase.

Following the SEC investigator as he slipped into the corridor, I asked, “What the heck is going on?”

“Hook was talking to Island Insta Bank. He’s going to transfer sixteen billion dollars to eight offshore accounts. The Ponzi money will be lost, scattered around the world. We’ll never be able to retrieve it.”

“How can he do that?”

“Welcome to the shadowy world of Caribbean finance. Island Insta Bank International is located in a two-room house in Nevisland on Nevis Island. It’s manned by a large Antiguan woman. She’s the finance compliance officer – when she isn’t tending to her chickens.”

“What’s a compliance officer?”

“She’s tasked with making sure the bank conforms to the finance laws and feeding the chickens.”

“This is sarcasm, right? Why don’t you go to that little bank and stop her? Arrest her in the name of the SEC. Don’t you have arresting eyes… I mean powers?”

“Wendy, I’ve been eating and sleeping with Hook. Well…not sleeping
with
him. I have barely let him out of my sight. I’m getting what I came for and that’s not the sixteen billion dollars. But hold that thought.”

“Wait, you came to question Marni.” I thought back to our first meeting. Roger’s words floated to the top like dead fish in red tide. He had accused me of being part of Hook’s Ponzi operation and fencing stolen artifacts. His exact words were, “You’re not going to skip out on me. Not when I’m this close to recovering the treasure.” I realized Roger was never interested in questioning Marni. And he’s not interested in recovering the stolen money.

“Who are you, really?” I asked.

“Don’t ask questions if you’re not ready for answers.”

I wanted to squash him for being so pompous. “I’m ready for answers.”

He tugged on my shoulder. “Come with me to my stateroom.”

“You’re sense of timing is absurd. Is this the great seduction scene? Are you going to win me over with your long, dark eyelashes? I had a feeling your suspicion of me was bogus, designed to put me on the defensive.” I pulled back from his grip and banged my elbow. It hurt like hell. What’s the expression? Bang your elbow, you’ll get a surprise.

“We only have minutes. Come with me, now.”

I followed him because I couldn’t think of a better plan.

Our suites were across from each other. His room looked as if it had been tossed. The infamous brown suit jacket lay on the floor; his borrowed white shorts and shirt were hanging from the bedside lamp. The bed covers were in a heap on the floor. Someone wanted him to know they were on to him.

Roger stepped into the closet and looked up at the ceiling, “It’s okay.” He placed a chair between the racks and climbed on it. Sliding the ceiling tiles he removed a trunk about the size of a large U-Haul box.

I stood under him as he handed it down to me. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. Placing it on his bed, he slowly opened the lock and then lifted the lid.

As irritated as I was with him, I was also curious.

Peeling back layers of fragile cloth, he exposed an old box. Roger looked at me from under those incredible lashes. “I’m not SEC.”

“Kind of figured.”

“I’m not exactly the James Bond of bonds, either.”

I shot him my most disgusted look.

“You know the character Indiana Jones?”

If I hadn’t been busting to know what was in the box, I’d have run off that minute. Instead I looked at him like you’d look at a used car salesman at the end of the month. “What are you, one of Charlie Hook’s clones? Out to line your pockets? You had me believing in you and trying to prove my worthiness to you when you were the liar.”

“I’m a freelance archeologist. I retrieve stolen antiquities.”

Not knowing whether to laugh at him or slug him, I said, “Yeah, and I’m a brain surgeon between gigs.”

His face grew serious and intense. I hadn’t seen him wear that expression before. “My client is a silent patron of the British Museum. He hired me to bring back the
Lost Boys
.” Roger took surgical gloves from his pocket and struggled to pull them on. He opened the box, revealing what looked like very old cigars… longish tubes covered in paper that crumbled in his hands.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Slowly he unwrapped the first small bundle. “This box contains the shadows of twelve of the infant sons of the fourth dynasty pharaoh, Kjoser. He had thirteen sons, each one died at birth. These shadows are over five thousand years old. They are the most valuable artifacts to come from ancient Egypt. They are the
Lost Boys.”

Roger exposed all twelve figures. The shadows were made of a black translucent stone that captured the light then spun it off in shards of color. Each infant’s face was different and yet resembled his siblings. All had large vacant eyes and full lips. Each baby looked as if it had conquered its world and was exactly where it wanted to be… a shadow in death.

“So sad to have lost these children at birth. Did they have the same mother?” I asked.

He shook his head but didn’t speak.

I watched as he laid the statues side by side on their wrappings on his bed. They were inlayed with jewels and carved in such detail they looked as if a laser had been used to create their fine expressions – but fifty centuries ago? Not possible.

Roger cast me a look. “They are cut from solid black diamond. As the pharaoh grew in power and wealth, the shadows became more dazzling. The thirteenth son was the most radiant, the most spectacular.”

I struggled to speak. “How could anyone lose thirteen children… at birth?” I reached to touch one of the figures.

He pulled my hand away. “Don’t touch! We can’t leave any body oils on the figures. We’re corrosive.” Using a cloth, he rewrapped the infant shadows in their swaddling. “Pharaoh Kjoser’s family was cursed. He never had a living male heir,” he said speaking softly as if he were in church.

As I watched him gently place the bundles into a suitcase cushioned with pillows, I forgot about Croc dangling from the side of the
Predator
; I forgot about Kit, and Miami, and my life there. I listened as Roger the archeologist told me what he held in his hands and why.

“The Egyptians believed there were six important aspects that made up a human being: the physical body, name, spirit, personality, immortality, and the shadow. Each one of these elements played an important role in the well being of an individual. Each was necessary to achieve rebirth in the afterlife.”

He had me at the words “British Museum.” On my frequent trips to London, I would spend days wandering the museum’s Egyptian galleries. I was goose-bumpy just thinking about the mummies and coffins. Outside of Egypt, the British museum has one of the largest collections of mummies in the world. Roger had just become interesting. An archeologist… hmm.

“A person could not exist without a shadow, nor the shadow without the person.”

“Like a real shadow?”

He shook his head. “It was considered a part of the essence of the entire being. The shadow is present from birth and was represented in death as a small human figure painted completely black. The pharaoh wanted his sons to be with him in glory in the afterlife. That’s what makes these pieces such incredible works of art. There are no other shadows like them.”

I shivered with excitement. “You said there were twelve shadows here, but thirteen sons?”

“Hook commissioned the theft of the thirteen shadows. They’re beyond priceless. I was two steps behind him when he had his men load his collection of antiquities, including the
Lost Boys
, into a van in Manhattan. It was passed from courier to courier. They made half a dozen switches, and then the van vanished. Until we found it at Joseph’s goat farm. Hook sent it to his brother who had no idea what he was holding for the Pirate of Wall Street.

“He doesn’t want to sell the
Lost Boys.
This is just Hook’s way of saying to the world – one more time – screw you. He orchestrated the mysterious disappearance of one of the most valuable antiquities in the world. He did it for the thrill of getting away with it.”

“Where’s the thirteenth boy?”

“Missing. Hook hired a very clever antiquities thief to steal the collection from the museum. She took a gratuity for herself. A little going away present. She kept the thirteenth shadow.”

“How are you going to get the
Lost Boys
out of here?”

“I’m going to load them on the chopper. We’re going to fly out.”

“Does Jaxbee know?”

“Not yet. I’ll tell her last minute. I don’t completely trust her.”

“What about the rest of Hook’s treasure?”

“It’s still in the van. Your lover, Peter Payne, is the contact to fence it to shady private collectors like Hook. The black-market for antiquities is a multi-billion dollar business.”

“Who would buy the stuff if it can’t be sold? That makes no sense.”

Roger finished rewrapping the last of the shadows and placed it in the suitcase. “Terrorists raise cash by stealing history and selling it to buyers like Charlie Hook. Wealthy collectors lust after these stolen artifacts and keep them in secret vaults. They are never seen again.”

I shivered. “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?”

He smiled. “I am
so
bad.” He batted those killer eyelashes. “I’ve got dummy Dale convinced I’m the brains behind Hook’s antiquities operation.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You’re a world-class impersonator. You had me convinced you were SEC. Hook thinks you’re a doctor, and Dale believes you’re Goldfinger. Nice work.”

Roger did the eyelash thing again. “By the condition of my room, we don’t have much time. Hook knows the boys are missing. He’ll slaughter us all in order to get them back.”

I touched his cheek and made serious eye contact, “Please stop calling Peter Payne my lover. He’s not.”

The archeologist, SEC investigator, and would-be squeeze grabbed my shoulders and pushed me down, pinning me to his bed next to the germy suitcase containing the ancient shadows. He gave me a kiss I could feel in my shoes. It was good, great… but not enough.

I struggled with him. “I don’t kiss liars!”

 I smacked him across the face. I know it hurt him because it sure stung my hand. I pulled free. Roger leaped after me hanging onto the tail of my shirt.

The door of the suite burst open. Wham! Kit slid into us like a baseball player running for home. He was breathless. “Wendy – Roger, while you two are canoodling, we have disasters about to come together in a perfect storm.”

“You’re being melodramatic. A perfect storm would be a welcomed respite.”

My nail tech buddy rolled his eyes heavenward, “We have a pirate on a string dangling from the ship. The crewmen are arming themselves. Hook is taking Jaxbee with him to Nevis. The poor kid can barely walk.”

“Is that Croc on that rope?” Roger asked.

Kit nodded.

“The hedgies can’t board. The swim platform is up and locked,” Roger said.

“You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man,” I said.

He flashed a smile. “
Body Heat
. Kathleen Turner to William Hurt.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Croc and four of his not-so-merry men barged into the suite. Roger flipped a sheet over the suitcase containing the
Lost Boys.
Then Kit, Roger, and I squared off with the leader of the pack.

“Wendy this is your last chance to come with me. It can be like old times.”

Hands on my hips, I stepped up to his face. “Old times sucked. How did you get up here? I know you don’t have any special anti-cloaking device. You can barely use your iPhone.”