Roxanne St. Claire - Make Her Pay

“You shouldn’t be touching them,” he warned her. “Do you know how delicate they are? They could disintegrate in your hands. Be extremely careful. No oils should touch them. Keep them stored in the stone hold where you found them.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed the urge to snap at him. They’d survived a century and a half under a stone stair in a windmill. A few hours in her hands wouldn’t wreck them. But she needed this man too much to lash out.

“Describe the pendant,” she said, carefully sliding out the parchment pages with the drawings.

“Look for something oval shaped, trimmed with jewels, with a crucifix on one side and the mother of God on the other.”

Mother of God was right. Her heart kicked a little as her eyes landed right on the image. They’d found it.

“The Our Lady of Sorrows pendant,” she read the centuries-old script. “Seven jewels. Lots of curlicues and filigree. Is that it?”

“It could be,” he replied. “Describe the shapes of the jewels.”

“The top three are oval, the two on the sides are square, well…” She squinted at the faded drawing. “You could call them rectangular. The two on the bottom are round.”

“That’s it. We’ve got it. We’ve got it in our hands, Mrs. Bettencourt.”

She was one step closer to seeing Jaeger weep with regret. “What kind of jewels are they?” she asked, more out of curiosity than anything. This piece wasn’t important to her. She might use it to pay him off if-no, when -they found what she really wanted.

“One is missing, but the rest are diamonds on the side, and rubies. Decent size, and it’s not sand-worn at all. The fact that this ship went down ten miles offshore is really in our favor,” he said. “Much less damage from the coral reefs, and the stuff is buried so deep it should all be here-not picked over and not spread around. Now that we’ve found one piece, we’ll start to bring up bounty every day.”

Another thrill shot through her. They were getting closer. “Then dive and dig and call me every single time something is found.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“And when you get the scepter, you know what to do.”

“I do. I won’t let you down.”

“What about the crew and the other divers?” she asked. “Is everyone following orders?”

“Everyone is doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.”

She was dubious. People never did exactly what they were supposed to do. Wasn’t she proof of that? Wasn’t her famous and mighty fall from the pinnacle of society to a damn cow farm in the Azores proof of that?

“Remember, you are my eyes and ears,” she reminded him. “That’s what I’m paying you a lot of money to be. Someone could get very anxious to leak this activity now. If anyone-I mean anyone -leaks one word or shows any indication that they know or could beat us to it, then-”

“I’ve handled that in the past.”

“Yes, you have. And what about Malcolm Dare’s daughter?”

“She’s right here, Mrs. Bettencourt. Ignorant and under constant watch.”

“She’d better be ignorant.” Of course, if Malcolm Dare had shared what he knew, his daughter would never have stayed quiet. Getting Lizzie on that boat was more proof of Solange’s power and luck.

“I’ll call you as soon as we make another recovery. In the meantime, this one will be hand delivered to safety and security on dry land.”

“See to it that it is.” She signed off and dropped the phone on the table, her gaze on the drawing of the pendant. A lovely piece. Very valuable. But not even close to what she wanted, and planned to have.

She lifted the scepter again. One without the other was like… well, a queen without her king. And Solange Bettencourt was willing to do just about anything to be queen again. And crush her king.

She gathered up the papers, heeding his warning to handle them with care, then put them in the metal box she kept them in. She took them first, glancing at the velvet-covered scepter. Should she try to carry both? No, it wasn’t safe. Ana was in the kitchen and wouldn’t renege on their agreement.

Ana gave her an hour alone each evening in the windmill, where Solange claimed to be “meditating” while Ana cleaned up after dinner, probably happy for the little reprieve from her charge.

Box in hand, Solange entered the darkened stairwell that encircled the inside of the windmill. Carefully, she climbed up, counting the stairs as they wended around the structure. The walls were rough, and the smell of the sea and old grain permeated everything.

When she reached the ninety-seventh step, the gears just a few feet away at the top were almost deafening. She bent over and lifted the stone on top.

Was it power or luck that made her trip over this stone the night she’d come up here to kill herself-her third failed attempt? How close she’d come to ending what was going to be a glorious existence.

She’d secretly stopped taking the meds, and of course the blackness in her heart had taken over her body like a cancer. It was going to be so easy… just throw herself from the windmill over a cliff hundreds of feet above the rocks of the Atlantic Ocean.

Proving every lie Jaeger had spread to be the truth.

Then she’d tripped. And there, like a miracle, lay the scepter. And then she’d checked every other step for secret hiding places and found the paperwork.

She gently laid the box in the hole.

“ Senhora Bettencourt? Are you here, ma’am?”

Ana.

Her first thought was the scepter, out in the open on the small worktable. Oh, Lord, what if she found it?

Solange stayed very still, listening for movement. How could she explain it? A gift from her husband? Ana would know if something had been delivered. She remained still, flattened to the wall. Listening for the sound of Ana leaving.

But if she left and took the scepter! No, that just couldn’t happen.

“ Senhora Bettencourt?” The voice was closer, the Portuguese-accented English echoing over the stone as the young woman rounded the stairwell. “Are you fine, ma’am?”

Solange scrambled up the rest of the steps, pushing open the planked door to the gear room. She hated this place. A narrow ledge, not two feet wide, circled the top of the round windmill. There was no railing, no protection. One misstep, and you could fall right into the massive, grinding teeth of the gear turned by the windmill blades.

An ugly thought coiled around her brain. If Ana had the scepter…

She had to hide. Wait it out. Ana would leave if she thought Solange wasn’t here. That main floor was dark. She might never see that scepter on the table.

But if she did… Solange needed a solution fast.

She followed the ledge to the door that led outside, the only way to get to the three giant sweeps that turned constantly in the wind. She could hide here, watch through the door, see if Ana had-

Whoosh! The giant blade spun right in front of her, the force almost knocking her over. She pressed herself against the rounded stone, the chill seeping through her, too terrified to look back to see if Ana followed her up there.

“ Senhora Bettencourt!”

She had. Solange remained silent, willing the young nurse to just go away.

“ Senhora Bettencourt!” The door opened slowly, and the first thing Solange saw was white velvet.

“ Senhora! Do not do this!” Her brown eyes were full of sympathy, no doubt certain she’d found her boss about to commit suicide again. It wouldn’t have been the first time. She held up the scepter in the velvet. “Where did you get this? Do you know what value it is? There is a tale of this, a folklore!” She practically quivered with excitement.