Roxanne St. Claire: Make Her Pay

“I wasn’t sure I would, until the moment I handed him the Paxton file.”

“So you found the diver you wanted.”

“I found the thief I wanted.”

He inched back. “A thief ?”

“Reformed. Or so he says. He’s also a former Bullet Catcher, who I let go after some diamonds were missing from a delivery out of South Africa. He was eventually vindicated and cleared, but by the time that happened, he’d pretty much adopted the ‘if you can’t convince them you’re innocent, then be guilty’ mind-set, and went back to doing what he has an amazing gift for doing: taking stuff that doesn’t belong to him.”

Jack dropped on the sofa, studying her with a quizzical look. “So you brought him on board for just this job?”

“We’ll see. He wants more. He wants Dan’s job.”

That got a soft hoot. “Not that I wouldn’t be happy to see my old rival for your affections gone, but I seriously doubt Gallagher’s going anywhere but in that chair…” He pointed to her desk. “At least for the first few weeks of Baby Culver’s life.”

“I’m still figuring that out,” she said.

He reached for her and eased her next to him, a familiar and comfortable hand on her still-flat belly. “How is my boy, by the way?”

“She’s fine. I’m not going to stop working, Jack,” she said, a vague warning in her voice.

He just laughed. “No more than the earth will stop revolving. But you are going to have to restructure to some degree.”

To some degree. “To the degree where I hire thieves to protect gold and diamonds?”

“Oh, come on, Luce. That’s exactly why you did it: to test his loyalty and character.”

“You know me too well.” She nuzzled closer to him, her worries evaporating.

“So what happens if he fails?”

“I could lose one of my most important clients.”

And, worse, she’d lose the chance to see Con Xenakis become the man he wanted to be.

The treasure chest. The recovery room. The booty box. The gold hold.

No matter what the crew nicknamed the dive ship’s lab, where recovered treasure was bathed in acid and ash, tagged and numbered, then electrolyzed to its original glory, the place was fairly easy to break into.

But even if it hadn’t been, Lizzie Dare would have made a go of it tonight.

Her watch alarm vibrated at three a.m., when the hundred-and-twenty-foot vessel was silent but for the hum of the generators. The other divers and the captain and crew were asleep in their cabins.

Secure in the fact that Flynn Paxton was on his boat anchored a hundred and fifty feet away, and certain that by tomorrow she’d never get her hands on the beaded silver chain that had been recovered that afternoon, she tiptoed barefoot out of her bunk.

Her feet soundless on the planks of teak of the narrow hallway of the quarters deck, she barely breathed as she glanced up the stairs to the main deck, where all was dark and silent after a day of diving, searching, and celebrating the recovery. If she were caught now, her excuse would be needing air. But once she turned the corner and took the stairs below, she’d have a hard time explaining herself.

Pausing for a second, she pulled a dark hooded jersey around her, took a deep breath, and darted to the steps.

At the bottom, the generators were louder, the engines and electrical systems clunking softly. Grasping the key she’d taken from Charlotte ’s stateroom during the hoopla when one of the other divers had emerged from the sea holding the chain, she headed toward the lab. In the midst of the chaotic celebration, it had been easy to slip down to the conservator’s stateroom and steal the key unnoticed. She’d return it tomorrow while Charlotte and Sam Gorman had breakfast, no one the wiser.

The metal hatch of the cleaning lab squeaked, making her cringe, then she entered to suck in a noseful of salty muriatic acid lingering in the air.

Inside it was dark, except for one wedge of pale moonlight through skinny horizontal slatted portholes. She didn’t need much light. She’d been in the lab enough times to know exactly how the worktables were arranged and where the chain would be hanging on alligator clips in an electrolysis tank.

She took a few steps to the left, reached out to touch the table, then glided her hands to the row of tanks. From her jacket pocket she pulled out a latex glove, slipped it on, then dragged her fingertips over the thin metal bar over the stainless steel plate.

But there were no clips draped with a silver beaded chain.

Hadn’t Charlotte started the electrolysis yet? She’d naturally done the initial cleaning that afternoon, and then she should have prepped the chain for electrolysis that would take up to twenty-four hours.

But the tanks weren’t even on; there was no soft vibration of a low-volt current. So where had she put the chain?

Nitric baths, no doubt. Damn. There were beads on the chain and it wasn’t all silver so Charlotte probably added a wash of nitric acid as an in-between step. Getting the chain out of a nitric solution would be much tougher.

But not impossible.

She pulled the other glove from her other pocket and headed to the closet-sized room at the opposite end of the lab, where the nitric acid baths were given to the treasure. They’d also found silver coins that day, and no doubt Charlotte had them each in an individual wash, the cups lined up along the worktable. She probably decided to do the necklace at the same time.

Lizzie slipped a pinpoint flashlight out of her pocket because a room with containers of nitric acid, even a five percent solution, was no place to accidentally knock something over in the dark.

Stepping deeper into the closet, she aimed the flashlight in the direction of the tiny worktable along one narrow wall and-

Thwack!

The door slammed behind her the very instant one powerful arm encircled her whole body from behind. A warm hand smashed over her mouth, silencing her scream as the flashlight clunked to the floor.

She jerked one way, then the other, but she was no match for the mighty arms that immobilized her. She tried to see him, but all she could get was an eyeful of shoulder. Big shoulder.

No shoulder she’d seen on this boat before.

“Looking for something in particular?” His voice was a low, menacing rumble, sending shivers over her skin.

She jerked hard, grunting into his hand. “Met me mo!” The demand was smashed right back into her mouth.

“No can do, sweetheart.” He punctuated that with a squeeze, forcing her body against his, her backside right up against his hips.

A whole different kind of white-hot terror seized her. In all her dive trips and salvage efforts, she’d never been on a ship that had been attacked by pirates. But on Paxton boats? Entirely possible. Probable, even.

She tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but he just pinned her tighter. She fought again, but he was rock solid and unyielding.

“Mwat do you want?”

“What do you want? is the question.”

She tried to wrest away one more time, but it was fruitless. She forced herself to be very, very still despite the adrenaline coursing through her, fueling her fight.

Three or four interminable seconds rolled by, her heart whacking at her rib cage in triple time.

“Good girl,” he said softly, the tone ominous enough to almost stop that beating completely. “This is a very bad room for a wrestling match.”

Yes, it was. Unless you had gloves and long sleeves on. Did she dare? Only her face was vulnerable.

What was worse? A minor burn or… rape and murder?

No contest.

“Now here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, his mouth still pressed to her ear, his mighty grip strangling her whole body. “We’re going to back out of this closet, very calmly and quietly, before you help yourself to a single item that doesn’t belong to you. Then you’ll pay for your misdeeds, and the punishment will be severe.”