Roxanne St. Claire - Make Her Pay

Brianna had tried, but they’d need a bulldozer to clean out the man-made mountain in Dad’s office.

Inhaling the whisper of Old Spice that lingered in the air, she stepped into the office, imagined him turning in the old desk chair and beckoning to her: Lizzie Lou, look at you .

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yeah, look at me, Dad. Duped by a hot guy. You’d be so proud.”

She dropped into his chair and clicked on the computer, praying Brianna had replied to the e-mail she’d sent from Con’s phone. While she waited for the system to come to life, she fluttered through the papers. All of the pertinent stuff was gone; just old notes and Christmas cards from diving friends remained.

She clicked on the Internet browser bar, getting a list of the last sites visited. She recognized most of them, but not the top site-something about genealogy. Out of curiosity she clicked on it, and scrolled down the home page to a flashing link.

Welcome back, MDare, you have private e-mail waiting in the forum. Please read.

She hesitated for a minute, her finger over the mouse. Should she go there? Did this person not know that her father had died?

Possibly not. A treasure forum would know. But genealogy? She clicked on the link.

MDare-I have the information you are seeking for Carlos Bettencourt, circa 1860. Please respond by private e-mail mrdbgenserv@gmail.com .

She was tempted to just let it go, but that wasn’t right.

She hit reply and typed, Thank you for contacting MDare . I’m his daughter and am sorry to inform you that he has passed away. Can you forward the information to me at the following e-mail address? She added her own e-mail and tapped Send, then opened up the program for her own mail-which did not include a message from her sister.

She wrote another note, pleading with Brianna to write. Just as she hit Send, the ding of incoming mail sounded.

From mrdbgenserv@gmail.com. Wow, that was fast.

I’ve already given the information to your sister when I met her in Lisbon. I believe she’s going straight to the source in Corvo now. Maria Rossos Della Buonofuentes.

Corvo? Where was that? Lizzie grabbed the mouse to hit Google, but froze at the sound of a car engine slowing outside the house.

Damn .

Could he have found her already? He didn’t know where this house was, and even his almighty connections wouldn’t be able to find a house that was in her mother’s maiden name, which he didn’t know.

Still, she wrapped her arms around her waist as she headed to the living room. The bungalow was at the end of a dead-end street in a little-known section of Vero Beach. There were only two other houses on the street, and traffic was extremely rare.

She peeked through the window, seeing only the overgrown shrubbery smashed against it. They had to hire someone to hack it away before the jungle overtook the house.

A car door slammed on the street.

But he drove a bike. She let out a little breath, still braced for his deep voice calling her name. Lizzie! I know you’re -

“Lizzie, honey, are you there?”

“Sam!” The voice of a friend was so welcome, she threw the door all the way open and practically hugged him. “How did you know I was here?”

“I know you pretty well, Lizzie,” he said with a smile. “You shouldn’t come over and roll around in memories, honey.”

She invited him in, shrugging. “I didn’t want to go up to my apartment in Cocoa just yet.” Con would look there for her next, no doubt.

“So you came to your refuge.”

Smiling, she conceded with a nod. “How’s Charlotte doing?”

“She’s upset about Alita, and all the questioning. Sorry that the dive is over. Worried about you. She sent me here to fetch you and bring you to our house.” Sam surveyed her face and uncombed hair. “You look like you could use some TLC.”

“I’m just exhausted. It’s been a helluva night and morning.”

Sam glanced around. “Where’s Brianna?”

She settled on one of the two rickety bar stools and rested her elbow on the yellow countertop. “Europe.”

He drew back. “Really? Where?”

“Lisbon, I think.”

“You think? She didn’t tell you?”

Lizzie shook her head. “And probably for good reason. I’m too protective, I know that.”

“Did she go with friends?”

“I really have no idea. I have a feeling she’s following some genealogical lead that my father was tracking for…” She hesitated, torn. “A project he was working on. She’s gone somewhere called Corvo.”

Sam practically fell off the stool. “The island in the Azores? Brianna went there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I had an e-mail from a genealogist my father was in touch with, and she said she’d given my sister what he needed when she saw her the other day in Lisbon, then she said something about Bree taking it to Corvo.”

Sam looked as dismayed as she felt. “Never been there myself, but from what I know it’s tiny, the farthest of the Azores, about a thousand miles from Portugal. That ought to please the adventuress in Brianna’s soul.”

A thousand miles from Portugal? “That’s the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.” Her heart swelled with worry. “I really need to find her.”

“Why don’t you get some help from Con? He seemed like a resourceful guy, and…” Sam gave her a sly smile. “Char told me you two were pretty close.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Lizzie said, popping off the stool at the soft ding of an e-mail from the office.

“Oh? Why was he a mistake?”

Because he was a lying, thieving, underhanded, undercover cheating bastard who works for Judd Paxton .

“I just… misjudged him,” she said, purposefully vague as she headed to the office, praying the e-mail was from Bree.

Sam followed. “He seemed pretty upstanding to me.” “He seemed like a lot of things he wasn’t.”

She bent over the keyboard and clicked, clenching a fist in hope, but it was an advertisement from Office Depot. Disappointment punched her, and she dropped into the chair with a sigh.

“Honey, why don’t you come and stay with us for a while? This place is too depressing for you. All those shrubs smashed against the windows make it dark and dreary in here, along with the memories that are dragging you down. Char and I have plenty of room.”

It was only a matter of time until Con figured out her mother’s maiden name, and his research team at the Bullet Catchers tracked her down.

And once he found her, he’d find the scepter.

If she left the house empty, he’d tear it apart until he got what he wanted.

Then all the answers came to her.

“Sam, I need to trust you with the biggest secret you can imagine. The one thing that mattered most to my father in the whole world.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “El Falcone?”

“You know about that?”

“Lizzie, I was very close friends with your father. Of course he talked about his search.”

“Did you realize that we were diving on El Falcone ?”

He gave her leg a squeeze. “Why do you think we invited you? We wanted you to be there when the recoveries were made. I knew how much it mattered to Malcolm, and how much he’d want a family member there.”

“You knew and didn’t tell me?”

“Charlotte thought it best not to tell you until we knew for sure. Now it’s all kind of moot, isn’t it?”

It was so not moot. “How did you know?”

“Malcolm showed me his map and told me his conjecture. When I heard where this dive was, and that it was supersecret and taking place off-season, I figured that once again, Judd Paxton was one step ahead of everyone else in the treasure world.”