The Ghost of the Rock, page 7
Surprise holds Gerard hostage for several seconds, long enough for her to press her mouth against his again, more firmly this time. He moves back slightly. “You need to stop.”
In response, she kisses him again, slowly and delicately attaching her mouth to his, parting his lips and tasting his mouth.
Gerard lifts a hand to grasp her shoulder but ends up squeezing it as her tongue finds his and she makes a tiny noise in her throat. The kiss deepens and lengthens and their breathing becomes uneven while a flash of lightning goes unnoticed.
Intoxicated with sensation, Sutton becomes even braver and moves above him, sliding her hand over his stomach and lower.
Gerard's moan is a combination of pain and pleasure, but obviously more pain as he pushes her hand away and holds her off. “Sutton, you’re going to kill me. What are you doing?”
Sutton breathes hard. She moves away. “I don't know. I don't. I just—in all the years I've known you, you've never once tried to touch me or kiss me.”
Gerard rubs his face. His mouth. “So tonight I'm your substitute for six glasses of Scotch?”
Sutton pulls the linen around her shoulders and turns her back on him. “Maybe you are.”
Gerard eyes her back and silence falls between them. Outside the tent, beneath the wind and rain, they hear a swell of violin music. Finally he speaks. “When is your divorce final?”
Sutton doesn't answer right away. She can't.
“Sutton? Answer me.”
“Twenty-two days. How did you know?”
“That's not important. You have plans after you leave here?”
“To learn to live cheaper, obviously.”
Gerard's expression grows solemn. Finally, he reaches for her. “Come here.”
He gathers her to him and feels the wetness of her tears against his chest. He kisses the top of her head. “What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing.”
“Did I make you think of your lost Scotch?”
“Shut up. My father was right.”
“I doubt it. Right about what?”
“He told me the only reason you proposed to me when you did was to protect me. And you left Africa because you came to your senses and regretted asking.”
“If I had stayed in Africa somebody would be dead right now. Probably him.”
“You didn't say goodbye. You just left.”
“You said no. What was I supposed to do? Beg?”
Sutton breathes out in a noisy exhalation, for a moment her old imperious self again. “You called out of nowhere and proposed to me over the phone. The phone.” She pauses then. “Listen, the music just got louder.” She lifts her head and Gerard studies her face as she listens. After a moment, he pulls her down and kisses her tenderly. Sutton leans back to look at him, nonplussed by the action.
“You wanted me to touch you,” he says. “I’m going to touch you.”
Before she can speak, he kisses her again, still tender, toying with her mouth and lips and tasting her flesh. Then he kisses her more deeply and soon causes her to moan with pleasure as his hand slides down her waist and grabs her buttocks to pull her firmly against him.
He pushes the linen sheet away and moves on his good side to face her. She breaks the kiss with a gasp and jerks in surprise as his hand slips between her thighs.
Her eyes squeeze shut as his fingers make her weak. He continues kissing and caressing her and soon she exhales with a shudder as her body responds violently. She melts and writhes against his hand and looks with surprise into his face. He kisses the tip of her nose and smiles.
In the morning the island looks fresh after the storm, washed momentarily clean of the ubiquitous guano and the thousands of nesting birds yet to emerge after the deluge. The sun comes up hot and bright, paving the way for steaming and muggy heat.
Jesse enters the tent with the sample table and finds Sutton with her brow wrinkled as she scoops out the contents from the mesh collection bags and places the muck in the first row of the sample table. She starts when she sees him standing behind her.
“Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you,” he says. “So you're all right then?”
“Yes, I am, Jesse, thank you for asking. And thank you for helping me.”
He nods and eyes her wardrobe. “You're going to run Brach out of clothes before long.”
Sutton looks down at the overly large t-shirt and fresh boxers. “I’ll do a wash later.”
Jesse presses on. “So look, is it some sort of hysteria, or a panic attack thing? You really had me scattered out there.”
Sutton stops what she's doing and turns to him. “I have a phobia about lightning. Most of the time I can deal with it. Sometimes I can't.”
“Well, it's good you recognize it. Any particular reason for it? Is it a childhood thing?”
“Something like that. Listen, have you been to check on the drill this morning?”
“I'm on my way now. I'm glad you're all right. Must have good coping skills, eh?”
“Something like that.”
He misses the tiny dip of her brow as he departs. In the next second, both brows lift in surprise as she catches something unusual in her fingers.
She picks up a brush and a bottle of water and scrubs at the pebble-sized chunk until she reveals the facets of a good-sized diamond.
“You're kidding me.”
She moves the rock under the magnifying lamp and stares. Then she carries it next door to the other tent.
Sutton finds Padrille changing the bandage on Gerard's wound as he stands beside the card table that holds his breakfast. Padrille clucks. “You are a remarkable man, Gerard. No fever, no infection. You alone have all the luck on this island.”
Both men look up as Sutton steps to the table. Gerard's gaze lingers on her face and Sutton avoids a blush by concentrating on the rock in her hand.
“You won't believe what was in the lagoon silt.”
She holds up the diamond and Gerard first squints and then frowns at it. “Shit. It's cut.”
“A rectangular step-cut with a bruted girdle. I think we need to ask Paul about that fourteen carat diamond again.”
“Get my loupe out of that case would you?” Gerard asks.
Padrille finishes with the bandage tape and looks at the find as Sutton retrieves the loupe from Gerard's nearby case and hands it to him. Gerard places the loupe to his eye and takes the diamond from her to examine it. “A blue diamond, still dirty and crusted with lagoon algae, but obviously not rough, and this one is well over fourteen carats.”
“Cut but never set,” Sutton says.
The captain strains to see and Gerard passes it to him. Padrille holds it in his hand and then looks at both of them. “But what does this mean?”
Sutton's frown clears. She rushes out of the tent, leaving Gerard and Padrille both looking at the diamond. Before either can open their mouths, she rushes back again, book in hand.
“Clipperton. The man the island is named after was a pirate who looted ships in the early 1700's. Treasure hunters believed he might've dumped some of his bounty here because the location is so remote and no one ever stopped here. It was the perfect hiding place if you didn't want to get caught with the goods and knew how to get back.”
Padrille looks confused. “But surely the French government knows a cut diamond from an uncut one? If the fourteen carat stone found earlier was cut, why bother sending us to drill?”
Gerard frowns deeply.
Sutton stares at Padrille then slowly begins to stew. “Because a treasure hunter would get a percentage of the bounty and a drilling team has no claim. Our contract states that if we find anything of historical value while we're here we have to turn it over without question to the French. Ooh! That lying, scheming bastard!”
“Your father?” Padrille asks.
“Paul! He's our company liaison with the French government and the reason we’re even here!”
Gerard nods. “He was pretty adamant about starting the search in the lagoon.”
“Yet even Dubois must realize that any fool will immediately see the difference between rough and cut,” Padrille says.
Sutton continues to simmer. “He may have wanted to play off the cut stones as a bonus find.”
The captain lifts a shoulder. “Yes, it is possible, because as you said, Sutton, the island is so remote that any confusion concerning our purpose here only creates more time. Time in which to dig up the rest of the treasure while the drilling on The Rock goes on as planned. This perhaps is what they are counting on.”
“While dangling a fourteen carat carrot and using our company’s resources in a false search for diamonds to mine,” Sutton adds. “I should've known.”
All three go silent while they contemplate the blue diamond.
Finally Gerard says, “Say nothing about what you've found and go on as normal. Don't announce any cut stones you come across. We'll drill as scheduled and turn over all findings only at the end of our stay. Are we agreed?”
Sutton and Padrille nod, and before Padrille can leave the tent, Sutton stops him. “Padrille, was it you playing the music last night during the storm?”
“Me? No, I thought it was you.”
“Jesse, possibly?” Gerard asks.
The captain shakes his head. “Jesse sat with me while it played. You heard Chopin’s Nocturne?”
Sutton shakes her head. “I heard The Moldau. Captain, you heard Chopin?”
“Yes. Beautiful soothing piano above the storm. I will ask the others. Perhaps we have a closet music fan among us, someone who also likes the sound of children laughing.”
After he leaves the tent, Sutton quirks a brow at Gerard. “Children laughing?”
Gerard sits down at the table and reaches for a fork. “Padrille says the crew members are seeing things. Sit down and eat something.”
Sutton sits in the other camp chair. “I’m not hungry. They saw the woman in the dress?”
Gerard forks a melon and hands Sutton a piece of toast. “He didn't say. Eat.”
Sutton nibbles the toast. “You heard the same music I did...right?”
“Hmm. Fetch me that book you've been reading. And get on the soda today. Jesse should be putting out some chips by this afternoon. We'll dissolve them and see what we've got. I'll help you with the lagoon samples later this morning and we'll send the divers back in first thing tomorrow.”
Sutton becomes irritated by all the bossing around. “Will there be anything else?”
Gerard spears some eggs, puts them in his mouth and chews. “You need to do a load of wash.”
Sutton throws the piece of toast at him as she leaves the tent.
At the drill site later, after Sutton and a crewman arrive with a cooler of food and drinks for lunch they find Jesse and another man outside the tent with unhappy faces. Sutton and her helper put down the cooler and she opens it to give Jesse a bottle of water. “What is it? Jesse, what's wrong?”
“It won't work, that's what! I've tried everything I know. The stupid damned thing locked up after a half-second with the bit down and I can't get it up again to see if the blasted thing broke.”
Sutton’s shoulders sag. “You think the bit broke?”
“Well I don't know, now do I? I heard a noise that suggested this is what may have occurred, but my x-ray vision failed me due to the cloud of rage fogging my sight and I missed that particular bit-defining moment.”
His acerbic response sends Sutton into the tent.
Jesse opens the water bottle, downs it and tosses it aside. He walks to the cooler, opens another, and drains it while the other crew members concentrate on their sandwiches.
Sutton emerges, her face dark. “The wiring in the switch is fried. You didn't notice the hole in the roof of the tent?”
“The lightning struck here as well? Then how did it manage to come on at all? And why didn't the tent burn? Good God, what can go wrong next? Look, can we get Brach to come out?”
“He'll be here later. In the meantime, we may as well go back and get the other drill ready to transport.”
Jesse sighs and they move off. They start back, the crewmen trailing along behind them with the cooler. Sutton scans the island surface. “Jesse, have you seen Josette today?”
“No. Why? Is she missing?”
At base camp, Paul swats in aggravation at insects as he sits by himself away from the others and eats his supper from a plate in his lap. His usually immaculate grooming has suffered on the island without any amenities. His normally slicked down hair is dry and flyaway from constant squirting of booby guano, and his flesh has turned bright red with prickly heat.
His lip curls into a snarl as Sutton approaches. “I really do love your new t-shirts and boxers look, Sutton. I’ve long suspected an affinity in you for the lower classes. Have you found Josette?”
“Jesse and Captain Padrille say you were the last one to see her during the storm. Did she say anything to you? Anything at all?”
Paul tosses a piece of fruit over the fence to the hungry crabs. “She nearly bored me to death with tales of her family and their animal menagerie. Her father is a judge, by the way.”
“She said nothing about going off to take samples for her study?”
“No. I did however see her eyeing the man who shot her iguana. She may be planning to steal a hammer and recreate the murder of the mad lighthouse keeper.”
Sutton frowns in aggravation and steps away. Then she turns back. “Were you playing music last night?”
“You must be joking,” Paul says.
“Forget I asked.”
“I shall. As soon as you tell me what the divers found in the lagoon yesterday.”
She counts on her fingers. “They found slime, muck, rotting vegetation and mud. And we're now down to one drill. Wonderful party, isn't it?”
Paul smiles. “I heard you had some trouble during the storm. It's a good thing it was raining, so no one could see the piss running down your leg, eh?”
Sutton recoils at the cruel jibe. Then she regains control. “Keep good count on those hammers, Paul. You're looking more like a mad lighthouse keeper every day.”
She makes her way back to the main tent and looks around for Josette as she enters, hoping the other woman might have returned. There is no sign of the ethnobotanist.
Jesse and Padrille sit at the small card table and communicate with the ship by radio.
“Yes, Carlos, I'm asking you to take the ship around the island in the morning. Go slowly and look carefully. You may see what we cannot.”
The radio crackles and soon Carlos says, “We'll look for her, Captain. The supply ship with the surgeon is within three days of us. We heard from them only moments ago.”
“Then they're making better time than we did. Radio me tomorrow and let me know what you see. Padrille out.”
Gerard stands beside the magnifying lamp at the sample table and sifts through the lagoon muck. Sutton moves to his side. “Paul was no help.”
“No kidding.”
“I keep thinking about the crewman that snapped his ankle. Josette could be trapped somewhere, unable to walk.”
“We'll split up into teams in the morning and look for her,” Gerard says. Then his voice lowers. “I found another one. Smaller.”
“Cut?”
Gerard nods and Sutton becomes aware of Jesse staring at them. She changes the subject. “Did you read any of the book I gave you?”
“Enough to learn the captain's wife brought more than just classical music with her to the island. Made me wonder if our findings belonged to her and not to Pirate Guy.”
“But wouldn't they be in settings?” Sutton suggests.
“Not necessarily. Could've been an inheritance. She did come from a wealthy family.”
Jesse moves behind them. “I have a particular fondness for females from wealthy families. What are we talking about?”
He winks when Sutton turns to look at him.
“The book about the island's history,” Sutton tells him. “I gave it to Gerard to read while he recuperates.”
“Ah. Complete with recipes for roasted booby and boiled crab, no doubt?” Jesse turns to Gerard. “How's the wound, Brach? You've been standing for over two hours and haven't broken a sweat. I'm beginning to believe Padrille about your Superman status.”
“Don't.”
“Right, well, obviously not faster than any speeding bullets, eh?” Jesse grins, Gerard smiles, and Sutton yawns tiredly, lack of sleep catching up with her.
“If you'll both excuse me, I have a load of wash to do before bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jesse is the only one who answers. “Good night, Sutton.”
All of base camp lays quiet as Gerard emerges from his tent and looks around, his attitude one of listening. Carrying a lantern before him, he walks in the direction of the lagoon. A light breeze ruffles his hair and he stops until he picks up the sound again that brought him out. He hears a woman crying. Gerard walks carefully, avoiding holes and shifting ground as best he can in the dark. Suddenly the lantern reveals the shape of someone up ahead.
“Josette? Is that you?”
He quickens his pace and she turns suddenly and blinks. Wild-eyed, she melts away from the light.
“Josette, it’s me, Gerard. Are you all right? Are you injured?”
A loud sob reaches him and soon Josette appears in the lantern light once more, twenty yards from him. Gerard moves closer and sees blood running down both of her legs. Numerous sidestepping crabs surround her. She makes a shrieking noise and holds her fists above her head. “My baby is dead!”
Gerard exhales and moves closer. “I know. I'm sorry.”
Her voice lifts, becoming even more strident. “He strangled her! I saw the marks on her throat.”
Gerard's forehead creases. This is not good.
“I paid him to help us!” Josette continues. “I gave him everything I had, and he killed her, told me she was sick. She wasn't sick!”
A few steps closer and Gerard can see the long, sharp knife she holds in her hand. He suspects it’s what she used to carve up her legs.
