Second Chance Gold (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 4) by John Cunningham (best novels to read for beginners txt) 📕

surprised given that he’d once had a near deadly altercation on that island.

“Damn, boy! They got chickens and boiling pots in that thing or what?”

“It belongs to my former partner, Jack Dodson, who I know for a fact is on the hunt for the Concepcíon.” I glanced around in all directions and saw nobody, so I stepped toward the small Grumman. I peered inside the pilot’s side window and was simultaneously impressed by the tidy cockpit and choked up—this Widgeon was the same year as Betty, had the same lines. There the resemblance ended. Jack’s wasn’t stock and certainly not brand new, but the equipment was new in the setting of a Grumman cockpit.

“Former partner? From your old treasure hunting business?” Truck said. “Why would he have a Cuban plane?”

“Exactly what I’m wondering.” I glanced around again, then spied inside the window under the wing. Nothing on the two seats in the back, and the chrome metal locker on the starboard side was closed tight.

A drop of cold sweat slid down my back. My old green kayak used to hang from the top of the cabin inside Betty. I could have sworn I saw patched holes where the hooks that suspended my kayak had once been.

I stared at the dimples and told myself they were just that, dimples left from the restoration. These planes were never perfect. Was it just because this was a Widgeon?

As I stood next to the plane, I put my hand on her fuselage and a shock of warmth spread through me.

Betty?

I thought back and tried to remember who Jack might have known from Cuba, but couldn’t think of anyone.

I walked back to the Beast, unlocked it, and popped the hatch open. A wave of hot air rolled over me from the inside. I sat in the left seat, bent down, and tried the handle of the small hotel safe I’d welded to the frame under my seat. When the La Concha upgraded their suites a few months ago they’d replaced the old safes with newer, larger ones. I’d asked Bruce if I could have—damn!

How many days had I been gone? Would they really have packed up my possessions and moved me out?

Truck crawled in behind me.

“The hell you doing, Reilly? Freaking hot in here.”

I shook off thoughts of my room at the La Concha—nothing I could do about it right now. I bent down, spun in the combination that popped open the safe, and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

I felt Truck watching over my shoulder. He’d no doubt guess what the old maps and documents were, but Truck and I had been through a lot together and I knew I could trust him.

I removed the yellowed pages.

“This is information on the Concepcíon.”

“No shit? Damn boy. I feel like Indiana Jones’s accomplice or something.”

“I hope not,” I said.

“Why’s that?”

“His accomplices usually got killed by Nazis.” I scanned each page, skipped the maps, then dropped the papers back into my lap.

“What’d you find?”

I slid the material back into its folder, placed it back inside the sheaf of other folders, stretched the rubber bands over them, and lowered it all into the safe.

“Nothing that would corroborate a connection to Remy de Haenen.”

I glanced past Truck, out the starboard side window to where the Widgeon sat pretty in the afternoon sun. My stomach flopped and I brushed cold sweat off my brow.

“You look like you going to puke, Reilly.”

“I might. After seeing the banker and attorney I feel like we’re maybe being set up.”

“So should we get the fuck off this rock and go home?” Truck said.

“We seem to have stumbled into a lot of people on the prowl for a fortune in missing gold,” I said.

“What kind of fortune you think, cuz?”

I glanced back at Truck.

“Estimates were that fifty tons of gold and silver was never recovered from the Concepcíon.” I watched his eyes pop. “Still want to go home?”

He shook his head.

“Didn’t think so.”

No way was Jack Dodson’s being here in St. Barths a coincidence. No way was appeasing his conscience the only thing Lou Atlas had on his mind—Jerry had been dead for a month, for one thing, and there were others. Could Lou be after the Concepcíon? If Harry was backing Jack’s search, was I Lou’s unwitting scout on the same trail?

In any case the opportunity to dig up details on the Concepcíon was too good to pass up. I could use the cover of searching for Jerry Atlas to my benefit.

I swallowed. Buckle up, Jack—I’m back in the game.

Could the evidence he had against me be in the lockers aboard his plane? My former plane, if my gut intuition was accurate.

Inside the Marché U grocery store, across from the airport terminal, I ran my finger down through the “H’s” in the skinny St. Barths phone book.

Ah-ha. Nicole de Haenen.

I dialed the number on my cell phone.

“Allô?” a female voice said.

“Bonjour, je m’appelle Buck Reilly.” I continued in French and asked if she was the granddaughter of Remy de Haenen.

Silence.

“Hello?” I said.

“Your weak attempt at speaking French doesn’t help. I told you people to leave me alone.”

The buzz of a dial tone followed.

I looked down at the phone.

“What’d she say?” Truck said.

“That she’d told us to leave her alone.” Had Jack Dodson already reached her?

“Funny, I don’t remember that.”

There was an address in the phone book. She lived in St. Jean.

Back in the Jeep, I had Truck use Google maps on his cell phone to find the location. The digital world made it hard for anyone to stay off the grid. If you had a name or phone number, it could lead to an address. Hell, I didn’t use a cell phone or email and people still found me.

Anonymity is so last-century.

Truck guided me through the rocky green hills above St. Jean, around a large saltwater pond, through a hodgepodge of residential neighborhoods, and to a steep road that turned from poorly maintained asphalt to