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

“In there,” the man behind me said. He pushed me toward a set of sliding glass doors I stepped through into a darkened master suite. Once inside, he drew the curtains and flipped on dim lights. No other houses had been visible. Nobody would have a clue where we were.

“What the hell do you want?” I said. “I already told you we don’t have any information—”

A swirl of motion led to a sharp pain that doubled me over—his buddy had slammed the gun butt into my stomach. I fell to my knees, every bit of air purged from my lungs.

“No—stop!” Nicole said.

One of them pushed her onto the bed.

“Shut up, bitch! Who has the shotgun now?”

Just as I caught my breath, the other man kicked me in the chest and I sprawled onto the bed next to Nicole. When I sat up she leaned into me, quivering so much the bed was shaking. We sat on the edge facing the men.

“Guys, will you just listen? I’m here on behalf of—”

“Jerry’s rich uncle, yes, we know,” the talkative one said—his sidekick—the one who had tortured Truck, had yet to utter a word. He wore a black T-shirt stretched taut over impressive muscles. Big mouth was just as thick-set and wearing a tight blue T-shirt.

They stood side by side, sneering. Black and Blue. How appropriate.

“Dammit, we don’t know anything about the Concepcíon—”

“Give it up, Reilly,” Blue said. “Lou Atlas would not have sent a world renowned treasure hunter and his partner to St. Barths if he wasn’t after the gold—”

“Hold on, compadre, Jack’s here on his own. And hates my guts. He’s after the same supposed treasure you are, but I’m not—”

He pointed the shotgun at Nicole. “Don’t bullshit us.”

Bullshit them? Hell, I needed to stall. The house was so isolated they could probably torture and kill us and nobody would hear a thing.

“Why’d you beat up Gisele?” I said. “And Henri Antoine’s accident—I assume that was you?”

Blue stepped to the side, now in front of Nicole.

“And you, the great Remy de Haenen’s granddaughter. You wouldn’t have teamed up with Reilly for nothing. We know you’re lying to us!”

I slowly lifted my hands, palms out to face them.

“Hold on, guys. I approached her once I found out someone had beat up Gisele, because of a potential connection between Jerry and Remy. She didn’t come looking for me and she doesn’t know shit—”

“Let her speak for herself!”

I felt Nicole shudder next to me, but all she showed was gritted teeth.

“I was a teenager when Remy sold the Eden Rock and moved to Santo Domingo,” she said. “When he returned he was a broken old man and Jerry Atlas was a washed up beach bar … sand flea. If they had found treasure why would they live like that?”

“Sand flea is right,” Blue said.

“No see-um is more like it,” Black said.

So he did speak. And something about Blue’s statement registered in my mind. The Jet Ski had washed ashore, but from which direction? Did B & B have something to do with Jerry’s disappearance?

“Since you men first came to see me, I went back through all of Remy’s things,” Nicole said. “I found nothing about his adventure with Cousteau. You are wasting your time—hurting innocent people—for nothing. Nothing!”

The men stared at her. A gutter ball would force their hand—just the same as a strike would—even if we gave them specific information about what they were searching for.

“You’re right,” I said. Both of them turned to me. “I’m very experienced at finding missing antiquities. In fact, I even had a file on the Concepcíon—the same one Jack Dodson has—and there wasn’t a single mention of Remy de Haenen or Jacques Cousteau.” I paused and looked from Black to Blue. “What makes you think otherwise? Did Remy tell someone that he and Cousteau found something?”

Blue squinted, then smiled.

“Nice try, Reilly. We’re not giving you information, you’re giving it to us!” He swung the gun barrel toward the side of my head. I leaned back and he missed—his momentum carried him slightly off-balance—

Black’s eyes followed his partner.

“Now!” I said.

Nicole punched Black square in the crotch with every ounce of strength she had, then grabbed and twisted!

At the same time I lunged toward Blue and drove him into the curtained sliding glass door.

The crash of breaking glass shattered the quiet.

The curtain ripped off the wall and wrapped around us like a death shroud. I punched blindly, over and over.

BOOM!

An explosion froze me.

My pulse thudded in my head. Blue wasn’t moving—for all I knew he hadn’t been moving since we crashed through the glass door.

“Nicole?” The thick curtain muffled my voice.

I crawled backwards and pushed the fabric off me. Glass was everywhere—

“Buck!” Nicole shouted. I spun on my knees to find her holding the shotgun, pointed toward the ceiling, where sunlight shone through a fresh hole in the dark stained wood. Black was curled up in a ball—moaning, his hands in his crotch.

Blue’s legs stirred. I pulled the curtain off him and he started to roll to his right—towards Black’s shotgun. I kicked it into the wall—

BOOM!

Nicole fired another round into the ceiling, pumped another shell into the chamber, and swung the business end of the barrel down toward Blue.

He raised his hands. I reached down and grabbed the other gun. My heart pounded like I’d sprinted a mile and my ears rang from the last shotgun blast, but it was rage that caused me to grab the gun by the barrel and lift it over my head. Images of Gisele and Truck battered urged me to swing that gun butt down with every ounce of strength I had—

“Buck!” Nicole’s voice sounded distorted to my ears. “Please, no!” I felt her wrap an arm around my waist and pull me away from Blue.

For which I was grateful. If she hadn’t, I might have beaten him to death with the gun butt.

The Dominicans sat on the floor of the bedroom,