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

dress from last night was on the floor. I nudged it with my foot. Her purse was underneath it. If only my head would quiet down.

Once the black Louis Vuitton evening bag was unzipped, I pulled out her cigarettes, a wad of Euros, a piece of paper with a phone number written on it, but no name. I turned it over—my eyeballs nearly fell out of their sockets. It was a crude sketch of the painting from Jerry’s house, the oval with squares inside, one of them darkened in.

Where did she get this?

Son of a bitch—did I draw it for her? I looked back in the purse.

A small vial, an inch in length and a half-inch in diameter, a quarter full of clear liquid. I unscrewed the cap and sniffed it. Odorless. The bathroom door opened. Caterina, now in a robe, stepped out and froze.

“You are going through my purse?”

“What’s this?” I held up the vial.

Her face turned hard. “You have no right—”

“Did you drug me and get me to draw this?” I had the sketch in my other hand.

A slow smile came over her face.

She pulled her purse away, shook out a cigarette. She still wasn’t wearing her glasses.

“You were one of the world’s best treasure hunters, wealthy, the toast of Wall Street.” She exhaled smoke through her nose. “Now you are a nothing. An errand boy for the rich and famous—”

Blood surged into my dulled mind and I took a step toward her. She squared her shoulders.

“You want to hit me?” Her arms were spread wide. I stopped, my breath fast and shallow, my heart rate rocketing. She snorted. “Just as I thought, a nothing!”

“All that crap about being a historian—”

“I am a historian!” She glared at me. “Everything I said is true—I did admire e-Antiquity! I lusted for the same success. My brains and knowledge, with your bravado—your former bravado, that is—”

“Is this how you plan to get back to Paris and be a big shot with the Academy? Or is there someone else involved? Tell me who!”

She took a small step back and again pulled on the cigarette.

“Jack? Gunner? The Dominicans?” I paused. “Gutierrez?”

She tsked. “It does not matter, does it?”

“Why do you say that—”

“You said it yourself! Last night you were crying—sex? Ha! No chance! So concerned about Jack Dodson, Jerry Atlas, Gunner …” She sneered. “And so concerned for Nicole. And you wanted me as an academic collaborator—ha!” She drew herself up and whipped her hand toward the door. “Go home, King Buck. Jerry is dead, you have done your job. Leave the important work to those with guts to succeed. Now get out of my apartment!”

Her words sliced through my drug-addled brain like a hot knife through ice cream. I stood breathing hard, thirty seconds, maybe longer, just staring at her.

“Go now or I’ll call the gendarmes and say you forced yourself on me!”

I pulled on my shoes, opened the door, and walked out into the searing sunlight.

I felt like a man in a clouded bubble. Heat pressed in on me—the sun had me hiding my face. Or was it shame?

Disappointment?

Surprise?

All of the above?

Down the street I spotted a sign for the Hotel Christopher and followed it to their front entry, where I was able to call a cab. I still had the map-sketch from her purse. I took out my cell and dialed the number on the back.

“Hello?” A male voice answered—familiar, but I didn’t know why.

“Jack?” I tried to disguise my voice but it just sounded like me disguising my voice.

Silence.

“Gunner? Gamundi?”

A laugh on the other end, then the call died. He’d hung up.

Damn!

A doorman walked outside to greet me. “Late night at Le Ti?”

“Why do you say that?”

He plucked a green boa feather off my collar.

During the brief ride from Pointe Milou to Lorient, I nearly ground my teeth to stubs. Errand boy? Cried like a baby?

The dizziness wasn’t completely gone, but I jumped out of the taxi with a sense of purpose I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Fuck ‘em all. I want that treasure, dammit!

“Cat let you loose?” said Truck, who was having coffee on the hotel patio when I stormed in.

“More like rat,” I said.

“Caterina? You two were pretty damned cozy last night—”

“Bitch set me up—fucking drugged me!”

His brow furrowed. “Loosen up, Reilly. Women gotta rape yo ass?”

“She wanted information! About Jerry, the Concepcíon—I found this in her purse!” I threw the sketch down on the table, then realized I hadn’t told him about Jerry’s paintings. “And she’s working with Jack and Gunner—or the Dominicans—someone!”

“They was all there at Le Ti last night,” Truck said.

“Who?”

“All them motherfuckers you just mentioned. One big treasure hunters’ gala in the devil’s lair.”

He followed me back to the suite, where I yanked off my clothes and pulled on a fresh pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

“Yeah, well, I don’t remember a goddamn thing—we have to get moving, though.”

Truck sipped his coffee and watched me.

“Now!”

“Damn, boy!” He sprang to his feet and winced when it hurt his shoulder. “The hell crawled up your ass?”

“I’m sick of this shit.” Fucking errand boy? “Time to put the pieces together. I might have a lead on the treasure. You want to find it, or should we leave it to these other assholes?”

“Let me get my painkillers!”

A fire burned in my gut, different from anything I’d felt before. Ambition, sure, but mixed with anger, hurt, and humiliation, not to mention desperation. It was an inferno that could only be doused by revenge—and right now revenge meant getting the prize before anyone else.

I whipped the Jeep through the sharp turns toward St. Jean. Truck clutched the dashboard handle with his good hand.

“What did you tell her?”

“I don’t know, aside from drawing that sketch—you can’t remember shit on that stuff.”

“What else did you know to tell her?”

I bit the side of my lip. “Enough to cause a race to where we’re headed.”

The Jeep caught air over the speed bump.