Page 68 of In the Pursuit of Haven
Jessie immediately marked off Brown’s, i.e. Great Island… i.e. Crowninshield to the non-locals.
And I hadn’t been able to find Dimond’s rattle for a while. “Does Hunter have the rattle?” I asked.
“I can get it back,” Jessie said after a moment.
I knew it! “How are you going to do that?” I asked. “His team already threw us in a tomb to rot. I hate to see what they’ll do next.” He didn’t look amused by my astute observation. Despite their ugly brawl at the pub, he’d still answered Hunter’s note to meet at the cemetery. He wouldn’t do that in normal circumstances. “What do you they have against you,” I asked. “Huh?”
He sighed, pushing the strands of his messy hair back from his face. Whatever it was, it must be good since he couldn’t tell me himself.
If this was an affair—I couldn’t handle it. “Out with it, Jessie. I’m serious!”
“I’ve been working with them for six months, okay? And we got our hands dirty.”
“What’d you do?”
“Breaking trespassing laws, nothing big.” My eyes narrowed on him. He never cared about spending a few nights in jail or his reputation. Everyone on the fishing crews he’d worked with had a record. What was this really about? “They had a clue that took them to Children’s Island and other leads they thought I had access to…” Jessie said.
“Haven’s locket?” I asked.
A pregnant silence followed that. “Yes,” he admitted, “but they don’t know Haven like I do. She wasn’t going to give it up. I told them to leave her alone—I thought it was a dead-end anyway—and they seemed like they would.”
So far, they had. None of them had come after me either until tonight, and that was because he wasn’t working with them anymore. “You turned on them?”
“The night of our anniversary they wanted me and Abby to do some crazy job.”
My hand went to my mouth. “Abby’s involved in this?”
Jessie was quick to defend her. “My sister thought this treasure was the answer to all our problems and…”
Everything came together like the last puzzle piece snapping into place. “Abby got you into this!” It all made sense. Jessie had never been interested in treasure. “Is that why you got involved with these guys? You were trying to protect her?”
His jaw hardened before he could implicate her.He was protecting her again!This was why he wasn’t calling the police. He didn’t care about himself. He never had. It was his sister! How could they both be so stupid to get in so deep?
“You could’ve ruined our marriage with this,” I said. “You were supposed to come to me first.”
And this was Jessie we were talking about here—Mr. Fix it himself! He never turned to anyone else when he thought he had it handled.
Would he ever change?
Jessie growled out in surrender. “I didn’t know how insane they were. Hunter’s uncle used to have a collection of ancient maps and antiques that led to unsolved treasures all over the world. The old guy got arrested awhile back—I think for murder—and so the FBI confiscated whatever he had that wasn’t destroyed by fire. They put it all in a warehouse.”
“Hunter wantedyouto break into an FBI warehouse?”
“Yeah… it was nuts. And I came back that night from Divine asking me to do that job and you’d left, and then when I heard Haven died a few days later, well, I told Hunter I was out.”
My mind went back to the conversation I’d overheard at the pub. Hunter was threatening him. It sounded like blackmail, some indiscretion, and I was right! “What about Abby?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s through with them. We had a good talk. There are other ways to get out of this town that don’t involve breaking the law.”
“But Hunter thinks he can keep dragging you back in?”
“Like I said, they’re not dropping this. That’s why I’m going after that treasure, Roxy, I’m ending this for good. They’ll be sorry they ever messed with me. They might’ve stolen the diamond rattle, but I’ve got the clue we’ve been working on to find the Relic on Children’s Island. I took it from them the other night.”
The night he’d chased me down at the cemetery when he found out I was with Robert.
“Where’s the clue?” I asked.
“My boat.” He broke into a helpless snicker at my alarmed expression. “I’ll get it out. They think someone else took it anyway.”
