Eyes of Fire

huddled together in darkness, Sam told them what she thought her father must have discovered.

“A ghost story, I think—it’s absolutely all I can figure out. I was thinking about Adam and nearly drowning when it occurred to me.”

“Me and drowning—in the same light?”

She smiled. “Well, I especially wanted to live—because of you. And I was thinking about the things that people did for love—and for money. My dad had hinted about his theory, but I guess I really never listened. I think that Theresa-Maria Rodriguez was still very much in love with Captain Reynolds when he seized the Yolanda and took her and Don Carlos aboard the Beldona. Don Carlos had stolen the Eyes of Fire rubies for her, and she knew it. She wanted the rubies, and she wanted to be with Captain Reynolds. I think the two of them planned to sabotage the ship, murder everyone aboard and blow it up, then disappear together with the gems. There were dozens of places they could have gone in the New World and lived like a king and queen on the price they could have gotten for the rubies.”

“I don’t understand,” Judy Walker said. “What difference would it make who or what destroyed the ship? It would still be sunken, right?”

“Sunken, but in pieces,” Sam said. “Hunks of debris covered by the coral cliff where the Steps are, just before the drop-off. Beneath the Steps, I imagine that coral and barnacles and all sorts of sea life have grown over what remains of the hull and decking, making it almost impossible to see.”

“I had gone out, figuring she was in pieces,” Hank said. “I thought she had to be under the Steps, as well. That drop-off would have been a perfect place for a ship to sink and disappear.”

“Sam is right,” Jerry offered painfully. She looked at Sam. “You’re right—I’m certain.”

“But the rubies are supposedly still on the ship,” Jim Santino said. “Jerry, you saw them, right?”

She nodded. “In the eye sockets of a skeleton.”

“The rubies are still on the ship because Don Carlos Esperanza, and maybe even Captain Reynolds’ own shipmates, discovered what he was up to. They probably mutinied with their Spanish prisoners, but too late to save themselves from the explosives Reynolds had set to destroy the ship,” Sam said.

“So…” Judy Walker encouraged.

“So when he knew he was about to die, I imagine Don Carlos Esperanza took out his sword and pinned Captain Reynolds right through the heart with it. He probably stuffed the rubies right into the man’s eyes then and there—and Sukee’s dad must have put them back when he knew he was dying himself.”

Sam paused, looking at Adam.

“I think maybe Hank and I should go down alone first. You and Jerry could dive with us to find the ship, but I don’t think you should go in at first.” He hesitated a little painfully. “I don’t think either of you should find Justin Carlyle.”

Sam had agreed.

So when the storm had cleared and the police had come from the mainland, they had gone out for the first time. Adam and Hank had found their way through the holes in the coral shelf until they were under the overhang. But even once they were there, it was still almost impossible to find the wreckage of the ship. They had almost used up their air when they found what had been the captain’s cabin.

Adam and Hank had very carefully removed the remains of Justin Carlyle, then Chico Garcia. They decided not to move anything else at all until Sam had a chance to see the ship.

And now Sam was with him.

Seeing the ghosts of the past she had re-created in those strange moments when she had been afraid she was going to die herself.

Dead men…

Their skeletal remains lay about eerily, some held together by remnants of rusted armor, one with its head uncannily perched on a bookcase while the disjointed body sat on the desk beneath it.

Don Carlos Esperanza.

The sword that had brought about his death lay at his side. The sword that had once pierced him, through flesh and sinew and organ, a sword that had once been bathed in blood.

The sword with which he had slain Reynolds, then himself, with the sure knowledge of his impending death from the explosion he could not stop.

Now the sword lay on the handsomely carved desk where the pieces of the dead man remained, side by side with the small bones of what had been his hand.

It looked as if Don Carlos might, at any minute, pick up the sword and avenge himself upon his enemies.

Dead men did tell tales….

This one shouted silently of his own murder.

A tiny yellow tang darted in and out of the cavernous eye sockets of the long dead man.

Sea fans wafted over oak. Anemones rose against the rotted core of an inkwell.

Another skeleton lay by the side of the desk, shadowed in darkness. Though time and pressure had blown out the master’s cabin window of the Beldona, the ship was down deep enough that the sun’s rays offered little light inside.

This skeleton looked at them.

Stared at them like a demon, a devil, dead hand drifting, fingers seeming to point….

Stared at them with blazing red eyes that seemed to dazzle and blind.

Captain Reynolds.

Seeing now through the Eyes of Fire….

Captain Reynolds! A man who had received his just punishment for the murder of so many innocents. A finger lifted now, drifting in the remnant of a glove, seeming to point, just as he seemed to stare and scream….

Sam didn’t touch the jewels. Adam hadn’t thought she would. Sam had found the ship because of them, and Jerry probably could have done the same, yet neither woman wanted anything to do with the treasure.

Adam was glad, however, that Sam seemed intrigued by the wreck itself. They explored it, then slowly and carefully surfaced together, their information intact to hand over to James Jay Astin, who would arrange salvage with the state of Florida.

According to the salvage laws, Sam had earned her share of the treasure. She wanted it donated to a children’s hospital. Some good, she had told Adam, should come from the loss of her father.

Back on the Sloop Bee, Adam held her, ruffled her damp hair and told her, “It’s a rare woman who wouldn’t even touch those rubies!”

Sam shuddered. “They’re cursed.”

“Sam! You’re not superstitious.”

She said nothing, and he shrugged, holding her close.

“I have a jewel I’m hoping you will like. It’s nowhere near as grand as those rubies, but then, I’ve been working for myself lately, and I don’t pay well at all.” He drew a ring from the little pocket of his bathing trunks. “It’s an engagement ring, even though I’m hoping we can just fly away and get married.”

She offered him her finger. He slipped the ring on it. “Well?” he asked a little nervously.

“Now, this,” she said, “is the most beautiful jewel I’ve seen in all my life.”

He kissed her lips, then her forehead, her eyelids. She gazed at him, content. “Now those,” he said, staring intently at her and pointing, “are the wildest Eyes of Fire I’ve ever seen. When you’re mad, Sam…”

She tapped him on the chin. “You’ve got a temper yourself, you know.” She smiled. “But I love you. And I think as soon as we can take a trip to the mainland, we should get married. Quite frankly, I’m afraid to wait too long.”

He grinned, then sobered. “Sam, quite seriously, the ship cost you your father. But it gave us back to one another, and, well, there’s Jerry….”

“My mother.” She smiled. “How strange. I was stunned. I thought I might hate her, but I don’t. She never had the kind of love I had, and she didn’t know how to accept it from my father. She almost had it back again—then lost everything. You don’t think she’ll go to jail, do you?”

Adam shook his head. “To all intents and purposes, she killed in self-defense. She’ll be fine. Mr. James Jay Astin is determined to get her the very best lawyers there are. She’s been allowed to stay on the island. Things will work out.”