The Unspoken

Page 31

Captain Bob and Jimmy were maneuvering the crane again, carefully lifting the crate from the deck of the Glory to the dock and onto a dolly, held tightly by the two interns. A large truck lettered with the Preservation Center’s name waited beyond the group of reporters.
“I’m going to give them a hand with this. That’s a heavy crate for two skinny scientific types to handle,” Tyler said.
“You go, cowboy,” Kat told him.
The media didn’t disperse; meanwhile, Captain Bob, Jimmy, Tyler and the interns managed to move the crate while Amanda continued to talk to the press. Jon hovered behind her, listening closely for what she might say. It was actually an amusing spectacle, Kat thought.
“When will you open the crate?” one of the reporters asked Amanda.
“As soon as possible!”
“We’ll open it when the conditions are right—and the film crew is there to document every step,” Jon corrected.
“Quite a show, quite a show!” Captain Bob said. He’d finished his work with the crane and had come to stand by her. “By the way, someone left a cell phone in the galley. Is it yours? Or maybe one of your coworkers’?”
“I’ll go see. Thanks, Bob.”
Kat hurried down to the galley. The phone on the table wasn’t hers, which she’d known; hers was in her bag. When she turned it on, the picture on the screen was of King Tut’s death mask.
It was Amanda’s phone.
She scrolled through the numbers called recently but none of them meant anything to her.
Then she paused. Looking at Amanda’s phone like this wasn’t legal.
Of course, it was in plain sight. Kat told herself that she was only taking it to return to its rightful owner. Any information gleaned from it without a warrant couldn’t be used in court, but…
They were searching for a killer.
She took out her own cell phone and started snapping pictures of the numbers called over the past few days. But then she heard voices. She quickly checked Amanda’s last few emails, and snapped pictures again, then hurried up the galley stairs in time to innocently hand the phone to Amanda.
“Oh, thank goodness it was here!” Amanda said, accepting the phone. She was flushed with pleasure from her moments in the spotlight. “Thanks!”
“Don’t mention it.”
With the crate packed in the van and on its way to the center, the media finally scattered.
“Shall we go back to the hotel?” Tyler asked Kat.
“I’m afraid to let that van out of our sight,” Kat said.
Tyler grinned. “Not to worry.” He pulled out his cell, calling Logan. When he ended the call a minute later, he said, “They’ll be met by one of our people.”
“It’s great to be part of a team, isn’t it?” She smiled wearily. “I am so ready for a hot shower!”
They returned to the hotel and split up, agreeing to meet in thirty minutes. Kat was greeted by Bastet at the door to her room and stopped to give her some attention. “I wish you could speak,” she said. “I’m sure you knew it wasn’t a mummy coming after your master!”
Showered and changed, she met Tyler across the hall in the suite as planned. “Have you spoken with Logan again?” she asked.
“He’s at the center himself. He said we have a few hours. Amanda won’t let anyone touch the crate until the film crew’s there, which could be two hours. And I’m just here to serve. What do you want to do while we wait?”
She grinned, removing her cell phone with a flourish. “In her enthusiasm over the press, Amanda forgot her phone. I took pictures of her recently called numbers and some of the emails she’s received. I’d like to see who she’s been calling and emailing.”
“Let’s do it,” Tyler said.
Kat connected her cell to one of the laptops on the table. Then she brought up the photos on Tyler’s screen.
“You’re not going to win any photography contests,” he said.
“Hey! I was in a hurry!”
“I’ll take the phone numbers. You can work on the emails.”
They set to work. Kat was disappointed. Amanda had written to her cousin in Phoenix, to a superior on the board at the Preservation Center to assure him that she was following protocol and to someone she’d met at an online dating site, telling him she’d be too busy to see him for the next few months.
The next email written, however, was intriguing. “Listen to this,” she said to Tyler.
Tyler looked up.
“‘Please be advised,’” Kat read, “‘that legal action will be taken with the State of Illinois should either of your companies seek to investigate the Jerry McGuen, find artifacts or in any way hinder the efforts of the Chicago Ancient History Preservation Center. We will prosecute any interference to the full extent of the law.’”
“Who was she writing to?” Tyler asked.
“Landry Salvage and Simonton’s Sea Search,” Kat said.
Tyler nodded grimly. “Strange. She’s still on speaking terms with someone at Landry Salvage—she’s made calls to their switchboard every day for the past two weeks. Guess who else she’d been calling? Austin Miller.”
* * *
Will and Sean went back down to the wreck to adjust the position of the remote camera, trying to make sure it wouldn’t be caught in any debris and that it would focus on the hold. Earl had rigged the mechanism so the divers could see up to the control station on the security boat, while anyone at the desk could view the dive site.
Will held up a thumb to Earl Candy. Earl grinned and raised a thumb in return. Sean moved to Will, and they both waved at him in approval. Earl seemed pleased with his success; he had all the training and equipment he needed but didn’t customarily film in the depths.
Before ascending, Sean studied the wreck again. He could look all the way over to the starboard side, since so much of the massive steel hull had been ripped out. Of course, it was astonishing that the ship had gone down in one piece. It appeared to have sunk quickly—with greater speed than the Titanic!—and flooded evenly. If one section of the ship had filled with water first, it was likely that the Jerry McGuen would have broken in two. As it was, she lay with her port side jagged and exposed, at a slight angle, the aft section with the storage holds almost ten feet deeper than the deck and the grand salon.
Sean tapped him on the arm. Time to surface. The two of them did so, following safety procedures.
On deck, Alan King was pacing anxiously. “We need to get back to town. How did I ever become associated with someone like that woman?” He groaned, shaking his head.
“What’s going on?” Will asked.
“Dr. Amanda Channel. She’s got ants in her pants. She can’t stand waiting. God, the woman doesn’t have an off switch!”
“There is a board of directors,” Earl said. “We could go to them with our complaints.” He grinned. “I have video to show them!”
“Or,” Bernie suggested, “we could take the high road—at least for now.” He explained to Will and Sean. “Amanda just called Alan. The crate’s at the center. They’ve removed the outer tarp, and the wooden box inside seems to have withstood the wreck, the water and the ravages of time. She sounds as if it’s all her doing. Yep, it’s all her doing. Anyway, she knows she can’t go any further without us, but she’s threatening to do exactly that.”
“Someone in the Krewe must be there,” Sean said, frowning.
Bernie nodded. “Oh, yeah. Your man Logan, and he’s keeping her down. But we need to head back immediately.”
Will and Sean looked at each other. He wasn’t sure how they were getting back, because the security boat had just been rigged to maintain the remote camera.
“We have help coming,” Bernie told them. “Captain Bob and Jimmy should be here in about five minutes.”
“I’ll take a look at the computer, see how our remote’s doing,” Will said.
The brawny young security guard on duty gladly relinquished his chair at the computer to Will. “Boring, really,” he said. “But don’t worry. We know our jobs.”
Will sent him to take a break, to the guard’s evident relief.
Once the guy had left, Will studied the footage and understood what he meant—the camera was focused solely on the hold. Then, unexpectedly, something in the corner of the screen caught his attention. He could just see the grand salon and, for a moment, it seemed that ghostly images danced by him. He blinked; they were still there. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing with his eyes and what with his mind, but he saw the water in a horrible maelstrom. There were women in beautiful long dresses and men in tuxedos and suits, scrambling, fighting the roiling rush of the water, spinning and turning….
“What do you see?” Sean asked him.
Will almost jumped. He’d been so intent he hadn’t heard Sean behind him.
“I’m not sure. I had an image of the ship wrecking. I wish we could learn more about what happened that night. As far as I know, there wasn’t even a Mayday sent out. The Jerry McGuen had reported her estimated time of arrival the next day—and then she was never heard from again. That’s the way I understand it, anyway. I’ve got to do more reading.”
“I went through all the files, too,” Sean said, “and that’s my understanding, as well. Nothing. She was coming in and then she disappeared. A terrible storm had struck, with blinding snow and sleet. Search parties went out as soon as possible, but nothing was found. Not so much as a floating deck chair.”
“She must have gone down really fast—as if a plug was pulled on her,” Will said.
“Half the port side is missing.”
“You’d almost think she was rammed by something like an icebreaker,” Will mused.
“Say there was an icebreaker out on the lake… Wouldn’t they have tried to save any survivors or at the very least reported what happened?”