Too Much Stuff Read Free Page B

share with you before.”
    A cold chill went down my spine.
    “I hired another detective agency to look into this.”
    James’s eyes got wider. “So there’s someone else down here?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “But you just said—”
    “I said I hired an agency.”
    James frowned. “Did they find this information buried somewhere under the old Coral Belle?”
    She hesitated, then spun around and looked at both of us.
    “I don’t know. I don’t think so. They came down here, and I hadn’t yet given them all the details that they needed.”
    “That means?”
    “I hadn’t translated the letter.”
    The lady liked to give half the story. You had to pull the rest out of her.
    “So what happened to them? Did they find anything or not?”
    “Six months ago, they vanished.”
    “Vanished?”
    “Vanished.”
    A very descriptive term. Disappeared. You’d think maybe they got lost in the fog. But vanished. That was the ultimate disappearance. Without a trace.
    “No sign of them, no calls?”
    “Nothing.”
    “What do you think happened?”
    She shook her pretty head, the hair moving softly around her face.
    “I have no idea. Their phone in Fort Lauderdale has been disconnected, letters have been returned, and their website has been taken down.”
    Letters and websites. Old school. “You’ve tried texting, Facebook, Twitter?”
    “Nothing.”
    That chill went down my spine again.
    “That’s why I’m here this time. I don’t want something happening to you guys.”
    More like,
I’m not sure I can trust anyone
.
    “So our job is to find the information, or map, or whatever-it is that’s there?”
    James jumped in. “We do
not
follow maps to buried treasure, and
X never, ever
marks the spot.”
    I had to think for a moment.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
. It was a line Harrison Ford throws out to his students.
    “Just a movie quote,” I said to her.
    The lady looked puzzled. “Well, in this case he may be right. I’m not sure we’ll find a map, and I’m not certain that we’ll find the
X
, or the exact location of the old hotel.”
    She walked to her door, both of us following like puppy dogs.
    “There’s one more job that we have to do.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. We’ve got to find Todd Markim and Jim Weezle.”
    “Weezle?” It was all James could do not to laugh out loud.
    “The investigators who came down here. Their company is—was—AAAce Investigations.”
    Trying to be first in the Yellow Pages. AAA. I had to give them credit.
    “And why do you want to find them?”
    She opened the door, and waved her hand. She wanted us out of the room, no question about that.
    “Two things could have happened to them. One, somehow they found the information, and maybe the gold. In that case they are buying their vanishing act. They’ve taken off with the treasure and we’ll never hear from them again.”
    “And number two?”
    “They were killed by someone who wanted to have the gold for themselves.”
    She closed the door, leaving us on the outside walkway, looking at each other, and wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into.

CHAPTER FIVE
    There was another hurricane where stolen gold was involved. In 1733 a hurricane grounded a Spanish ship loaded with treasure on what is now Islamorada. Wreckers, land pirates who went out and looted wrecked ships, made off with all of the loot. Historians believe they took it down to Key West and as a result, Key West became the richest city in the country. The richest city in the entire United States.
    The state of Florida was, by Mary Trueblood’s definition, a land of cattle barons and railroad magnates. But my impression of my home state was a country of pirates. Surrounded by water on three sides, Florida was ripe for the seafaring trade and those who preyed on that trade.
    We’d taken the magnetic M ORE OR L ESS I NVESTIGATIONS signs off the truck and put them in our room. James replaced them with S MITH B ROTHERS P LUMBING signs.
    “We’re