Fatal Fortune (Blackmoore Sisters Mystery Book 8) Read online

  “Did you get crab rangoon?” Johanna Blackmoore stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen. Celeste’s heart constricted at the sight of her. There had been a time in Celeste’s life when she thought she would never see her mother again. The girls had been led to believe she’d jumped into the ocean from the cliffs outside their home, but she’d really been captured by Dr. Bly, whose intent was to drain her of her paranormal energy.

  When they had rescued Johanna after over a decade of captivity, she had been a mere shadow of her former self. Her hair had been completely leached of color, and she was barely able to walk, depending on a wheelchair for mobility. Now she looked fit and healthy, her hair a glossy black, with a silver streak down one side as the only reminder of her ordeal.

  Celeste picked a few pieces of crab rangoon out of one of the containers, plunked the puffy fried dough pouches on a plate, and handed it to her mother. Johanna showed off by expertly balancing the large triangle of fried dough between two chopsticks and taking a dainty nibble from the corner. “What do you have in the big boxes?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but it’s possible one of these boxes might contain the clue that Dorian told us about,” Jolene said.

  “You found the clue?” Fiona stood in the doorway. A tangle of long red curls framed her face as her ice-blue eyes drifted from the boxes on the floor to the food containers. “Is that Chinese? I hope you got egg rolls.”

  “Yes, we got egg rolls. And we’re not certain about the clue, but I think there is a good possibility.” Celeste told her about their run-in with the paranormals who had stolen the box from the basement of the gift shop and how the real old inventory had been in the basement of the Golden Dragon all along.

  “So they took the wrong box?” Fiona asked.

  “It would appear so.” Jolene flipped open one of the lids and looked inside. “Ha! Looks like old treasure chests in here.”

  “Treasure chests?” Morgan came into the room, a steaming cup of tea in her hand. She bent over to look in the box, her silky, straight long black hair hanging down over her face like a curtain. “Plastic. Too bad it’s not real treasure.”

  The girls laughed. They didn’t really need treasure. They had more than enough money due to an odd discovery in the cliffs below their house, which had likely been hidden by Isaiah Blackmoore, who was rumored to have been a pirate. They didn’t even really need to work, but putting their paranormal skills to use for the good of mankind was about more than money.

  “Do you think I should call Luke?” Morgan put down the tea and pulled her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. Her boyfriend, Luke, was their contact in the government agency. He usually sourced all the resources they needed for their various missions.

  “I can call Jake, too. If we’ve got a lead, he might be able to do some research,” Fiona said.

  “Maybe we should make sure this isn’t a wild goose chase first.” Jolene pushed the box aside and opened another one. Jake Cooper, Fiona’s boyfriend, had a private detective agency, and Jolene worked for him. Celeste knew she was still trying to prove herself so that he would trust her to spend more time out in the field and less time behind her desk. Calling him out only to find that the boxes held nothing but old junk probably wouldn’t help her cause.

  “Meow!”

  “Looks like Belladonna thinks we should call them.” Johanna nodded toward the white cat that had stalked into the room and was busy sniffing the boxes. The cat’s gaze snapped up to the Chinese-food containers, her pink nose tilting in the air for a few sniffs before she returned her attention to the boxes from the store. She sniffed each corner then jumped atop one and batted the lid with her paw. She turned serious ice-blue eyes on Celeste. “Meow.”

  “I think she wants you to take that box, Celeste.” Jolene shoved the box toward her sister. “We can each take one. Someone call out if you find anything interesting.”

  Everyone got busy looking inside their boxes. Just as the man from the store had told them, they were full of treasure-hunting giftware. Not real treasure, the fake treasure that one might buy when on vacation. Souvenirs of the beach, fake pirate coins, books on metal detecting, tiny bottles with letters in them, jars of sand, and even rocks. In Celeste’s box, there was an added surprise—old fortune cookies that did not look the least bit appealing.

  “Look at these.” Celeste pulled a crumbly dark triangle out of the box. “These must be older than the restaurant.”

  “That’s better than what I found. Mine’s full of junk,” Morgan said.

  “Me too.” Fiona pushed her box away.

  “Ditto. In both boxes here.” Jolene sat back and sighed.

  “Mine was full of plastic junk, sand, and a weird rock.” Celeste pointed to a large piece of chipped rock she’d placed on the coffee table then frowned down at the small strip of yellowed paper in her hand with a three-line fortune. The cookies had been crumbled and broken. Most of the fortunes themselves must have disintegrated. “And these fortunes. On the bright side, this fortune says I’ll find great riches, and it looks like I have a lot of lucky letters. This thing is old as the hills. Looks like a funky font. Maybe Cal would be interested in it.”

  “I’m definitely interested in that.” Celeste turned to show him the piece of paper, but his sapphire eyes were fixated on the rock on the table. “Where did you guys get it?”

  “It was in these boxes. They came from the old inventory of a store that we thought might have been related to the clue Dorian got earlier this week,” Celeste said.

  Cal squatted in front of the coffee table and ran his fingertips lightly over the surface of the rock, which Celeste could now see appeared to have some unnatural indentations. She hadn’t noticed it before because the indentations were worn from centuries of weather and the face of the rock was partially covered in lichen.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t seem like the clue is in here. This is all just junk. Looks like my research was wrong,” Jolene said.

  “No, I don’t think your research was wrong.” Cal picked up the rock and turned it toward them. “See these indentations? These are old inscribed letters. And see how the rock is jagged here, almost like it broke off from a bigger piece?”

  They all nodded their heads.

  “Well, if my guess is correct, it did break off from a bigger rock. A rock on Rune Island.”

  Jolene’s brows shot up, and she held her hand out for the rock. Studying the front, she nodded. “That’s right. I remember reading about Rune Island. It’s up near Nova Scotia, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It’s been sort of a mystery for decades, but many swear that pirate treasure is buried there,” Cal said.

  “Captain Kidd is rumored to have stashed all kinds of things, but that’s not all. They say there might even be treasure from the Knights Templar and even some secret documents that prove Sir Francis Bacon actually wrote the works of Shakespeare.” Jolene handed the rock to Fiona. “But that’s not the most interesting part. The most interesting thing is that some believe Marie Antoinette’s lost jewels were buried there.”

  “And I heard those lost jewels might contain a powerful stone.” Fiona looked up from her study of the rock. “A stone that could turn out to be the relic we’re looking for.”

  Morgan reached for the rock. “I’ve heard about Rune Island too. I heard it was cursed. Haven’t most of the fortune hunters who attempted to find treasure there died mysteriously?”

  “Yes, I’ve even heard of it being called the Island of Fatal Fortunes,” Jolene said.

  “Sounds like paranormal activity to me,” Celeste said.

  “All the more reason to check it out.” Jolene slipped behind the desk and tapped on her keyboard. “I’m going to see if I can get any details on these jewels. We already know the relic was infused with powerful properties that allow it to absorb and deflect negative energy, kind of like an amped-up version of our amulets.”

  Celeste’s fingers curled around the obsidian amulet that hung fro
m a leather cord at her throat. Fiona had made one for each of the sisters as protective shields from negative-energy assaults, and they always wore them just in case. They never knew when Bly’s guys would jump out from behind a rock or building and try to blast them with negative energy that could render them helpless.

  “And it’s quite beautiful. They say the moonstone reflects the colors of the rainbow more intensely than any other moonstone in existence,” Morgan said.

  “And we know it’s orb shaped and about twenty-five millimeters long. If there was such a stone in her jewels, then I say we head straight to Rune Island,” Jolene added.

  “Mew.” Belladonna jumped into Morgan’s lap and rubbed her cheek on the side of the stone.

  “Belladonna seems to agree, and we all know she’s never wrong.” Morgan handed the stone back to Cal. “But what exactly are the symbols?”

  “Rumor has it the symbols were etched hundreds of years ago by pirates as sort of a treasure map to where they buried their loot. Everyone thought that was just a legend until the late 1950s, when someone discovered part of a rock with old etchings. The problem is no one could ever decipher it because part of it was missing.” Cal held the rock up. “And now we might have the missing piece.”

  “So you can figure out exactly where the treasure is?” Johanna asked. “This should be the easiest mission yet.”

  “I wish,” Cal said. “I still need to decode it. I’m sure I can do it. I’ll just need some time to figure out which letter each symbol represents.”

  “But how did it get in the box?” Johanna asked.

  “I bet LeBlanc put it in there. He was one of the last people to look for treasure on the island decades ago. He might’ve found the rock there, or maybe he got it some other way and had it stored away until the next time he could go to the island.” Jolene’s fingers flew over the keyboard, her eyes never leaving the screen. “According to my research, he died suddenly of a heart attack. Maybe he planned to go back with the rock and never got the chance.”

  “Or maybe someone made sure he never got the chance,” Fiona said.

  “The message Dorian received did say it was hidden in plain sight, right?” Morgan asked.

  Johanna nodded and shoved half of a crab rangoon in her mouth. “I have it over here.” She went over to the desk and slid open the drawer then pulled out a piece of paper—a copy of an old note that had made its way to Dorian’s possession and kicked off the mission in the first place.

  X marks the spot

  The key is hidden in plain sight

  My fortune is resolved.

  “X marks the spot,” Fiona said. “Sure sounds like it has to do with finding buried treasure to me.”

  “And the key”—Celeste pointed at the rock—“was hidden in plain sight. Right in this box in the basement. Lucky for us it was in the basement of the wrong building, or those thieves would have gotten it. I’m sure those were Bly’s men following the same lead we are.”

  “Bingo!” Jolene turned the computer to face them. On the screen was a painting of Marie Antoinette wearing a fancy detailed blue silk dress and an elaborate necklace with different-shaped jewels around her neck.

  Jolene pointed to the center, where there was a large orb-shaped stone that glittered with rainbow iridescence. “I hope you can figure out that code quickly, Cal, because this necklace is the lost jewels of Marie Antoinette rumored to have been buried on the island, and if I’m not mistaken, that stone in the middle is exactly like the relic we’re looking for.”

  Chapter Three

  “You’d think Dorian could have sprung for a helicopter to get us out to the island.” Morgan stood on the dock with a large black duffel bag at her feet, her ice-blue eyes scanning the choppy ocean in front of them.

  Celeste followed her gaze. Off in the distance, she could barely see the hazy blue mass of land that was Rune Island. “At least they came through with the puddle jumper to get us up here.”

  “And all the equipment.” Fiona pointed toward the street at the end of the dock. Luke, Jake, Cal, and two of the guys who worked for Luke—Gordie and Sam—were unloading various boxes of equipment from the cab that had taken them from the small airport to the marina. The marina itself was small, with only a few boats at the dock. This late in the season, there weren’t many who still had boats in the water, and they’d been lucky to find someone who was willing to take them out to the island.

  “Merowww!” Belladonna screeched inside her soft-sided cat carrier. The cat had been very vocal with her displeasure at being forced to stay in the carrier. She’d wailed the whole trip, and the constant meowing was starting to give Celeste a headache.

  Celeste bent down, trying to appease her and, hopefully, shut her up. “Sorry, buddy, but until we get on the island, we want to keep you safe.”

  “Meroop!”

  “I don’t think you can reason with a cat.”

  Celeste whirled around upon hearing the voice, to see that a child in a wheelchair had come up behind her. She guessed him to be about eight or nine, with shaggy blond hair and wide blue eyes that shone with the excitement only a child could have, tempered by a tinge of sadness that a child should never have.

  “Well, hello there. What’s your name?” Celeste asked.

  “Christian. Are you treasure hunters?” Christian’s curious bright eyes watched Gordy and Luke heft a box of scuba gear onto the lobster boat that would take them to the island. He pushed his fingers in through the mesh of the cat carrier, and Celeste noticed they were thin and twisted. A pang of sorrow ripped through her for the obviously bright and intelligent child who was clearly not in good physical health.

  “I guess we are treasure hunters of sorts,” she said.

  “I thought so. Only treasure hunters or pirates ever go to the island.”

  “Have you seen pirates out there?” Celeste teased.

  Christian smiled and continued to stroke Belladonna with his gnarled fingers. The cat had finally shut up and was actually purring now as she rubbed her head against the boy’s fingertips.

  “I haven’t seen any, but I heard they might be there. I don’t get to play with the other kids. I mostly sit inside and read pirate books.” Christian nodded toward a small weather-beaten cottage near the docks. “That’s how I knew you were either a treasure hunter or pirate, as those would be the only people going to the island.”

  “You live in that cottage?” Celeste asked. It looked barely big enough for two people. Though the tiny yard with its three-foot patch of grass was neatly kept, the white-painted trim needed scraping, and the roof looked about ready to be re-shingled.

  Christian nodded, his focus now on petting Belladonna, who was practically asleep. “Me and my dad. My mom’s dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “She died when I was a baby.” He looked up at her, his blue eyes curious under his dark lashes. “It must be a real thrill to go on a treasure hunt.”

  “It sounds thrilling, but it can be a lot of hard work.”

  “Were almost ready to shove off.” Jason Hale, the man who would take them to the island in his lobstering boat, came to stand beside her. His weathered face made him look much older than his age, which Celeste guessed to be midthirties. She also guessed that it was more than hard work on the open seas that had aged him. He ruffled Christian’s hair affectionately. “Why don’t you head on home, buddy? Layla will stay with you. I’ll only be gone a couple hours while I take them out.”

  Christian’s face fell. He glanced at the island then back at his father, pasting a resigned smile on his face as if he was accustomed to disappointment. “Okay, Dad.”

  Celeste watched him wheel his way back to the house.

  “He’s a good boy,” Jason said.

  “He seems smart.”

  “Too smart for his own good sometimes. Too bad his mind is so sharp, but his body is failing him,” Jason said.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Rare autoimmun
e disease. The doctors up here can’t help him. There’s some alternative treatments, but those take a lot of money, and meanwhile, he’s fading away.” His voice hitched, and then he took a deep breath. “Well, you didn’t come here to listen to my troubles. Let’s get you on the boat and over to the island.”

  Having grown up on Perkins Cove, Celeste had been on dozens of lobster boats. Jason’s boat was a large one, painted a practical gray and white. Celeste noted with approval that it was kept in good condition and clean as a whistle, though it did smell faintly of fish. Fishy smells never came out, no matter how much cleaning you did. Christian must have worked some magic on Belladonna, and she slept peacefully in her carrier as they loaded the rest of the equipment onto the back platform, where Jason had removed the towers of metal lobster traps.

  Jason started the motor, and Cal and Luke cast off the thick ropes then jumped on board as Jason pulled away from the dock. Celeste made her way along the narrow walkway to the bow, her heart heavy as she glanced back toward the house to see Christian waving enthusiastically as they headed out.

  Celeste wondered about the alternative treatments for the boy. Could he possibly be cured or at least have his quality of life improved? She wanted to ask Jason what his chances were, but it was none of her business, and even though Jason had volunteered information on Christian’s conditions on his own, she had learned long ago that people didn’t like it when others dug too deeply into their business.

  It was clear Jason didn’t have any money to pay for the treatments, but Celeste and her sisters had more money than they could ever use. That money was all tied up in trusts and retirement funds and guarded zealously by teams of lawyers. It would take an act of Congress to free any of it up to give to Jason for Christian’s treatment. And Celeste had the feeling Jason would be too proud to take the money. She sighed and turned to face the front, looking toward the island. Rumor had it that pirate treasure was buried there. If she found some, could she somehow get it to Jason for Christian’s treatment?