Page 109

Tia had walked over to him. “What does it say?”
Doyle stepped into the tunnel, close enough to hear his reply.
“This is the tomb of Henry van der Meer.” He turned to Tia, then Doyle, and smiled. “And I’ll bet inside is the treasure of the lost shipTrident.”
* * *
And that was justenoughof this stupid nearly-lethal treasure hunt.
“No,” Tia snapped. “We are not breaking open a crypt! Seriously.” Tia stepped in front of the tomb, blocking it with her body as she faced Ethan. “Have you lost your mind?”
She glanced at Doyle likeBack me up here, but a weird deer-in-the-headlights expression cast over his face.
He didn’tbelieveEthan, did he?
Although, he’d believed her crazy brilliant idea about the catacombs, so...
Maybe it was a night for out-of-the-box ideas.
“We should quit while we’re ahead.” She stepped up to Doyle, cut her voice low. “Let’s get out of here. The kids are okay, and that’s all that matters.”
He seemed to come back to himself, put his hands on her arms, nodded. “Yes.” He turned to Ethan. “She’s right. We’re not breaking—Ethan!”
Ethan had picked up the crowbar Doyle had used to open the door and advanced on the stone.
And the nightmare in her mind showed him opening the resting place of who knew who, really, spilling bones and a skull and whatever final peace the monk had onto the ground.
“Stop!”
Ethan glanced at her. “This is not a coffin, Tia. My guess is that the monks found the treasure and hid it from Henry. They might have even rocked up the entrance and called it a cave-in. And then they sealed it inside an unmarked grave, at least until he decided to leave. I promise you that Henry van der Meer’s body is not in this tomb.”
“Then why didn’t they sell the treasure?” She put a hand on his arm. “Stop.”
He lowered the crowbar. “Because of the pirate.”
“The... Wait—what?”
“Raging Rodrigo did not die in that shipwreck. And Rodrigo wasn’t his last name—it was hisfirst. I found records on the island that he lived, or I think so. I found a death certificate from the late seventeen hundreds of a Rodrigo Sebold. He fathered a number of children, all of whom claimed the treasure belonged to them. You met one of them.”
She stilled. “Sebold.”
“Mm-hmm,” Ethan said. “You want to stop Sebold from looking for the treasure and end his terror? Thenwefind the treasure.”
“And what—pay him off?”
“Of course not. We take our cut, hand it over to authorities, and let them deal with him.”
And for a second—a terrible, long, silent second—it made sense. Find the treasure. Take their cut, and she gets back her medical equipment and Sebold leaves them alone.
Maybe they’d even have enough money to update the medical center and start a college fund for the kids who weren’t adopted and?—
Except—hello,wasn’t grave-digging acrime?
Ethan wedged the crowbar into the wall.
“No—stop. We need to at least ask Declan. He owns the property?—”
“Declan left us in charge.” The quiet voice beside her sent a chill through her body. She turned.