Second Chance Gold (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 4), John Cunningham [polar express read aloud .txt] 📗

stationary with Atlas’s address and phone number printed on it. He lived in Palm Beach.

“He’s expecting you tomorrow morning at nine. And I’m sorry, dear boy, but my next appointment will arrive at any moment. Please give Lou my regards—and of course keep me apprised.”

Had I said yes?

“Just tell me what Jack’s going after, Harry. Please.”

He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the cloth napkin.

“The wreck of the Concepcíon.”

I felt my eyes bug open. “Hispaniola or Saipan?” There were two famous Spanish galleons named Concepcíon that had sunk three years and nearly 10,000 miles apart.

Harry frowned. “Hispaniola, dear boy.” A vision of my future suddenly crystallized. Using copies of the same maps I had, Jack would pick off the treasures one by one, dooming me to eternal poverty. My hesitation to pursue those treasures had been based on fear of failure—or maybe of success—but either way, the luxury of hesitance had just vanished.

“Back me, Harry.”

He squinted. “What’s that, Buck?”

“Forget Jack. Back me to pursue the treasures—I have the same maps, the originals, and I—”

Harry held up both his palms, and I pressed my lips together. My heart raced. What was I saying?

“I need you to help Lou Atlas get answers about his nephew.”

“But I—”

“If that goes well, we can discuss your proposition.” Harry checked his watch.

I headed back into the lobby, dazed by the events of the past hour. The Nuestra Senora de la Concepcíon, which had sunk off the coast of Hispaniola, was one of the wrecks I’d gathered information on while e-Antiquity was still on a roll. While I still carried the details with me in the Beast, what use were they to me now that Jack was out, had money, and was hell bent on succeeding?

Unless I could get Harry to back me. Again.

New York had not been kind to me today and I couldn’t wait to get out of the city. The tree limbs and bushes whipped wildly outside and the sky had turned gunmetal gray. I had to get to the Beast and head south or I’d be stuck here for the night and never make the meeting with Lou Atlas.

Harry’s Rolls Royce was back in the cul-de-sac. Approaching the car felt like the walk of shame, and I remained pissed off about Jack Dodson’s ruining my day until Percy pulled into the seaplane base.

The Widgeon was gone.

I ran past the heavily clothed ramp agent to check the Beast. Her lock was secure, and once inside, I bent down to check the safe under my seat. Still locked. I entered the combination anyway, just to make sure.

I felt the fat folder inside and my breathing finally began to slow.

I awoke to the sound of something slapping against the side of the Beast.

I lurched up in a sweat—had I fallen asleep while flying?

A small jet roared by. Now I remembered—I’d arrived at North Palm Beach County Airport at 1:45 a.m., triggered the landing lights from my microphone, and landed on runway 26. After refueling and a brief conversation with my brother at the Leesburg, Virginia, airport, instructing him to stop sending money to Jack’s wife, and start sending it to me, I flew another 746 nautical miles and landed at this little field, running on fumes. The operating hours here ran between sunrise and sunset, so my presence this morning would have been a surprise to management—which, a quick glance out the side window confirmed, was the guy currently beating on my hatch.

I glanced at my watch: 7:18 a.m. Sleeping in your plane here was a no-no too.

Apologies, cash for the tie-down fee, and the news that I’d be departing in a few hours placated the line guy, who pointed me toward the pay phone and the pilot’s lounge where I could take a shower. But first I called the number Harry had given me for Lou Atlas. I told his assistant where I was and asked if someone could pick me up.

A shower and change of clothes restored my humanity, while scrambled eggs, bacon, and a double-espresso got me ready to face the day. When I walked outside at 8:30, a black Mercedes limo awaited, which didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow from the line guy who’d waked me up.

“Can you have her fueled up in an hour?” I yelled to him. “I won’t be long.”

“I wouldn’t have charged you the tie-down fee if I’d known you were gassing up,” he said.

I didn’t actually have the cash for a refuel—I was counting on coming back with an Atlas expense account.

After a twenty-minute ride in silence, the limo turned down South Ocean Boulevard and a mile later entered a gated driveway that included two uniformed guards, a pair of Dobermans, and several cameras. The palm-lined stretch of crushed oyster shells led to an incredible 1920’s era red-tile roofed mansion that resembled the Breakers Hotel nearby. Lou Atlas was one of the richest men in the country—hell, the world—and he wasn’t shy about it. He was a self-made man who’d come damn close to being president, voodoo economics and all.

I was greeted by a doorman with a Texas accent and delivered to a special assistant in her late-twenties, dressed in a tight pencil skirt, silk blouse, and stiletto heels. Her long brunette hair was so glossy she could have stepped right out of a shampoo commercial, but it was her silky French accent that had me following her as if in a trance. Well, that and the view from behind.

Money did have its perks.

She left me in Mr. Atlas’s private office, which was as big as the lobby at the La Concha hotel, where I lived in Key West. Every surface was covered with rich marbled wood, probably from rare trees of the Amazon. Lou Atlas wasn’t known for being concerned with the environment, which had been one of the knocks against him in the election he lost some dozen years ago. I sat in