Corey cleared his throat. “If you two want to stop acting like a couple of emo kids, I think I’ve got a solution.”
“What’s that?” Maddock asked, absently flipping through the ruined journal.
“You and Bones can head off on one of your legend quests, or whatever the hell you call it. Meanwhile, the real treasure hunters will stay here and bring up the gold on the colonial-era ship I just found.” He held up the manila folder he’d brought along.
Maddock dropped tweezers and gaped at Corey. “Are you serious?”
Corey nodded. “While you all were screwing around down here, I worked a new grid in the direction you suggested. I found it right away. Even sent UMA down to check it out.” UMA was a remotely-controlled underwater camera they often used for scouting out wrecks. “I liked what I saw.”
Maddock’s heart raced. “What did you find?”
“See for yourself.” Corey opened the manila folder to reveal a high-resolution printout of an underwater photograph. At the center lay a broken chest, its brass bands discolored but still easy to make out, and spilling out of it…
“Gold!” Bones exclaimed. “Hell yes, you did it, you ugly, ginger virgin!” He high-fived Corey, who seemed to be trying to decide whether to smile at the praise or protest the unfair characterization.
“Do you guys think you can take it from here?” Maddock asked Willis and Matt. “The gold is just lying there waiting to be scooped up, but if anyone can screw this up…”
“It would be Bones,” Matt said. “So get him out of here as soon as possible. We’ll keep you posted on how the dive is going.”
“We might even save a little gold for you.” Willis winked.
“That settles that.” Maddock turned to Bones, who couldn’t hide his excitement. If there was one thing Bones loved more than a dive, it was hunting cryptids.
“I know how we should start,” he said.
“How’s that?”
Bones held up the tooth. “See if we can find out where this thing originally came from.”
Chapter 8
Isla was impressed with Grizzly’s choice of the Old Mill Inn as the site of what she was already thinking of as their “negotiation.” Located in Pitlochry, south of Ben Macdui, the inn boasted quality dining as well as luxurious accommodations. She still wasn’t convinced she wanted to work with the man. In fact, she was kicking herself for even giving him the time of day. He’d made a fool of himself at times during their sojourn at the mountain, but he’d somehow managed to graduate from dunderhead to numpty in her mind. In any case, he’d assured her he was going after the Tuatha de Dannan treasure whether she joined him or not, so perhaps she ought to work with him for no other reason than to try and keep him in check.
“What are you going to have?” he asked, peering over his menu at her.
“Chicken killiecrankie,” she said, closing the menu.
“What, exactly, is that?”
“Chicken stuffed with haggis and served with a mash of roasted roots.”
Grizzly cocked his head. “You actually eat haggis?”
Isla laughed. “Only joking. I don’t eat that stuff unless my nan makes it, and even then, it’s only out of a sense of obligation. I’m having the Caesar salad.”
“Good call. I’m all about the rib eye. I hear Scottish beef is top-notch.”
“I’m not much of a meat-eater, but my dad always swore by it. Of course, I don’t think he ever ate beef from any other part of the world, so his opinion might not be worth all that much.”
They made small talk for a while, enjoying bottles of Dark Island Reserve, a popular Scottish ale, and enjoying the placid atmosphere of the inn. As she sipped the strong drink, enjoying its rich, malt flavor, Isla learned a few interesting things about Grizzly.
The youngest of three children, his father had died when he was sixteen. His older siblings, already out of university, or “college,” as he termed it, and trying to get started in their own lives and careers, were no help to his mother. Mentally unstable at the best of times, the death of her husband plunged her into a deep depression, one from which she never fully covered. She lost her job and spent the next several years getting fired from various hourly-wage jobs. Thus, it fell to Grizzly to make sure the bills were paid.
He worked night and weekend jobs until he finished high school. He was a mediocre student, except for biological sciences, at which he excelled. One of his high school teachers helped him obtain an entry-level position at a nearby zoo, where he took advantage of their tuition reimbursement program to eventually earn his degree. None of this, however, impressed his mother or his siblings.
His brothers, both white collar workers in the corporate world, took pleasure in winding him up about his job shoveling piles of dung. His mother never acknowledged his role in keeping the mortgage paid and caring for her, particularly during her lowest periods. She criticized and belittled him at every turn.
“All I had were the animals and my books about cryptids,” he said, without a trace of self-pity. “I guess I was so dissatisfied with my everyday life that it made me want to believe in anything that would make the world a bigger place, full of greater possibilities than what we know.”
“That was science fiction for me,” Isla said, hating the fact that she was finding any common ground with the annoying American. She also knew the pain that came from losing one’s parents.
“Sci-fi depressed me,” Grizzly said, taking a swig of Dark Island. “I enjoyed the stories, but knowing I’d never get to see any of the other planets in the universe and know for sure that something else was out there really bummed me out.”
Isla frowned, then remembered that the American idiom “bummed” meant “depressed.” It had nothing to do with one’s backside.
“You couldn’t visit other planets, but you could cross the globe looking for strange creatures.”
“Exactly.”
“What happened with your mother? Did your brothers finally step up and take responsibility?”
Grizzly laughed. “Hardly. Mom took her own life right after I finished college.”
Isla sucked in a breath through her teeth. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” He made a small, dismissive wave, and then barked a rueful laugh. “Would you believe, all that time, Mom had been sitting on all kinds of stocks and bonds passed down from my grandfather? She could have covered all our bills without either of us working. I guess that’s why she never appreciated my efforts — they weren’t actually needed.”
Sympathy flooded through Isla followed by a wave of remorse at the way she’d treated the man. “That’s not exactly true, you know. It doesn’t sound like your mum was in any state of mind to use the resources she had.”
Grizzly nodded thoughtfully. “It all worked out in the end. I managed to sell off the stocks and cash in the bonds without my brothers ever finding out. I pretended I was too grief-stricken over Mom’s death to care what happened to the house and what little was in it. I walked away from it all while they sold everything for what little they could get and split the proceeds, cutting me out of course. I know what I did was unethical, illegal even, but it allowed me to start my career as a cryptid hunter. Besides, my brothers never lifted a finger for me or Mom, so I think inheriting her house and car was far more than they deserved.” He drained his ale and let out a tiny belch that he didn’t bother to cover.