Phantom Prospect. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ sleep sometimes. I gave her the night off so she could crash. She’s been pulling hard since the attack.”

      “She close with the victim?”

      Hunter shrugged. “Don’t really know. Jax has a way about her. She can get guys if she wants ’em. Or she can turn ’em off like a light switch. I’m not sure how she felt about Jock. Or how he felt about her, for that matter. Not that that would have been an obstacle per se. Jock had a thing for anything with breasts.”

      “Nice.”

      “Sorry.”

      Annja shrugged. “Forget it. I know how guys think. You’re honest and I appreciate that.”

      “How are you feeling?”

      “Better.” Annja glanced around the wheelhouse. “I thought I’d come topside for a little air.”

      “Always clears my head, too,” Hunter said. “You want a drink?”

      “What have you got?”

      Hunter handed her a flask. “A little whiskey. It’s aged. Got a taste of peat in it, if you like that sort of thing.”

      Annja took a sniff and then a sip. The smooth whiskey flowed down her throat and she took a deep breath. “Wow.”

      Hunter took the flask back from her. “Don’t tell Cole. He’ll kill me if he finds out how much this stuff runs me. But why waste money on crap if you have a chance to get the good stuff, right?”

      “I guess.” Annja felt the whiskey hit her hard. “That’s some potent stuff.”

      “Keep you steady, it will,” Hunter said. “And I’ve used it to do just that on some stormy nights at sea.”

      “You had many?”

      Hunter nodded and took a deep drag on the flask. “Once or twice. We were off the coast of Florida when a gale blew up and knocked us sideways. We were cresting fifty-foot waves, crawling up one side and diving down the other. They were like mountains, you know. Fifty feet doesn’t sound like much until you actually get out in the thick of it in a twenty-foot boat.”

      “You were in a twenty-footer?”

      Hunter grinned. “First and last time, mind you. I came back and resolved never to sail anything less than a hundred foot.”

      “Those waves must have been terrifying.”

      “They were. I had to keep the ship on course because any mistake meant we’d have been swamped and gone before anyone knew we were there. A storm like that, they don’t roll up all that often.”

      Hunter switched the radio on and Annja heard smooth music roll out of the speakers. He adjusted the volume, then took another sip and offered the flask back to Annja.

      Annja shook her head. “I should stop. The booze and my concussion probably won’t get along that well.”

      Hunter took the flask back. “Good point. Hang out, though. I can use the company.”

      Annja leaned back against the wall and watched him. He had the same type of chiseled face that Cole had. But Hunter had strong limbs that seemed longer than Cole’s. Cole’s upper torso was more compact while Hunter’s reminded her of a languid jungle cat stretched out on a rock in the sun.

      “How’d you get into treasure hunting?” she asked.

      Hunter shook his head. “Not exactly the type of thing you go to school for, is it?”

      “Nope.”

      Bars of music filtered out of the speakers, while Hunter closed his eyes in appreciation of it. After a moment he looked at Annja. “I could say it’s all because of a girl.”

      Annja smiled. “Oh is it?”

      “Yep. I fell in love with a girl in college and flipped out of my mind over her. Spent the summer chasing her all over the Caribbean. We jumped from island to island on my dime, just having a blast. Sleeping on the beaches, making love, drinking our brains into a permanent pickled state. Youth’s a crazy thing, you know?”

      “I guess.”

      Hunter eyed her. “Yeah, I don’t suppose my experiences as a kid are universal or anything. I can see that.”

      “So go on.”

      Hunter shrugged. “I came across this boat anchored in the blue of the Caribbean one day. There were a couple of guys in the water. Real island dudes. The boat represented every dime they had in the world and they were out there diving off this patch of sand. We happened to sail up at just the right moment.”

      “Right moment?”

      Hunter took another sip. “You believe in serendipity?”

      “Depends, I guess.”

      “Well, these guys had come across a sunken Spanish galleon filled with chests of gold. I was there when one of the divers broke the surface of the water holding a single gold coin in his hand. I’ll never forget how the sun caught that gleaming yellow coin and made it look as brilliant as the brightest star in the sky. It blew me away. I wanted that joy of discovery. And I wanted all those riches.”

      “So, that was it? You shelved the college life and threw your lot in with those guys?”

      Hunter chuckled. “Those guys wanted nothing to do with me. Right after we came upon them, one of the guys still on the boat pulled a pistol and told us to sail away or they’d kill us. Treasure hunting’s a dangerous gambit sometimes.”

      “Certainly seems to be.” Annja shivered as a cold breeze blew through the wheelhouse. “So, how’d you get started?”

      “I spent a lot of my own money—hell, all of it—on a boat and top-of-the-line equipment that I had little clue how to operate. I was a fool and a cocksure one at that. I thought that my money could make everything go right when all it did was foul it up even quicker than if I’d been broke.”

      “How so?”

      “On my first dive I lost two people. Couldn’t be helped. The wreck we dove on shifted and crushed them. There was no way to help them. You’re not moving tons of rusted steel no matter how strong you think you are.”

      “Oh, my God.”

      “Yeah. And that venture cost me a lot more than I thought it would. I came back to the States and found myself facing a lawsuit from the families of the deceased. That pretty much wiped me out.”

      “But you kept going.”

      Hunter smiled. “You know what it’s like to want something so bad that you can’t even fathom it ever being wiped out of your soul?”

      “Maybe.”

      “That’s how it was. I just couldn’t give it up. As much as I tried—and I did try. I went back to school and even did a year of law before I bugged out. I just couldn’t СКАЧАТЬ