Chapter 3

"The Spanish kept better records of the ships that sank than the ones that made it," Delko remarked.

He sat next to Speed in the computer lab; he wasn't sure how many digital records they'd combed through, but he was certain his eyes were starting to blur.

"Well, that makes sense," Speed said, watching his friend rub his eyes. "Lose your ship, you lose all that gold."

"I guess you lose your gold, you lose your empire, eh?" Eric said. "They had 46 tons of gold and silver. Religious art, jewelry."

Speed nodded. "Over 2 billion dollars. How do you let that sink?"

Eric flashed back to the mermaid buried at the bottom of the ocean and his head spun for a second before he shook it off. "They got greedy. Overloaded the ship, left too late in the season, got caught in a hurricane. They never had a chance. One hurricane buried it, another one cleaned it off."

"That's one good thing that came out of Andrew," Speed said.

Eric wasn't sure he agreed. "You think finding treasure's a good thing?"

"It's gold, it's a good thing," Speed parried.

"I don't know. Everything I've seen…treasure only brings trouble to people," concluded Eric.

This wasn't the first case the CSIs had worked involving conspiracy theorists turned treasure-seekers. Last year, a man swore he had proof a French vessel blew off course on its way to Haiti in the 1790s and landed on the Florida coast. The guy believed the crew made it inland and buried a chest of gold in the glades.

The only thing that goose chase led to was a knife buried in the treasure hunter's chest courtesy of the man's ex-mother-in-law.

Eric's head started to spin again. He needed to focus on this investigation, not that circus of a case last year.

From somewhere far away, he caught Speed's next words. "You saying that because you never found your little treasure?"

Eric forced a laugh and cleared his throat. Tim Speedle, who was sitting there with a shit-eating grin on his face, knew his dark-haired friend had a thing for a certain blonde bombshell in ballistics.

They'd never actually had a conversation about it, but Delko was positive his friend knew, and there were also days when he was positive Speed was up to no good with that little piece of knowledge.

Eric shot Speed a warning look and engaged his best tactic: re-direct. "Look man, you have anything from the manifest matching the void?" he asked.

"I got two possibles. The incense tray is the right size, but it's silver and it would've eroded," Speed said. "The gold wouldn't have, but the ingots didn't match up. I tell you one thing…that Coast Guard guy was right—judging by the disturbances down there, somebody made off with mill—"

Speed stopped mid-sentence—he had just looked up at Delko and didn't like what he saw. The man's eyes were out of focus, and he was swaying slightly in his seat. "You alright, man?"

Eric's eyes snapped to Speedle's. Just as soon as the episode had come, it went, and the distant look in Eric's eyes vanished.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, it's nothing. Just tired after that dive," he explained. Explained a little too quickly, Speed thought.

Eric really was tired, but not even Calleigh could get him to go home midday on an interesting case. "Listen, print me off a copy of that and I'll take it with me to meet up with H," he said.

As soon as Delko was out the door, Speed picked up his phone and started texting: "Cal, you may be on to something re Delko. Not himself…"