Month 13, April 2023
Should he be here, in the Outer Banks, now? The whole world's press had descended to Rogue's Bank, just off the coast of Virginia, to witness the exploration of the wreck claimed to be the "Queen Anne's Revenge?"
Dougie mulled the information, shouldering his bag. The Youth Hostel just south of Kildare had provided him with night after night accommodation at five bucks a night, and food to go. He was a birdwatcher, backpacking his way around the world.
He was having a gap year.
He was working for a while until he returned to his castle in Scotland.
Having the accent he had meant Dougie only had to start talking and everyone he met swooned, and it didn't matter what his accent actually told them.
No. He could just sit tight here.
Because, along with Renfield Limbrey, Rafe Cameron had already taken a charter boat from the Hamiltons north to join the melee. That meant Aidan would, if she had any sense - and sometimes Dougie did wonder, head back to Tannyhill.
It was amazing what a Scottish birdwatcher roughing it in a youth hostel on the Outer Banks, living with other itenerant workers found out.
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A knocking came to the door. It was barely dawn, and it was a Saturday morning.
"Who the hell is that!" Mr. Carrera yelled from Kiara's parents' room. The shouting was loud enough to wake her up and she headed downstairs in her pyjamas, looking carefully at the back door, where another round of knocking landed a few moments later.
Her heart beat very fast for a moment, as visions of people coming to take her away to the correctional camp filled her mind and she gripped the banister's rail as she got to the bottom step.
"Who's there?" she called tentatively.
"Pope!" the agitated voice came back and that spurred Kie on to open the door, the cool morning breeze whipping past her bare legs.
"Cleo!" Kiara exclaimed, as the beaming face of the young Barbadian shone from beside Pope Heyward.
"He gotta tell ya," Cleo said, in her up-and-down accent. "He be up all the night." She turned her big eyes to Pope, who went quiet, and reached down a hand to hers.
"No, you gotta do this on your own," she told Pope as he tried to bring Cleo in with him. "You and Kiara go way back, you and Charleston." And she stood resolutely on the front porch as Pope looked at her again, imploringly, Kie thought, as much as she could in the fog that was her mind at five AM. She held open the back door and Pope, one of her best friends in the world, stepped through it.
"Sit," Kie asked, but Pope was not for sitting. He was pacing around the Carrera's living room as if his life depended on keeping moving.
"Kiara!" came a voice from upstairs. "Who is it?"
"Pope!" Kie called back before Pope could wave his arm frantically towards her. Then he stopped - this news was bigger than a dawn call to his friend's house - hell, when his father and mother got up that morning, everyone on the Outer Banks would know he had a million dollar house and assets to his name.
"The Limbrey House," he managed, and then choked, and started to pace once more. Instead, he waved the letter towards her. Kie's eyes caught the wheat symbol on the back of the letter and then moved towards one of the living room's standard lamps, which she flicked on, scanning the letter's contents.
"Pope?" Mr. Carrera asked, making an appearance at the bottom of the stairs. "Now why in the hell have you come knocking at my door at this hour?"
"That's why!" Kiara held out the letter to her father who, after Kitty Hawk, and El Dorado, knew better than to dismiss his daughter's ideas on the basis that they sounded wildly implausible.
"You inheriting a house? And money?"
"'s right," Pope told him, not trusting his mouth with words. "My daddy, he gonna take me down to this Mr...Hall - " he pointed to the name of the solicitor at the bottom of the letter, "And check that it's not a joke."
"It's not, I can tell you that one," Mr. Carrera told Pope, looking from the boy, to the letter, and back to Pope again. "I know Mr. Hall - his company did business for me last year when we had the renovations. He is as straight as they come." He grinned, and clapped his hand to Pope's shoulder. Then he turned, took a quick look towards the door, Cleo beaming in through it, and then strode upstairs to bed.
"I think you should go to bed too," Kie said to Pope, as he stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. She beckoned to Cleo to come in. The girl tentatively put a hand to the door handle, before pushing down on it. "You can tell JJ and the others later, but you gotta get some sleep."
When Cleo and Pope were no longer in sight, Kiara Carrera came in off the front porch and locked the door behind her. It had to be a trick, hadn't it? Some sort of trap? No-one got given an expensive house right out of the blue, even if it were some sort of restorative justice.
And she bet she knew who it was who was behind it.
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"Aidan!" The door of the caretaker's hut was flung open at dawn. Aidan Drummond opened is eyes. But it was not Sam Henrys who had discovered her, waiting with an excuse and a promise, but her friend, Raymond.
"Mr. Henrys has gone," Raymond told her, closing the door behind him. "What do you want?"
"I need to case the house, rob enough to move on," Aidan told Raymond, her original cover story of getting in trouble poaching, living on the run, and coming back to Henrys to beg for a job at Tannyhill evaporating, replaced with one of nefarious, illicit behaviour.
"I seen you!" Raymond exclaimed, exaggeratedly quiet, as he glanced to the door of the hut, "I seen you, sleeping in the charter!" Aidan felt his heart beating faster.
"And you ain't not told anyone?" Aidan's attempt at an American accent twisting to absurdity. "You're a good friend, Raymond, a good friend!"
"But," Raymond told Aidan, "You can't stay! My dad gone done hired it out just this morning to Master Rafe. He's going to Virginia because of the news. Look, I like you, Aidan, you covered for me so many times. I'll leave the door open not tomorrow night, but the night after, I'll make sure the alarms are off. Get in and out, get what you need, but after that, you're gone, alright?"
Alright, Aidan thought. Raymond turned to go, and Aidan grabbed his jacket arm.
"I'm trying to find Blackbeard's treasure!" he hissed to his friend, pulling his face close to Raymond and speaking urgently. "I'm an inheritor for the money, I've come here illegally, from Bristol, England."
And he waited, standing away from Raymond, watching his face.
Raymond broke into deep roars of laughter, gripping Aidan by the shoulder and leaning on him.
"Good joke, dude!" he declared! "Fine joke!"
"But - "
"Look, stay here, lose yourself for the day, come back tomorrow night, and do what you gotta do, man. And look - " he broke off, not able to contain his laughter, " - when you do find this treasure, remember your old friend Raymond!" He clapped Aidan on the shoulder once more, before holding open the door of the hut. It was still not fully light, and Aidan wracked his brain as to what to do now, for a day. Because now he was going to have free reign inside Tannyhill, and to do this efficiently, he needed to make a plan.
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So Aidan got himself lost, stowed away as he did on one of the fishing boats that was taking a group of tourists out beyond Figure Eight. They stopped at the Cafe in the Middle of the Lake and Aidan took the chance to get away, slipping among the Kooks in clothes that he had taken from Tannyhill. Probably Rafe's he thought, the thought disgusting him for a few moments. He hated that guy, though mainly because he had shot at him.
And went roung to the back of the restaurant, and to the bins.
Not that he couldn't pay - it wasn't poverty driving Aidan to wait for one of the restaurant workers to bring out a palette of yesterday's food for tossing. But he could hardly go incognito by walking into the Outer Banks's most prestigious restaurant, where bread rolls alone were ten bucks each, and order a slap up meal - he would be spotted a mile away.
But perhaps he wasn't going to be lucky today. One of the waiters was bringing out two cardboard boxes piled high, Aidan could see, with breaded goods of some sort. Sandwiches, perhaps? He could do with a sandwich.
And then he would have to slip into the restrooms and freshen up, seeing if he could stash some more food away for later. If he was going to lie low, he would need provisions.
Restrooms, Aidan thought, as he managed to swipe some of the ten bucks apiece cobs, refusing to risk the fish and the meat that had been thrown into the bin. Not very restful. Particularly, when he would have to do something to absorb the moisture that was collecting inside his underwear.
Should have known; should have kept track of the days, Aidan told himself, crossly. Another thing to deal with now. But he had time, and would stuff his knickers with tissue paper.
Then he would find his way back to the OBX and wait until night, skulk for another day, and then go back to Tannyhill, and break in. The skull, any letters, and anything that connected a Cameron relative to the governor of South Carolina in the 1930s.
All that would have been fine plan had Aidan not seen the news. He could hardly miss it, broadcast as it was on a large television over the "Middle of the Lake's" TV screen: the discovery was in it's second day, the reporter said, and the world's media and eminent historians were just off the coast of Virginia.
Where the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge was being brought to the surface.