away from that island, Landon. It’s not for your kind. There is
something-- I’m not sure…” she paused unable to identify the feelings
assailing her. “Just stay away,” she urged as she turned and walked away. Landon glanced meaningfully at Kurt, who smiled and shrugged.
Talk about a red flag in front of a bull, Joanna would have been better
off to keep that last part to herself. As it was, she just guaranteed Kurt
and Landon a trip to Castle Pinckney in the near future.
“We’ll drop anchor here,” Kurt said. “Sean, where do we start?” Sean pointed to several different areas on the map, “I’ve marked the
areas that are inconsistent with the digital copies. There is no way we
will get them all checked out today, but if we split up, we can make more
headway.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Royce acknowledged.
“Jo, you stay here on the boat and see if you can catch a signal. The
coin hasn’t beaconed in several months, so it’s unlikely. However, you
won’t have as much background interference on the water which should
work in our favor. Landon and I will take this area,” Sean said, tapping
one of the highlighted areas on the map. “Royce and Kurt will take this
section,” he said, pointing to another area close by.
Kurt took over the conversation, “We’ll use a jackstay search pattern.
I’ve stowed the anchors in the rear compartment and ropes are already
attached. We’ll drop the anchors at opposite ends on the eastern most
side of our assigned sections. Follow the rope from one anchor to the
other. Stay together and let the rope slide through your fingers. When
you get to one end, move the anchor a few feet to the west and then
swim back to the opposite anchor. It’s a tedious process, but if
something is down there, we should find it.”
“Put these on, guys,” Joanna appeared holding up tiny ear buds. Landon looked at her like she was crazy. “We won’t need to listen to
music down there, Joanna.”
“Smart ass, they are not going to be connected to an Ipod. They will
let me keep track of you down there and let me communicate with you
in case of an emergency. As soon as you put them in your ear, they will
conform to the shape of your ear canal and become waterproof,” she
explained. She handed them a second gadget which closely resembled a
wrist watch. “Put these on, too. They will allow you to communicate
with me as well as each other. It works just like texting,” she said, typing
something on her laptop.
Landon’s wrist vibrated and he looked at the screen. Jackass displayed
on the backlit screen. “Nice,” he said, responding with a text of his own. n ur dreams wolf boy Joanna countered via her keyboard.
He turned his gaze toward Joanna and continued to wait patiently
until she looked at him. She finally turned her head in his direction
almost against her will.
“Count on it,” Landon assured her.
#
Joanna’s eyes were glued to the screen in front of her, monitoring both teams of divers as they scoured the bottom of the harbor. She had taken a break from trying to figure out how to lift the cloaking spell on the coin. She had made very little headway, and the process was draining. However, there were still some things she wanted to try.
Landon had turned out to be an unexpected pain in her ass. He was clearly used to brainless twits fawning all over him. “Count on it,” he had said. Unfortunately, Joanna had learned long ago that the only thing she could count on from a man was pain and heartache.
Leaving the computer set in “alert” mode, she walked to the railing where she and Landon had stood a short while ago. As soon as she touched him, she had felt a premonition of sorts. It was fuzzy and unclear, but she sensed danger.
Castle Pinckney sat in the distance while Joanna tried to imagine it as it had once been. Suddenly, she felt as if someone or something was trying to communicate with her. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on searching for whatever was out there. It was an elusive sort; she couldn’t quite push close enough to mentally connect. As she concentrated more intently, blocking out the world around her, she felt herself being drawn toward something unexplainable. Smack! Joanna felt as if she had physically run into a wall of concrete.
Someone needed her. They were trying to tell her something important, but there was an invisible force blocking the communication in some way. She pulled on all of her energy