Deep Blue by Kat Martin Read Free Book Online

painful sunburn the last time she was there. She intended to be a lot more careful this time.
    On deck, some of the crewmen were already hard at work. She waved and kept walking, then darted into the galley where King was busily cleaning up after the morning meal.
    “You missed breakfast,” he chided in the deepest voice she had ever heard.
    “I never eat in the morning. But I could sure use a cup of coffee.”
    “Always got a pot goin’. You be welcome to a cup.”
    “Thanks.” She filled one of the heavy white china mugs and started toward the ladder.
    “Ought to eat somet’ing,” King said, his black face glossy with perspiration.
    She waved to him over her shoulder. “Coffee’s enough, and this sure tastes good. Thanks again.” Climbing the ladder, she headed for the chart room to see if the computer was available.
    She had a lot more work to do, but she wasn’t as ill-prepared as she had been on her arrival. Yesterday, she had printed out a pile of information on the Spanish treasure fleets—fascinating stuff, she had discovered. As Reese had said, the voyages had continued for over two hundred years, carrying untold wealth back to Spain from the New World.
    In the back of her mind, she remembered reading something about a guy named Mel Fisher, one of the great treasure salvors—that’s what they called themselves, she had learned. But until yesterday, she hadn’t connected him with the Atocha , the Spanish ship it took him seventeen years to find. In the end, his efforts were rewarded, he and his crew recovering more than four hundred million in treasure.
    Obviously Brad Talbot was interested in more than just publicity when he funded Treasure Limited’s search.
    Assuming they could actually find the ship.
    In the course of her research, she had dug up tons of information, but findings on the Nuestra Señora de Rosa were scarce. On a site called TreasureExpeditions.com, she learned that the ship had sailed with the earliest of the treasure fleets, going down in 1605, nearly four hundred years ago. Oddly, from what she read, it hadn’t sunk anywhere near where the Conquest was searching.
    A series of archeological sites confirmed that the Rosa was believed to have gone down along with three of its sister ships near a place called the Serranilla Banks. And those banks were a long way from Pleasure Island.
    Hope returned to the chart room with more unanswered questions than she’d had before and was relieved to see the chair in front of the computer sat empty. She needed to e-mail her friend, Gordy Weitzman, at Midday News, something she had meant to do yesterday, to see what he could find out about the partners of Treasure Limited. She also wanted to ask him to check with the police in regard to the vandals who had demolished her apartment and get an update on what was happening with Buddy Newton and the tenants at Hartley House.
    As Conner Reese had said, Talbot was the man responsible for her presence aboard the boat so she felt justified in using his equipment, including his satellite phone.
    She got the ship’s phone number from the engineer, Andy Glass, pulled her Palm Pilot out of the pocket of her shorts, retrieved Gordy’s office e-mail address, and sent him the cell number for use in case of emergency.
    Buddy Newton’s e-mail, [email protected] , was also in her Pilot. She sent him a message, too, asking what had happened since she had left New York. She gave him the satellite number but asked him not to call unless he really needed her. She e-mailed a single message to her dad and stepmom and her sisters, told them she had safely reached Pleasure Island, was aboard the Conquest , and getting settled in. She gave them the emergency number.
    Feeling less isolated than she had before, she signed off, breathing a momentary sigh of relief. She turned at the sound of someone moving around in the chart room.
    “You finished?” Conn Reese asked.
    Hope nodded. “I need to do a lot more research