The Pandora Box by Lilly Maytree Read Free Book Online

about the diamonds.” Hawkins poured coffee into three mugs and carried them to the table.
    “Diamonds!” Starr exclaimed in horror. “Who the devil said anything about diamonds?”
    “Starr, she walked right over and picked up the key without so much as batting an eye. So let’s all quit being so evasive and get down to business.” He turned to Dee. “Now, what’s your plan?”
    “Well, to…go and get them, of course,” she heard herself say, as if it had been her intention all along. The truth was she was still reeling at the fact that the yacht was even real. Much less such an expensive one. To actually be sitting on it was having a spellbinding effect on her. If the yacht was real (and exactly where Peterson said it would be) then the diamonds must be where he said they were, too. Wasn’t it part of the original plan that she hire someone to help go get them?
    At that moment, the old man’s detailed plan suddenly sprung to life inside her with much the same force as a gambler who had just broke the bank. She never knew she was even susceptible to such feelings.
    It was the most thrilling prospect she had ever experienced.
    “We can take her in as a partner and split three ways,” Starr thoughtlessly pushed up the white sleeves of his long underwear shirt that were drooping below the rolled-up cuffs of his plaid flannel one.
    “A partner!” Dee set her coffee down again before she had even tasted it. “It’s my boat, remember? And you’re forgetting I’m the one with the key. You obviously didn’t know what it was for, or you would have used it already.”
    “We knew it was for Pandora’s box,” Hawk countered. “We just didn’t know where the box was. We do have the coordinates, though. And the know-how. Like Starr said, sugar…you’re no sailor. You’re going to need someone to sail it for you.”
    “Don’t…” Dee closed her eyes momentarily for emphasis, “call me sugar. Maybe I already have the coordinates, gentlemen. And for all either of you know, maybe I am a sailor.”
    “We have the logbook,” Hawkins pointed out. “If you do have the coordinates, then you must have the journal. And if that’s true, you know you can’t get the exact location of the diamonds without the logbook to go with it. That’s how Peterson set it up. As for being a sailor, don’t make me laugh. You came down the companionway backwards and...”
    “How would you know how I came down?”
    “You knocked over the tea kettle. If you’d have come down right, you’d have seen it.”
    “Whoever heard of a kitchen being right under a ladder anyway?”
    “It’s not a kitchen and it’s not a ladder.” Starr heaped three spoons of sugar into his cup and stirred with the same spoon before returning it to the sugar jar. “Case dismissed.”
    “Look…” Dee tried a new tack. “You might have the logbook, but you got it off the boat, and it’s my boat. Therefore…it is legally my logbook.”
    “The yacht’s been abandoned for five years, sweetheart,” Hawkins reminded her. “Legally, it’s the property of the port.”
    He was fixing her with those penetrating hazel eyes again, and the effect was somewhat unnerving. Dee felt like he was looking right through her, and the constant use of words that were usually reserved for intimacy made her feel vulnerable somehow. All at once, a sensation she hadn’t experienced in years washed over her. She was transported suddenly back to childhood days when the frustrations of being bested by older brothers were acutely stinging. Her crisp, well-practiced calm exterior started to crumble.
    “I guess we’ll just have to…talk this out in court.” She got to her feet, feeling the need to make a quick exit before the tangled tumult of so many intense emotions betrayed her.
    “Just a minute, now.” Starr’s tone was apologetic. “Back off, Hawk, will you? Can’t you see you’ve got her flustered? Let’s try and—”
    “I am not flustered,” Dee