Maui Madness (Zoe Donovan Mysteries Book 7) (15 page)

“So Levi and Ellie
. . .” Pono said as he watched them play. “Are they a couple?”

Talk about a loaded question.
I decided on the easy answer. “Just friends.”

“Malie and I have been friends since we were toddlers,” Pono shared. “Our mothers were friends.”

“Levi, Ellie, and I all sat at the same table in kindergarten and have been best friends ever since.”

“Ah, but now you have Zak,” Pono pointed out.

I smiled.

“It changes the dynamic,” Pono put forth.

I thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

Ellie screeched with laughter as she jumped onto Levi’s back and tried to dunk him under the surface of the water. It did my heart good to see
her smile after the rough start she’d had on the trip. I thought about Pono’s observation about Zak’s entering our lives effecting the overall equilibrium of the best-friend triad. I hadn’t realized it, but I could see that he had a point. The dynamic
had
changed. My relationship with Zak had created a separation of sorts between myself and Levi and Ellie. I certainly didn’t spend as much time with them as I once had. Additionally, with the introduction of Zak, our threesome had become a foursome, creating a situation in which Levi and Ellie could feel free to pursue a romantic relationship without worrying that I’d end up feeling like a third wheel. I knew they had feelings for each other, and while the thought of a romance between the two of them had sent me into convulsions initially, I could see how a pairing might very well be the ultimate outcome.

A future
in which Levi and Ellie married and raised a family left me with a much warmer feeling than one in which Ellie gave birth to a baby conceived from the donation of some random guy. Of course, they had obstacles to overcome. Many, many obstacles, the greatest of them being that in many ways Levi was still a child himself.

Zak returned to the patio and handed Pono the beer he
’d requested. Charlie had wandered into the shade and was fast asleep. The men entered into a conversation about fishing that I intentionally tuned out. I felt my mind drifting as I watched Levi and Ellie playing in the waves. Our two-week stay in Maui was half over. Where had the time gone?

“Did you get through to Rebecca?” Pono asked.

“I did.” Malie took a sip of Pono’s beer and then settled into
the lounge chair beside his. “She said that as far as she knew, the three men were not working on anything together. She had noticed that Brain had been uptight lately, and the men decided to go for a sail to forget their problems for a few hours. If there was more to the trip than that, she wasn’t privy to it.”

“So we go diving?” Pono asked.
“I’m free tomorrow and Friday.”

“I’m good with tomorrow
, but as for Friday . . .” Malie hesitated. “Rebecca told me that a memorial service for Anton is going to be combined with Keoke’s annual Fourth of July party, which will be held on Friday at Keoke’s house on Oahu. It seems there was an announcement in the newspaper. Anton’s family is having his body flown back to his hometown for burial, but Keoke is planning a service in Hawaii for anyone who would like to attend.”

“So?” Pono shrugged.

“He was your sister’s fiancé. Don’t you think you should go?”

“My sister thinks I killed Anton. Why would she want me there?”

“Leia doesn’t think you killed Anton,” Malie argued.

“If Leia wanted me at th
e service, she would have called to ask me to attend. She didn’t.”

Malie took Pono’s hand in hers
and looked him in the eye. “I doubt Leia has the presence of mind to personally call anyone right now,” she pointed out. “I’m sure she’s expecting you to be there. You are her brother. It’s what families do.”

“Come with me,” Pono persuaded.

“I really shouldn’t.”

“I’m not going alone.”

“Zoe, Ellie, Levi, and I have been invited to Keoke’s party. Perhaps we should all go together,” Zak suggested.

Although the sand was warm, the air had cooled as a blanket of dark clouds passed overhead. I pulled my long, curly hair into a sloppy topknot as I settled onto a beach towel with my sandwich. Pono, Malie, Levi, and I had spent the morning in the water, gathering artifacts from the ocean floor. Ellie, who’d waited in the boat with Charlie, had sorted and stored everything. I felt like we’d had a successful morning in spite of the fact that my muscles ached and my hair might never recover from all the saltwater it had been exposed to this past week.

“Looks like a storm is coming,” Ellie commented as she nibbled on a fresh strawberry as big as
her fist.

Afternoon rain wasn’t uncommon on the islands
, but the particular clouds that gathered overhead looked more ominous than usual.

“I suppose we should head in after we eat,” Pono
said reluctantly.

The breeze picked up as the sky darkened. I rubbed my hands over my arms for warmth. The temperature most likely
was still in the seventies, but my hair and swimsuit were both wet, causing a chill as the sun disappeared behind the cloud cover.

“Take my sweatshirt
.” Zak unzipped the sweatshirt he’d tossed on over his bare chest when we’d docked on the island. He wrapped it around my shoulders.

“Won’t you be cold?” I couldn’t help but admire Zak’s well
-defined chest, which had been bronzed by the sun.

“I’m fine. These sandwiches are really good. What kind of fish did you use?”

“Ono,” Malie answered. “Try the macadamia nut spread with the strawberries. It’s a really interesting combination.”

“Do you think we found anything
significant this morning?” I asked as I added a slice of avocado to my sandwich. We’d gotten an early start and had already completed two dives, each one resulting in several artifacts found, including a necklace that appeared to be worth quite a lot of money.

“The necklace looks like the one in this photo
.” Malie wiped her hands on a napkin, then picked up a sheet of paper and passed it to me.

After Rory identified the cross Zak
had found on the previous trip as belonging to
The Isabella
, he’d copied and forwarded the ship’s manifest as well as photos of some of the items to Malie. I have to admit there is a certain rush to be had from searching for treasure that has been resting on the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years.

“Is this enough to positively identify the ship we
’re looking for as
The Isabella
?” Levi asked as he peered over my shoulder.

“I’m not sure
.” Malie took a bite of her sandwich and then set it aside. She dug into her bag for the stack of documents she had copied and brought with her. “Several of the artifacts we’ve found seem to be from her manifest, but the information found in Rory’s books indicate that
The Isabella
sank off the Kingman Reef, so something isn’t lining up.”

“Maybe
that isn’t where she sank after all,” Pono postulated. “Maybe the information in the books is incorrect. It happens.”

“
No,
The Isabella
was found and excavated by a treasure hunter in 1926. See, there are pictures of some of the items recovered from the wreck.” Malie passed the photos to Pono. “The only theory I can come up with is that a portion of the items listed on her manifest was transferred to another ship prior to sailing, but the paperwork was never updated. The family who owned
The Isabella
owned two other merchant ships,
The
Maria
and
The Sofia
. Based on the research Rory has managed to complete in the past couple of days,
The Maria
was retired in 1887, so my guess is that we are looking for
The Sofia
.”

“What if the cargo wasn’t moved
?” I asked. “What if the items we’ve found were sold to or stolen by the captain or crew of whatever ship sank in this area? Maybe the cross and the necklace were on
The Isabella
at one point but were removed prior to her run-in with the reef. You mentioned that she made stops at several ports along the west coast of the Americas before making her final journey across the Pacific Ocean.”

I grabbed the stack of napkins as the wind threatened to send them across the sand.

“That’s a good point,” Malie realized. “I suppose that if the items were stolen, the captain of
The Isabella
might not even have been aware they were missing, which could be why the manifest was never altered. A theft could also explain why we have found items from many different ships. What if there was someone who stole items from all the ships in a port and then set off on his own? If the ship later sank with the ill-gotten gains, the treasure would have originated in several different places.”

“Okay, so
if we aren’t looking for
The Isabella
or
The Sofia
, what ship are we looking for?” Levi asked.

“I’m not sure there is any way to know
.” Malie sighed.

“
We’ll figure it out.” Pono laid an arm over her shoulder in a show of comfort and support.

“What if there isn’t a ship?”
Ellie asked as she brushed sand off her leg and adjusted her position on the blanket we’d brought from the house. “Isn’t it possible there are situations that could cause specific items to end up on the ocean floor other than a shipwreck?”

“Such as?” Levi asked.

“Pirates,” Ellie suggested. “Maybe
The Isabella
was robbed and the pirates who stole the cargo were careless and some of it fell overboard during a storm.”

“Seems kind of unlikely,” I pointed out.

“But possible,” Ellie insisted.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it’s possible.”

“Winds really kicking up,” Zak commented.

“Guess we’re in for a quick trip home
.” Pono seemed unaffected by the dramatic change in the weather.

“And a rocky
one.” Ellie groaned as she looked out toward the surf, which was becoming rougher by the minute.

“What are we goi
ng to do if we actually find a ship?” Malie asked as she began gathering the food and storing it in the basket she’d brought. “We don’t have the equipment or money to orchestrate a full-on salvage operation.”

Pono looked at Zak. “I suppose if we do find a ship and are able to positively identify her
, we’ll have to look for backers to fund the salvage operation.”

Zak shrugged. “Let’s find the ship and then we can discuss the next step. How much do you think the items we’ve found
so far are worth even if we don’t find the bulk of the cargo?”

Malie
, who was kneeling on the blanket, leaned back on her heels and picked up the necklace. It was a heavy gold chain with a lacy gold design shaped like a tree, each of the branches of which held a gem of a different type. My guess was that it was some sort of mother’s necklace, each stone representing a person in a family tree.

“I’m no jeweler,” she said, “but I’d be willing to bet this one item is worth more than I make in a year.”

“Hello, new boat.” Pono grinned.

“We can’t sell it,” Malie informed him. “At least not yet. We should keep everything we find close to the vest until we figure out what
, if anything, all of this might lead to. But it is pretty awesome.”

“It’s really pretty,” I acknowledged. “And heavy. Do you think someone actually wore this?”

“Probably not.” Pono took the necklace from Malie. “What do those papers tell you about what else we can expect to find?”

“It depends
.” Malie paused. “If we’re operating under the assumption that part of the cargo of
The Isabella
somehow ended up here rather than where she went down, I guess we can compare the original manifest with the inventory of artifacts found to see what is missing. If we’re operating under the assumption that some of the cargo from
The Isabella
was moved to another ship, I suppose we can expect to find those items plus the original cargo of the ship that actually went down in this area and any other items purchased or stolen from other ships, if that is indeed what occurred.”

“I guess we keep diving,” Pono s
aid.

“I guess we do
.” Malie smiled. “But not today. We really should get going.”

Everyone got up and began gathering the items we’d brought to the beach.

“Charlie,” I called.

He didn’t appear.

“Charlie,” I called louder.

Still no dog.

“I’ll go look for him,” Zak offered.