trying to kill him. I—”
Tanya interrupted to swear again, but this time with more color and graphic description. Aurora felt her own temper rise.
“I’m doing my best. And skip the tough-girl act with me, Tanya,” Aurora spat out. “I was on my own and self-supporting when I was sixteen. And I didn’t end up in jail, either.”
“Yawn, big-time,” Tanya drawled.
“Sorry you find me so dull, but frankly, I’m tired of your mouth. To be perfectly honest, my sister is my first concern, then her husband. You—Miss Gutless Wonder—are at the bottom of my list. Using and smuggling drugs, then letting your mother take the blame, doesn’t impress me one little bit.”
“So I should shut up and listen?” Tanya asked, pantomiming a yawn this time.
“Exactly. Now here’s my plan.”
Aurora gave a detailed and methodical explanation, starting with how she’d found the treasure galleon Jordan Castillo wanted. She practically held the diving rights in her hand. U.S. waters extended twelve miles west, stopped at the Canadian border to the north and ended at the Mexican Coronado Islands to the south. Any waters beyond those boundaries were classified as international. Salvage laws were basically “finders, keepers,” and the finders merely had to register their claims. Aurora hadn’t yet filed her claim; maintaining the location’s secrecy had prevented her from taking that step so far. Once Jordan agreed to a partnership she would register.
“So you think you’ll get enough to bribe our way out?” Dorian asked.
“That’s the plan, if Jordan Castillo stays alive,” Aurora said. “He should be getting out of the hospital next week.”
“You’ve got yourself a job and a half,” Tanya said, checking her mother again before turning back to Aurora. “Do you really think there’s treasure on the ship?” The teen’s cynical expression actually revealed some excitement.
“Yeah, or I wouldn’t have been able to find the one piece I did so easily. There are no records of the San Rafael being salvaged by the early Spanish—the water’s far too deep for prescuba. Any deeper and it would almost be too much for modern diving.”
Tanya’s hands clenched tighter on the bars. “But you did it, Rory. You found the ship. I know you can find more money.”
“Bullion,” she corrected. “If it’s there. That’s my job. Yours is to talk to that guard with the sick baby and learn the going rate for escape bribes. The lawyers can’t do any more until your trial, and they said your conviction is a given, despite Dorian’s trying to take the blame for you. See if the guard has any connections that could get us information on your father, too.”
“Oh, Rory, I wish I was going with you.”
“Home, or treasure-driving?” Aurora asked, and Tanya flushed. “Get your priorities straight, you little fool.” Aurora patted her back jeans pocket. “I’ve got a hundred dollars you can give to your friend here. Get my sister eating—and get her another blanket. While you’re at it, ask for a bucket and soap and clean up this cell. Anything happens to her, Tanya, and—”
“I know, I know, you hold me responsible.”
“More than that. I leave you here to rot.”
Tanya blanched. “You…you aren’t serious.”
“You bet I am.” Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “You might be able to push your parents around, but when it comes to me—forget it. You accept blame for the drugs and get your parents out of jail, I do everything I can for you. You keep hiding your head in the sand…then you and Dorian are a package deal. She gets a guilty sentence, you go down with her. Your father gets a guilty sentence, you go down with him. If either one of them dies of illness, then vaya con Dios and adiòs, amiga.”
“You coldhearted bitch!” Tanya’s face was harsh and ugly.
“She’d do it, too, Tanya. She always does what she says, ever since she was a kid.” Dorian’s gaze held un-spoken animosity mingled with despair.
“You’re old enough to know right from wrong,” Aurora said. “Better only one of you in jail than all three. Take care of my sister—or else.” Aurora deliberately moved away from Tanya, and injected a pleasant note in her voice as she addressed her sister. “Dori, I have to go. I’ll be back in a week or so, okay?” Dorian slowly nodded, the animosity gone. The prison allowed only weekly visits, and Aurora needed to come up with more cash.
She slowly pivoted and cautiously approached the guard. “You look after my sister and her child,” she said quietly in Spanish, “and my American dollars will look after you and your niño.”
Aurora quickly tucked her cash in the woman’s un-buttoned uniform-shirt pocket. The guard carefully buttoned it, the money safely inside.
“Niña. Es una niña,” she said.
“Ah, sí. Nombre?”
“Guadalupe.”
“Lupe es una nombre bonita. Muy bonita.”
“Gracias.” A tender smile transformed the guard’s plain, lined face above her name tag, which read simply, Olivia.
Aurora headed for the exit and switched to English. “Let’s hope your daughter turns out better than my niece. And doesn’t carry grudges from the past like her mother does. Goodbye, ladies.”
For once, neither Tanya nor Dorian had a thing to say. Silence followed Aurora out of the gloomy jail and into the blinding Mexican sun.
THE MOB OF CHILDREN assailed her as she stepped out the door, only to be driven away by a harsh command from her truck’s hired guard. He hurried up to meet her, gesturing toward her undamaged truck.
“All okay, señorita. Not broken. Wipers, tires, you look.”
Aurora looked, walking around the truck. “Cómo se llama?” she asked.
“Roberto. Roberto Ortega. I speak English. Buen inglés. You said diez dólares if truck safe. You owe me cinco.”
Aurora nodded, and paid him a second five. She unlocked the door, got in and then paused. Those damn lawyers haven’t helped one bit. I’ve gone through all the conventional channels. Time to start using the unconventional ones. “I have a problem,” she said with sudden inspiration. “I could use some help—and I’m willing to pay.”
Roberto straightened. “I am your hombre, señorita.”
Aurora switched back to Spanish, and told him about Dorian’s missing husband, about Dorian and Tanya. “I need information about her esposo, Gerald Atwell. You get it to me, and to the guard inside, and I’ll pay you. Ten now, ten later.”
“Fifty later,” Roberto said, haggling in Mexico’s time-honored tradition. Rory, thinking of her diminishing bank account, determinedly haggled back.
“Twenty more.”
“Forty.”
“Thirty.”
“Sí.”
