“But of all the people we’ve named, of all the people who knew or might have guessed what we were up to, who would know where to look for us? We didn’t even know where to start until we found the other half of the map.” His leg was falling asleep, and he lifted her, transferring her to his other knee.
“That’s true,” she said, settling on his thigh. “And as far as we know, your half of the map had been hidden in a bank vault for fifty years. No one could have had access to that map. Could they?”
“No.” But his heart had stuttered.
“What is it?” she asked. “I can tell you’ve just thought of something.”
“The bank,” he murmured. “We didn’t have the clerk on our first list.”
“That’s true,” Josie said, and her voice sounded excited. “But remember that we didn’t even open the haversack at the bank. He couldn’t have known what was inside or what we were searching for.”
“True, but if he knew who we were and who originally purchased the box, he might have deduced that we were searching for the treasure.”
She shook her head. “A corrupt bank clerk? I suppose it’s feasible, but he’s surrounded by wealth. Why waste time with a fabled treasure? If he wanted to steal from bank patrons, why not concentrate on some of the real treasures already in the bank? Surely most of those deposit boxes are filled with more than sextants and yellowed treasure maps.”
She was right, as usual. But it was an angle they hadn’t considered, and something about it rang true for him. Something about the bank, the vault, poked at him. He was forgetting something there . . .
“Westman,” Josie said.
He looked up at her, smiled at the wild disarray of her hair.
“I can see you,” she said with a grimace.
He felt his own face break into a huge grin. “That’s my girl.” Looking past her, he saw the moon rising above them, bright and white and almost full. God, it was gorgeous.
Josie looked at it with somewhat less warmth. “I still don’t want to climb down.”
“Trade places with me. I want to take a look up there. See if our friends are still waiting around.”
“Be careful.”
She shoved her body into the dent, and he maneuvered carefully around her, then angled so that he was as far out as possible. He grabbed the ledge, held on, and peered out and up. Then, as the trackers in India had taught him, he stood still, listening, watching for any movement from above.
There was nothing.
The men could be waiting for them to make a move so that they had a clear shot. Or they might have gone back down to the beach. After all, one false step and he and Josie were dead.
They’d been lucky to make it this far. He climbed back down and studied the path to the churning ocean below.
Time to see if their luck would last.
Chapter Twenty
Josie’s boots were wet, her hands were scraped, and every single pore inside her vibrated with terror. But she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier. She could have kissed the rocks beneath her feet if it didn’t mean bending closer to the water sloshing at her feet.
She didn’t know how they’d done it, but they’d climbed down. Just as Westman had promised, there’d been places for her hands and feet when she most needed them. The way had been tricky, but not nearly as steep as it had looked from above.
And now they were safe, more or less. They still had to go back to the beach and the inn, but at least they would do it from the ground.
Lord, if she ever arrived home safely, she promised she would never climb out of a window again.
She promised she would stay on the ground, avoid adventure, avoid heights altogether. Why, she’d even avoid the box seats at the theater.
“Keep moving,” Westman called from ahead of her, and Josie reluctantly plodded on. They weren’t headed back toward the beach the way they’d come. Westman worried that their fellow treasure hunters might be waiting for them there, and so he had proposed traveling around the outcropping. At first it seemed like a good idea, but the rock fixture was bigger than it looked. Now that night had truly descended, it was bitterly cold. Her wet toes were numb and her fingers chilled to the bone.
Finally, they reached a small bar of sand, and they both paused to set their boots on solid ground. Maneuvering on the rocks had been difficult, especially when her legs were wobbly from having climbed down the cliff.
Josie looked around her. Behind her was a wall of granite, this one really too steep to climb, in front of her was the sea, cold and deep and seemingly limitless. On either side were rocks and small patches of beach. She couldn’t see past the rocks, so it was impossible to tell how far they went on.
