Laguna Beach: That Gold in Laguna (Kindle Worlds Novella) (A Charisma Series Novella, The Ericksons Book 2) Read online

  “Not that I know of, but my great-great-grandparents had a wild life there in the Prohibition era. They were friends with bootleggers. They had wild parties. One time they had a murder, just after a jewelry theft at a house party.”

  Huh. “Sounds like some fun people.” He wondered what had come down the family tree from those wild ancestors into her gene pool.

  “The jewelry was never found. It is probably on the grounds somewhere. That’s our best guess. If you aren’t interested in my coin, what about the jewelry? I have at least a partial list of what was stolen.” She kept her voice even, like she wasn’t that interested in what she was saying, but her body was slightly canted toward him. Bait, pure and simple.

  "Not our bag, sorry," Thor said, angling away from her. “Crowe loves himself some bandit caches. He did his thesis on them. Justin did his on bank robberies. Between the two of them they have targets for years.”

  “Not our bag?” she echoed. “You sound like a hippie.”

  “I sound like my grandfather,” Thor said. “Talk about hippies. I’m named for him.”

  “He was a treasure hunter, too?”

  “Yep, and his father before him.” With every sentence he was sounding more country and slangy. Must be her finishing school effect on him. “We grew up wandering around Northern California gold country, prospecting.”

  She bit her lower lip and glanced at his waist. An inch or two lower and she’d be scorching his privates with her sultry gaze. “Do your legs still trouble you? I did an internet search of you guys last night. I watched the episode of your old reality show where it looked like your little brother Crowe was responsible for breaking your legs.”

  He hated that question almost has much as Crowe did. “Nah, I was fourteen. I healed. And it wasn’t his fault. That was just the editing of the show.”

  “I know. I read an article about it. My father had some research done on your family before he agreed to the cave project and I went through the documents.”

  He wondered what she did with herself all day. Mani/pedis, probably, and lunch with the girls. Kind of surprising she didn’t haul a little dog around with her everywhere, but maybe that behavior was five years out of date. “Enjoy your shopping,” he said. “I’ve got a long list of things to accomplish today.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stocking up. I have to go to three different stores. Then I’m spending the afternoon changing the oil on three rigs. They’re all due. And I need to tighten some belts on mine. Getting ready to be real busy again here for a few weeks.”

  “Sounds like fun,” she said with a doubtful hint in her voice.

  “It’s not lunch with the girls,” he said. “But it will do. Enjoy the rest of your day, P—, I mean, Rachel.”

  “What were you about to call me?” she asked.

  “Sorry about that.” He forced a grin. “I’m terrible with names.”

  Her gaze narrowed again. “I don’t think you’re nearly as stupid as you pretend to be.”

  His back teeth ground together, almost catching his tongue. “I’m not pretending anything, so more fool you, Miss McHughes. Good day.”

  Her wispy/fake eyebrows went up, but she was too well-bred to argue with him in public. She turned to her side and brushed past him. He could smell a hint of expensive perfume. Jasmine was in there somewhere. He liked jasmine, but he had no use for the likes of tiny, perfect girls with Daddy complexes.

  On Wednesday, they were called to the back room of Jenny’s restaurant, Laguna Gold Pizza. Delilah Craft, Jenny’s younger sister who owned Laguna Coin next door, had made it to this meeting, but the McHughes family hadn’t been invited.

  “Thanks for coming, everyone.” Roger Dalton smelled strongly of the cigar he must have smoked in his limousine just before arriving.

  “Guess this is his meeting,” Justin muttered to Thor, as they all sat around two tables that had been pushed together.

  Crowe stayed silent, so Thor guessed he was right.

  “What’s up?” Thor asked, leaning forward, his hands folded on the table.

  “I’d like to propose we stay on the McHughes property for the rest of the season. It will dramatically cut our insurance costs for the show, and the powers that be like that.”

  Crowe opened his mouth but Dalton pulled off his glasses and gestured at him. “Let’s be team players for the first season. We want a second one, after all.”

  “It’s going to be weeks before I can get the data we require,” Beau said. He coughed, then started pouring iced tea from the pitcher in the center of the table into the glasses on a tray. “If they want to run the show this fall we aren’t going to be able to get what we need.”

  “Can’t you come up another cache of stolen goods?” Dalton asked. “There’s got to be something.”

  Crowe and Justin both shook their heads. Thor closed his eyes. He really didn’t want to accommodate the McHugheses.

  Crowe elbowed Thor. “What?”

  “I ran into Miss Rachel yesterday,” Thor admitted, taking a glass from his father. “She found one old gold Spanish coin about four feet down in her front garden about seventeen years ago.”

  “Four feet down?” Justin grimaced. “One coin?”

  “I know,” Thor said with an answering wince.

  “Did you take a look at it?” Delilah asked, outrage in her voice. “I never heard about this.”

  “Your shop has only been open a year,” Jenny pointed out.

  Thor took a big gulp of his iced tea. “Also, she told me there was a big jewelry theft and a murder at the house during Prohibition. The family thinks the jewelry is on their property somewhere.”

  Dalton whistled. “Why not search for the proceeds of a period jewelry theft? Great visuals for us to reenact.”

  “That kind of thing isn’t our style,” Crowe said. Justin nodded.

  Dalton held up a finger. “The show is about gold, not just bandit caches. Was any of the jewelry gold? Was it valuable?”

  Thor rubbed his hand down his ancient Justin Timberlake tour T-shirt. “I have no idea. We’re talking about the great-grandparents of Richard McHughes. That’s the era. If anyone is still alive from then, they probably aren’t going to be able to tell us much.”

  “Prohibition ended a little over eighty years ago,” Jenny said. “We aren’t going to find adults still alive from then.”

  “I’m not against digging up the McHughes’ front yard,” Dalton said. “If they still have that old gold coin, I say it’s worth researching, but I love the murder/jewelry theft too. How much land do they have?”

  “Just under an acre.” Crowe drew the shape of the land on the table with his finger. “They could subdivide and sell a couple of small lots if they wanted. Crazy expensive real estate.”

  “Talk to the family,” Dalton said.

  The door of the back room opened and a waitress came in, holding an extra-large pizza on a tray above her head. Her long ebony braids, which ended in colorful beads, clinked against each other. She set it the tray on the center of the table and took the empty pitcher away for a refill.

  “We can get an answer easily enough,” Thor said. “They have at least a partial inventory of the stolen jewelry.”

  Delilah leaned back in her chair. “I have a friend who can value it tout de suite. No problem.”

  “Excellent,” Dalton said thoughtfully.

  “Everything would depend on the condition, of course,” Delilah added, reaching for the pizza server and the pile of paper plates.

  When she turned her head, Thor caught the flash of a tattoo on the back of her neck, not enough to see what it was. He’d thought about asking her out, but not until the first season of the show was in the can.

  “Sounds like we’ve got a plan.” Crowe swiveled his head. “Dad, you’ll keep working on the sonar on the cave. Justin and I will hit the books and look for accounts of the murder and theft.”

  “And also find out why there might be Spanish gold on t
he property.” Jenny patted Crowe’s hand.

  “Yes,” Crowe agreed. “Thor will get the inventory of the stolen goods, any other information the McHughes have, and lay his hands on the gold coin if he can.”

  “And bring it to me.” Delilah wiggled her fingers. “I’ll research it.”

  “You’re the same age as Rachel McHughes,” Thor said, taking a slice of pizza from her. “Weren't you in school together? Why don’t you go?”

  “Just because we were in the same class doesn’t mean we are in the same class, if you know what I mean.” Delilah pushed platefuls of pizza toward the other team members. “Please, she wouldn’t even recognize me. Rachel McHughes was born with one silver spoon in her hand and another stuck where the sun don’t shine.”

  Justin cracked up, leaning back in his chair and clapping his hands. “At least she’s better than her cousin Brandon. He was a couple years behind me in school. What a twit.”

  “It doesn’t help that you dye your hair black now,” Jenny said to her sister. “When your real color is lighter than mine. No one recognizes you now.” She fingered her red-gold ponytail.

  Delilah rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so literal, Jenny. I’ll go with you, Thor. I’d love to have a look at their house. It’s gorgeous from the outside.”

  “Yeah, okay, let’s do it,” Thor said. “I’ll meet you at your shop right at closing.”

  “Hey,” Thor called as he walked into Laguna Gold Coin at seven that evening. As always, he was called to the C-shaped collection of glass cases, where the coins resided during the day. Delilah had begun to empty the cases into the safes for the evening, but her collection of cobs was still on display.

  He bent over the case and stared down at the Spanish coins, the original pirate gold. She had a selection of both reales, silver coins, and escudos, gold coins.

  “Staring hopefully at the pieces of eight and doubloons?” Delilah asked, wheeling a small cart into the display room from the back. “Be nice if you found some.”

  “I wonder what Rachel McHughes has.”

  “I asked around today and no one seems to have ever seen it,” she said. She took a ring of keys from her pocket and locked the front door. “Doesn’t have a rep as a liar, though.”

  Thor noticed she had already taken off her high heels and put on motorcycle boots. Delilah liked to look and act like a tough girl, but she had the soul of a librarian. She closed the blinds over the two shop windows and unlocked the cases.

  “Do you want any help?”

  “No, I have a system at this point. Can you believe I’ve been open two years already?”

  “How did you manage that? I don’t want to think about the cost of your inventory.”

  “Some of it is here on spec. I don’t own all the stock. Jenny invested some money too, which helped, but I spent four years as a stock broker in New York. I worked hundred-hour weeks and made quite a bit of money between college and coming home.”

  Thor’s stomach muscles pulled in protectively at the horror of that kind of career. “I had no idea.”

  “I thought I was a New York kind of girl.”

  “The black?”

  “Yeah, my Gothic ways fit better there than in the O.C.” She turned back with a full cart. “But it turned out I was happier here, doing my own thing, even if I’m not into surfing or conspicuous consumption.”

  “It’s a great shop.”

  “Thanks.” He caught of flash of gold from her discreet nose ring as she wheeled her cart past him. “Someday I’ll be selling those California gold coins here, that you guys found in June.”

  “I hope you’ll get a premium price since they’ll be featured on the show.”

  “That would be good. We all have bills to pay. I’m beefing up the back end of my website so I’ll be ready to sell them online.”

  As she moved into the back, Thor stared at a particularly fine example of a doubloon. The gold cross in the middle was heavily incised, and the rest of the lettering was visible. The edges hadn’t been clipped away. “From a shipwreck?” he asked when Delilah returned.

  “Yes. I have a card on that one, to justify the price.” She opened a drawer under the display case and pulled out a piece of cardstock.

  He read over the history of the coin, which had come from a coastal Florida shipwreck, discovered a few years ago. “Nice that some of this inventory makes it into shops. I’ve read stories about treasure hunters who recover coins and then hoard them.” By the time he’d looked up again, the coin had vanished onto Delilah’s cart.

  “Not everyone is in treasure hunting for the money. A lot of them are just as obsessed with history. Coins are a great collectible for history buffs.” Delilah leaned back and perused the cases. “I think I’ve got everything. My bike is in the alley. Should I follow you over?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll go out the back with you.”

  When they arrived at the McHughes estate on the cliff above Thousand Steps Beach half an hour later, they had to show their driver licenses to a security guard, who then opened the temporary gate for them. They parked in the circular drive behind the chain link fence and the old Spanish-style gatehouse and went to the front door, where they were let into the foyer by a uniformed maid.

  “Is Miss McHughes available?” Thor asked. He had never been in the front part of the house before. The entryway had an expansive, multi-colored stone inlay floor, a curved staircase with an iron bannister, and a grand piano and seating area, just off the main door.

  “She is by the pool,” the woman said, in a thick Central American accent. She pointed toward the cliff’s edge then scurried away.

  “Who said the rich can’t afford help anymore?” Delilah joked.

  “I don’t really like the idea of walking through the house,” Thor said.

  “Can we go around from the outside?”

  “I doubt it. There will be locks on the gates.” The house felt empty. Other than an electrical hum, he couldn’t hear any sounds of human habitation. He did see security cameras though, and no surprise, given the value of the furnishings. “Let’s go to the left. Hopefully we’ll find the way outside in a room or two.”

  They passed through a vast living room with a grand piano and three separate seating areas, then moved into a service corridor with three closed doors off of it. It dead-ended with an outlet to the right. They followed this into a dining room.

  “Oh, gross,” Delilah said, putting her hand over her heart. The room was decorated in early game hunter. Animal heads were everywhere. “I’m going to be sick.”

  Thor took her arm and propelled her through the room. Hadn’t she known about Richard McHughes and his deadly Africa-based hobbies? “Never accept a dinner party invitation.” They went out the door on the far side. To the right was a glass-walled sun room, and on the other side of that, stretched a pool area. He could see a cabana and a hot tub, as well as the glorious beach view beyond.

  He opened the French doors in the glass wall, hoping he wasn’t setting off any alarms, and pushed Delilah out. They had found Rachel McHughes, and she wasn’t alone.

  Also, she was wearing a bikini. A teeny, tiny, tomato red bikini top, and minimal gold bottom. She stood on the steps in the hot tub, gloriously almost naked. Thor didn’t think the erotic visual would leave him until the end of his days.

  Chapter Two

  Rachel glanced up from her perch on the hot tub steps when she saw the French doors at the back of her father’s house open. Total opposites stepped onto the path between grassed areas, just adjacent to the tiled pool area. Thor Erickson, tall, blond, and casual in his usual T-shirt and jeans, and Delilah Craft, whom she’d never have recognized from high school if she hadn’t been reintroduced. She dressed like someone off that old TV show, Charmed, these days. Goth was so not Laguna Beach.

  She wondered if the pair were dating or were just friends. Given that Thor had his arm around Delilah’s shoulder, she guessed the former. Of course, Lennon Lasky was always tryin
g to touch her, and they were firmly exes. He grabbed her hands and pulled her deeper into the hot tub. She resisted, backing up a step just as she felt the warm water touch her knees.

  “I need to take this meeting,” she told her ex as she pulled her hands away, happy for an excuse to get away from him. Soaking her aching feet was not worth spending time with him. “Guadalupe can show you out.” She made sure her bikini bottoms covered as much of her bottom as was possible before rising completely out of the water. With quick movements, she grabbed her cotton robe and wrapped it around herself. “Did I forget something?” she asked, walking toward the pair.

  “No, we came to make nice,” Thor said, moving away from Delilah. “Roger Dalton wants us to stick to your family estate for the rest of the season.”

  “Really?” Her father must have had a chat with the producer. “Did you want me to see if my father is available?”

  “So sorry to interrupt your leisure time.” Delilah’s edgy tone matched her black tee and leather skirt. “We were hoping to get a look at that coin you found.”

  “And also get a copy of the inventory of the goods stolen at that party,” Thor added.

  “Sure. Anything else?”

  Thor glanced over her head as if he didn’t trust himself to look at her. “What year was it? The party? Do you have scrapbooks or anything about the murder?”

  “Late nineteen thirty-one,” she recalled. “I’ll have to access a couple of safes in the house to get you what you need. Why don’t you have a seat?” She pointed to an awning-covered seating area off the lawn, which had a daybed and a couple of plush armchairs, along with a drinks cart that was rolled out every day at five p.m. when the family was in residence. “Help yourself to a drink.”

  “I’d like to help myself to your pool,” Delilah said, checking out Lennon, who hadn’t taken the hint and stopped lurking, his arms stretched out over the sides of the hot tub like he owned the place. “I don’t think I’ve ever been out here before.”

  “We didn’t travel in the same cliques in high school,” Rachel said. “I hope we can catch up now.” She had a moment where she considered setting up Lennon and Delilah, then saw sense. He was looking for a trust fund and family connections kind of girl, and Delilah didn’t fit. Smiling, she walked away, eager to take her bare feet off the hot tiles.