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//chapter thirty • pick your dealings (mature)
JOHN B AND SARAH broke up. That was news to Andrew who was a few hours out of the loop, apparently. John B, JJ, Pope and Kie all went to school the next day. Apparently there was a test that Pope wanted to be there for, which left Andrew alone at the house.
Pope came home with something from Denmark's diary.
"August 15th, set sail from Port-au-Prince on calm seas." Pope reads from the papers in his hand as he paced the deck. "Came upon the Spanish ship San Jose on fire. The entire deck was aflame. And we could hear the screams of the men trapped below. The Spanish cared about only one thing, his vulnerable cargo, the Cross of Santo Domingo and countless bars of gold. But Captain Limbrey ordered us to pull bayonets and not let any of the Spanish crew on board. He robbed them, and then left them to die."
All four of the other teens listened to Pope read it off the paper. JJ played with his lighter, Kiara listened intently and John B cracked open a beer. Andrew fixed his tan cropped crew neck.
"So it didn't go down off Bermuda."
"And it was a Limbrey stealing shit again."
Pope looked at John B. "This diary proves that both the gold and the Cross of Santo Domingo were on the Royal Merchant."
"Why didn't we find it in the well then?" JJ asked from where he lay, taking the up the entirety of a couch. Andrew sat on the back of it. "I mean, if Denmark was able to get this, like, bedazzled cross off of the Merchant to shore, why didn't he just hide it with the gold?"
Andrew ponders it for half a second. "It was too big."
"Thats what she said-"
Andrew kicked him in the stomach.
"You're right." Pope ignored JJ in favor of Andrew. "He had to hide it someplace else."
"But where?" Kie asked.
Pope sits up. "Right before he was hung, Denmark said he'd buried the treasure at the foot of the angel."
"I thought that was about the key." JJ's eyebrows push up.
Andrew dragged a hand through his curls. "What is the connection?"
"The path to the tomb begins in the island room." Pope recites from the key.
Kie threw her head back. "But what is the island room?" She sighed.
JJ thinks about it for a long moment before he sits up off the couch. "You know what helps me figure shit out?" He turns to the others.
"Oh boy. Here we go." John B sighed.
JJ ignores him and answers his own question. "Smoking beers and drinking weed. The ideas just pour out of me." John B picks up a taped together stack of cans. "If we just sit here and try to figure this out, we're gonna get nowhere. But if we get creative and go to this bonfire tonight? Maybe we get somewhere."
