“Smith,” Lucrecia answered. She handed it over.
I opened it up and gently flipped through the pages. “They’re all blank.”
“Yes,” she said again, and I caught her chewing her bottom lip. “Until July seventh.”
I thumbed deeper into the journal to reach the entry in question. All it said wasI’ve found him.
Smith had been dead nearly ten years by then. Rogers, that poor bastard. He never gave up looking for Smith’s body after its mysterious vanishing and he was officially declared dead.
I glanced at Lucrecia.
She looked solemn. “It’s blank again until August second. It’s Rogers’s last entry.”
I swallowed and turned the pages. My ears were ringing, and it was like all of the air had been sucked out of the house. I reached the date and had to practically force myself to read.
I am mad with hysteria and grief that I cannot shake. I cannot cope. As Thomas’s friend, I should have delivered him home to his wife, who has never retired her mourning. I should have seen him laid to a proper rest. But the devil’s inside me. My heart is broken beyond repair that any man could make to it.
Edith would have never respected Thomas’s burial wishes. What wife would agree to put her husband in the ground with his dearest friend instead of her? And who do I have who would carry out the wish for me? So I’ve left Thomas to protect our sanctuary and every piece of eight I never asked for. We would have managed without it. If only he had asked me first! He’d still be alive.
This will be my final entry. I cannot bear a life without him, now that the sliver of hope I’ve held on to all these years is gone. I will use my grandfather’s dagger. Seems only fitting. I do beg, that if there comes a day when Thomas is found through the clues I’ve left—whether that soul sees in a man what I saw in him, or is simply someone whose kindness I do not deserve—please fetch me and rest us in a small plot together.
This is all we’ve ever wanted.
Edward R. Rogers.
I felt…shattered.
Like I was dying inside with Rogers as I read his final words.
I hadn’t expected this to be his fate. Not really. I knew Smith had been killed for the treasure—Cassidy and Peg suffered the same tragedy over a hundred years later. But the self-inflicted death of one heartbroken man who wanted nothing to do with riches? Just wanted to be with the person he adored? And to think, Rogers hid Smith away because it was as close as he’d get to resting at his side. I couldn’t—I literallycouldn’timagine what life must have been like for them. Meeting in 1855 and falling in love when not only was it dangerous, but illegal. And to have kept their romance hidden for nearly fifteen years….
I didn’t realize I’d started crying until a tissue appeared in my line of vision. I snatched it quickly and wiped my nose. “Sorry,” I murmured. “Hits close to home. The gay part, I mean—not the other stuff.”
Lucrecia just nodded. “I cried too, when I read it last night. The newspaper clippings hadn’t said he’d died by suicide. We’ve been sharing inaccurate information for years.”
I dried my eyes and set the diary down on the floor between us. “This all started over a pirate’s treasure.”
“Really?” she asked, her voice rising.
I nodded. “I thought none of it was true and it was just local rumors and bullshit. But it really happened. It’s exciting, the notion of changing history with such an incredible find, but….” I took a deep breath. “Then I read these dairies of the men involved and have to remind myself they were real people with tragic endings.”
Lucrecia dipped her hand into the bag again but paused. “So…. Your Thomas Smith was a pirate?”
I nodded.
“Rogers wasn’t, though?”
“No, but… I think Smith stole for Rogers.”
“What do you mean?”
I wiped my face once more and met her gaze. “The wrecking industry took a nosedive during the Civil War. I think Smith turned to piracy to make money. What Rogers wrote, about the pieces of eight he never wanted?” I touched the diary. “I think the investments Smith started making in a property upstate around that time might have been—”
“For the two to run away together,” Lucrecia stated. She’d done none of the research I had on Smith’s money and properties, but I think, as a human, she understood. That basic instinct to care for what you hold most dear. Smith and Rogers were in love and desperate to build a haven they could escape to.
I cleared my throat and started packing the diary away. “I appreciate you driving all day to come show this to me. I’m a snotty, puffy-eyed mess now, but I hope you won’t judge too harshly.”
Lucrecia smiled. “No, honey. Like I said, I cried too.” She let out a breath. “I have one last thing to show you. It was part of Rogers’s estate that was donated to our museum. It never fit with the nautical theme, though, so it was kept in storage. But after reading that entry, I sort of put two and two together regarding its importance.”
