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What he was for was the occasional oddity: a stolen bracelet or a forgotten heirloom, things other people forgot about and ignored but that he never did.
The man, the pirate, knocked, but Pepper remained in his chair for a moment. Surely this man would take a hint and leave, but the fellow did not. He knocked again and again until Pepper finally got up out of his seat.
"Yeah, yeah. Hold on," he muttered. "I'm comin', I'm comin'."
He swung the door open and raised
an eyebrow. He pasted his best pirate sneer on his face. Though he had been retired for many years, he still remembered his looting days quite well and wasn't one to forgo scaring youngsters when he could.
The pirate was unfazed.
Instead of shirking away or apologizing, instead of running away, he held up the necklace.
Dead Man Pepper just gasped.
He hadn't seen the Ocean's Whore in nearly twenty years. He couldn't quite believe that the damn thing still existed, nor that this man had managed to get his hands on it.
"Come in," he said simply, and stepped aside.
The unlikely duo came in, smelling of saltwater and freedom. They chose to stand as Dead Man Pepper closed the door and returned to his seat. He was quite old and moved quite slowly, but both the pirate and the woman were quiet and patient as the old man got comfortable.
"What can I do for you?" Pepper asked. He wasn't sure what to think of this pair. The man was tall, but stood even taller. He held himself with an air of dignity. A captain? He must be a captain. No way would any ol' first mate carry himself the way this man did. Not possible.
The woman, Pepper observed, looked timid, almost shy. She felt out of her element. He wondered why. Upon closer inspection, she didn't look like a whore, which meant she had to know the captain quite well. His lover, perhaps? No, any lover of a pirate so brave as to capture the necklace Mad Drake's first love wore would be standing stronger than this lass.
She looked terrified.
She looked like she might break at any moment.
Dead Man Pepper sunk further into his seat. He wondered what the hell they wanted in exchange for the necklace.
20
Wade waited until the old man was comfortable in his chair before he began to tell him what he was after.
"My name is Captain Wade Docherty. I seek the Cursed Hangman," he began, and Pepper rolled his eyes. Wade should have expected it, really. Not much was known about Dead Man Pepper except that, well, he should have been dead. He was the only man known to have been stranded on the Isle of Changers and lived to talk about it.
When the Cursed Hangman had vanished years ago, every pirate alive had searched for its treasure. Every pirate had tried to find old Mad Drake's ship. Every pirate had aimed to claim that booty for himself.
But as time passed, the searchers stopped looking.
Only Wade Docherty never did.
The Saucy Devil didn't give up that easily.
He had continued seeking after the treasure, traveling far and wide to find it. Now he had a map that showed an alternate route, one he hadn't known about before, one that Mad Drake had attempted to take.
And it passed right by the Isle of Changers.
While he had never given the isle much thought, now Wade wanted to know as much as possible. He had never been this close to finding the treasure. And he was close. He could sense it. He could practically smell it.
"I need to know what you know about the isle," Wade told Pepper. At this, Pepper laughed out loud.
"Do ya now?" He asked, grabbing his glass of whiskey from the table next to him. He took a long swig. Wade waited, quietly, as the pirate closed his eyes. Wade knew that look well. Pepper was trying to decide how much he was going to tell Wade and Julianne. He was going to decide how much of the truth he was going to tell them.
He was going to decide whether the necklace they’d brought him was valuable enough to give them what they needed to know.
And Wade was about to find out if he would ever be able to get past the Isle of Changers and claim his prize.
