In Too Deep (12 page)

W
e were at my house in fifteen minutes. I made Josh park his car at the curb with the engine running while I sprinted inside. Less than sixty seconds later, I was hustling back down the concrete walkway. I hopped into the car and clicked my seat belt. “Let’s go.”

“This is where you live?” he said, his left forearm resting on top of the steering wheel as he leaned forward to get a better glimpse through the passenger window.

There was so much going on in my head that I didn’t have the energy to be self-conscious about the fact that my house would never adorn the pages of
InStyle
. “No, I just thought I’d run into some random guy’s house.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Just drive,” I said, looking over my shoulder.

“You put on a jacket,” he said. “Were you cold?”

“Left here,” I said. “Go straight until you get to Los Feliz Boulevard and then take a right.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

My breathing was shallow, and the tingle of adrenaline was threatening to turn my limbs into pudding. I forced myself to inhale slowly, and it occurred to me for the first time that I was riding shotgun in Josh Rebstock’s cherry-red Lexus coupe. The car smelled both new and like Josh at the same time, and the leather seats were softer than black-dyed animal hide had any right being. If only the girls could see me now.

“So,” I said, pretending to be nonchalant while keeping my eyes on the side-view mirror, “when was the last time you came over to the east side?”

“You’re acting like someone’s out to get you.”

“I just want to make sure we’re not being followed, that’s all. No big deal.”

We turned onto Los Feliz; the branches of the tall pine trees extended out to the road like claws in the half light. “Who’s going to follow us?” he said with a laugh. “Katy?”

This got my attention. “Why would Katy follow us? Are you guys going out?”

“No, I’m just saying that it’s so unlikely—”

“You said she was acting weird—”

“No, that’s not what I—Forget it.” He glanced at me before gripping both hands on the wheel and staring at the road ahead. “I was making a joke.”

“Turn left here,” I said.

He followed my directions without further comment. We turned up Vermont, through Griffith Park, and snaked around until we reached the Griffith Observatory. The parking lot was empty, and we followed the long circular driveway leading up to the observatory. The sun was down, but the streetlamps hadn’t yet reached full power.

“Drive to the end of the parking lot,” I said.

“This is cool,” he said. “Overlooking the city, the lights, the view.”

Except he didn’t know what to say when I made him turn around and back into a parking spot so we were facing the entrance.

“Okay, so I may have gone overboard with the whole ‘make sure we’re not being followed’ thing.”

“No problem,” Josh said. “The paparazzi are ruthless. You can never be too careful.”

“You think I was looking out for the paparazzi?”

He shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like I’m famous like my mom, but with the magazine article out—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said. “Not that you thinking this is about you isn’t its own special kind of endearing.”

“So, why were you—”

I unbuttoned my jacket as I looked around the parking lot. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

“Annie,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Maybe this isn’t the right—I mean—I know I told you guys like it when girls are more forward, but—”

“Shut up.”

I reached into the inside pocket. My hand closed around the disk, the gold cool to the touch. “I want you to promise me that I can trust you. No goofy movie star bull—”

“Language,” he gasped in mock offense.

“This is serious.” I looked at the hodgepodge of shock and discomfort and confusion on his face, and I realized that I was never going to be completely comfortable with this decision, so I just had to take a leap of faith. “I told you guys in Mexico that I’d gotten separated from Wayo in the Devil’s Throat.”

“Yeah, and then you freaked out.”

“That wasn’t exactly true.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and I removed the disk. It rested on my flat palm as I extended it to him.

He swallowed. “What’s this—”

“Go ahead, pick it up.”

The streetlamp outside had reached full power, and a wide shaft of white light shone in through the driver’s-side window. Josh reached gingerly for the disk, first tracing his index fingertip across the embossed image of the shark-fin rocks.

“You were right about Hawaii,” I said. “I’ve never been.”

He slid his fingers underneath the gold—the warmth of his hand gradually replacing the coolness of the metal against my skin—until the disk was now sitting in his open palm.

“It’s so heavy,” he whispered, his voice filled with wonder. “It has to be solid gold.”

I nodded, letting him experience his first moments with it in silence. There was something primal and childish about the look on his face.

“The two sides are different,” he said to himself. Then he seemed to remember he was in the car with me. “Do you think it’s a map?”

“That’s the only thing I can think of. The rocks jut out of the water on one side, but not the other. Maybe the other side is underneath, like a coral formation or something.”

He nodded. “Makes sense. You find the one above the water first, and that leads you to the one below.”

I pointed to the disk. “And you’re sure this is Molokai?”

“Of course.” Then, perhaps noticing that I’d recoiled a bit, he said, “I didn’t mean it like that. We went there for Christmas vacation one year, my family. This is from Ha-na-something Bay, very picturesque. I had a poster on my wall for a couple of years after that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I know how spoiled and out of touch you movie star’s kids are.”

“Touché.” And then: “We have to go find it, don’t you think?”

I laughed. “It’s just that easy, is it?”

Josh seemed puzzled. “Kind of, yeah. I mean, there are some issues we’d have to work around, but I’m sure we could figure out a—”

“Wayo and I didn’t just randomly get separated. This came from inside a small box. I gave Wayo the box right before he left me down there.”

“So what? The Jaguar has been hidden for five hundred years. We have as much right to go after it as he does.”

I looked away. For some reason there were tiny dots of sweat on my forehead, and my throat had begun to constrict.
Breathe
, I ordered myself. I closed my eyes and wiped my forehead with the first two fingers of my right hand.

“What?” he said. “What’s wrong? What else aren’t you telling me?”

“I didn’t freak out because Wayo and I got separated.”

Even in the murky lighting, I could see Josh’s expression morph from animated to horrified as I told him what happened. When I finished, we sat in the silence together as he struggled to piece everything together.

“He tried to kill you.”

“This is what I’m saying.”

He contemplated the disk in his hand for a long, long moment before looking up at me. “Annie, that’s
amazing
,” he said finally, and laughed. “Seriously, that’s amazing.”

His jovial attitude caught me completely by surprise. “I think you’re missing the—”

“No, really. Some dude turned off your air a hundred feet below the freaking surface of the
ocean
, in the middle of the
night
, and you
survived
?” He breathed out through his lips. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Are you kidding? I was terrified,” I said. “I didn’t know who I could trust.”

“Holy crap. I thought you were hard core before this, but we’re talking about a whole new level of—”

“Josh—”

“I mean, there’s no way Katy would ever have made fun of you if she knew about this.”

“You can’t tell anybody.”

“Why not? This is the coolest thing I’ve ever—”

“You have to promise me.”

“That’s why you were all spooked on the way over here. You think someone’s following you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I tend to see Wayo wherever I look. Maybe he’s there, or maybe I’m imagining it. But even if there is somebody following me—whether it’s Wayo or someone else—I figure I’m safe as long as nobody knows for sure that I have the disk. That there was something in that box.”

“What about Alvarez?”

I shook my head. “Didn’t tell him. I didn’t know if he was in on it or not.”

Josh rubbed his thumb across the surface of the disk and smiled. “Then I guess we’re going to have to go this one alone.”

“You’re not listening to me,” I said. “It’s not as simple as that. These people will
kill
us to get what they—”

A
tap, tap, tap
at my window.

I screamed, flailing my arms up to cover my face. This was it. I knew it. Even Josh must have known it; he yelped like a terrier.

I peeked up to see a uniformed security guard resting the tip of his nightstick against the glass. Josh started the car and rolled down the window, leaning almost out over my lap to see the guard.

“You can’t park here after hours,” the guard said.

Josh, bless his heart, somehow kept his sense of humor. “This isn’t lovers’ lookout?”

“Go home, kids.” The guard glared at us for an extra second and then stepped back, his hands planted officially on his hips, waiting.

Josh waved at the guard as we drove away, but I felt frozen in place. Except for my heart, which hammered a techno beat in my chest. I’d finally told someone about the disk, and that someone was Josh Rebstock.

And that meant I no longer had control over anything that might happen next.

T
o say that I couldn’t concentrate on school would be an understatement. Now that I knew the disk referred to an actual place, I was useless. The first time I Googled it, I nearly fell out of my chair. Type in search term:
Molokai
. Press Enter, and there it was. I held the disk up to the screen for comparison: a perfect match. And the craftsmanship was exquisite. It was as if they’d etched it while at anchor.

Josh and I fed off each other’s enthusiasm, and we shared that nourishment with nobody. Not Nate or Katy, not Mr. Alvarez. We were an island unto ourselves. We spent almost a week researching anything even remotely connected to Cortés or the Jaguar. When I’d exhausted every avenue I could find on the Internet, my dad took me to the library, pleased as punch that I seemed to have recognized the importance of primary-source examination.

And it was refreshing to have told Josh; I was no longer in sole possession of some terrible secret. Neither of us had any idea what it would lead to, but our excitement was enough to keep us talking for hours every night, recapping what we’d learned that day or posing hypothetical questions about Cortés and his motivations. We talked about the thrill of the hunt and imagined what it would feel like to see the Jaguar roar again.

As it had been for the last week, craft service on Wednesday was more of a chore than a culinary event. I sat with the girls at our normal table, but nobody said anything. Mimi seemed to have run out of ways to tiptoe around asking me about Josh and his mom. Then there was Gracia.

At one point, Baldwin walked by our table, a plain white T-shirt draped over his pipe-cleaner shoulders like it was still on the hanger. He glanced at Gracia just long enough to shoot her a smile, which she returned just as skillfully. Mimi didn’t seem to notice him at all, much less the way he looked at our friend.

I wanted Gracia to spill the beans about him, but she knew I was keeping something from her, and I was sure she’d demand full honesty on my part in return. So I didn’t even bother asking; maintaining the exclusivity of my secret with Josh was more important.

Our silent lunch was about halfway done when Mimi slapped her hand on the table and leaned forward. “Okay. Just spill it. You, Josh, Cozumel, this presentation of yours. Have you hung out with his mom? Are they as down-to-earth as the article said?”

“We’re partners,” I said.

Mimi said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Not
life
partners.”

“Who chose who?”

“
Whom
,” I said, deflecting.

“Excuse me, Grammar Police.” Mimi rolled her eyes and scoffed. She took a section of her silky hair and twirled the end of it against the tip of her nose. The vibe was bordering on uncomfortable, and it was only a matter of time before I had to start pretending that Josh and I
were
an item, if only to get them off my back.

“It was kind of by default. Everyone else paired up with each other.”

“This insecurity of yours is mind-numbing.”

Gracia shot Mimi a look. My bodyguard.

“I’m just saying that she can be as hot as she lets herself think she is. By the way,” Mimi said, turning to me, “next time you talk to him, could you do me a favor?”

“This should be fun.”

“It’s not a big deal or anything,” she said. “But maybe you could just ask him if his mom’s happy with her agency. Don’t actually
ask
him that, but if you think you can work it into the conversation somehow—”

I had to laugh. Mimi’s mom was a superagent who
Variety
had dubbed “The Most Powerful Hispanic in Hollywood” three years running. The last thing she needed was my help to land a client.

“Work it into the conversation?” I said. “Hey, Josh. Let’s do some research for our presentation. What’s your favorite candy? Wouldn’t your mom be better off with the great Karen Soto representing her?”

“Try not to be so naive,” Mimi said. “That’s how this town works. That’s how the
world
works. You have a connection, you exploit it. Or did you think everything happened by chance?”

“What if I don’t want to be one of your connections?”

“Well, you are, whether or not you want it. And lucky for you, I’m one of yours.”

“Ladies, please,” Gracia said.

I knew Josh was behind me before I felt the gentle tap on my shoulder. The platonic familiarity of his touch was excruciating.

“Hey, Josh,” Mimi said.

“Hi, Mimi,” he said. He nodded to Gracia, looking a little anxious.

“Is your mom happy with her agent?” I said, glancing at Mimi. She rolled her eyes at me, but at least I’d gotten a smile out of her.

“Sure, I guess,” he said. “Hey, can I steal Annie for a second?”

I felt them tracking me as I followed him to the front hall of the pavilion. Josh had a little bounce in his step, and then a smile exploded off his face. He leaned down so our noses were only inches away, and I smelled mint gum on his breath, and for an irrational second, I thought he was going to kiss me right there in front of everybody. Then I noticed he was holding a manila folder.

“Okay,” he said softly, glancing from side to side before locking in on me. His eyes practically twitched with glee, but he kept the rest of his body entirely still. “There’s a sculpture garden. At the bottom of the ocean.”

I scrambled to make sense of what he’d said, but I got nowhere. “Is that a euphemism for something?”

“Sorry. Let me back up. James Cook was supposed to have been the first European visitor to Hawaii in 1778, right? But that was almost two hundred and fifty years
after
de la Torre’s journals aboard the
Vida Preciosa
.”

“And?”

“The design on the disk is some kind of map, right?”

“Maybe, but we don’t know—”

“We already know one side, the side above water, is Molokai. What if I told you I found something else, something at the bottom of the ocean. Maybe a clue to the other side of the disk.”

“The sculpture garden,” I said.

Josh opened his folder and showed me a grainy picture of a dozen or so pillars rising from a sandy floor. Some were at angles, some rose straight up. I noticed a couple lying horizontally. If they were arranged in a pattern, I couldn’t recognize it.

“This place was discovered in the late seventies,” he said, pointing to the pillars. “A group of archaeologists restored the statues a couple years later, taking off all the coral and crap. They’re Hawaiian. Like, old-school Hawaiian—the archaeologists date them to the mid-1500s—but nobody has ever been able to figure out what they mean or why they’re even there. It’s like Stonehenge. It makes no sense. I mean, we’re talking about the absolute
least
populated of the Hawaiian Islands.”

“What does this have to do with Cortés?”

Josh looked around again before leaning in even closer. He spoke almost without moving his lips. “What if…and this is a big what if…but what if. You know how when the conquistadors first arrived in Mexico and the Aztecs thought they were gods?”

“Montezuma thought Cortés was Quetzalcoatl.”

“Right. What if the same thing happened here? But there was no conflict, so there was no record of it?”

“You’re talking about a secret discovery of Hawaii. Why would Cortés keep something like that to himself?”

My dad stepped tentatively up to us. Oh, goody! Faculty parents are the
best
! “Annie.”

Josh quickly put his hands down, looking like he’d been busted for possession of something worse than a photocopy of an ancient sculpture garden. “Hi, Mr. Fleet.”

“Dad,” I said, trying to be polite. “You know Josh—”

“How could I forget?” my dad said, nodding, but looking oddly distracted. “Mr. Rebstock.”

I caught a glimpse of Gracia spying on me from the lunch table. I shook my head at her, and she smiled all innocent, like “What?”

My dad should have continued on by now. He wasn’t supposed to worm his way into my conversations at school! How many times did we have to go over this? He stepped across the hallway and motioned for me to go with him. “Annie? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

I gave him a quick nod and held a finger up like I’d be right there. “You guys know each other?” I said to Josh through an embarrassed smile.

Josh’s energy seemed momentarily subdued by his encounter with my dad. He whispered, “Last year. I wasn’t able to summon the proper motivation required to succeed at a high level in his course. His words, not mine.”

Great. Josh and my dad had a history together… Hey-oh!

“Josh,” my dad said, clearing his throat as he stepped forward again, “I need to spe—”

“Dad, we’re kind of in the middle—”

He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me aside. This conversation was apparently not optional. I started to protest again, but the look in his eyes shut me up. Sadness. Distress. A little bit of fear. The look you give someone when you’re about to deliver news they don’t want to hear.

“I just spoke with the police,” he said.

I braced myself for his next sentence. A car accident. A heart attack. My mom. My grandfather.

Josh stood across the hall with his arms cradled around his research. Even he could tell something was wrong.

“They’re with your mother. No, not that,” my dad said quickly, reading the terror on my face.

“Then what—”

“Everything’s okay,” he said. “I promise. I didn’t mean to scare—”

“Dad!”

“Our house was broken into this morning.”

Every single molecule of air left my lungs at once. I staggered back, and my dad snaked a hand out to steady me. Fear blinded me, and I tried to blink through it. And then I felt nothing.

“It’s okay, Annie,” my dad was saying, though I barely understood him. “It’s okay. It’s just a break-in. I didn’t mean to upset you. As far as your mom can tell, they didn’t even take anything.”

But I knew how wrong he was.