His mental meanderings were ended abruptly by Cynthia calling down to see if everything was all right. He climbed out of the engine room assuring her that all was well, already forgetting his more serious thoughts of cons, swindles and misadventure.
There was only an hour of daylight left when Langdon motored through the swells, leaving the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean and entering the narrows of New River Inlet. The ocean waves had been problematic as Cynthia’s cruiser approached the entrance with Langdon’s fishing boat in tow. Not wanting the fishing boat to surf down the waves and ram the stern of the cruiser Langdon had let out a fairly long tow line as they motored through the surf but immediately upon entering the narrows with their ever-changing sand bars he was forced to scramble to shorten the tow line to navigate the channel. The plan had worked well with no small credit going to Cynthia who had been in charge of the tow line as Langdon maintained the wheel. If you overlooked the fuel gauges, she was a very competent deck hand.
After a hectic few minutes, the two boats rounded the northern tip of Topsail Island and the water calmed to a river-like stillness in the Intra-Coastal Waterway. At slack tide, with almost no wind, the short trip back to Cynthia’s private dock on a backwater channel of Topsail Island was as calm as a sunset cruise could be.
As the two boats approached the dock, Cynthia took the wheel allowing Langdon to step off her boat and tie up. She had come in at dead slow and there was no difficulty controlling Langdon’s boat, still in tow behind the cruiser.
Langdon was impressed with Cynthia’s abilities.
“You did that to perfection,” he exclaimed. “How much fuel do you have left?”
Cynthia studied the gauges. “One tank is nearly empty and the other is about an eighth full.”
Langdon laughed. “Now you know where to find that invaluable information.”
Cynthia accepted the jibe good-naturedly.
“Tie up your boat and we’ll go up to the house. I’m starving and I have real food in the freezer.”
Langdon hesitated but decided that he would not feel right until he knew Cynthia was all the way home. They were on the inland side of Topsail Island and Cynthia’s home was on the ocean side. He looked around and noticed a golf cart.
“Is that your ride? I thought you said you ran down to your boat.”
“I’m too damn old to run in anything but a golf cart. Hurry up with those dock lines,” she answered impatiently.
Langdon grinned and got back to his task.
The house was a modest, open-concept two storey, built in the early seventies when Californian architecture was beginning to spring up in different locales. It was not run-down, but it looked like the blistering summer sun and salt water had gotten a bit of an upper hand on the local painter. Inside, it was clean and neat but the kitchen cabinets were the original ones with plywood doors and the appliances looked a good fifteen or twenty years old. A peninsula bar separated the kitchen and the dining room, doing double duty as both a breakfast nook and a cocktail bar. Liquor bottles were lined up neatly on an open shelf and Langdon remarked that it was far better stocked than the galley in the boat.
“That was a full day, for me. I need a Scotch and then I’ll heat up some homemade lasagna,” stated Cynthia.
Langdon nodded. He had stopped drinking Margaritas at four in the afternoon and it was now almost nine o’clock. Cynthia’s menu for supper sounded perfect.
Cynthia may have claimed hunger but she lingered over her Scotch before she even set foot in the cooking part of the kitchen. Langdon sat opposite her at the bar and kept up banal conversation while Cynthia prepared supper. The homemade lasagna might have been frozen but the salad Cynthia was making was all fresh vegetables, not pre-packaged lettuce, cut up and bagged in cellophane. She even made her own salad dressing with olive oil, vinegar, garlic and other spices. Then she reverted to the freezer and baked up a few dinner rolls, courtesy of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Everything was timed to perfection, table set, salad, fresh rolls and lasagna was all served at once so that Cynthia would not have to get up during the meal. The simple meal warranted and received huge praise from Langdon.
It was now ten-thirty and Langdon was looking at, at least midnight by the time he motored back to Wilmington. Cynthia caught him yawning and promptly offered him the guest room. Langdon began to decline but Cynthia reached for the Scotch and topped up his drink. Given the choice of refusing the drink and motoring back on the ICW half asleep, or accepting another drink and hitting the hay much sooner, Langdon opted for the nightcap and the bed.
X X X X X
Cynthia was an early riser. Langdon heard her banging around in the kitchen and decided it was time to get up. He had barely said good morning when a coffee cup appeared.
“Thank you for staying last night. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it. I didn’t tell you the whole story yesterday but I thought about it last night before I fell asleep and I decided to fill in a few blanks. That’s if it’s all right by you.”
Langdon nodded. Over a pot of strong coffee she began her personal tale.
Cynthia’s husband had been retired for three years and the two were comfortable when he was diagnosed with cancer. They had about ten acres of land beside their home. The Gold Hole was on their lot which was higher up than most properties on Topsail Island. This was undoubtedly the result of tons of sand being dumped in the surrounding area when the hole was dug. The other explanation was that an ancient ship had been sunk in the ever moving sand and over the centuries a dune had built up, over and around the obstacle. Perhaps nature had helped Blackbeard hide his treasure deeper than he ever intended.
Regardless, Cynthia’s husband had refused to sell the house and the Gold Hole but decided that Cynthia would need additional money and fewer headaches when he died. He had willingly sold the nine remaining acres to a developer who wanted to build ocean-view and ocean front homes. The developer, a young, ambitious man from Florida, had previously built some very fine, custom homes but was still “just getting started.” Her husband met the young man and had liked him immediately. That seemed more important to him than cash. They agreed on a modest down payment because her husband claimed the young man needed most of his cash to secure the development rights. The deal he had struck with the developer was that he would hold the mortgage on the property and receive balloon payments each time a lot or a house was completed and sold. Her husband planned it well. Cynthia would be left with plenty of money for her immediate needs and the balance was safely invested and earning interest from the mortgage. At the time, before the recession, it seemed like a good deal.
The developer started off well, getting the necessary legal work, applications for subdivision and building permits properly in place but as he roughed in the roadways the recession hit full blast and work came to a virtual standstill. Even those who wanted to build, and they were few and far between, had incredible difficulty obtaining financing, despite the federal government subsidizing huge bailout loans and packages to the banks to facilitate borrowing.
The lack of sales and the resultant lack of balloon payments really didn’t matter much to Cynthia. Her husband’s cancer had been mercifully quick and he had really suffered badly only in his final two months. He left her with enough savings that she had no financial worries. The mortgage she now owned on the nine acres meant little to her. Her lawyer told her she