Chapter Four: Taking the bait
1st September.
"Welcome home," Jordan said, as Carrie walked in followed by Sinclair. He'd never quite gotten used to the fact that they were a couple now, and had been for several months. Carrie continued to reassure him that it was all part of the plan, but Jordan could see their relationship becoming more than just a means to an end for both of them. He began contemplating if he would have to step in at the end and finish the job himself to extricate her from Sinclair's jet-setting world.
"Thanks," Carrie sighed, dropping the large carry-all on the table and walking into the kitchen to get a coffee. She was beyond tired. Her whole world had been turned upside down and inside out over the last two months. She had never felt so out of control before she had begun a relationship with Sinclair Mansvelt, and, as soon as she had agreed to live with him for at least a year, he had been swift in taking over her life, both professionally and personally.
Sinclair had a long-standing friendship and business relationship with the director of the Museum she worked at, and the day after agreeing to live with him on a trial basis she had been promoted and given the responsibility of curating the Mansvelt collection in order to put together an exhibition the following year. She had been given a week to put together a small trustworthy team and organise the secure vault within the museum to start collecting and cataloguing items for the exhibition.
To her surprise, he had a variety of treasures in a number of locations worldwide, and, while it was true that he didn't have a London house, he did have a manor house on the west coast of Ireland. Carrie and her team had spent two weeks there together, finding a great deal of historical information in the form of log books from captured ships in the golden age of privateering and piracy.
Carrie had also been surprised that much of the information and artefacts stored there focused on the Viking raids and slaves they took with them to their northern lands or bonded to their clans as they settled in the UK. She was pleased, however, to find a large section of the library dedicated to one of the few acknowledged women pirates from the era, Grace O'Malley. She'd been fascinated since her early teens by the strong independent woman who lived in a time where women were not encouraged to be free thinkers, and she spent a great deal of time exploring the documents she found in Sinclair's collection there.
While there was a distinct lack of artefacts in terms of gold or jewels, the library was an immense treasure on its own, and, along with her team, Carrie had spent most of the time in Ireland working in the temperature controlled environment. Sinclair had seemed not to mind, as he dealt with his business associates in the area and got up to speed on the day to day running of the manor and its income.
She had been introduced to the husband of Sinclair's assistant, Debbie, there. When Sinclair wasn't in the United Kingdom, she and her family resided in the Manor house as caretakers and were assumed to be the owners by the surrounding villages. Carrie had wondered why this hadn't come up in any of her searches, but found that the house was owned by Sinclair Mansfield. She had been so focused on Treasure Island in the South Pacific she had put little energy into any other aliases or residences, and none had been mentioned by Robyn in the plan.
Jordan had found that Sinclair had used variations of his name after receiving the burn phone, and had informed her only after she had agreed to move in with him. Carrie felt foolish for relying so heavily on the information Robyn and her grandmother had gathered over the past decades about the association and the men who made up its numbers. There had been alias's listed for some other the Hats, but not with Sinclair, and she hadn't thought to consider that Robyn's information may have been out of date, despite her illness limiting her work.
Sinclair's move into her home and life had altered her world considerably following the house party she agreed to attend as his official girlfriend. She'd enjoyed the weekend meeting some of his friends, and had been pleasantly surprised to find no other Hats in attendance at the party. Still, there was so much about Sinclair she didn't know, and, as they grew closer in their relationship, he had begun trusting her with snippets of information about himself that both teased and tantalised her.
The visit to his home in Cameroon the following month had been eye opening, in that his family had a large collection centred around the Blackbirding slave trade from the West African nations to the Caribbean and Americas. The artefacts there were beautiful and valuable in their own right, but once again lacked the pirate hoard quality she had been expecting from the Mansvelt family.
She hadn't been surprised to find his Mansion in Ireland had a large household staff, but, at his home in Cameroon, the staff seemed odd to her. It was as if the slavery she read about in the provenance of each artefact and journal had been pressed upon the people who worked to keep the mansion beautifully maintained in the equatorial climate. She had been glad to leave after two weeks, the strangeness of the mansion and its staff, as well as the collection housed there, had an unsettling effect on her.
"You look beat," Jordan commented, as she poured the freshly brewed coffee into a large mug.
"Flying overnight sucks, even in a private jet," she came around the table with coffee for both herself and Sinclair and sat down beside Jordan. "How've things been here?"
"Same old, same old. We had a job come in I thought you might like to do with him," he said, glancing to Sinclair, who came back into the room after taking their luggage upstairs. "If he's still willing to help with our business, that is."
"Sure, I've been good for far too long. It will give me a chance to brush up my skills," he grinned. He took a chair at the table and picked up the steaming mug of coffee Carrie had poured for him. "Thanks," he turned his smile on Carrie and leant over to kiss her.
"Great, I'll run you through it after work," Jordan said, rising from his chair and taking his breakfast dishes into the kitchen.
"I need to go to the museum for a few hours, but I'll be home tonight," Carrie agreed.
"Don't you have a doctor's appointment?" Sinclair frowned.
"No, I said I'd call and make a doctor's appointment today!" Carrie said heatedly.
"Everything okay?" Jordan asked in concern.
"Just need another Depo Provera injection," she tapped her arm.
