Free Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] by Wild Jinx Page A

5
He made her an offer she couldn’t refuse . . .
    “A treasure hunt? You want me to spend days, maybe weeks, covering some screwball search for Jean Lafitte’s buried treasure?”
    “It’ll be fun,” her editor, Bruce Cavanaugh, told Celine as they sat in his office.
    She said a foul word under her breath, something about what he could do with his fun. “Don’t you think my talents are best utilized on something more . . . serious?” Celine gritted her teeth. It was a constant struggle for women in journalism. They were assigned the fluff pieces while men got the Pulitzer Prize–worthy stories.
    “C’mon, Celine, you’ve worked nonstop on hard news the past few months. There’s nothing wrong with lightening up on occasion. Besides, you’ll find a way of making it a good in-depth piece. Hell, you could make a PTA meeting newsworthy.”
    “Bruce,” she said tiredly, “another Jean Lafitte treasure hunt? Do you realize how many of these halfbrained schemes there have been over the years? They’re scams.”
    He shook his head. “Not all of them. One of his stashes was found on Jefferson Island. There are authenticated letters from Lafitte saying that he hid $240,000 in gold somewhere on Catouche Bayou.”
    “Who’s the contact person?”
    “Veronica Jinkowsky from New Jersey. It’s a legitimate business.” He shoved a folder across her desk, which she flipped through. It did appear to be a bona fide treasure hunting company, with some impressive finds under its belt. “Look, you can go along with them to Bayou Black. That’s in your home turf, Terrebonne Parish, right? All you would have to do is watch and see how they go about retrieving the treasure. Get some historical background on Jean Lafitte; there are plenty of his descendents around and enough historical data to fill a library. What do you say?”
    “Maybe.”
    “What’s your problem?”
    “My problem is that I should be past fluff pieces.”
    “That’s your opinion . . . that it’s a fluff story. C’mon, Celine, you’re a professional. Act like one.”
    That hurt, and was totally unwarranted. “If I do this, Bruce, you are going to owe me big-time.”
    “Agreed,” he said, reaching across to shake her hand.
    She’d have liked to bite his toady hand, but she didn’t.
    “Uh, there is one thing . . . or two.”
    She stiffened.
    “You would have to get permission from the Jinx people to observe their operation.”
    “You didn’t get permission?”
    “Not yet. We just heard about this last night. There shouldn’t be a problem. This organization has to have dealt with the media before.”
    “Where did you hear about this project?”
    “Someone who works over at Terrebonne Airport heard secondhand about a pilot who was going to be transporting a team over to some remote region on Bayou Black.”
    “And based on that flimsy report, you think there’s a legitimate story here?”
    Bruce’s jaw visibly tightened. “You’ve got your assignment, Celine. Take it or leave it.”
    Okay, he was drawing a line in the sand. Over such a piddly story?
    Was she ready to cross the line? Could she afford to lose her job? What was it Harry Olsen, her old journalism professor, used to say, “Pick your battles, whether they be in war or the newsroom.”
    “Okay, I’ll do it.”
    “You’ll probably need to go out on site with them for . . . I don’t know . . . maybe a week.”
    This got worse and worse. Celine was glad she’d sent her grandfather and Etienne away for two weeks. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be back ’til she was done with this rinky-dink story.
    Bruce made a big mistake then. He said, “Hey, maybe you and this team of treasure hunters could dress up like pirates for a photo shoot if they find the pirate loot. One of them could be a Johnny Depp version of Jean Lafitte, and you could be his pirate wench, like Anne Bonny. Ha, ha, ha.”
    The sound of his office door slamming after her could probably be heard all the way to