A Whisper of Danger Read online

  Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  A Whisper of Danger

  Copyright © 1997 by Catherine Palmer. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph copyright © 2000 by Paul and Linda Marie Ambrose/FPG. All rights reserved.

  Originally published in 1997 as The Treasure of Zanzibar.

  Designed by Melinda

  Schumacher Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the previous edition as follows:

  Palmer, Catherine, date

  A whisper of danger / Catherine Palmer.

  p. cm. — (HeartQuest) (Treasures of the heart ; 2)

  ISBN 0-8423-3886-1 (sc)

  1. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 2. Mothers and sons—Fiction.

  3. Zanzibar—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

  PS3566.A495 W48 2000

  813´.54—dc21

  00-056769

  _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-2191-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4143-2191-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  14 13 12 11 10 09 08

  7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to Geoffrey Palmer, my beloved son.

  “I asked the Lord to give me this child, and he has given me my request. Now I am giving him to the Lord, and he will belong to the Lord his whole life.”

  1 Samuel 1:27-28

  Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where they can be eaten by moths and get rusty, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven. . . .Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be.

  —JESUS CHRIST (MATTHEW 6:19-21)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “Help, help! I’m drowning!” The reed-thin voice faltered. “Somebody save me!”

  Jessica Thornton planted her fists on her hips and cocked one eye at the attic door. “Spencer, are you up there?”

  “A shark bit through my air hose! I can’t . . . can’t . . . breathe. Aaagh!”

  Sounds of gurgling and choking mingled with the dull thuds of Spencer Thornton’s agonized death throes. Jess shook her head. Drowning. What an awful fate.

  “If I can just . . . swim . . . up . . .” Spencer groaned, “up to my boat.”

  Trailing a hand on the banister, Jess climbed the steep staircase. “Hey, Captain Splinter, this is your mother speaking. Grab a life buoy, and get yourself down here. I want to talk to you.”

  She reached the attic door and leaned against it, listening. From the other side came a loud gasp, a weak moan, and the crash of a heavy object falling onto the attic floor.

  “Spencer?” Jess threw open the door. Heart racing, she searched the dimly lit room, gloomy with spiderwebs and the massive, undefined shapes of shrouded furniture. “Splint? Are you all right?”

  “The treasure chest!” The voice came from somewhere near the ceiling. “I dropped it back into the sea. That gold is probably spread across leagues of ocean floor by now.” The voice paused, deepened. “Well, you’ll just have to go back for it, Captain Thornton. I’m not leaving the Bay of Bengal without my treasure.”

  Jess stepped over a box of broken Christmas balls and squinted. In the faint light coming through a round window in the gable she could just make out the thin body of a boy dangling by his skinny arms from a horizontal collar beam. Legs flailing, he was attempting to haul himself onto the wooden rafter. One end of a vacuum-cleaner hose flopped around his head; the other end was attached with silver duct tape to a football tied to his back.

  “I don’t think you realize what you’re asking, Blackbeard,” he growled at his imaginary companion. “It’s a nightmare down there. Sharks everywhere. One of them bit right through the air hose on my Aqua-Lung!” He grabbed the loose end of the vacuum-cleaner hose and shook it. “See this? Cut clean in two. If I weren’t as brave and powerful as I am, I would have died of the bends trying to get back to this boat.”

  He threw one skinny leg over the collar beam and pulled himself up to a sitting position. “I don’t care if sharks tear you to pieces, Thornton,” he shouted, his voice now deep and gravelly, the quintessential pirate voice. “I want my treasure!”

  “And I want you to get down from there before you fall, Splinter,” Jess cut in. Her son had given himself the nickname when he was too young to pronounce his real name. “I’ve been combing this house for you. How many times have I told you to let me know where you’re playing?”

  “Avast!” the boy cried, spotting his mother walking toward him. “A pirate vessel bearing down hard at starboard, Cap’n! She’s coming fast, mates. A good fifteen knots, I’d say. Man the cannons!”

  “I need to talk to you about something, Splint.”

  “Ahoy, there! Do you come in peace?”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Then we’ll give you permission to board. Throw the gangplank from your ship to ours and climb across.”

  Jess glanced at the wobbly chair her son had indicated. Then she looked up at the dusty, web-coated collar beam. Ah, the joys of motherhood. After kicking off her sandals, she climbed onto the chair and hiked up her jeans. She grabbed the beam, swung one leg over it, banged her knee, and nearly toppled over before righting herself.

  “Welcome aboard the Golden Crescent,” Spencer said as his mother scooted toward him, her long legs dangling. “Speak your piece, matey. We’ve work to do here, and there’s no time for lollygagging.”

  “I’m going to gag your lolly in a minute, Splint.”

  Jess studied her son. His violet eyes were the mirror image of her own, but where her hair glistened with red fire, the gold of sunshine danced in his. All arms and legs, he had lost the soft curves that once had made him cuddly. Now he was ropy and thin, with broad shoulders, the hint of a man’s square jaw, and smooth skin stretching across high cheekbones.

  Splinter had been gifted with near-genius intelligence, and creativity seemed to ooze from his every pore. Yet he was all boy. Anything dirty, hidden, explosive, or smelly held him in rapt fascination. He spent hours sketching treasure islands and building models of spaceships from paper clips and empty toilet-tissue rolls. If something could be swum in, Splinter swam in it. If something could be climbed on, Splinter viewed it as a personal Everest. He wore holes through his socks, regularly stained the knees of his jeans green, and never had two matching gloves.

  “My chest of rubies and emeralds is smashed on the sea floo
r,” he informed her. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, there are gold coins spread from here to Indonesia. If I don’t repair this Aqua-Lung and get back to work, Blackbeard may feed me to the sharks.”

  Jess regarded the broken Christmas ornaments scattered across the attic floor. Rubies and emeralds? She quelled the urge to shout, “That is broken glass! And your feet are bare! And who knows what kind of spiders are up here, and if I have to take you to the emergency room one more time, young man . . .” Instead, she reached out and laid a hand on her son’s leg. “Splinter, we need to talk.”

  “What, Mom?” His eyes grew serious. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’ve had a letter from someone.” She searched the boy’s face, praying that she could carry out the careful plan she had made to tell her son gently the incredible things that had happened in the past two weeks. “Remember the stories I told you about growing up in Africa?” she began. “About how my father was a professor and my mother died when I was just a little girl? Remember the old African lady who took care of Uncle Grant, Aunt Tillie, Aunt Fiona, and me? Hannah Wambua?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You know I’ve always loved Africa, Splinter, even though we live in London now so I can be near my work.” She took a deep breath. “Two weeks ago I got a letter about someone I used to know in Africa.”

  “You found my father!”

  Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, Splinter. Where did you get that idea?”

  “You told me you met my father in Africa. He was the son of missionaries. You got married to him. You said he didn’t even know you were going to have a baby when he went away. Did my father write a letter to you? Have you told him about me yet?”

  Jess stared into her son’s eyes, dismayed at the light of hope burning there. For ten years she had blocked her son’s father out of her mind. As Spencer had grown, she had painted for the child a vague picture of a faceless, ephemeral man who was neither good nor bad, a man who had vanished like the mist on a sunny morning.

  It was clear that the boy had mentally connected Africa with his father. Jess would have to blot out that notion. She would do it carefully but firmly. Just as firmly as she always shut the door on her own bitter memories.

  “Splinter, honey, the letter was from an attorney. It was about a man I knew after you were born. My old art teacher.”

  “Did your art teacher know my dad?”

  “This has nothing to do with your father!” Tentacles of anger reached up inside her at the memory of that man. “This is about Ahmed Abdullah bin Yusuf, the professor who taught me how to sketch and paint a long time ago when I lived in Tanzania.”

  “Oh.” Crestfallen, the boy started swinging the loose end of the vacuum-cleaner hose.

  “So, anyway.” Jess tried to resume her gentle revelation of the news. “You were a baby when I started taking lessons from Dr. bin Yusuf in Dar es Salaam. Hannah moved in with us, and she took care of you during the day while I was getting my education. When you were four, we left Africa and moved here to London. After I worked for a couple of years painting greeting cards and calendars, I met James Perrott.”

  “Why are you telling me all this stuff? I know James writes Kima the Monkey books, and you illustrate them, and you’re getting ready to start Kima the Monkey and the Irritable Impala, and you don’t know where you’re going to find an impala to sketch, and you hope they have one at Regent’s Park Zoo, and—”

  “Splinter!” Jess gripped the beam. “I got a letter from a lawyer telling me that my old art teacher got very sick and died and left me his house on Zanzibar Island. I’ve decided to move there.”

  The violet eyes blinked. “With me?”

  “Of course with you. I wouldn’t leave you here alone. It’s a big, old house. There’s lots of room.”

  “Why would your art teacher will you his house? Didn’t he have a wife? Didn’t he have kids?”

  “Dr. bin Yusuf didn’t have a family. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure why he left his house to me, Splint. I know I’m his most commercially successful student, and I use a lot of his methods in my paintings. I always admired his work. He thought my technique was strong, too, and he was proud of what I’ve accomplished. But I think his decision to give me the house had something to do with the fact that we became very close when I was his student. In a way, he was like a father to me. Maybe he felt I was the daughter he never had.”

  “So what makes you think I want to live in some dead guy’s house in Africa?”

  Jess forced down the urge to admonish her son for disrespecting the man she had revered. This wasn’t the time for a lecture. “We’ll have fun in Zanzibar,” she said. “Mama Hannah’s going to move in with us. She’ll keep an eye on you while I paint.”

  “Mom, I’m ten years old. I don’t need a babysitter!”

  “Mama Hannah’s not a babysitter. She’s like a grandma. You loved her when you were little.”

  “A grandma! I don’t need some old lady looking out for me.”

  “Hannah’s coming, and that’s settled. You’ll like her, I promise. I’m going to start illustrating the impala book as soon as we get there. James thinks we can work out the details by phone and fax. My editor’s not thrilled with the idea of my moving so far away, but I told her I can paint with more authenticity if I’m living in Africa. An old car comes with the house. I’ll be able to drive you into town to school.”

  “School? You mean we’re going to live there forever? Like for the rest of our lives? What about Nick? What about my bed and all my stuff? I don’t want to move to Africa. I like it here.”

  “We’ll live right beside the ocean.” She gave her voice the beckoning quality that sometimes worked on him. “White sand. Snorkeling. You’ll be able to swim every day. You can look for shells. You can climb coconut palms.”

  “But I don’t want to leave Nick. He’s my best friend.”

  “You and Nick can be pen pals.” She leaned over and whispered in his ear. “You can send him letters about your sunken ship.”

  “Sunken ship!”

  “Dr. bin Yusuf told me about it years ago. There’s supposed to be a wrecked ship near the reef. Sometimes gold coins wash ashore.”

  “You mean I might find treasure on the beach?”

  “You never know. The main thing is you’ll be breathing fresh air, and you won’t have to go away to boarding school next term like we’d thought. We’ll eat mangoes and bananas every day. We’ll even see real monkeys.”

  “Whoa! I gotta tell Nick.” He jumped to the floor, leapt neatly over the ornament shards, and spun around in midair. “When are we going?”

  “About a week.”

  “Wahoo!” He pumped his fists toward the ceiling and threw back his head. “Zanzibar!”

  Tearing off his Aqua-Lung, Splinter raced for the attic door. The football fell to the floor and bounced away with the vacuum-cleaner hose still attached. As she lowered herself to the chair, Jess heard her son’s bare feet pound down the stairs.

  She stepped onto the floor and picked her way through the broken ornaments to the attic door. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out onto the landing and shut the door firmly. The past was far behind. The future beckoned.

  Zanzibar.

  ONE

  Splinter chewed on the cap of his ballpoint pen, working the blue plastic around inside his mouth and flicking the clip in and out like a lizard’s tongue. He had been in Zanzibar only five hours, and already amazing things were happening. He couldn’t wait any longer to write to his buddy Nick back in London.

  After smoothing a sheet of lined notebook paper on the café table, he began to write:

  Dear Nick,

  Africa is awesome. First, you ride for nine hours on an airplane. Every time you push the overhead button, the stewardess comes and brings you a blanket or a pillow or a magazine. You can push the button all you want until your mom makes you stop.

  Then your plane lands in a city called Dar es Salaam. It’s
nothing like London. You could get lost there, believe me. After your mom calls the police and they find you, you get on a—

  “Mom?” Splinter lifted his head. “How do you spell hydrofoil?”

  “H-y-d . . . oh, honey, just guess.”

  Splinter frowned. His mom’s hand was shaking as she stirred her tea. He’d never seen her face so white. The rest of her looked okay, though. She had on a blue blouse, a denim skirt, and a pair of sandals. After the hydrofoil ride, she had brushed her hair. It was bouncing around her chin as usual.

  She had told him she had something called jet lag. She said as soon as Hannah came in on the afternoon hydrofoil from Dar es Salaam, they could all go out to the new house, and everything would be better. Splinter shrugged and went back to his letter.

  —hydrafol. It’s like a boat with huge metal fins under it that lift the hull when it goes fast. It travels on top of the water from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar—twenty-two miles. Mom told me not to dangle over the side anymore unless I wanted to become dinner for a shark.

  Zanzibar is a very old town with hundreds of winding streets. Africans, Arabs, Indians, and Europeans live here. Mom said the Arabs used to ship slaves, ivory, and gold out of Zanzibar. Now the island people grow cloves. In Zanzibar, you can get even more lost than in Dar es Salaam. Your mom can get lost, too.

  After she figures out how to read the map, you might talk her into buying you a lamp just like Aladdin’s, but without the genie. I also got a cool model of a boat called a dhow. You can see the sultan’s palace and the house where David Livingstone used to stay before he went exploring. Mom said to stay close to her, and I know why. We passed a witch doctor’s shop, and we walked down a lane called Suicide Alley. Then we ran into a group of people, and my mom used to know some of them. Right in front of them, she—

  “Mom, how do you spell barf ?” Splinter tapped his pen on the notebook. “You know—upchuck, ralph, spew—”

  “Splinter, what are you writing?”