A reflection. The little house was dark inside, nothing to hinder that glint. She shifted a bit, saw her own wavering form, almost. Barely. She needed to shift them a little more if she meant to get any kind of glimpse of the man. “Sorry,” she whispered, for lack of anything more insightful. Then a bolt of inspiration struck. “The last delivery didn’t come. It was pouring with rain on Wednesday. I was only trying to make sure that wasn’t what you needed just now.”

The man growled into her ear and tugged her arms a bit toward her back, straining both her shoulders and her gown’s beading. “I don’t know or care about any deliveries. You said you could find it—the silver. Will they have to send their own people in?”

The way he said it—their own people—brought to mind images of ruffians and lowlifes and criminals to rival any of the buccaneers in Mr. Gibson’s stories. And who were they? Libby told her throat to let her swallow, told her heart to calm, told her stomach to ease.

They didn’t listen. “No,” she croaked out, wishing she knew what he was talking about. At least if she knew, she could fight it. Argue. Do something other than stand here, wondering if Beth’s secrets were going to get her hurt or killed. “But I don’t have the silver. Not yet.” That much was certainly true. She didn’t have it, and unless whatever silver he wanted had been among the things Beth had taken with her when she vanished, she didn’t either.

The manifests—the letter that had been with them. That had said something about silver—pirate treasure. Was that what this was about?

He jerked her arms harder, making her squeak a protest before she could stop herself, making a stitch snap somewhere in her shoulder, making her head go light with the scent of jasmine.

“Are you trying to cross them?”

“No! I wouldn’t. I just don’t—I don’t have it!”

“Then get it. One week.”

A week? How in the world were they to put all this together in a week when the last three days had netted them nothing but questions without answers? “I need more than that. A month.” It surely wasn’t unreasonable. Beth had been planning on spending the whole summer here. Perhaps that was how long she anticipated whatever-this-was taking.

The added pressure against her arms said otherwise. “Two weeks, and no more. Bring it to the large cave at midnight that Sunday. Am I clear?”

He pressed still harder, leaving her little choice but to eke out a pain-ridden “Yes!” She tried to jerk away, needing relief, and managed only to pivot them both a few degrees.