Welcome to Legends & Lore
Hello again!
February is shaping up to be a powerhouse month — from Joachim Trier’s award‑sweeping film Sentimental Value to a wave of bold new book releases, and a publishing world leaning ever more toward stories of genuine human connection. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, let’s celebrate the little extra warmth this month brings — chocolates, flowers, and perhaps the perfect excuse to curl up with this week’s chapter of Bushranger’s Treasure, where history and mystery intertwine.
Previously in Bushranger’s Treasure
Michelle Cruise, a TV presenter of a historical mystery program, flew to the Gold Coast to spend a few days with her parents, which she always does when she finishes a case. But this visit is different. Someone slipped a photograph into her dressing room: a historical carving lost in the Gold Coast’s 1912 flood. Looking for clues, she brought the photo to family lunch, hoping her mentor, Professor Adler, and her police‑detective father might shed some light on it. Instead, she uncovered a bushranger’s legend of mystery lights, a crying ghost, and a century‑old skeleton found near the Nerang River.
Chapter Three - Scene 1
Ghost of Nerang River
Detective Inspector Martin Borg glanced at his watch. The river hummed beside him, brown and slow, carrying the smell of wet earth and reeds. He leaned against his unmarked SUV, arms crossed, sunglasses hiding the dark shadows under his green eyes.
Shouldn’t have drunk so much, he thought, remembering last night’s BBQ bash. He stroked his jaw. The stubble rasped under his hand.
A car door slammed. 7He looked up — and there she was.
Michelle Cruise stepped out of her mum’s Hyundai, brushing her hair back. She looked up — and the memory hit him suddenly — a five‑year‑old girl in a long pink dress, a plastic tiara holding her pale hair, marching into Professor Adler’s study like she owned the place.
Her huge violet‑blue eyes flicked from the Lego tower he and Chris were building to the mechanical puzzle perched on the Professor’s desk. Without hesitation, she reached up and grabbed the cylindrical metal cage with the spiked ball trapped inside.
“What’s this?” she asked, turning it over in her tiny hands.
“That is a puzzle,” Professor Adler said, glancing down at her over his glasses, an eyebrow arching. “If you remove the sun from the cage, you can keep it.”
She smiled, her little fingers already working the spikes, her brain finding the pattern.
“What’s a puzzle?” she inquired, plucking the spiked ball free as if by magic.
The Professor blinked. Then he laughed, delighted and astonished.
“Apparently, a piece of cake for you, Princess.”
And now he watched her march toward him with the same determination she’d displayed twenty years ago. Pale hair brushed back, eyes sharp, posture confident. Michelle Cruise. The host of a popular TV show. The mystery solver.
She caught him staring and smiled.
“Hello, Detective.”
“Hello, Princess,” he replied, matching her tone.
She stopped in front of him, regal even in gumboots.
His gaze dropped to them. “I see you’re dressed for it.”
“Uncle Reg suggested it.”
Of course he did. He pushed off the car and nodded toward the track. “How is he?”
“A little lonely, I guess, now that Chris is almost permanently in LA.”
“The sex symbol of Down Under,” Martin mocked. “You still see him?”
“Hardly,” Michelle shrugged. “He’s too busy with his new film.”
They walked along the narrow path. The river shimmered in the sun, deceptively calm. Michelle moved beside him, eyes scanning the ground.
He pointed at the patch of reeds. “This is where they saw the lights,” he said. “Moving upstream.”
Michelle crouched, checking the waterline. “Against the current?”
“Yep.”
“And the screams?”
He didn’t want to spook her. But she wasn’t a child anymore.
“Around here.”
She glanced up. “Could’ve been a bird or animal?”
“I doubt it.”
She stood, brushing the dirt from her hands. “Dad said you found a body.”
“Skeleton,” he corrected. “Clothes nearly gone. Pathologist dated it to the late 1800s.”
“Bushranger era.”
“Exactly.”
Michelle fished in her bag and handed him a photograph.
He scanned the image of a compass rose carved in a stone half‑submerged in water and frowned. “I can show you where it was taken.”
“How? It was lost in the flood.”
“Apparently not.”
“So someone found it again, or with today’s technologies…”
“It can be a scam,” he finished, pushing his sunglasses up onto his head and meeting her eyes.
“Show me the carving, Martin.”
...to be continued...
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