Bushranger's Treasure starts in Legends & Lore Newsletter #7
1. The Photo No One Should Have
Michelle Cruise stopped short the moment she saw it.
An envelope lay on her dressing‑room table, neatly placed beside her makeup kit. The paper was thick — the kind used for royal decrees or invitations to events that ended in scandal. Her name was written in ink, the color of old wine, with elegant, unfamiliar handwriting.
No return address.
No sender.
Just a wax seal stamped with a lion’s head.
She turned it over in her hands, brows lifting. Whoever sent it knew how to get past studio security — and how to get her attention.
She broke the seal with her thumbs.
Inside was a black‑and‑white photograph.
Old. Grainy. Faintly smelling of dust and silver nitrate.
The image showed a carving on a rock face, half‑submerged in water. A symbol she recognized instantly — a crude compass rose with a slash through the north point. She’d seen it once in an old bushranger article, a fringe theory claiming it marked the route to a hidden cache of stolen gold.
A treasure map, if you believed the legends.
A death omen, if you believed the ghost stories.
She had suggested an investigation.
Her producers had laughed it off.
Michelle stared at the photo, her breath catching.
The carving in the picture doesn’t exist. Not anymore.
The 1912 flood along the Nerang River had destroyed the last of those markings.
So how did someone manage to take a photograph of it?
A soft knock sounded at her door.
“Michelle? Two minutes.”
She glanced at the clock.
Two minutes until she went live on Secrets of World History.
She slipped the photo back into the envelope and dropped it into her handbag, pulse hammering. Someone wants her to investigate it.
Will she?
...to be continued in
Legends & Lore Newsletter #8
2. Sunday Lunch at Gold Coast
The Uber stopped outside her parents’ place, the Gold Coast heat shimmering off the driveway. Shadow bolted out the door with an excited bark, greeting her with slobbery kisses. Laughing, Michelle gave him a good pat and stepped inside, still tasting the Scotch‑and‑Coke she’d had to steady her nerves on the flight. The house smelled delicious of Mum’s cooking.
“Hi,” she called. “I’m home…”
“There she is!” Her father, Steve Cruise, stepped in from the verandah, his steel‑grey eyes sweeping over her. “You’re late.”
“Blame the school holidays,” she said. “Couldn’t book an earlier flight.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered, running a hand through his silver‑white hair. “We’re on alert.”
“Hello, sweetheart.” Her mother appeared from the kitchen, warm and brisk, searching Michelle’s face with the same violet‑blue eyes she’d passed on to her daughter. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” Michelle said, giving her a hug and a kiss. “Good to see you both.”
“How’s the world?” Professor Adler called from the verandah. He was already at the table, his lower lip protruding from the neatly trimmed beard, a habit that made him look permanently unimpressed.
Michelle crossed to him, giving him a quick smile and a peck on the cheek. “Hello, Uncle Reg. Glad you’re here.”
“Well,” he said, “your father promised me some decent wine. Besides your visit, of course.”
“And Hell' of a roast,” Steve chuckled, setting the roast down.
Helene sat down the dish with potatoes and veggies, and swatted him with a tea towel. “Stop twisting my name, and start carving, Chief.”
Detective Chief Superintendent of the Gold Coast Police obeyed with an exaggerated sigh.
Michelle gave her mother a questioning look.
“Your father's on duty today,” she explained.
“I couldn’t change that just because my daughter's visit,” Steve said in defense.
“Wow,” Michelle said, sliding into her seat, “and I thought you would stop the world for me.”
“I would,” he said. “But I have to stop the criminals first.”
Her mother snorted. “The never-ending story.”
Reg tilted his head. “So, Michelle… your last episode. Jesus Christ’s lost years in India? Quite the topic.”
Steve raised an eyebrow. “Did you clear that Buddhist monk’s claim?”
Michelle chuckled. “I thought you watched my show.”
“I tried,” Steve said. “Then some kids stole a jet ski.”
Hellene shook her head. “Honestly, people should commit crimes at reasonable hours.”
They all laughed.
It felt good.
Normal.
Safe.
“I want your opinion on something.” Michelle produced the envelope.
Three heads turned.
She placed the photograph on the table.
Uncle Reg leaned in first. His fork froze mid‑air.
Her father’s steel‑gray eyes narrowed.
Her mother frowned. “What is it?”
“It was waiting for me in my dressing room before the show,” Michelle said.
Reg adjusted his glasses, his gaze sharpening. “Good heavens… I haven’t seen this symbol in decades.”
“You recognize it?” Michelle asked.
“He should,” Steve quipped. “He’s a history professor; he teaches this stuff.”
“Of course I recognize it,” Reg said. “It’s tied to the old bushranger stories along the Nerang River. A compass rose with the north point slashed. Supposedly a marker for his last stash.”
Steve snorted. “Treasure map, if you believe the legends.”
Reg’s chin lifted slightly — the warning sign he was about to lecture. “Legends often start with a grain of truth.”
... to be continued in
Legends & Lore Newsletter #9
3. The Ghosts lights
Michelle tapped the photo. “This carving was destroyed in the 1912 flood. Every article says so.”
“Correct.” Reg Adler nodded. “The river swallowed half the bank. Nothing survived.”
“So how did someone take a picture of it?” Helene asked.
Silence settled over the table.
Steve looked at them, eyes serious. “Hikers still report strange things along that stretch of river. One of my detectives investigated it about a year ago.”
“What kind of strange?” Michelle asked.
“Lantern lights,” Steve said. “Old‑fashioned. Moving against the current. A wailing sound… and a body was found near the water.”
Helene shot him a warning look. “Steve.”
“What?” he said. “She asked.”
Michelle’s pulse quickened. “A murder?”
“A cold case.” Steve shrugged. “Our pathologist put the time of death at a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Reg nodded slowly. “A bushranger was shot near the riverbank. Some say he still guards what he hid there.”
Helene rolled her eyes. “Ghost stories.”
“Probably,” Steve agreed.
Michelle slipped the photo back into the envelope. “I’m going to look into it.”
Steve sighed, but he was smiling. “Of course you are. I’ll call Martin. If you’re serious, he’s the one to talk to.”
“And you’ll need boots, a torch, and perhaps a little courage,” Reg added, raising his glass. “To curiosity. The family curse.”
Helene stood up. “Who wants a cheesecake?”
Everyone did.
They ate. They talked. They laughed.
But Michelle’s mind kept drifting to the river.
To the bushranger’s mark.
Something was hiding along the riverbank.
And someone wanted her to find it.
…to be continued in
Legends & Lore Newsletter #10
4. 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 in
Legends & Lore Newsletter #11