Taking even larger steps, she entered the final tunnel. Another thirty yards, tops, and they’d be out. But what if Rod didn’t make it despite her efforts? What would she do? Could she stand to see another person she loved die?
The opening was in sight. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. They were almost there. Five, four.
An explosion like Maria had never heard before knocked her off her feet. Rod slammed against the dirt floor. The earth swayed. The cave walls rumbled, like the sound before an avalanche.
The pounding of falling rocks behind her was all encompassing. And it grew closer. And closer. The mountain was coming down. She and Rod would be smashed if they didn’t make it those last few feet.
Maria rose to her knees. The ground shook. Noise was everywhere. It was everything, both inside her head and out. She scooped Rod’s unconscious upper body off the floor and dragged him by the armpits. So much for not hurting the bullet wound.
Maria took a step toward the opening.
Then another.
And then the last one.
Fresh air had never tasted and smelled so good. A chunk of the cave opening fell off, almost landing on Maria’s foot. She had to put more distance between the two of them and the collapsing mountain.
Maria’s body was exhausted. She fell on her hands and knees. She draped Rod across her back and crawled like a baby. The palms of her hands and her knees stung, covered in cuts from the rough terrain.
Behind her, the mountain complained loudly, as if it were throwing a temper tantrum with Mother Earth.
Maria kept moving forward. Every time she moved she was a few more inches, a few more feet, closer to safety.
Just keeping going.
The earth moaned in defeat.
Maria crawled faster despite the pain. Rod whimpered.
With an earth-shattering boom, the cliff, where the opening to the cave had been, fell into itself. An explosion of dirt rose into the sky.
Maria choked on the dust. Her ears rang. Her muscles shook. Scratches and gashes covered her arms and legs. But none of it mattered. She had gotten Rod out alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Montezuma’s millions still lie entombed … beckoning those with the spirit of adventure and the will to overcome the obstacles.
ARGOSY. “WHITE MOUNTAINS $10,000,000 SECRET” BY STEVE WILSON, MARCH 1966.
Maria had never liked hospitals, but now that Rod had taken up residency in one for the last several days, she’d practically lived there. In addition to the surgery to remove the bullet from his shoulder, Rod had been fed pure oxygen through a mask for three straight days. The doctors had given him pain meds and sleeping aids through his IV so he wouldn’t fight the oxygen treatment. But yesterday, after the hospital staff had forced Maria out of his room and made it off limits to her so the doctors could consult on his condition, the mask had been removed and the medicine decreased.
Today would be the first time Rod would be Rod. At least Maria hoped so. The doctors said the carbon dioxide could have caused permanent brain damage. But fate wouldn’t do that to her, would it? After everything Maria had been through, couldn’t she be given just one little miracle?
A miracle of Rod being well and whole?
The lonely last ten years weighed on Maria. She had chosen the life. She blamed no one. But everything was different now.
Now she chose Rod.
While waiting to get news—any kind of news—about Rod’s condition, Maria had kept her mind busy with details of the case. Whitney’s charges had been significantly lowered. She was now charged with being an accessory to blackmail. Emily Hayward had been charged with the same crime. However, the attorney general’s office had already offered both of them plea bargains by testifying in the trial of Senator Emerson.
The deceased Sherrie Mercer was named as the number one suspect for Mayor Hayward’s death. However, with her demise in the cave came the inability to try her for the murder.
As for the treasure, both Sherrie and the mayor had been only children. Their parents were deceased. No one had even come forward to claim Sherrie’s personal effects. If other family members were alive who knew about the gold, they were staying low at the moment.
A search party had been sent to the “Arden Compound.” They’d come away empty handed. The place had been gutted. When or by whom was unclear. It seemed the last two keepers of the “cave of gold” had taken the secrets they knew to their graves.
As Maria parked her car in the hospital parking lot, her phone rang. It was Ryker. He had been beyond himself, bemoaning that the most amazing archaeological discovery of the twenty-first century was now a mountain-sized pile of rubble.
“Hi, Ryker.”
“Maria, any news about Rod?”
“Not yet. I’m going to see if I can bribe the doctors to tell me something.”
“Well, let me know as soon as you do. I’m on my way out of town. Jim’s coming with me. I’ve had a call from a fellow who says he knows where there are other Aztec glyphs in Utah. You don’t suppose those Aztecs hid their gold in a couple of different spots?”
“As a matter of fact, they could have. The affidavit from Lance Arden said something about a third part of the treasure being taken to a land northern.”
A rush of air escaped Ryker’s lungs. “Then I still have a chance.”
It was good her old professor wasn’t giving up. Maria loved his determination, but truly, Aztec gold was the last thing on her mind right now.
“Travel safely and keep it touch,” Maria said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to talk with Jim since the mountain collapsed. I’ve had too much going on. Please tell him . . . please tell him that Acalan saved me and Rod in the cave. I don’t know if ghosts die, but if they do, then Acalan died a hero.”
“Will do,” said Ryker. “And best of luck with Rod. We’ve all got our fingers crossed.”
“Thanks.” Maria grabbed her purse off of the front seat and opened her car door. “Bye now.”
Walking into the recovery unit at the hospital, Maria’s heart pounded furiously. It was how she used to feel before seeing her ghosts. Only this was real. Rod’s life as he knew it before the cave was at stake.
Please, pled Maria to an unseen force, the same one she pled to in Tehran, please help him be okay.
Maria turned the corner and was approached by several nurses. They must be the new shift. Maria didn’t recognize any of them.
What did their faces say? Was it good news or bad?
“Maria Branson?” asked the oldest of the group.
“Yes?” Every muscle in Maria’s body was tense.
“Somebody’s been asking for you.” The woman winked.
Maria’s stomach jumped from its place well below her lungs into her throat. Practically out of her mouth.
Rod! He was talking!
Maria ran down the rest of the hallway and burst into his room. He sat in bed, a bowl of applesauce on the tray at his side. The television was on. A man on the screen rambled about the virtues of the new Chevy Camaro’s super charged 6.2 liter engine.
“You’re okay!” Maria didn’t remember starting to cry, but she was. Tears dripped off her cheeks. The worry she’d felt over the past days had built inside her like an overfull waterbed, and now it leaked out, tear drop by tear drop. She wanted to hug him but was afraid touching him might hurt something.
“Yep, I’m okay,” Rod answered, shoving a stick of gum into his mouth. “Give or take a few brain cells.”
He looked horrific and marvelous at the same time. His eyes were still swollen. His facial hair unkempt. But none of it mattered. It was Rod, with his overbearing presence that took up the whole room.
Wincing, Rod scooted over in bed, making room for Maria to sit next to him. “I hear you’ve been neglecting your police duties.”
“From whom?” Maria snuggled next to his good shoulder, enjoying the warmth of his alive and breathing body. The fear that she wouldn’t be able to save him
from Sherrie and the cave was a thing of the past. She had gotten him out. And he had saved her from Yaotl in the Three Lakes. They were good for each other. Maybe from here on out they wouldn’t have to keep saving each other’s lives.
“Pete visited me this morning.” Rod grinned. “He just barely left.” Using his hand from his uninjured arm, Rod gently slid his fingers in between hers. The motion was so un-alarming to Maria that it was alarming.
Rod was holding her hand!
Maria’s arm tingled from his touch. “I have so many issues with that. First of all, why did the doctors let Pete in when they wouldn’t let me?”
Rod gave a one-sided shrug.
“And second of all,” continued Maria, “What did Pete come for?”
“To tell me I was the luckiest man he knew, and that I had his blessing.”
It sounded so eighteenth century. “His blessing for what?” asked Maria, acting as if she had no idea to what he was referring.
“For this.” Rod leaned in to her and kissed her full on the mouth.
The angle was awkward, and his unshaven face a bit scratchy, but Maria couldn’t remember another time she’d ever been so happy.
After the kiss, Maria rested her chin on Rod’s good shoulder and quietly said, “Thank you.”
Rod turned his face toward her. Confused, he asked, “For what?”
“For staying alive. I really needed you to not die.”
Rod attempted a laugh but stifled it quickly, the shaking too jarring on his injured arm. “I had to live. You owe me a picnic.”
“Absolutely,” responded Maria, keeping her fingers intertwined through Rod’s. “Just as soon as I go grocery shopping.”
Rod leaned down and rested his forehead on Maria’s. “I’ll take you there myself.”
“Then you’ve got yourself a date.”
A blanket of peace settled over Maria as she held Rod’s hand and watched the mindless television show about cars with him. It felt good to be whole.
One hundred percent, both body and soul.
SKELETONS AMONG US
LEGENDS OF TREASURE BOOK 2
Skeletons Among Us
Legends of Treasure Book 2
by Lois D. Brown
© Lois D. Brown, 2017
Published by Levanter Publishing, LLC
978-1-940576-14-5
www.loisdbrown.com
Special Note: In this book, the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are from actual publications. However, Skeletons Among Us is a work of fiction. While most of the areas in this story are actual places, the names, characters, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or based on legends. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional.
To Writers Cubed
James, Jo, Tahsha, Margie, and Jen
PROLOGUE
It was taking too long. Usually it was a quick twist. A sharp pull. But this one struggled. She was stubborn. Flailing about. She reared back and hit her face on a boulder, causing blood to gush from her nostrils. The red liquid coated her neck, making it too slippery to grip. Choking was no longer an option. This called for the knife, which could be so messy. But the woman’s maddening nosebleed had already made the situation anything but tidy, and her eventual beheading would just add to the chaos.
Hopefully the next one wouldn’t put up such a fight.
Because there would be a next one.
There always was.
CHAPTER ONE
Legend tells of the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine hidden somewhere within the 160,000 acres of brutal Arizona desert known as the “Superstition Mountains.” The promise of a $200 million mother lode has lured thousands of treasure hunters and continues to claim the lives of those eager to decipher the legend’s clues and riddles.
“SEARCHING FOR THE DUTCHMAN’S RIDDLES,” LEGENDS OF THE SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS. HISTORY CHANNEL, A+E NETWORKS, 2015.
Rod’s shoulder pressed against Maria’s in the dark. She breathed in his smell—a mix of freshly cut cedar and a field of wild herbs—and wondered, for the hundredth time, what on earth she was doing in a high school auditorium.
The stage lights flickered as Mrs. Adelaide Wolfgramm, Kanab activist and cat lover, adjusted her scarlet cloche hat and grabbed the microphone as if she was about to eat it whole. “Ladies—and, oh, gentleman,” she began, batting her eyes in Rod’s direction. “It is such a privilege for me to be here. Since being named Kanab’s Woman of the Year, I’ve thought a lot about what I would say when it was my time to pass the title to someone else.”
The large room was full of women from the small desert town—young, middle-aged, and old. It was as if every female in town had dropped what she was doing to come to the annual Women’s Forum. Maria imagined her grandmother had come every year and loved it. But Maria was an outsider. As an adult, she’d lived in Kanab less time than most sun-chasing tourists and their motor homes.
All the same, Rod had insisted she go to the event (against her better judgment). He’d appealed to her sense of duty (and guilt) by reminding her that a “public servant” did more than write traffic tickets and track down bad guys. She needed to help the citizens trust her, and to make that happen she needed to attend things like the Women’s Forum.
It was like Rod to want to help her “adjust” and make friends. He was a social guy. She, not so much. But, to make his point, he’d accompanied her to the event, promising lunch afterward.
Maria had reluctantly donned one of the few pencil skirts she owned and a matching silk blouse. It was only an hour out of her day, and, to be honest, ever since the mayor’s murder had been solved the office had been pretty quiet—an office as calm and serene as a recovering ex-CIA operative with PTSD needed it to be.
“Each year, names are submitted to the Women’s Forum committee by residents of Kanab. These names represent the great women of our community—those whose valiant actions have made our little corner of the world a better place.” Mrs. Wolfgramm dabbed at one eye with a crocheted hanky.
On the large screen behind her appeared photographs of each of the past thirty-three “Kanab Women of the Year recipients,” with their wise, wrinkled smiles and thinning gray hair. Among them Maria recognized the face of Ms. Tuttle, the town librarian and old friend. Maria had the ultimate respect for the woman.
“You look nice by the way,” whispered Rod. “You hardly ever wear one of these.” He ran his finger along the hem of her pencil skirt, tickling her knee.
“That’s because they’re uncomfortable, and they make it a pain to conceal my gun,” Maria whispered back, crossing her legs.
Rod’s eyebrows raised. “So,” he leaned in closer, “where is your gun?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Maria turned her head back toward Mrs. Wolfgramm who was talking about the upcoming community food drive, a project she and a few of her friends organized each year.
“But now, to the real reason we’re all here,” Mrs. Wolfgramm said. “With no more ado, I present this year’s recipient of the Kanab Woman of the Year to—” She paused and looked around, enjoying the control. “—Maria Branson, our new chief of police.”
Maria choked.
What?
Rod grinned and nudged her. “Congratulations, Woman of the Year. I think you’re supposed to go up to the front.”
“You knew about this, didn’t you?” Maria’s eyes watered as the saliva that was building up in her throat caused a violent coughing spell. She swatted Rod’s arm, her way of telling him he should have told her.
“Chief Branson,” Mrs. Wolfgramm called out, “could you please take your rightful place in our quiver of honored recipients. And while she’s coming up, I’ll take a minute to tell you a few things about Maria. To begin, she is incredibly agile and fit. Why, the first day I met her she scaled a tree fifty-feet high in the town cemetery to retrieve my Cocoa Puffs.”
Unfortunately, Maria hadn’t completely uncrossed her legs before sh
e tried to stand. Instead of putting one foot in front of the other to walk, she put one foot on top of the other—causing her to lurch forward, stumble, and fall to her knees.
“Ouch,” she mumbled, catching herself before face-planting into the auditorium’s rough carpet. The audience was uncomfortably quiet, not knowing whether to gasp, laugh or offer help. Quickly getting back up, Maria strode as fast as she could to a short set of stairs and teetered up to the stage. Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floor as she walked to the podium.
Mrs. Wolfgramm cleared her throat, acting oblivious to Maria’s public stumble. “Maria is also very intelligent, as all of us learned when she solved the murder of Mayor Hayward.” Mrs.Wolfgramm shoved the microphone into Maria’s face like a TV news anchorwoman. “Any insightful words for us?”
“I … uh … I … uh.” Maria’s face flushed.
An unannounced hard tap on Maria’s back—the same sensitive spot where one of the terrorist guards in Tehran used to apply pressure during torture sessions—jolted Maria. Instinctively she reached behind and clamped her hand around her assailant, about to flip the attacker onto his back. It would have been an impressive taekwondo move had she been sparring at a dojo. But she wasn’t.
A rumble of laughter came from those sitting in the chairs below.
Maria let go and spun around to find a handsomely dressed nine-year-old boy, hair combed and parted, holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers in one arm. With wide eyes and taking a few steps backward, he recited his memorized line. “On behalf of Kanab, we c-congratulate you for your e-e-exem-pl-ary work,” he stuttered.
Good grief. What was her problem?
Maria bent down and accepted the bouquet with a plastered smile. “Thank you.” The sound of someone’s phone ringing punctuated the scene.
Paranormal Mystery Boxset Books 1-3: Legends of Treasure Page 27