Of course.
Out of frustration, she shut the drawer with more force than needed and moved to peek out the window. She thought she heard a car motor lingering outside and was double checking to see that it hadn’t stopped in front of the lodge.
But it had.
Of course.
She kicked the wall and succeeded in hurting her big toe.
Calm down.
The car wasn’t the police. It was a Yukon—an older model—that looked like it had seen its fair share of rough mountain backroads. For the moment it was parked across the street from the lodge. She could make out several figures inside, but they weren’t moving.
Maria must have triggered a silent alarm of some sort. She had to get out of there. But she wanted to find the photos taken on the day of Dakota’s death. The fact that the envelope wasn’t in the drawer with the rest of them was significant. It made her want to keep snooping. If those people weren’t going to get out of the car yet, then she wasn’t going to leave immediately either.
Keeping her ears tuned to any outside noises, Maria shuffled through every stack of papers she could find on the desk and bookshelves. No manila envelopes.
Using a technique she’d learned in the CIA, she started in the top left-hand corner of the room, and let her line of vision run over every square inch of that wall. She was looking for anomalies—something that shouldn’t be there, or something that should be there that wasn’t.
The first wall was bare. Literally. There wasn’t even a calendar on it. The second wall was mostly window, the third wall had another Native American rug hung on it for décor. The last wall held the desk and filing cabinets.
The rug on the wall.
Maria shot another glance at it and noticed it did not rest completely flat against the wall. There was a slight bump on the right-hand side.
A wall safe. Maria peeked through the window blinds again. The Yukon was still there. Dark inside, but clearly occupied by at least two people. Maybe more. The back passenger windows were tinted and she couldn’t see into them.
Pulling up the wall rug, Maria saw she was right. A safe was mounted into the bedroom wall. Seconds later, with her lock picking tools in hand, Maria was working on opening the safe. She had definitely worked on harder locks, but that was with better equipment. This safe was decently secure, especially when compared to the rest of the house.
A minute ticked by. No luck.
Maria had to get into the safe. She was sure the pictures she wanted were inside. Maybe more.
A second attempt to bypass the safe’s combination code by picking the safety key lock failed.
Breathe deeply.
Adjust the light.
Get a better grip on the tension wrench and—
Outside a car door shut.
Sweat broke out on Maria’s forehead. Time was up. Her mind’s reason center told her to check the window to see how many were coming into the house. But her “I’ve almost got it” plea argued to keep trying. A few more seconds and she would be into the safe. She could feel it.
Footsteps on the road. Whoever was coming was certainly no ballet dancer.
One more prod with her pick and …
Voices.
She was out of time. But still her fingers worked.
One more twist and …
They were at the front door of the lodge, using a key in its lock.
Click.
The safe opened.
So had the front door.
In a split second, Maria spied a manila envelope, grabbed it, and shoved it in her backpack. She closed the safe, letting the rug drop back down. She sprinted into the hallway. There were only seconds before whoever was turning the front doorknob would see her. Gliding across the shag carpet, Maria slipped into the kitchen. The hinges on the front door creaked.
She was no longer alone.
“Sierra sounded the alarm. I’m sure of it.” It was a man’s voice. A deep masculine tone with a backcountry accent. The ceiling lights in the front room burst on, illuminating the house, including the messy kitchen.
With the added light, Maria saw a second kitchen doorway on the other side of the room that lead directly into the front room, making the door she was about to go out of visible to men who had entered.
Change of plans. She’d take the hide-and-wait approach.
“I’ll start in the office,” said a different man whose voice was high and whiny. “You check if the back door has been messed with.”
Maria needed to disappear. Immediately.
Grimacing, she threw herself onto the floor and slid into the dog igloo. The odor of urine mixed with wet dog filled her nose. The saggy, elderly dog was already inside its house, curled up to one side. The can of premium dog food Maria had left for it half eaten.
Men’s boots clomped into the kitchen.
To better conceal herself, Maria scooted next to the sleeping mastiff, pinching her nose shut. She covered herself with the urine-laden towels that served as the dog’s bedding. She was certain she was going to end up with fleas after this.
Oh well. She’d made it through lice in Tehran. Certainly a few dog fleas wouldn’t kill her.
“You said the old lady triggered the alarm?” the man with the whiny voice asked.
His partner answered from the hallway. “Yeah, she did.”
“Well, I don’t get it. Sierra’s not even here. How would she know someone had broken in? Her voodoo stuff again?”
Footsteps approached the igloo. Maria snuggled deeper into her coverings that reeked of dirty dog.
“Knock it off, Kenny,” came the deep voice. “Don’t talk about the Materfamilias that way. I’ve seen her do some pretty amazing stuff. She helped me find my wife’s lost wedding ring like she was magic. I couldn’t believe it.”
“I guess you had to be there to believe it. She doesn’t seem like anything special to me.”
Maria glanced at the drooling dog that had begun to snore. She hoped the men weren’t big talkers. Or card players. Or insomniacs who took any excuse to stay up in the middle of the night. She hoped they got bored quickly and took off back home.
“I don’t know, Lester.” It was the man called Kenny speaking again. “I’m not interested in anything but finding the treasure. Ya know, the reason we joined this crazy group. I keep thinking we should’ve found at least some gold by now. I wanna be rich, not hanging around and obeying orders from some old lady who finds wedding rings.”
“It’ll happen. We’ll find it.”
“Sheesh, I’m starting to wonder. I mean, she sends us up there in those mountains to take pictures of people, and tells us that it’s somehow part of finding the Dutchman’s gold. It doesn’t make sense.”
The men moved about. So far, neither had thought to looking inside the dog house.
“The Materfamilias sees the bigger picture,” said Lester, the man with the much more masculine voice.
“Like tonight? Like how she told us someone was in the lodge when clearly they’re not?” Kenny’s voice was getting higher and more agitated.
“We don’t know that yet. Keep looking. I’m gonna check out the root cellar.”
Root cellar? How long had it been since Maria had heard of a house having one of those?
Footsteps marked the departure of one of the men, most likely the one called Lester. The other walked about the kitchen. He opened the fridge. “Should’ve guessed. Not a darn thing to eat.”
He walked to the back door, fiddled with it a moment and grunted. “Hey Lester?” He opened the back door. His heavy breathing disappeared for a few moments and then returned. “Lester?” he called again. “You hear me?”
Lester must have been in the depths of the root cellar. He gave no answer.
“I wonder where the old girl is?” muttered Kenny. He made clicking, kissing sounds with his mouth.
What on earth was he doing?
“Come on, Misty. Are you here, old girl?”
More strang
e lip noises.
“Where’d that old dog go?”
Not good! He was trying to get the mastiff’s attention. Misty, however, was deep into REM mode—if dogs had such a thing—from her midnight snack laced with Ambien.
“What are you making those stupid noises for?” Lester was back.
“Trying to find Misty. And, hey, I thought you should know that the back door wasn’t locked, but I’m sure I locked it when I left the meeting tonight. Maybe the old woman is right. Maybe someone did break in and then left.”
“Or maybe they’re still here, hiding.” Lester’s voice grew conspiratorial. “Now where would I hide if I’d been caught breaking in?”
This was it. One look around and they’d figure out the only place to hide was in the Igloo. Maria quietly slid the zipper open of another of the pockets in her backpack. She pulled out a smoke grenade. It was the last of her tricks she’d brought. When she saw her break she had to take it.
“If I had to find a hiding place, I’d go in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled,” said Kenny.
Was he kidding? Maria braced for takeoff. Even if he was serious about the bathtub idea, the men would eventually look in the kennel. If not to find her, to at least make sure Misty was still in the house.
“Okay,” said Lester. “Go check out the bathtub.” His voice had grown considerably quieter since learning about the unlocked back door.
“Why don’t you go check out the bathtub? I’ll stay by the back door to make sure no one runs out,” Kenny said.
He actually had a point, because that was exactly what Maria planned on doing.
“The bathtub was your idea,” Lester argued. “You should go check it while I stay in the kitchen.”
As the two men debated who should go and who should stay, Misty, the sleeping dog next to Maria, let out an enormous dog yawn, its mouth opening wide to reveal a row of yellowed teeth. Next, its eyelids fluttered. As if she didn’t have enough going on, Maria now worried she would soon have a barking dog to contend with. But the dog didn’t wake. Instead, all the movement was a precursor to its need to pass gas, which it did, unfettered, directly into Maria’s face.
Lovely.
“Let’s both go.” It was Kenny who spoke. His negotiations skills were about that of a ten-year-old. I’ll hold the baseball bat while you pull back the shower curtain.”
“No,” said Lester. “I’ll hold the baseball bat while you pull back the curtain.”
Kenny exhaled slowly. “Okay. Fine. You hold the bat while I move the curtain. Let’s get this done with, okay?”
“Fine. You go first.”
Still asleep, Misty stretched her legs out, semi blocking Maria’s path to the dog house door.
“Whatever,” Kenny grumbled, stomping out of the kitchen. “You know, you really bug me.”
The men’s footsteps followed one another.
It was Maria’s chance to get out of there. Throwing the disgusting towels off her, Maria tried to slide to the opening, but she knocked into Misty’s legs. The dog yapped and rolled over into the center of the igloo, now completely blocking the exit.
Scooting into the most awkward position known to human beings—except for Chinese contortionists—Maria leveraged her weight and used both hands, while still holding onto the smoke grenade, to push the solid-built dog away from the kennel opening. This time it barked and its eyes opened fully.
“Shhhh.” Maria attempted to soothe the groggy beast.
It turned its head toward Maria, matching her stare.
Maria pushed the dog again, but this time the dog’s hind leg began to shake violently.
“What’s goin—” Maria muttered.
As the paw shook, a transformation began to happen. The paw lengthened and widened. In the place of the furry digits appeared a set of ten cloudy toenails in need of a trim and some prescription fungal treatment cream.
Regardless of their condition, the toenails were most decidedly human. And they were on top of wrinkly, old toes. And those toes were now attached to what seemed to be two calloused feet, both adorned with clementine-sized bunions.
Maria screamed.
Loudly.
With a final thrust, Maria managed to get the dog out of her way enough to make a cleared path out. Sliding on her belly, she exited the igloo and was on her feet in seconds. She darted to the door and grabbed hold of the door knob.
A voice behind her boomed, “Stop or I’ll beat the—”
A pause.
“Awe crap, Lester. It’s a woman. I can’t hit a woman with a bat. My mamma would kill me.”
With that, Maria pulled the pin from the smoke grenade she was holding and flung it onto the floor in front of the men.
Kenny shouted a stream of expletives, most of which Maria figured must have been his own special language. Lester simply bellowed like a birthing mama cow.
Maria yanked the door open as a mountain of smoke poured from the small object. Without waiting to see what happened next, she darted out the door and ran.
Away from the men.
And their bat.
But mostly she ran from the human foot growing out of the leg of the mastiff. Why did her mind play such horrible tricks on her? Was she going to have to deal with a new kind of hallucination now? And just when she finally felt she had more control over her PTSD.
Cursing her terrorists in Tehran for the millionth time, Maria sprinted to Beth’s car, where her best friend waited behind the steering wheel. Despite Maria’s latest craziness, tonight had been a success. She had the contents of the safe in her possession and she could hardly wait to see what secrets they revealed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Weeks later [Walz] came back … with a tale to tell. When their supplies began to dwindle, they decided only one of them would go out for provisions while the other one stayed behind to guard the diggings. A coin toss selected Walz to saddle up and lead the mules down the canyon. He was gone for several days. When he returned, he came upon a horrifying scene.
“MYSTERIES & MIRACLES OF ARIZONA” BY JACK KUTZ. RHOMBUS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1992, PAGE 27.
The night of subterfuge and subsequent paw/foot hallucination was totally worth it for Maria. It was four in the morning and she and Beth still hadn’t gone to bed. The manila envelope she’d stolen had turned out to contain exactly the sort of evidence Maria hoped it would.
“You’re right,” said Beth, who’d been staring at the same photograph for the last ten minutes. She’s with a woman. That is most definitely a woman’s body. But the way the shadow falls, I can’t see any of her face.”
The photograph in question was one that Maria had found, along with about thirty others, in the envelope she’d stolen from the lodge. Each photo pictured different individuals hiking in the Superstitions—sometimes alone or sometimes with others. All were taken on different days that ranged over the last decade.
On the back of the picture of Dakota was written October 22, the day of her fateful disappearance six years ago. Dakota’s figure was circled with pen and “#57” was written off to the side. In the photo, standing a few feet to the left of Dakota, was another figure. The person wore shorts that revealed attractively toned legs. Up a bit further on the body was the obvious presence of breasts. No matter how you looked at it, the figure was most definitely not Rod. That much was obvious. His broad, muscular frame never could squeeze into such a feminine silhouette.
“I knew it wasn’t Rod.” It was at least the tenth time Maria had said that exact phrase in the last fifteen minutes. She and Beth sat on the king-sized guest bed in Brian’s house, their backs against the headboard. “I mean, I didn’t know what to think the day we found the skeleton, but I was in shock. When I really took some time to think about it, I knew Rod hadn’t killed Dakota.”
Beth patted Maria’s hand.
“However,” continued Maria, “I didn’t think it was a woman who killed her. Why is that? I know there are plenty of violent women out there.
Like Sherrie Mercer, for example.”
Beth’s gaze didn’t move from the photograph of Dakota. “You didn’t think it was a woman because statistically there was only one woman among your five suspects. That meant there was only a twenty percent chance of it, and your logical mind went to the most logical choice.”
Maria gaped at Beth and then finally said, “How do you know me better than I know myself?”
“I’m a hairdresser.” It was the answer Beth used for every difficult question. The odd thing was how often it was the correct one.
“Gotcha. Hair dresser. I should have known.”
The two women laughed until Beth’s mouth opened wide into a yawn. “Honestly, I know you do all-nighters all the time, Maria, but I don’t. I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Okay, so what do we do about Melissa? She’s our number one female suspect.”
“I guess you go talk to her and pump her for information or something like that. That’s what they do in the movies.” Beth slid from a sitting position into a horizontal one.
Since seeing the photograph of the woman with Dakota, Maria’s mind had been on fire trying to comprehend all of the implications it meant for Rod if Melissa was the actual murderer.
Beth handed Maria the photo.
“Here’s the thing, Rod’s in danger. If Melissa really is the guilty one, that means she’s not defending him, she’s making sure no one else can defend him. But,” Maria sighed, “if I go in and bulldoze Melissa, there may be repercussions for Rod’s case. I don’t want to make things worse.”
“Absolutely.” Beth curled onto her side.
“Also, Melissa might not be working alone. I’d like to approach her more subtly, not head on. For example, didn’t Tom say Melissa was talking with Rep. Lankin the day she ‘hired’ him to follow us into the Superstitions?”
“Yeah, he did.”
Maria tapped her finger on the bed. “Makes me wonder what the two of them had been talking about.”
“Me too.” Another huge yawn escaped Beth’s mouth. She didn’t try to cover it up.
Paranormal Mystery Boxset Books 1-3: Legends of Treasure Page 41