“I want to talk to Rod.” Dakota’s voice was as sultry as the rest of her. “I’m not going anywhere until I see him.”
“We can arrange that,” said Melissa. “Please keep in mind, however, anything you say may be used later in a court of law. You’re not being accused of anything right now, but since you are a person of interest, you need to understand that.”
“I don’t care,” said Dakota. “I want to talk to him. Is anyone else in his hospital room?”
Melissa turned and asked the security guard if he knew who was in the room with Rod.
“His brother and his girlfriend. They cleared everybody else out.”
Grant and Beth. Maria smiled. Of course Beth had kept her word. She hadn’t let Rod be alone.
“You okay with his brother and his girlfriend in there with you?” Melissa asked Dakota.
The other lawyer was shoving his phone back into his pocket and shaking his head. “I must counsel you that I find this totally unadvisable on the grounds that—”
“I’m fine with his brother and his girlfriend.” Dakota slumped back in her chair.
“Uh, I’ll be coming too,” Maria added. “I wanted to be sure you all knew that.”
Dakota shrugged. “Whatever.”
Melissa looked at the prosecuting attorney. He let out a little grunt. “If she doesn’t care then why should I. I don’t even know what kind of a case I’m prosecuting at this point.”
“Okay,” said Melissa, “let’s go up. Dakota, Maria, you two in the front.”
Wishing she didn’t have to stand right next to Dakota when they went into Rod’s room, Maria got up and walked to the front of the group. Maybe one of those older police officers wouldn’t mind separating them so the contrast wasn’t quite so obvious.
Regardless, Maria was finally going to see Rod.
Inside, her stomach churned. It wasn’t from the earlier bird/human attack. It wasn’t from being arrested for shoplifting. And it wasn’t even because Rod’s ex-wife was still alive.
It was because in a few minutes she was going to be in Rod’s room. Talking with him. Laughing. Crying. She didn’t care how it came off, but she was going to tell him how much she’d missed him. How worried she’d been.
And she would, regardless of what happened, tell him she loved him with all of her soul.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Arizona officials confirmed that skeletal remains of a man found beneath a sheer cliff in the Superstition Mountains were that of a Denver adventurer who died seeking the fabled Lost Dutchman gold mine. Jesse Capen, 35, was last heard from in the winter of 2009. His bones were found wedged in an inaccessible crevasse so animals or flash floods couldn’t scatter them across the desert. Coroners used DNA extracted from bone marrow to make a match with DNA provided by his parents. . . Capen had studied myriad theories about the location of the Lost Dutchman gold mine sought by treasure seekers since the [1800s]. What happened to Capen may always be a mystery.
“LOST DUTCHMAN SEEKER’S REMAINS CONFIRMED TO BE JESSE CAPEN’S,” KIRK MITCHELL. THE DENVER POST, JANUARY 23, 2013.
Taking the elevator up two flights and walking down a total of five hallways could not have taken more than ten minutes. It felt, however, like ten hours. And all the while Maria’s mind desperately sought to make sense of the situation.
Who was the look-alike ghost of Dakota she had been seeing?
Where had Dakota been for the last six years?
Whose skeleton had they found in the Superstitions?
Who had Ranger Ferlund killed?
Why had Dakota come to the hospital?
And, perhaps the most baffling question of all …
What would Rod do when he saw Dakota was still alive?
By the time they finally reached Rod’s room, Maria’s fingers and toes were numb. Her lungs had twisted together, making breathing practically impossible. She forced her legs to move through the doorway and into the bright lights.
There, in the middle of the room, Rod lay upright in bed. His brilliant turquoise eyes shone full force. His color was so much better—almost a creamy light caramel that offset his chocolate eyebrows and hair. His gaze immediately went to Maria. His mouth meandered in a playful way until his lips formed his signature crooked grin—the perfect picture frame for his straight white teeth.
Rod was back.
At least physically, he looked worlds improved.
“Hey, Maria,” he said, shifting up in his bed, trying to avoid disturbing the IV taped to his arm. His hospital gown was askew, pulling too far to the left, almost off his shoulder.
“Hi, Rod,” answered Maria.
He was about to speak again but stopped. His head jolted to the right. Recognition flooded into his widened eyes as the blood drained from his face.
Dakota.
A gasp. Complete and utter confusion. His hand jerked back, hitting the metal stand from which his IV hung, almost knocking everything over. The beeping from the heart monitor machine sped up.
Rod stared at his former wife and then screamed. “It’s happening again. Oh please, no. The hallucinations . . . they’re coming back.” He thrashed for a moment until Beth and Grant, who were sitting on the other side of the room, jump and both held his arms and his legs.
“We see her too, brother,” said Grant. “You’re not going crazy.”
“That’s right,” said Beth, stroking his arm. “She’s not a hallucination. We all see her.”
Rod turned toward Dakota again, significantly calmer. “You’re not a ghost?”
Clearly they should have prepared Rod better for this. Maria kicked herself, frustrated that Rod was having to go through the distress of learning his ex-wife was still alive in front of everyone in the room.
Dakota shook her head. “No, I’m not a ghost. It’s me, Rod. I came back to see you.” Her words were short and tentative.
” What,” Rod’s voice cracked, “happened to you?”
It was the same question Maria had wanted to ask since seeing the woman in the gift shop. What had happened to her?
Where had she come from? And where had she been?
With a tentative wave of her hand, Dakota said, “Hi, Rod.” She stepped forward half a foot. “It’s … it’s so good to see you.”
Rod repeated, “What happened to you?”
“I … I don’t know what to say.” Beneath Dakota’s milk chocolate skin, she flushed. “I mean, I don’t know where to start. A lot has happened.”
“Why don’t you start with the day you walked out on me.” Rod’s voice was weak, but demanding. His cheeks were growing more pink by the second. He leaned forward in his bed, as if it was only his IV line that kept him tethered.
“I didn’t walk out on you. It wasn’t like that.” Dakota was practically gnawing off her bottom lip. She wrung her hands together.
Beads of sweat formed on Rod’s forehead. “Well, you’ll have to excuse me. It sure seemed like that from my perspective. What would you call it then? Magically disappearing one day into thin air?”
“I had to leave. I was in danger. It’s so hard to explain.” Dakota was now shaking.
“Do you know I’m accused of murdering you? I’ve been in jail because we found your skeleton, with its head cut off.” Rod’s voice wavered. His fists clenched. He studied Dakota as if the two of them were the only people in the room—universe for that matter. He didn’t look at anything or anybody else.
Maria wanted to start this over. She was afraid the shock of seeing Dakota was doing a number on Rod’s already-weakened system.
“So whose skeleton did we find, Dakota? She had your driver’s license. Your wedding ring. So who was it, huh?”
In a barely audible whisper, Dakota answered, “My cousin. Her name was Sofia.”
“Your cousin?” The monitor behind Rod’s bed beeped even faster. His heart was racing.
“Yes. My cousin.” Dakota turned and looked at the door she had entered. Maria noticed the movement
and she took a slight step to the left, blocking the exit in case the woman decided to make a run for it.
No one in the room spoke. No one dared. No one wanted to push Rod or Dakota over the edge. The woman had the answers they all wanted. Melissa, in her I’ve-been-around-the-block sort of way, put a gentle hand on Dakota’s arm and tapped it as if to say, “It’s okay. We’re here for you. Take your time.”
Rod must have clued in to what Melissa was trying to do. He let his shoulders fall back onto his pillow, and he relaxed his grimacing face. “It was your cousin who died in the Superstitions?”
Dakota’s emotional dam sprang a leak. She hiccupped several times and then tears began to fall, quickly turning into torrents. Sobbing, her words rushed out in a tsunami of information.
“Rod, I’ve done some horrible things. Really awful, bad things. I never thought it’d end up like this when Brian first told me about you.”
“Brian?” repeated Rod.
“Yeah, Brian. He told me you were some spoiled rich kid who never had to do a day of work in your life. He told me you didn’t deserve your money. He told me it was your kind of people who were taking the money from my kind of people.” Tears flowed down her face.
“I’m sorry,” said Rod, shaking his head, “when did Brian tell you this?”
“Before you and I met. He’s the one who made it all happen. Our whirlwind romance. The fact that we liked all the same stuff. The same music. Television shows. Our hopes. Fears. All of it was orchestrated by Brian. It was his idea. Everything is always his idea. I’ve been the idiot who goes along with his plans.”
Maria turned to find both lawyers holding their recording devices. Good thing. If they hadn’t she would have told Grant or Beth to use their phones to do it.
Shock-faced, Rod did what he could to visually keep it together. “And so what happened?”
“The initial plan was for me to marry you and, after a decent amount of time, get half your money in a divorce. Brian promised it would be simple. He did all your legal work. He made sure I’d come away like a bandit from the marriage. No prenup. Just you and me crazy in love.”
Rod nodded, the ashen hue in his face had returned.
Maria thought again how humiliating this must be. To learn in front of everyone he’d been duped to this level. Maybe she should leave?
But Dakota kept on talking and Maria kept on listening. She was compelled by the desire to know.
“Brian knew your parents wouldn’t be happy. He told you to keep the marriage from them at first.” Dakota’s tears never stopped. “The plan was I would stay with you for a year, maybe longer. Brian was then going to set you up for the perfect affair. He’d do everything he could to make sure you cheated on me—the court would rule in my favor—and I would be millions richer. Brian would share in the profits. It was supposed to be so simple, and then it all went wrong.”
“How?” Rod’s jaw was clenched tight.
“First off, you weren’t a jerk. I really liked you. Pretending to fall in love turned out to be pretty easy to do.”
“So why did you leave?” Rod asked.
“Sofia, my cousin, came to Arizona. She and I both knew Brian from high school in California. That’s where we all first met. Anyhow, Sofia came to get money out of Brian to help her find some ancestor’s treasure she was obsessed with in the Superstition Mountains. Our family in Mexico used to talk about it when we were children, before my parents died and Sophia’s disowned her.”
“Why did they disown her?” Rod was milking her for everything he could get.
“Sofia was kind of crazy—she claimed she saw dead people and stuff all the time. I even saw her talk to them a couple of times. Her parents thought she was possessed. They said she’d gotten the curse from the Peralta side of the family.”
Dakota was calming down. Her tears had stopped and she spoke freely, as if she’d been waiting to get this off her chest for a very long time. “Anyhow, Sofia had gotten a map. She swore she’d gone to the Superstitions and seen something. A light coming from a cave. It was her usual stupid, crazy talk. I told her I was in the middle of a ‘project,’ and I couldn’t help her out right then. I told her she had to leave town before she blew my cover. I was worried she might let it slip that she and I knew Brian from high school. That at one point we’d be an item.”
“You and Brian?” More colored drained from Rod’s face.
“Yeah. We’d been on and off again for years. Anyhow, Sofia refused to leave. I told her I would go to the mountains with her once to prove she was crazy and there was no treasure. I helped her buy some of the supplies she wanted, and we headed out.
“I was sure we wouldn’t be gone for more than a few hours. She took me to the place where you found her skeleton. She kept asking me if I could ‘see it,’ which I couldn’t. As far as I could tell, there was nothing there. She was running toward a solid cliff when something … happened.”
Dakota paused. Everyone waited for her to continue.
“This darkness came over me and I couldn’t see anything even though it was the middle of the day. It was like I was in the middle of an eclipse or something.”
Maria knew exactly what she was talking about. She’d experienced it herself earlier that afternoon. Whatever it was that Maria had—Ranger Ferlund had called it the Sight—Sofia must have had it to.
Dakota continued her story. “Even though I couldn’t see anything, I could hear her. My cousin was screaming. Over and over again. She was so scared. So afraid. Something was hurting her. Or someone, I should say, but I couldn’t see or hear anyone else around. It was the most horrible thing. I thought God was punishing me for what I was doing to you, Rod. For the evil person I’d become.”
Grant snickered. Melissa glared at him.
“I wanted to run away,” Dakota said. “I wanted to leave Sofia’s screams behind me. But I couldn’t move. And then finally it was quiet. The darkness lifted, and I saw her body, or at least what was left of it. Bloody. Mangled. Headless.”
The work of Ranger Ferlund. Maria could see it all happening in her head. Thankfully her own experience that afternoon had gone better than Sofia’s.
“I … I was so scared.” Dakota shivered. “I thought I was next. Whoever had done this to Sofia would do it next to me. I ran. Hours later I found myself at my car. I got in and drove all the way to Mexico without stopping. I went into hiding. I didn’t know what else to do. I worried someone might blame me for my cousin’s death. So I stayed away. But I missed you, Rod. I really did miss you.”
Rod grunted but let Dakota continue.
“Life in Mexico was not good. I had no family. No money. No job. Nothing. But I was scared to come back. Scared I might be killed too. So I kept making do. But it was so hard not to think about everything I’d left behind in America. I reached out to Brian. He got me back into the country. We found Sofia’s remains. Brian started making new plans, a new way to …”
Embarrassed, Dakota looked down.
“… to get my money.” Rod finished the sentence for her.
Dakota nodded. “Your will was still intact. Brian had never brought it up with you, and you’d never tried to change it. Even though you divorced me three years ago, the money still comes to me if you die or are deemed unfit of mind.”
Everyone in the room listened without moving, reeling in shock from what Rod’s friend Brian had done.
“The easiest thing would have been to kill you. Brian was very adamant about that. But I told him I wouldn’t help him if that was the plan. So Brian said we could make you go temporarily insane, long enough for me to return and get access to your funds.” Dakota burst out again in wails. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Melissa was at her side. She pulled up a chair for Dakota to sit on. Got her a glass of water. Anything to keep her talking.
A minute later, Dakota regained enough composure to continue.
“Brian and I … we planted the evidence near the skeleton—the
journal, the license, my ring.” Another sob escaped Dakota’s throat. “He then casually brought up the idea of having a reunion to Rep. Lankin, making him think it was his own idea, not Brian’s.”
“Easy to do with most politicians,” Grant grumbled from the corner where he and Beth sat and listened.
Dakota continued telling her story to Rod. “Basically, Brian convinced you to come back to Arizona to frame you for my murder. On some trip he took, he heard about a bacteria that made people go temporarily insane. He managed to get some, and he said everyone would think you were going crazy from guilt for killing me.”
Rod’s brother Grant fidgeted in his chair. His face showed disgust—so did Beth’s. Maria was pretty sure her expression matched theirs.
Dakota coughed and blew her nose. With a shaky voice she continued, “Once you were declared insane, I would turn up. You’d be set free, of course. If I’m alive there’s no case against you. But since you’d be deemed “unfit,” I would have access to your funds. I’d explain I’d been in the Superstition Mountains with my cousin and that it was her body, not mine. Her family would confirm she was obsessed with the Superstitions. The story didn’t have to hold forever—just long enough for me to get the money and run.”
It took all the restraint Maria had to not say something curt. What had Dakota been thinking? Had she really thought the police would have let her out of their sight once she’d showed up alive, expecting to get Rod’s money. Brian had played Dakota for a fool, which clearly hadn’t been hard to do. She was a breathtakingly gorgeous idiot.
“Brian said we’d leave Arizona together. Live on an island somewhere. He’s in debt. Totally broke. I think he lives off of Amy’s bank account. You have to believe me, Rod. I was going to leave you some money. I wasn’t going to take it all.”
Could the woman hear herself? Did she really think that made everything else okay? A sham of a marriage. A plot to render him insane? Maria was stunned by Dakota’s ability to justify everything.
“Brian said after it was all done and we were gone, he would get you the medicine so the hallucinations and delusions would stop. It’d be like it never happened.”
Paranormal Mystery Boxset Books 1-3: Legends of Treasure Page 50