Laguna Beach: That Gold in Laguna (Kindle Worlds Novella) (A Charisma Series Novella, The Ericksons Book 2)

by Heather Hiestand

  The thought of her comparing him to her ex had him shifting in his seat. Was this the first date in what she was hoping would be a relationship? With him? What would she even like about him? “It says a lot about you that you are at least willing to work hard.”

  Visibly pleased, she said, “I could get another job easily. I’ve had offers.”

  “Of course. My point is simply that it’s time to figure out what you really want before you just become what your father wants.”

  “I know. That’s why Lennon had to go. He, at this point at least, is my father’s choice and not mine. But let’s talk about you. You’re working for family.”

  "Not really. I have shares in a corporation. Two actually, my father’s and my brother’s. And normally, I work in Alaska in the summers, driving and running heavy equipment for a gold mining operation. That’s nothing to do with my family and it pays extremely well.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “I’m Justin’s housemate. Unlike us Ericksons, he’s a Laguna Beach native. Now that we’re settled in Laguna Beach for the rest of the season. Crowe moved in with Jenny. I have to be in Los Angeles a lot though. Then I just share a hotel room with my father.”

  “Don’t you have any possessions?”

  “What isn’t with me is in my father’s garage up north.” He shrugged. “I own my truck. I own my camcorder. It’s worth as much as my truck.”

  “Do you like being this footloose?”

  “My family is my home. Wherever they are is where I belong.”

  “I’ve had this condo for five years. I can’t imagine not having a fixed address or a steady career. It seems strangely adolescent somehow. Maybe I’m not the only twenty-nine-year-old who needs to figure life out.”

  He leaned over the middle cushion of the couch. "Why did you ask me over if your opinion of me was so low?"

  She looked him straight in the eye. "You are such a contrast to my ex. I was curious to learn more."

  She sure had made that clear. "So, what, you want a boy toy for the few weeks I'm in town?"

  "You’re so vivid, Thor. It’s charisma, maybe, or sex appeal. Maybe I do want to have fun for a few weeks. I've never done anything like that.”

  "We have to work together," Thor growled. So she thought he was nothing more than a good time? That he’d accomplished nothing of worth in his life? “I’m not going to risk the show, or the relationship between my family and yours. I’ll just get going now.”

  She hadn’t moved during his mini-speech. “But dinner? We haven’t even touched the appetizers.”

  He stared at the beautifully arranged sushi platter, the bright green of the cucumber, avocado, seaweed, the orange of the roe, the purity of the fish. “It’s too pretty to eat. Just like you’re too pretty to mess with. Have a nice evening, Rachel.” He planted his feet firmly on the floor and stood, then started walking, and kept going until he reached his truck. He barely even remembered getting there, but his keys were in his hand. He got in and drove away, his mind a blank.

  “I was surprised you were willing to be up so early,” Justin said at six a.m. the next morning as they drove away from a coffee stand. The sun blazed already, but it was still cool enough for a hot beverage.

  “I want to survey the property that Crowe has permission to dig on,” Thor said, pulling out the coffee stirrer that filled the hole in the lid. Steam rose. “I thought I’d reconnoiter for next season.”

  “We’re going to hike with the camcorder?”

  “Not to start with. But if we see anything interesting we’ll return.” He breathed in the scent of hazelnut.

  They talked about the property for the rest of the drive. Thor hoped he’d dodged the bullet of his early arrival home the night before. Only Justin knew about it, since he’d been alone by then.

  When they arrived on the outskirts of the property, they parked on the dry grass about half a mile from where the old farm had been. The 1880s farm had been located up on a rise and they were in what had been a field according to an old map.

  Sadly, Justin had simply been waiting for his moment. More concerned about Thor’s social life than the matter at hand, he asked, "How did dinner go? You didn’t stay out late."

  Thor concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as he navigated the prickly brush. Justin was swinging his machete in front of him, clearing brush. Thor was in charge of the compass, keeping them on a steady north path. At least he didn’t have to look Justin in the eye as he eviscerated his date. "She's a nightmare. Exactly what you'd expect from someone with all that money. Not remotely normal."

  “So you won't be seeing her again?”

  "Not outside of work, no."

  “What went wrong?”

  “She’s looking for a boy toy to replace her rich ex,” he growled.

  “Why would you want anything else? She’s hot enough.”

  Thor forced himself to sound ironic. “I don’t appreciate being treated like beefcake. I want to be liked for my personality.”

  Ahead of him, Justin snickered. “Not me, buddy. Is this the difference between twenty-five and twenty-nine?”

  “I don’t want to be disposable. She’s so rich. You’ve seen her father’s place, and her own condo is bigger than your house. They are the type of people to find an old gold coin and lose it for fifteen years, after all. I’d have been all over that.”

  “That’s because you’re in the gold business. They are into art and trophies.”

  “Yeah, the art isn’t for me, that’s for sure.”

  “No need to waste our time. Let’s focus on looking for bandit marks.” Justin swung his machete again.

  “That’s Crowe’s business. I don’t know much about it.”

  “I’ve learned some. In this case though, I think we’re looking for wolf images. The bandit whose cache we’re looking for around here was nicknamed ‘Wolf.’”

  “Lone Wolf,” Thor said. “Seems like that’s what I am this summer.”

  “You want a girlfriend, huh?”

  “I didn’t until I saw Crowe fall in love with Jenny.”

  Justin tossed brush into the bushes. “Why don’t you ask Delilah out?”

  “She isn’t my type. I like softer girls. Rachel is almost a caricature of what I like though. She’s the rich bitch version of a girl who dresses nice and does her nails and takes care of herself.”

  “What about Taylor, Jenny’s assistant manager? She’s girly.”

  “Too many tats for me.”

  “Picky.”

  “I am, right? Rachel is my type. Find a her that isn’t wearing designer clothes and driving a car that isn’t worth more than your house and I’ll date her.”

  “Got it,” Justin snorted. “And maybe don’t bother looking in Laguna Beach.”

  Despite Justin’s warning not to look in Laguna Beach for women, they found themselves at The Rooftop Lounge that evening, to watch the sunset. After all, it didn’t make sense to leave town on Saturday night.

  “Justin!” A cute blonde called right as they walked in. Since the blonde and her friend had four-top table along the railing and seemed to be alone, they walked over.

  Justin gave her a hug. “My friend is Thor. Who is this?”

  “Beverly.”

  The petite Asian girl smiled politely. Thor shook her offered hand after Justin did, feeling more like he was meeting a business connection than someone to have a fun Saturday night with.

  “Let me get the next round,” Justin said. “What are you ladies drinking?” He wandered off after they asked for muddled mojitos.

  Thor sat down next to Beverly. “Do you both live here?”

  “Not in town. We just came in for the sunset. I went to school with Justin,” the blonde said.

  “Do you know my brother Crowe?”

  “Oh, gosh, you’re Crowe’s brother? Of course. Yes! Tell him Amber from school says hi.”

  “I will.”

  “I’d never have put you two toge
ther.” She turned to Beverly. “His brother is the tall, dark, handsome type, but not as tall as Thor.”

  “He takes after our mother’s side and I take after our father’s.”

  “Are you a history buff too?”

  “I came aboard his show to be the cameraman, actually, but now I’m part of the team. I’m still doing more logistics and editing than the on-camera part though, since I don’t have all the history at my fingertips. That’s Crowe and Justin’s job.”

  “They’ve got the training,” Amber agreed, resting her chin on her hand. “But you have to tell me all about this show. I don’t know anything about it.”

  Justin came back from the bar, and the foursome spent a pleasant hour watching the sunset over the water and talking about California Gold. Amber and Beverly had heard about the find in the McHughes cave without ever connecting it to Amber’s former schoolmates.

  After an hour, Thor excused himself to order some food. The waitress hadn’t been by in forty minutes so he went to the bar to see what they had. After he put in an order, he wandered across the deck to find the bathroom, then walked through again to get to the table.

  He saw Sadiki first. The Kenyan supermodel, one of those rare women recognizable just by her first name, sat at a small table with a brunette. He only saw the back of the brunette’s head, but given that Sadiki was married to Richard McHughes, he guessed it was Rachel.

  He decided to walk by and smile politely. No, he had to say hello. They were basically in business with the McHughes family. Sometimes he was too vocal, but he’d be damned if he cost his family a treasure hunting opportunity.

  Rachel’s head swiveled as he approached. She looked kind of hurt, little-girl hurt, her eyes turning down at the corners.

  He forced a bright smile to his face as he stopped at the table, lining himself up so he was an equal distance between the two women. “Hello, ladies! Did you enjoy the sunset?”

  “I didn’t peg you as a sunset person,” Rachel said in a cool voice. She leaned away from the table.

  “This is Justin’s town, his idea.” He turned to Sadiki. “My housemate.”

  “Yes, I met him during the tour,” she said, in her delightfully crisp British accent. “I believe I met his mother at a function once.”

  “Very likely. He’s third generation in this town.”

  Rachel’s turn to speak, but she said nothing. Frustrating. He didn't owe her anything, even if she did probably cook him a dinner he didn’t eat. Or bought take-out.

  He cleared his throat. “Have a wonderful evening.” He walked away, then impulsively stopped a waitress who was coming in from the deck. “Could you please send two mojitos to Sadiki’s table and put them on my bill, please?”

  “They aren’t drinking alcohol,” the waitress whispered.

  “Oh, so sorry. Virgin margaritas then. Does that work?”

  The waitress smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  On Sunday morning, Justin and Thor served breakfast to the team on his small back patio. Thor poured the rest of the coffee into the pot between Jenny and Crowe, cuddled up together on the bench of Justin’s picnic table. Jenny’s ponytail tickled Crowe’s cheek every time he moved his head, but his only reaction was to tuck the golden strands out of the way and smile.

  Thor bent over Justin’s ear in the kitchen. "I'm not someone to be envious, but Jenny and Crowe are sure happy together. It's so hard to meet someone who matches you so perfectly."

  “They seemed to know so fast. They were together less than two weeks before Crowe moved in,” Justin commented, throwing a dish towel over his shoulder. “Maybe you just know, or you don’t.”

  “That’s dangerous. What if you pick up a crazy?”

  “Got a story to tell?”

  Thor bit the insides of his cheeks to keep him from spilling all his thoughts in their messy detail. “Just that I ran into Rachel last night and she looked at me all hurt, as if she doesn’t know why I took off Friday night, like she hadn’t insulted me in every way possible.”

  “Did you explain that she needed to get off her rich bitch perch and stick her nose into the real world, where not everyone is living off of Daddy’s money?”

  “I just want to be cordial. I sent her and her stepmother drinks.” Thor poured the water pooling under the dish drainer into the sink, almost upsetting the spaghetti pot drying on top of it. “I don’t want to jeopardize our work.”

  “You don’t want to do this part of the project. Are you sure you aren’t acting out because you want Lone Wolf’s cache?”

  “I’m not a child,” Thor muttered as Crowe came into the kitchen.

  “Let’s make more coffee,” his brother said. “Then I want to show everyone the house plans for the McHughes mansion.”

  Thor nodded and put some fresh beans into the grinder. By the time he had a fresh pot made, Beau and Delilah had arrived. Justin cleared off the dining room table so they could spread out the blueprints.

  The team stood over the dining room, the summer sun already blazing into the small dining room from the side windows.

  "Are we really going to do a house search?" Beau asked, the grooves around the side of his mouth deepening. This wasn’t his style of treasure hunt. “Tell me there's going to be some digging going on.”

  Justin laughed. “I expect those words to come out of Thor’s mouth. Now I know where he got it from.”

  “Thor takes after me,” Beau said. “It’s not always a bad thing.”

  “Not always,” Crowe said, “But I don’t know that I agree. Thor can’t keep a girlfriend, and you were married for over thirty years.”

  “You have to meet the right one,” Beau said. “I’m sure when he does, he’ll know, just like I did with your mother.”

  Thor chuckled to himself. Hadn’t he just been saying that to Justin? Maybe he was just a copy of his father. If so, he could do worse.

  “I found some newspaper reports,” Justin said, holding up a file folder. “The Los Angeles Times had a very full account, because of the movie stars involved. They agree with the family’s story that the jewel thief died within a few minutes of leaving the house.”

  “He was killed on the steps of the gatehouse,” Crowe mused, taking the folder and paging through it. “We’re looking at the wrong thing. We need a plan for the entire property.”

  “Got it.” Jenny reached for a tube leaning against the wall underneath an oil painting of a beach scene done in the fifties by Justin’s grandmother.

  Thor helped her spread out the plans. “So he had a few minutes to dig.”

  “Probably in the courtyard,” Justin said. “We have no reason to think he knew the house well enough to hide anything there.”

  They all stared at the plans.

  “Are we sure about that?” Jenny asked. “I mean, it’s not like he had a shovel. It’s unlikely he buried anything.”

  Thor groaned and made an X with his fingers. "Can we cancel this? I'd much rather do the wilderness park."

  "Me too," Crowe said, nodding enthusiastically.

  "We're acting like a bunch of twits. Man up and let's find some jewelry!" Justin replied.

  "Why isn't Rachel here?" Jenny asked. “She’d probably know if Bucky Tell had appeared on the guest list at earlier parties.”

  "She's not part of the team." Thor said. “I suppose we could call her.”

  Crowe tapped his finger blueprint where the gatehouse steps were. “Solid, right?”

  “Stone,” Beau confirmed. “There’s also the gatehouse interior to search, not just the house. Who has Rachel’s phone number?”

  "Let's not make her part of the team," Jenny said quickly. "Find her family some more wealth and then we can move on."

  “I wasn’t suggesting we include her, but we have to use our resources,” Beau said. “It’s very important in this kind of work to mark a spot with an X. Surveying is a waste when research can pinpoint a cache.”

  “We know what he had stolen. We know where he
died. How many minutes did he have in between?” Thor asked.

  “We don’t have that exact information,” Justin said, turning down the corners of his mouth.

  Crowe paced the length of the table. “What’s the maximum time based on the reports?”

  “Two hours,” Justin said glumly.

  “Great,” Delilah said. She inched toward Thor and lifted her chin, directing the question to him. “Do we really think he had that long?”

  Thor shrugged. Why was she asking him? Justin had the reports. He shifted toward his roommate, away from Delilah. “They were swimming and drinking. I’m sure he wasn’t missing that entire time.”

  “There was time for suspicion to be raised,” Justin interjected. “Time for the police to come and hunt him through the property.”

  “So we can cut that time down by at least twenty minutes,” Beau mused. “I guess it doesn’t matter if he knew the house. He’d been there at least part of a day leading up to the theft.”

  “He wouldn’t have known he could get back in to the house later though,” Jenny said. “To retrieve what he’d stolen. The grounds are more likely.”

  “Put an X somewhere on the grounds and we’ll start digging,” Beau said.

  “Digging!” Thor said, hefting an imaginary pickaxe.

  Everyone stared down at the plans except Justin, who perused at the newspaper accounts.

  “Here’s something I missed before,” Justin said, tapping his laptop screen. “There was a guard on duty in the courtyard.”

  Beau walked behind Justin and looked over his shoulder. “Then the courtyard is not our most likely possibility. We have the pool area and the area leading down to the caves, the beach itself, and the two side yards.”

  “The fastest thing to do was remove the jewelry from the cabanas and hide it around the pool area itself.” Crowe rubbed his right temple as if the thought pained him.

  “There was time to do more,” Delilah said.

  “Wait,” Thor said. He’d been mentally cataloguing the blueprints and finally noticed something. “There was a greenhouse where the current pool and spa are now. I hope the treasure isn't under the pool. It would explain why they've never found it.”