4 Buried Secrets

by Leighann Dobbs

  “Do you mind?” Jolene jerked her head toward the door indicating that Celeste should get out. It was cramped on that bench seat.

  “We should give that ring to the old lady,” Morgan said as they walked up the steps to the hotel lobby.

  “Yeah, we should,” Luke said. “We’ll take a trip out to her place and give it to her later. Right now we need to regroup and come up with Plan B.”

  The hotel was quiet as they walked through the lobby to the stairs that led to their suite. Jolene peeked into the dining room where several tables sat, but empty of diners.

  “Dixie must not be serving any meals tonight,” Morgan said echoing her thoughts as they traipsed up the stairs.

  They piled up in line behind Luke who was about to put his key in the door when it cracked open on its own.

  “Meow!”

  Belladonna bolted through the door screeching and hissing.

  “What the heck?” Luke said as everyone turned to look at the cat that had jumped onto the top of the wide banister.

  He turned back to the door. “Someone’s tampered with the lock.”

  Pushing it open, he stepped in and then stopped short, causing everyone to pile up behind him. Jolene’s heart skipped when she looked in through the door—the entire place had been ransacked.

  ***

  “Someone broke in!” Luke and Jake rushed into the room. Jake turned to the girls. “You guys stay out there, they could still be in here.”

  Jolene rolled her eyes at Fiona—they’d proven in the past that they were more than capable of taking care of themselves. Jolene had a special control over energy that went far beyond seeing people’s auras and Fiona had used rocks and crystals as lethal weapons more than once.

  Morgan put her hand on Jolene’s arm, stopping her from rushing into the room. “Let them check it out … I have a feeling it’s empty.” She leaned in and whispered in Jolene’s ear. “If someone was here, I know you could kick their ass, but we’ll let Luke and Jake think they’ve got this one.”

  Jolene sighed and nodded at Morgan who winked. Belladonna jumped down from the banister and weaved her way around Morgan’s legs just as Luke and Jake came back to let them know the coast was clear.

  Jolene’s stomach sank as she looked around the suite. Drawers were ripped out, contents spilled on the floor. The cushions from the couch were slashed open and strewn everywhere. In the bedrooms, their clothes lay in piles, splattered with red paint.

  “Check this out.” Jolene turned at the sound of Celeste’s wooden voice and her blood chilled. Someone had written “Get Out” in red paint on the wall.

  “Okay, let’s see if anything is missing,” Jake said. “Everyone check their things.”

  Jolene went into her bedroom. The old suitcase she’d brought from home was still in the bottom of the closet. It had been her mother’s and, even though it was a little outdated, it had a lot of pockets and compartments she found came in handy. She was glad the thieves hadn’t taken it. She rifled through the pile and it looked like her clothes were still there, although most of them were ruined. With a start, she remembered her laptop and ran into the common room, her eyes scanning the desk for it. It wasn’t there.

  “My laptop is missing!” She ran over to the desk and looked all around on the floor, under the desk, in the drawers. No laptop.

  She collapsed into the chair, her spirits draining.

  Luke came out of the room he and Morgan shared, his face tight with anger. “They took all the files I had on the treasure.”

  “Nothing of mine is missing.” Celeste threw one of the slashed cushions back on a chair and sat down.

  “Our stuff is all here too—but most of our clothes are ruined,” Fiona said.

  Belladonna jumped up into Jolene’s lap and she kissed the top of the cat’s head. “I’m glad Belladonna wasn’t hurt and we didn’t have a lot of research done on the treasure.”

  “Yeah, but that laptop was expensive and it has your passwords on it,” Jake said.

  Jolene shook her head. “I had RoboForm encrypted so no one can log in to any of my accounts. But I’ll get a new laptop tomorrow and change my passwords anyway.”

  “I don’t understand who would do this,” Morgan said. “What did they want?”

  Luke looked around the room. “I don’t know who would do this, but I’ll tell you one thing … whoever it is sure wants to stop us from looking for that treasure.”

  ***

  “Let’s get this mess cleaned up.” Celeste’s heart tightened as she looked at the warning painted on the wall.

  “Whoever did this is probably after the treasure too,” Fiona said. “And if they are anything like the treasure hunters we’ve encountered in the past, they aren’t going to stop at simply messing up our stuff and writing a warning.”

  “We need to be very careful from here on in.” Morgan slid one of the kitchen drawers back into place and piled the silverware that was on the floor into the sink. “I have a feeling we’re in danger … and there’s more to this than just recovering a treasure.”

  Everyone looked at her warily—they’d learned to trust Morgan’s “feelings” and Celeste knew her sister thought carefully before saying anything about them.

  “I agree,” Luke said. “So, in addition to finding the treasure, now we also have to figure out who did this.”

  “And we need to replace the laptop and try to get back all the information we’ve gathered so far,” Jake added.

  “I saved all my bookmarks to the cloud so I’ll have most of the websites I researched marked.” Jolene reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small black rectangular object. “And I saved all my notes to this flash drive so we won’t have lost a thing … other than the laptop itself, of course.”

  “I’m going to pick up a full surveillance setup in town and have Buzz and Gordy help me get it installed in here this afternoon,” Luke said. “If anyone else breaks in, we’ll know who it is.”

  “I’d love to ask around town to see if anyone knows anything, but my reception the other day was only lukewarm. These folks are a tight lipped bunch.” Jake sighed as he sorted through a pile of clothing. “It’s not as easy getting information in a strange town as it is at home, I don’t have any contacts here and I don’t know a soul.”

  “I might have a contact or two,” Jolene said.

  “Really? We should talk to them,” Jake replied.

  “I think we should also talk to Dixie and see if she or her staff knows anything. Surely someone must have heard or seen something strange while we were out.” Celeste frowned at the pile of paint stained clothes she had just sorted. “And I guess I need some new clothes.”

  “Me too,” Fiona said. “I vote we finish cleaning up tonight and then go do some shopping tomorrow. We can talk to Dixie and whoever else was here before we head out.”

  Chapter Six

  The next morning Luke, Jake, and Jolene headed off to find a store where they could buy electronics. Celeste, Morgan and Fiona sat, as best they could, on the slashed cushions in the living room.

  “Dixie’s going to need to paint in here.” Celeste nodded toward the painted warning on the wall. They’d tried to scrub it off but it didn’t make much of a difference.

  “And buy new furniture.” Fiona waved her hand around the room.

  “I hope we can still stay here,” Morgan said. “This is the only hotel close to Dead Water. All the others are on the other side of the city.”

  The Brandt Hotel had been built in 1880 when Dead Water was still thriving. It was about ten miles away from Dead Water and about another ten from the nearest town, Couver City. It stood on Route 51, which had once been a major thoroughfare. The addition of major highways to the area since had turned the traffic to a trickle and, as a result, the Brandt was now the only place between Dead Water and Couver City that was still in business.

  Celeste loved the quaint details of the one hundred and forty year old hotel. She hated to think
of it going out of business like many of the abandoned and dilapidated hotels, stores and gas stations that dotted that stretch of road.

  Fiona plucked the keys to the Escalade from the kitchen table and dangled them in front of her. “Are you guys ready to go shopping? I do believe it’s my turn to drive.”

  “Yep, let's head down and see if we can ferret Dixie out.” Morgan led the way to the door.

  Celeste peeked into her room to make sure Belladonna was still asleep on the bed, and then followed her sisters down the stairs.

  Dixie wasn’t hard to find. She was in the now empty dining room clearing dirty dishes from a table. The hotel owner looked like she hadn’t slept all night, but managed a weak smile when she saw the sisters standing in the doorway.

  “Just cleaning up after the other guest.” She pointed to the crumbs on the table. Celeste’s stomach growled—they hadn’t had time to come down and eat the breakfast served by the hotel and she was hungry.

  “Other guest?” Celeste felt the hair on her neck tingle. Could that be who broke into their room?

  “Yes, a nice young man,” Dixie said. “I’m grateful for any guests these days, the way things are going.”

  “Well, that's kind of what we wanted to talk to you about,” Fiona said.

  Dixie froze in place, staring at them. “What do you mean?”

  The girls looked at each other not knowing how to break the news to her.

  “Our suite was broken into last night,” Morgan blurted out.

  Dixie’s eyes went wide. “What?” She looked from sister to sister, her blue eyes searching theirs.

  “Yep,” Celeste said. “They tore up the couch, tossed the place and then put paint on our clothes and wrote a message on the wall.”

  “We tried to clean it up the best we could …,” Fiona added.

  Dixie sank into one of the wooden chairs, burying her face in her hands. “Who would do something like that?”

  Celeste’s heart tugged for the other woman. “We don’t know.”

  Dixie closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t even know if I have any money to replace the couch. How bad is it?”

  Celeste looked at Morgan and Fiona. Their eyes mirrored the sympathy she felt.

  “Well, it’s pretty bad, but we might have a lead on a free couch,” Celeste lied.

  Due to previously finding a valuable treasure buried under their three hundred year old house, the girls had more money than they could ever spend. They could well afford to buy Dixie a new couch and Celeste knew her sisters would agree. Besides, if it was someone trying to thwart their treasure detecting efforts, they owed it to her to replace what was damaged.

  “What about your things. Were they ruined?” Dixie’s eyes darted from one girl to the next. “I’ll have to replace those for you. Can you even stay in the room?”

  “It's okay.” Morgan put her hand on Dixie’s shoulder. “We didn’t have anything valuable. The room can be fixed. In fact, we’re going into town today and we’ll get paint for the wall and everything. We just wanted to know if you saw who did it.”

  Dixie pressed her lips together. “I didn’t see anything. Do you know what time it happened?”

  “We got back just after dark, right?” Fiona turned to Morgan and Celeste.

  Morgan nodded. “And we’d only been out a couple of hours … so sometime between five and seven I’d say.”

  “I went into town around four,” Dixie said. “There was a town meeting and I had some errands to run. It was about rezoning here which might shut down the hotel. I gave the staff the night off.”

  Celeste’s forehead pleated. “How could they do that? Wouldn’t you be grandfathered in?”

  “In a normal town, yes. But here …” Dixie shrugged.

  “It sounds like you think someone has it in for the hotel,” Morgan said.

  “Well, it sure seems that way. My cousin, Marty, owned it and was letting it go to ruin. When he died, I bought it. The hotel was built by my great-grandfather and I couldn’t bear to see it going to ruin. But ever since I bought it, there’s been one setback after another with the town. It’s almost like they want to just get rid of it.”

  Celeste’s heart crunched as she looked around at the period details and architecture. “Why would anyone want that? This place should be restored as a piece of history.”

  Dixie shrugged. “My thoughts exactly. Anyway, I think Dave, the chef, was here last night. Let’s go see if he’s in the kitchen and we can ask.”

  She pushed up from the table and started toward a door in the back of the dining room. She pushed the door open and the girls followed her into a small kitchen. The smell of bacon spiced the air. The chrome fixtures, shelves and counters gleamed. White tile sparkled.

  “Dave, these are some of our guests.” A man in his late thirties looked up from a large pot he was stirring. He wore a white chef’s jacket and his dark eyes sparkled as he greeted the girls.

  “Their suite was broken into last night. You were here, right?” Dixie asked.

  Dave’s eyes registered alarm. “Yes. No one was hurt, I hope?”

  “We weren’t here,” Morgan said. “But we were wondering if you heard anything.”

  Dave stopped stirring and pressed his lips together. “I was in here all night making the deserts for the next couple of days and had the mixer going … it’s loud.”

  “So you didn’t hear or see anything?” Dixie asked.

  “No. I’m sorry. I was so focused on baking,” he said. “What time was that?”

  “Between five and seven.”

  Dave pressed his lips together. “I did hear a car drive in, but when I looked out it was the new guest. The young man.”

  Celeste exchanged a look with her sisters. “Was he alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Celeste frowned. She didn’t think only one person had tossed the room, but this new guy still warranted checking out.

  “Okay, thanks Dave.” Dixie turned to the girls. “Sorry we couldn’t be more help. I should come up and look at the suite … and we should put a call in to the police.”

  Celeste remembered the unfriendly look in Sheriff Kane’s eyes the night before. “What can they do? Probably nothing, right?”

  Dixie rolled her eyes. “If it has to do with this place they’ll probably be glad.”

  “Well then I think we can leave them out of it, right?” Celeste looked at her sisters who nodded. Celeste noticed that Dixie looked relieved.

  They were almost out of the room when Dave called to them. “Are you the guests with the cat?”

  Celeste turned and saw Dave at the fridge. The bag of slimy brown meat in his hand chased away the hunger she’d felt earlier. “Yes.”

  “Then I have these giblets for you.”

  Morgan went to retrieve the bag. Dixie played nervously with the cuff on her shirt. “I forgot all about your cat … I hope she didn’t get hurt in the break-in.”

  Celeste smiled at her. “Belladonna? Oh no, she’s fine. In fact, I feel sorry for the intruders because if they tangled with her, I’m sure they didn’t come out of it unscathed.”

  ***

  “Thanks for those turkey giblets,” Morgan said as she closed the door to the suite after showing Dixie the damage.

  “You’re welcome. I hope Belladonna likes them, just don’t feed her too much at one time. It could upset her digestion.” Dixie bent down to inspect the lock, which had been jimmied open. “I’ll get someone to fix this right away and someone at the front desk today to make sure no one goes in your rooms.”

  The sisters thanked her and they all went downstairs. Celeste headed toward the front door.

  “Oh, before you leave, I have something I wanted to show you.” Dixie had her hand on the knob of a beautiful oak door with a recessed stained glass panel that led to a room on the left of the staircase.

  The girls turned toward her and she opened the door revealing a small library. Celeste followed her in. It was like going back in
time. The room was lined with bookshelves filled with old books. The scent of decades old pipe smoke lingered in the folds of the thick mahogany-colored velvet curtains that flanked long sun streaked windows. The rich jewel tones of the oriental carpet provided a perfect balance to the brown leather chairs set in front of a carved marble fireplace.

  “Wow.” Morgan stood in the doorway, her eyes wide as she drank in the room.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Dixie smiled proudly. “It’s one of the few rooms that didn’t get renovated over the years. It’s exactly as it was in 1880.”

  “I was hoping to restore the rest of the hotel to its original glory eventually.” Dixie’s face tightened as she looked around the room. “But that takes a lot of money and I’ve sunk most of what I have into it already.”

  Dixie crossed over to a bookshelf and pulled out a dark blue canvas bound book. “This here is a book about Dead Water back when the mines were working.” She held the book out to Celeste. “It was written in 1889. I figured you might be interested in some of the information seeing as you were so interested in the town.”

  Celeste looked down at the heavy book—The Story of Dead Water. “This is great. I’m sure it will help us a lot.”

  “Okay, good.” Dixie ushered them out to the foyer and closed the library door. “Feel free to read it while you’re here. I just need it back as it's part of the library that my great-grandmother curated here when they built the hotel. I don’t know if it’s has monetary value, but it’s got a lot of sentimental value to me.”

  “Of course.” Celeste opened the book and thumbed through the crisp thick pages she couldn’t wait to start reading. “I’ll take good care of it.”

  She followed her sisters outside, her face still buried in the book, the slight smell of mildew tickled her nose. The sun was hot, as usual, and she could hear a car pulling out of the parking lot.

  Beside her, she heard Morgan’s sharp intake of breath.