4 Buried Secrets

by Leighann Dobbs

  The Jeep took a turn onto a dirt road that led uphill and Celeste followed their cloud of dust, noticing the terrain became more rocky the further they went. Finally they pulled to a stop in front of a big gaping hole carved in the hillside—one of the mines.

  “We’re here,” Celeste announced. Jolene closed the book carefully then put it in the backseat and the sisters jumped out of the car to meet the others.

  “This is the opening to one of the mines, but there are several in this area.” Jake waved his hand around to indicate the hilly landscape. Celeste slowly turned to take it all in. The ground was sandy but with much more scrub grass than at the hotel or in Dead Water. A few cacti and some trees dotted the landscape. Large rocks lay about, almost as if placed there by giants. She could see three mine entrances from where she stood. Piles of smaller rocks lay in rubble outside them.

  The mines weren’t anything like she’d pictured. They were just holes in the hillside. The area was overgrown so they looked like natural caves, not something men had dug out in search of gold.

  But which one was number seven?

  “Which one is Shorty’s?” Fiona echoed her thoughts.

  “I think it’s this one.” Jolene pointed at a hole to the left. “Or maybe the one next to it. It’s pretty hard to tell from the picture in the book.”

  Celeste grabbed the book from the car and they tried to compare the landscape behind the picture of Shorty to where they currently were. The problem was, it matched a few of the openings and one hundred years of shrub and tree growth had changed the look of the land.

  “I say we pair up and explore each of them,” Luke said. “We don’t have much time until the sun goes down and we don’t want to be out here after dark.”

  “Jolene and I will take this one,” Celeste said pointing to the opening on the left that Jolene had said she’d thought was number seven.

  “Okay, Morgan and I will take that one … and Fiona and Jake, you can take the one over there.” Luke pointed to two of the entrances in turn, and then looked at his watch. “Let’s meet back here in forty-five minutes.”

  “Okay.” Celeste headed toward her mine with Jolene close behind.

  “Now you guys don’t do anything in those dark mines that we wouldn’t do,” Jolene threw over her shoulder at the couples and the two sisters snickered as they disappeared into the dark mouth of the opening.

  The cool chill of the mine was a welcome relief from the hot intensity of the sun outside. The dim light, however, was not. Celeste fished the small pen light out of her pocket feeling grateful that Luke had equipped each of them with one before they left.

  She shined the light around the mine. “Not much here but blasted out rock.”

  “What were you expecting? A big number seven or ‘Shorty was here’ or something?” Jolene teased. “Let’s go in further and see what we can see.”

  Jolene trained her light on the dark tunnel ahead and Celeste followed her in, flashing her light on the walls and floor, hoping to uncover some sort of clue.

  About thirty feet in, they came to a split in the tunnel. The sisters stood in the middle, each one shining their light down a different path.

  “You wanna stick together or split up?” Jolene asked.

  “We can cover more ground if we split up,” Celeste answered ignoring the tightening in her stomach that told her it was a bad idea.

  “Yeah.” Jolene looked at her watch. “We won’t go too far in, though. How about we each go ten minutes and then turn back?”

  “Sounds good.” Celeste held out her fist and the girls did a knuckle tap. Then they disappeared into different tunnels.

  The tunnel was more narrow than the main shaft and Celeste took her time picking her way through the small rocks that littered the bottom. The damp, musty smell of earth ticked her nose and she let out a sneeze that echoed loudly in the tunnel. Taking her hand away from her mouth, the beam of her flashlight illuminated something that didn’t look quite right on the wall.

  She trained the light on the spot. Was that writing?

  She got close to the wall, squinting at the carvings in the stone. Not writing, but some kind of pictures—like hieroglyphics.

  Celeste had no idea what the three symbols carved into the wall meant. Were they put there by some ancient civilization or the miners? If the miners had dug out the tunnel, then it only made sense it was them … or someone who came here after. It couldn’t have been an ancient civilization since the tunnel wouldn’t have existed.

  She beamed the light up and down the wall on all sides but there were no more symbols. Slowly she walked down the tunnel searching every inch of wall. About five feet down, she found more symbols, then more after another five feet. Curious, she followed the path of symbols deeper into the tunnel.

  What did they mean? Celeste had no idea, but she knew someone who did—Cal. She got her cell phone out and snapped a few shots of the symbols. Cal was an expert historian, if anyone could figure out what these were and what they meant, he could. Maybe he would even be able to tear himself away from business and join them, she hoped.

  She made her way down the tunnel, taking pictures of all the symbols. She came to another split. Each tunnel had a group of carved symbols on the wall right at the split. She aimed the camera at the symbols on the tunnel wall to the right. The flash in the camera went off as it had before, but this time it illuminated more than just the symbols. She peered into the tunnel letting her eyes adjust after the flash—that couldn’t have been …

  Her heart jerked when she realized a figure of a man stood just inside the tunnel. Not a flesh and blood man—a ghost … and he didn’t look happy.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he asked.

  Celeste’s brows pulled together. He looked familiar. She leaned closer to him, then pulled back realizing who it was—Shorty!

  “I’m just exploring.” Celeste fought the fear that clutched at her chest.

  Shorty had robbed and killed in his lifetime. He hadn’t been a nice person and his ghost probably wasn’t much different. But his ghost knew where the treasure was—maybe she could get that information out of him if she kept him talking. On the other hand, he might bring her harm. Celeste wasn’t sure what kind of harm a ghost could bring, since she’d only encountered friendly ones before, but she didn’t want to find out, either. She decided to proceed with caution.

  “Get out before you get hurt.” Shorty made shooing motions with his hands.

  “Is that a threat?” Celeste narrowed her eyes at him and she imagined he looked hurt … until he took a menacing step toward her, causing her heartbeat to pick up speed.

  “Listen girly, you have no business in here.” Shorty glanced behind him.

  Was something back there he didn’t want her to see? The treasure?

  “Sure I do,” she said boldly. “I need to know what these symbols mean.” She aimed the beam of her flashlight on the wall.

  Shorty’s ghost looked at the wall, his face drawn into a frown. “Symbols?”

  Just then, another ghost started to materialize next to Shorty. A woman. The same one Celeste had seen in Dead Water—the one who wanted vindication. Celeste felt a chill. She hoped the ghost wasn’t planning to get her revenge right now. The woman looked directly at the symbols illuminated by the flashlight.

  “The key is in Dead Water,” she said.

  “Key? What key?” Shorty and Celeste asked at the same time.

  The female ghost opened her mouth to speak, then her eyes widened and she started to fade away as she looked at something behind Celeste.

  Celeste turned and saw the ghost of Deke, the old Sheriff of Dead Water. It was like a ghost party in there, how many more would show up?

  Deke ignored her and fixed a ghostly glare on Shorty. His feet were planted shoulder length apart and his hands hung at his sides like he was ready for an old Western gunfight. Which Celeste supposed wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities as the ghosts were both fro
m the old west and Deke had shot Shorty in real life.

  “You can’t have her, she’s mine,” Shorty said causing Celeste’s stomach to lurch. Was he talking about her? What was he planning to do to her?

  “Not this time, Shorty.” Deke glanced over at Celeste. “You should stay out of this, just like Lily should have.”

  Celeste didn’t know who Lily was but she couldn’t agree more. The air in the tunnel was becoming stale with tension and she could hear noises coming from somewhere deep in the mine behind Shorty. It sounded like voices, but distorted with echoes.

  More ghosts?

  She didn’t want to stick around to find out, so she turned and ran.

  ***

  Celeste burst out into the section of tunnel where the two shafts split off, almost knocking over Jolene who had arrived at their meeting spot only seconds before.

  “What the heck?” Jolene turned around and grabbed Celeste’s arm to keep them both from toppling over. Her eyes narrowed when she looked at Celeste’s face. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  Celeste nodded taking a deep breath. “Three, in fact.”

  Jolene peered into the dark tunnel. “Down there?”

  “Yeah.” Celeste felt an icy finger run up her spine as she looked back over her shoulder. “This place is giving me the creeps, let’s get out of here.”

  Eager to leave the ghosts behind, Celeste moved forward as quickly as the light from her penlight allowed.

  “I also found some markings on the tunnel,” Celeste said as they headed toward the mine entrance. “I took pictures of them on my phone.”

  She pulled one of the pictures up and showed it to Jolene just as the tunnel dumped them out into the fresh air. The sun was setting and Celeste could see Morgan, Luke, Jake and Fiona just coming out of the tunnels they’d explored.

  “Did you find something?” Jake nodded toward the phone.

  “Some strange markings on the tunnel,” Celeste said showing him the screen. “I don’t know if they have anything to do with the treasure, but I’m going to send them to Cal and see if he can make heads or tails of them.”

  “And she saw some ghosts,” Jolene said to Jake.

  “Oh really?” Jakes eyebrows lifted. “We didn’t find anything.”

  “Neither did we,” Luke added. “Just a bunch of rocks and sand. Tell us about the ghosts.”

  Celeste glanced back at the mine uneasily. “One of them was Shorty. I recognized him from the picture. He didn’t seem pleased to see me … told me to get out. I asked him about the markings on the wall but he acted like he didn’t even see them. Then she showed up.”

  “She?” Morgan asked.

  “Yeah, the same ghost I saw in Dead Water. She wasn’t there long though, because then the Sheriff showed up and scared her away.”

  “Wait, I thought the sheriff was a good guy,” Fiona said.

  “He is,” Celeste said. “At least I think he is. Not sure why the woman disappeared when he showed up but it seemed like he and Shorty were going to have some kind of fight. He told me to stay out of it and I got a weird feeling so I got out of there as fast as I could.”

  “That sounds kind of scary.” Morgan looked back at the mine opening. “It’s good that you listened to your ‘weird feeling’. I know mine are always right.”

  “Yeah, I just wish I could have found something out about the treasure.” Celeste pressed her lips together. “Although the woman did say something strange and I wonder if it's some kind of clue.”

  “What was that?” Luke asked.

  “She said something about the key being in Dead Water.”

  Jolene sucked in a breath and everyone turned to face her.

  “Do you know something about a key?” Jake asked.

  “No.” Jolene’s bottom lip caught between her teeth. “It’s just that Walt, the old guy in the bar, said when his grandmother was a little girl she overheard one of the ladies in Dead Water and the Sheriff fighting about a key … she said the sheriff told the woman the key was buried in Dead Water and she’d never find it.”

  “What is the key for?” Fiona asked.

  Celeste shrugged. “I have no idea … I don’t even know if we can trust her. When I saw her ghost in the cemetery, she said she wanted vindication. So, I wonder—does the key have to do with that or the treasure?”

  “Either way, it seems like another trip to Dead Water is in order.” Luke narrowed his eyes at something behind Celeste and she turned around to see a cloud of dust approaching them.

  “Who’s that?” Morgan squinted toward the dust cloud.

  “Looks like the police,” Jolene said.

  Celeste’s stomach sank as the brown and black Sheriff’s car pulled to a stop. Sheriff Kane didn’t seem too happy with them last time and she didn’t want another run-in with him. But Kane wasn’t driving. Another cop got out. Tall and blond, he wore a Sheriff’s Office uniform and a pair of those annoying mirrored sunglasses.

  “What are you folks doing here?” Celeste looked at the deputy tag on his shirt thath gave his name—Styles.

  “Just taking some scenic pictures, Deputy Styles.” Fiona poured on the charm, twirling her red curls.

  “Didn’t you see the ‘No Trespassing’ sign?” Apparently, Fiona’s charm hadn’t worked because Styles was pulling out a pad of pink paper.

  “Are you writing a ticket?” Jolene asked.

  Styles fixed her with a glare—or at least Celeste thought it was a glare, she couldn’t tell with the sunglasses. “Yep. You people know better than to be out here, I think. Didn’t Sheriff Kane warn you?”

  “Not here. Over at Emma’s,” Luke answered.

  Styles raised a brow and scribbled something on the pad. “This here’s a two hundred and fifty dollar fine. Next time I’ll throw you in jail.”

  “What?” Jolene’s eyes flashed as Luke calmly took the paper that Styles had ripped from the pad. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t throw us in jail for trespassing.” She glanced at Luke uncertainly. “Can he?”

  Luke just shrugged.

  Styles whipped off his glasses, his sharp hazel eyes addressed each of them in turn. “I can put you in jail. But listen, it’s for your own good. It’s not safe around here for more reasons than one. It would be best if you people went on your way and did your historic research in some other town.”

  He shoved the glasses back on, got in his car and sped off.

  “Well, what do you make of that?” Fiona stood, hands on hips while she watched the car drive off.

  “I get the sneaking suspicion this isn’t just about trespassing,” Morgan said. “There’s more to this and I have a gut feeling Deputy Styles wasn’t telling us the exact truth.”

  “Yeah, it’s becoming obvious the law doesn’t want us here,” Jake said.

  “And some of the ghosts too,” Celeste added.

  “Which makes me want to stay and dig into this even more,” Luke said. “The way they are acting combined with the break-in makes me think the police—or someone—wants to scare us away from the treasure and if that’s the case, it must mean we are getting close.”

  Chapter Nine

  Once they got back to the hotel where there was cell phone service, Celeste sent the pictures of the symbols to Cal.

  “Do you think the treasure is in the mine?” Morgan asked as she plucked some of the turkey giblet meat out of the bag and put it on a dish for Belladonna.

  “Maybe,” Celeste said. “It sure seemed like Shorty was hiding something back there. But I’m not sure I want to go down there … I heard some ghostly voices.”

  “Maybe the treasure is haunted.” Fiona reached into a bag full of fried chicken that Dave had saved out from the Hotel dinner menu for them.

  “Aww, come on,” Jake said looking into the bucket and picking out a drumstick. “If you guys fought off those pirates, surely a few ghosts won’t scare you.”

  Celeste laughed at Jake’s reference. Earlier that year, they’d had to f
ight off modern day pirates who were determined to take a treasure that had lain, unbeknownst to them, underneath their home. The pirates were a nasty bunch, but the girls had combined their skills to defeat them. Could they do the same thing with ghosts?

  “So tomorrow we go to Dead Water and what, exactly, do we look for?” Jolene interrupted Celeste’s thoughts.

  “The key,” Morgan said piling a chicken breast and a roll onto her plate. “Whatever that is.”

  “It doesn’t make much sense.” Jolene scrunched her face up. “What’s this key open, anyway?”

  “Maybe Shorty put the treasure in something that needs a key to open it,” Fiona offered.

  “Or maybe it’s more like a map that shows us which tunnel to take to get to the treasure.” Celeste picked at the coleslaw on her plate, glancing anxiously at her phone.

  When was Cal going to get back to her?

  Before they got together, Cal had been a real ladies man—a confirmed bachelor with a different date every night. She pushed aside a tingle of nervousness that tried to establish itself in her belly. Cal wasn’t out with someone else, she was sure of it. He wouldn’t do something like that to her … would he?

  “Did anyone find out anything about the new occupant here in the hotel?” Luke asked and Celeste looked up from her cell phone vigil.

  “Nope.” Everyone shook their heads except Jolene.

  “The bartender told me that someone was in the bar asking about us.” Jolene shoveled mashed potatoes into her mouth. “I wonder if it was him.”

  “And if it wasn’t, who would be asking about us and why?” Jake asked around a mouthful of chicken.

  Celeste’s phone chirped with an incoming message and she dove for it. Her heart surged when she saw it was from Cal.

  “Cal says the words could be like a code, but you’d need a key to decipher them,” Celeste informed the group a few minutes later.