Tainted Gold

by Lynn Michaels

  “Hang on to me,” he said, clenching her hand in his and pointing the lantern as he drew her down the shaft.

  Long ago the ceiling had been roofed out and they didn’t have to stoop. Water glistened on the floor in the lamp beam, and beyond its warm yellow glow, dark wet rock gleamed. They went slowly, Quillen gritting her teeth against the suck and slosh around her feet. She nearly screamed again but had sense enough not to when she heard the first sagging, creaking groan in the beams overhead.

  “Oh, God, Jason,” she whimpered, “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Sure you can,” he soothed, and tightened his grip on her hand.

  Abruptly they stepped out of the shaft into a wide chamber. The air was fresher and Quillen drew a deep, grateful lungful that froze suddenly when electric lights strung overhead blazed and she saw Tucker kneeling beside a portable generator.

  His robe was gone, and so was his Realgar makeup, though scraps of latex still clung to his jawline. The jeans and denim shirt he wore she hadn’t seen in the truck, but she guessed he’d stashed them underneath his spare robe.

  “Somehow,” he said simply as he rose to his feet and faced them, “I knew I’d find you here, Lyons.”

  “Leave us alone, Ferris,” Jason retorted, and Quillen gasped as she saw him withdraw a pistol from an unseen pocket in his costume.

  “I intend to,” Tucker answered calmly. “I’ll leave you to Sheriff Blackburn, who’s on his way. I came to get Quillen the hell out of here.” He looked at her then and smiled. “Let’s go, love.”

  She couldn’t move; she wanted to, but she couldn’t. Her mouth wouldn’t work, either. It opened, but nothing came out, and indecision rooted her feet to the rock. She didn’t know whom to believe, whom to trust. It had been Tucker’s arrow in the tree, all right, but Jason was holding a gun. Why? He couldn’t have known that Tucker would intercept them here. That left only one possibility, one that raised the hair on the back of her neck and made her take a step away from Jason and look frantically, pleadingly, at Tucker. His smile faded and his eyebrows drew together as he faced Jason squarely.

  “Let me give you a little advice before we leave,” Tucker said, his voice quiet but firm. “Pull the fuses on those charges that your buddy Cal told me he planted this morning. You might as well, Lyons—there’s no gold on the other side of that rock shelf, and the blast could very well bring down this whole mountain.”

  Jason cocked the pistol. The metallic click, magnified by the rock walls, made up Quillen’s mind, and a shiver of dread crawled up her back as another agonized rumble shuddered the rocks beneath her feet. With a hard shove between her shoulder blades, Jason pushed her toward Tucker.

  She stumbled, but he moved quickly and caught her before she fell. His arms closed around her and she shivered, clinging to him and immobile with terror as a third, long groan from the ceiling reverberated through every bone in her body. Oh, God, she thought, if only she hadn’t let Jason’s ridiculous song frighten her, if only she’d gone first to the Wizard’s Cave…

  “The sheriff’s on his way,” Jason said behind her, “is the oldest line in the world, Ferris.”

  “Old, but effective,” he corrected him. “And in this case true. Don’t be an idiot. I started following Wilson after I went back to Quillen’s truck and found my bow gone. He was the only one who could have used it, but, unfortunately, I didn’t get close enough to tackle him until after he’d taken the shot at Quillen. I threatened to whack him with another tree limb and he told me then about the charges and the scheme the two of you concocted to make off with the gold right under Quillen and my uncle’s nose—using his equipment, of course—”

  “Shut up,” Jason snapped viciously.

  “You’ve only got two problems,” Tucker went on, “one, there’s no gold in this mine. The mother lode is nowhere near here. Two, the blast you set off Wednesday afternoon to blow up my seismometer has severely weakened all the roof supports and shorings—”

  “Says you,” Jason sneered.

  Right on cue, a fourth groan shuddered the floor, rose in pitch. As Jason glanced up quickly, Tucker grabbed her and threw them against the wall. An ear-splitting crack followed and Tucker slapped his hand over her mouth and the scream tearing up her throat. The lights flickered and went out, and smoke clogged her nose. She gagged, pushed his hand away, and buried her face in the front of his shirt until the low rumble died.

  Coughing, she peeled herself off him then and looked over her shoulder. There was nothing but a pile of rock and two shattered timbers in the spot where Jason had stood. She heard another groan and realized it was Jason as Tucker pushed her away and picked his way across the rock-littered floor.

  Quillen trailed behind him and helped lift chunks of granite off Jason. His lantern had fallen clear and gave them light to work by. In its bright beam, his face was chalky and his eyes screwed shut with pain.

  As cave-ins went, it wasn’t much, and within a few minutes they’d cleared the debris off his body. His right leg was bent at an odd angle. Broken, Quillen thought, pressing her hand to her mouth as Tucker bent over him.

  “Could be fractured,” he told Jason, who opened his eyes and looked up at him. “You hurt anyplace else?”

  “My—my ribs,” he panted.

  “I know the feeling,” Tucker returned dryly as he reached over him. He picked up the lamp and stood. “Stay here,” he told Quillen, and took a right-hand shaft out of the chamber, the main one that led to the surface through the Wizard’s Cave. Jason glanced at her almost pleadingly, but she turned her back on him.

  “Well, folks, we’re trapped,” Tucker announced grimly as he came back into the chamber. “That shaft is blocked”—he nodded at the rock-choked tunnel Jason and Quillen had followed—“and so is that one, obviously.” He brushed dirt off the front of his shirt and eyed Jason steadily. “Cal told me when the fuses were set for eight o’clock tonight, but he didn’t tell me where. I figure it’ll take a rescue crew about twelve hours to dig us out of here, unless we can find another way ourselves. Fortunately, love, your father was very meticulous about air shafts, so the oxygen should hold—that is, Lyons, unless you’ve got a death wish and you refuse to tell me where the charges are.”

  Limply, Jason raised his right hand and gestured toward the far wall of the chamber. “That shaft, the new one,” he said breathlessly. “About two hundred yards.”

  “Pray it didn’t fall in, because if it did—” Tucker didn’t finish his sentence, just let it trail off as he moved across the chamber, fumbled near the generator, and returned with another lantern which he gave to Quillen. “Stay here with him; you should be safe enough. The cave-in relieved the pressure for a while—I hope. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Tucker, it was your arrow in the tree,” she blurted out, “I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it—” She gasped in midsentence and clutched his forearms in her hands. “Last Sunday,” she breathed, “you left some arrows in the target. Cal said he’d give them back to you, only he didn’t, did he?”

  “No, love, he didn’t.” He smiled, stroking his dirty knuckles down her cheek. “And I finally remembered those missing arrows when I went back to the truck, found my bow gone but the quiver still there. I knew then that it had to be Cal. He didn’t need the arrows; he already had them. He only had to change the tips. He took the bow and left the quiver because it had my fingerprints all over it. If their plan to lure you into the woods and kill you had worked, it would’ve been just another nail in my coffin.”

  “Oh God, Tucker, I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be,” he interrupted her gently. “I understand. I’ll be back soon.”

  He kissed the top of her head and disappeared down the shaft. Quillen turned on her lantern and trained it at the dark maw of the tunnel.

  “Quill, listen to me,” Jason panted behind her. “I didn’t want—we didn’t want—to hurt you. Honest to God we didn’t, but when you told Cal tha
t you knew about the gold and that you were going to the EPA we didn’t have any choice. It all would have come out then, don’t you see?”

  “No, Jason,” she replied icily, “I don’t see.”

  “I’m almost glad we got caught,” he said wearily, “and I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “Unfortunately,” Quillen said thickly as she blinked back tears, “I can’t say the same for you.”

  Time crawled and she stood shivering and trembling in the near center of the chamber, trying not to think about the tons of granite over her head. She kicked rocks out of her way and began to pace, wrapping her hands around the lantern handle to keep them from shaking.

  She had no idea how long Tucker had been gone when she felt the shudder beneath her feet. The rumble followed and her heart shot up into her mouth. She felt the tremor pass, heard Jason’s frightened whimper, and then heard the faint, echoing splinter at the far end of the shaft Tucker had taken.

  Her own fear evaporated and Quillen ran after him, clutching the lamp. The ceiling was lower and she nearly smacked her head on a roof support. Stooping slowed her down but she ran as fast as she could, the lantern beam bobbing drunkenly before her. There was another light at the far end of the tunnel, daylight, dusty and bright.

  Her chest heaving, Quillen burst out of the shaft into a small, smoke-hung chamber. There was no opposite wall and no Tucker, just a partially collapsed air shaft overhead and clods of earth littering the stone floor. Before she could catch her breath, let alone cry, she heard his voice, a quiet, calm whisper.

  “Over here, love—softly now—Mother Earth may have another stretch or two left in her—”

  “Where?”

  “Down here,” he said.

  Cautiously, Quillen crossed the chamber, stepping prudently around two fat chunks of dynamite. She nearly slipped on the edge at the far side and looked down at Tucker, grinning at her from a hole about ten feet below her feet. His face was black and his hair gray with dirt.

  “What are you doing down there?” she asked. “What happened?”

  “I pulled the fuses,” he whispered, “moved them way out of the way, put my hand on the wall to stand up, and it fell in. I got so excited when I saw the molybdenite that I lost my head, slipped, and fell down here.”

  “Molybde—what?”

  “Molybdenite,” he repeated, his grin straining his face. “That’s what all this wonderful greasy-looking black rock is. It’s a mineral used to alloy nickel and chromium steel. I haven’t poked around much, I don’t dare, but it looks to me like there’s enough here to rebuild New York and Los Angeles fifty times over.”

  “Is it worth anything?”

  “My love.” He chuckled softly. “It’s worth its weight in gold.”

  Pebbles bounced on the floor behind her. Quillen started and turned around. Clods of grass were tumbling through the air shaft.

  “Hell-lo! Hel-lo!”

  It was Sheriff Blackburn’s voice, and Quillen scurried across the chamber. Shading her eyes, she saw his face peering down at her.

  “Hi there, young lady,” he said calmly, but the lines easing around his eyes reflected his relief. “Everything okay?”

  “Jason’s hurt,” she answered. “Broken leg, we think, maybe some ribs. Tucker’s stuck in a hole. Do you have a rope?”

  “I’ll throw one down. We’ll have another couple here shortly, then we’ll haul you out through here. Looks solid enough. Stand back now.”

  She did, and a second later a fat loop of strong rope plopped onto the floor at her feet. She snatched it up, hurried back to the precipice, and lowered one end to Tucker.

  “Sheriff Blackburn’s here,” she told him. “They’re going to pull us out through the air shaft.”

  “Great.” He sighed, knotting the rope around his waist. “Is there a rock handy?”

  “Got one,” she answered, looping her end securely around a large boulder and drawing the rope taut. “Okay.”

  “I really hope,” he panted, grunting with effort as he hauled himself up a minute or two later and sat down heavily on the rim of the hole, “that Lyons broke his ribs. It’d serve him right.”

  Quillen dropped the rope and Tucker looped his arm around her shoulders as she sat down beside him.

  “Is it over now?” she asked, feeling a last, tired shiver ripple through her as she tucked herself against him.

  “I’d say so,” he answered, swiping his left hand over his dirty face. “Sheriff Blackburn’s got Cal, Jason’s not going anywhere until they lower a stretcher. We should go back and haul him down here, though, but once that’s done, there’s only one thing left to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go see my uncle with my hat in my hand.” Tucker glanced at her and grimaced. “He didn’t know anything about the gold. He just wanted his amusement park. Cal admitted that they were using him to throw suspicion off them the same way they were trying to use me.”

  “Oops.” Quillen winced.

  “I ought to apologize for slugging him.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment, then leaned together nose to nose and said, “Naaahhh.”

  Laughing, they hugged each other, then Tucker released her and wiggled his left hand into his back pocket.

  “Here,” he said. “I was going to snooker you into the show this afternoon and give this to you when I made the coin switch.”

  He opened his hand and Quillen’s eyes teared as she looked at the yellow gold ring set with a diamond solitaire lying on his dirty palm.

  “When did you get this?”

  “Yesterday. Hope it fits. I guessed.”

  She picked it up and slipped it on her left ring finger. It fit, and she kissed him.

  “You know, love,” he told her, “I think we’ll make as terrific an alloy as molybdenite.”

  “You bet we will.” She smiled, tugging him close by the rope still around his waist. “And lots of terrific little alloys, too.”

  About the Author

  Lynn started writing in sixth grade when her class formed a writers club. At the end of the year, the other kids quit but she kept at it. By the time her sons Chris and Paul were in elementary school, she had boxes full of stories. “If you don’t do something with all this stuff,” her husband, Michael, told her, “I’m going to make wallpaper out of it.”

  Otherwise, her life is pretty much like yours. She grocery shops, pumps her own gas, cleans her own house and does the laundry. She’s a fiend for coupons, collects teapots, thimbles, hand-made bookmarks and misspelled writing awards. To find out more about Lynn visit www.lynnmichaels.us.

  Look for these titles by Lynn Michaels

  Now available:

  Like a Lover

  Coming Soon:

  A Lover’s Gift

  Love and money. The perfect design for murder…

  Like a Lover

  © 2012 Lynn Michaels

  Within two weeks of inheriting 25 percent of Lightbody Inc. from her father, fashion designer Jay-Jay Lightbody has two close calls: a suspicious house fire and a near-miss from a hit-and-run driver.

  Now there’s a man, wearing the most god-awful clothes she’s ever seen, shadowing her every move. Turns out he’s Gerald Kilroy, a private detective hired by her overly alarmed grandmother to find out why someone is trying to kill her.

  Kill her? Gerald’s crazy handsome, but the idea that someone would want her dead is just nuts.

  But after receiving a threatening letter at work, she can’t ignore the obvious. But who wants her dead? The ex-suitor who still sends her roses? The jealous half-sister who didn’t inherit? Or—most frightening of all—someone she trusts?

  As the attempts on Jay-Jay’s life escalate, and Kilroy races to solve the mystery, their attraction explodes in a cataclysm hot enough to melt a lake full of winter ice. The only question is, will they find the culprit before death closes in over their heads.

  Warning: This book contains a feisty heroine, a pro
tective grandmother, money-hungry relatives, a possessive ex-suitor and a handsome private investigator that’s becoming more protective by the minute.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Like a Lover:

  His clothes were the first thing Jay-Jay Lightbody noticed. They were awful—kelly-green blazer, mud-brown shirt, bright yellow V-necked sweater, and navy-blue slacks underneath a tan trench coat as crumpled as a week-old paper lunch sack. The man strolling the el platform was a fashion designer’s nightmare.

  The second thing she noticed was his Roman bumped nose, and last, but certainly not least, was the ringless third finger of his left hand. Lots of married men didn’t wear rings, yet Jay-Jay always interpreted a naked finger as a good omen.

  Because she was looking at him instead of her feet, she tripped as she boarded the elevated train and stumbled into the car. Accustomed to his cousin’s clumsiness, Peter Lightbody deftly caught her arm, led her to a seat, and sat down opposite her. The hopeful smile Jay-Jay directed at the doors dimmed a little when the man stepped into the car, walked toward the rear, and sat down facing her but not looking at her.

  “So much for eye contact,” Peter teased, the corners of his gray-green eyes crinkling with amusement. “Y’know, Toothpick, Gran would faint if you brought that eyesore home.”

  “Clothes, my dear cousin,” she replied airily as she peeled off her plum-colored knit gloves, “do not make the man.”

  Gasping, Peter clutched his chest, his fingers tangling in the green wool muffler tied around his neck. “Blasphemy from the heir apparent.”

  Jay-Jay crossed her thickly lashed blue eyes at him and stuck out her tongue. Blinking to clear her vision, she looked down the car and saw the man staring at her. When her gaze met his, he turned his head toward the window.

  The train shuddered and lurched forward. Jay-Jay opened her burgundy leather shoulder bag, took out a small sketch pad and pencil, and crossed her blue-jeaned legs. Peter traded seats to sit beside her and watch her draw. His arm gently rocked against her left shoulder as the train clacked southward toward the Loop past low, suburban rooftops that were occasional splashes of color against the winter-dulled sky.