“What?”
“I just think I need to—”
Phil interrupted them. “Come on, Evan. I need you to take control of the Throcker Thrashers.” He turned to Cass. “It can get pretty wild out there when the
thrashing starts.”
“I bet.” The Country Women’s Association ladies didn’t look like people you
would willingly mess with. “Go,” she told Evan. “I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t back away from this.” Evan’s gaze was full on hers.
Spooky that he knows what I’m thinking. A swift change of subject was needed.
“I want to look around the house.”
“Be careful. Some of the old floor boards are rotten,” Evan warned.
“Yes, and some people have ripped up parts of the walls looking for the gold,”
Phil added.
Cass gave a mock salute. “Duly noted.”
Evan reached for her hand and squeezed it gently “Don’t go home without me.”
“Oh, hell, no. You’re my ride. I don’t want to even think about walking back to
town in the heat and dodging blow flies the size of flying mice.” She smiled widely at
him.
Cass headed up the steps of the old Throcker house thinking about Jack and his
two brides. “How did that work for you, Jack?” Two women under the same roof,
each claiming wifely rights would have been a nightmare. Old wooden boards whined
under her feet. She assessed each step she took, looking for the most solid looking
ones. “Last thing I need to do is fall through a floor and land on something icky like a
snake.”
Cass reached the old door, all floorboards were intact. She gently ran her one
finger over a cracked, stainless rose in the paneling beside the door. Her other hand
rested on the old brass door knob. It was green with age and neglect. “We have to
save this place.” She stopped and thought about what that would take. Time and
energy and a commitment to stay in Mundabucka. “Yeah, and then you can marry
Evan and live happily ever after saving old, broken down houses and having sex with
a man you’ve only just met. Real rational, woman.”
She turned the knob and pushed open the door. A musty smell greeted her and
she wasn’t surprised to see old, dusty furnishings in what looked like it would have
been the parlor. It appeared like everything had been left the way it had been when the
Throckers had lived there. Solid, wood furniture with rotting velvet coverings and
haphazardly draped curtains were still hanging and a piano stood in front of the
window. Cass walked over to it and fingered some of the keys. A wobbly few notes
sounded eerily making her stiffen like she felt someone was in the house watching
her. Were the old ghosts of the Throckers still wandering the home?
She moved from the parlor into the kitchen. Old pots and pans hung on the wall
in neat rows as if waiting for their owners to take them down and prepare a meal. The
enameled sink was chipped and rusted out in parts. As Cass walked on the old linoleum floor it crackled under her feet as ancient vinyl gave way. She squatted
down and picked up an old newspaper peeking out from a hole in the flooring. It was
dated 1877 and an advertisement for corsets announced women ‘should show what
you’re made of.’ Cass pondered wearing a corset and undoubtedly heavy, long skirts
in sweltering weather and felt admiration for women who endured life as it was back
then in Australia.
From the kitchen, she progressed down the hall, a cold shiver racing up her spine.
“Are you here, Jack?” No answer. “Tell me where you hid the gold and we’ll use it to
make the house come back to life.” This was met by only by the sounds of creaking
boards under her feet.
She pushed open a door to what appeared to Cass to be the main bedroom. There
was an old bed, just the springs and four sturdy iron uprights that kept it together. Did
the three of them sleep there? Did the women take it in turns?
“No way in hell I would’ve accepted that,” Cass mumbled to herself as she
looked over to a massive wooden chest. It looked like something someone may have
taken off an old ship, possibly containing the worldly goods of a traveler coming to a
vast, new land where nothing existed. She ran her hands over the solid wood. At a
guess, it looked like oak to her. It was bound with steel strapping that held it tight and
protected. A flip latch, with an old padlock, still with a rusted key, hanging from it,
would have secured whatever treasure was inside.
“This is beautiful. How can they let this rot?” She pulled the padlock off and
placed it on the ground so she could lever the lid open using the latch. It was heavy
and took some effort to lift up. Inside the interior was spacious but empty. “No
Throcker gold lurking in here.” Not that she expected it to be. Cass peered down at
the base of the trunk. The wood looked different. “And flimsy. What’s that about?”
Cass leaned in, her ass up in the air and her hand curled into a fist. She knocked
on the base. It was soft pine. She knocked on the sides. Two different sounds. One
solid. One not so. She knocked on them again. “Yep, they’re not the same. I wonder
why?” Cass turned as she heard a noise suddenly break the silence. It sounded like
something moving within the house. “Or, maybe not. Maybe it’s just a creepy, old
house and you have an active imagination.”
Her attention went back to the trunk. Cass ran her fingers around the pine base
and into the corners and over the joins. There was a small gap that didn’t seem to look
natural. A weird feeling rushed over her. “Could the Throcker gold be in there? Was it
a case of hiding something in plain sight? If so, it wasn’t going to be the legendary
haul people expected. She stood up and looked around the room to find something to
wedge into the gap and pry up the pine. An old shoe horn made of what looked like
actual horn lay discarded on the floor.
Cass picked it up and went back to the trunk. She shoved the shoe horn into the
gap and jiggled it around, trying to pry up the plank. After a couple of minutes and a
lot of sweating, the board popped up with a groan. Cass worked her fingertips underneath and yanked the board up. What she saw made her blink twice. There was
an old folded piece of paper, a compass and a key.
“Holy crap! Is that a map? I don’t believe it!” Cass reached down inside for the
paper. “Is this clue to the Throcker gold?” And then she blacked out.
Chapter nine
“Cassie! Can you hear me!” Evan was frantic. He had returned to the house after
an hour to look for Cass. She was nowhere to be seen. The door to the home was open
and there were footsteps in the thick dust on the floor. A cold sense of fear raced
through him. This was a very old house. She could have fallen through the floor and
been crying out for help without anyone to hear. He looked around frantically but all
boards were intact. Phil joined in the search when he heard Evan shouting Cass’s
name. They went from room to room.
“Are you sure she went in here?” Phil asked.
“She said she wanted to look around.” If anything happened to her, Evan knew it
would kill him, such was the hold she had taken on his heart. “Cassie!”
“You love her.” Phil smiled.
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s nice, man.”
“We have to find her.”
Cass woke up with the mother of all headaches. She tried to sit up but hit her
head on what appeared to be a very low ceiling. “Where the hell am I? She rubbed her
head and squinted above her. It looked like solid oak. It was then she realized where
she was. In the trunk. And the headache? “Someone hit me hard right after I found
what could have been a map and a compass.” She muttered to herself as she scrabbled
her hands around in the confined space. She could feel the map and compass under
her fingers. “And frig, there was a key. A big, old and ornate one.” In the musty,
confined space she couldn’t or feel anything else. The key was gone.
Cass pushed up on the lid. It was firm. She thought of the latch and the padlock
she had seen earlier. “The bastard must have locked me in!” Part of her wanted to
panic while her more rational self told her to calm down, shut up and think. She
couldn’t get out. Whoever hit her must have taken the map, compass and key and then
locked her in. “When I find them, I’m going to kick their ass.”
She pushed again on the lid. It was sweaty hot inside the trunk. Suffocation
wasn’t an issue though. Enough air seemed to be getting in through a join in the
wood. “So, I just have to contemplate heatstroke. There’s a bright side,” she muttered
to herself as she banged her fists against the wood. “Do not panic. Stay calm.” Despite
this she yelled out. To her surprise, a voice yelled back. She screamed in relief.
“Cassie!
It was Evan. The sound of running feet were heading toward her. “Evan! I’m
here. In the trunk!” She kept banging her fists on the inside of the lid. She heard Phil
ask, “How did she get in there for Pete’s sake?”
“Please get me out,” she wailed. Any illusion of being strong and in control had
rapidly diminished with the rising heat in the trunk.
“I will. I promise,” Evan called out to her. “I just have to get the lid open. Damn
it! The key broke.”
“I saw an axe in the old barn outside,” Phil told him.
“Get it!” Evan ordered.
Cass heard the sound of running feet. “An axe?” She was awfully close the top of
the lid. She tried to scrunch down to make herself smaller.
“I’ll be careful. I promise, Cassie.”
She knew that. “Evan?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m kinda scared.”
“I know. You’d be crazy not to be,” he responded, frustration evident in his
voice.
“And, I’m sweating like a pig.”
“I will get you out.”
Phil pounded back into the room. “I have the axe!”
“Don’t destroy the trunk!” Cassie implored.
“What?” Evan sounded agog.
“It’s a beautiful thing.” It would be a shame to ruin it.
“You’re more beautiful to me than it will ever be.”
The next sound she heard was the axe crashing down and wood splintering. Cass
covered her head with her hands. Another blow followed and suddenly there was
daylight and hands started pulling the splintered wood apart. Cool air rushed in. She
looked up at Evan. “Hello.” She had never been so relieved to see anyone. Phil even
looked good.
“You’re right,” Evan reached his hands down to her. “You are sweating like a
pig.” He pulled her up and out.
“What happened?” Phil asked her.
Cass leaned against Evan, relieved to be out and in his arms. She told them about
the possible map and the compass “—and then I blacked out.”
Evan touched her hair. Her hat was no longer on her head and there was blood.
“Looks like someone whacked you. We need to get you to hospital. Phil, get the car.”
“Right!” He raced out.
Evan pulled Cass into his arms and kissed her. “God, I was so worried.” He
leaned his forehead against hers.
“Me, too.” She turned to glance at the trunk. It was then she saw it. “Hey, wait a
second, the key is still here. I must have been lying on it and whoever knocked me out
didn’t realize. Do you think it’s the key to the Throcker gold?” That could be the only
reason someone had done to her what they did.
Evan reached down and picked it up. “Maybe, but at the moment I need to make
sure you’re okay. The Throcker gold can wait.”
Chapter Ten
Word soon raced around Mundabucka about what happened to the city chick.
Cass was not impressed. “City chick?” She was back at the hotel with Flo and Jo
fussing over her.
“Yeah, well, you’re from the big smoke of Cairns.”
“Cairns isn’t a major city. It’s regional, casual and carefree. It’s hardly a metropolis.”
Flo considered that and nodded. “No, but it’s bigger than Mundabucka and that
makes you the city chick.”
Cass blew out a breath and stood up from the large armchair she had been directed to sit in and rest. “I’m fine,” she announced before either woman could say
anything. It was nice they were worried but so much attention drove Cass mad.
“Evan said you were to rest,” Jo told her.
“Well, Evan’s not here so what Evan doesn’t know won’t hurt him will it now?
By the way, where is he?” He had gotten her home and gone. “He was last seen
holding onto the key and cursing under his breath.”
“He was pretty angry about what happened to you.”
“Flo’s right. He and Phil went to talk to Deputy Bob. They figure the key, compass and map are safest with him.”
“Deputy Bob? Seriously?” Just when I thought Mundabucka couldn’t get more
country.
“Deputy Bob is our local cop,” explained Flo. “He’s been called Deputy Bob ever
since primary school when he used to wear a sheriff’s badge. The thought is he liked
it so much he decided to be a cop for real.”
“Ah, I see.” Mundabucka was a strange place. It was better to go with it than
against it.
“We have Bob and Nellie on our Police force.”
“Nellie?” Was Mundabucka progressive enough to have a female officer, Cass
wondered?
“His blue heeler cattle dog.”
“Of course.” Cass smiled. She should have thought of that.
“Phil also helps out,” Jo added. “They’re a very effective police force.”
“No doubt,” murmured Cass as she thought of a tin starred Deputy Bob, a pooch
and the toothless and fingerless Phil, on the beat looking after the mean streets of
Mundabucka.
It was then Adele appeared. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”
Like she gave a crap. Just the fake way she said it set Cass’s teeth on edge with
suspicion. She looked too happy for someone who didn’t like her. A thought came to
her. What the hell. “Why did you hit me on the head?” A little speculative accusation
couldn’t hurt.
“I did not!” Adele declared angrily.
“And you took the key.”
She bit back. “There was no key.”
Three sets of eyes locked on Adele.
“Ah-ha!” I frigging knew it.
“Adele? What did you do?” Flo wasn’t happy.
Jo barred the doorway she came in through. “You need to explain what
you just
said.”
Adele backed away from everyone. “I mean, I heard through gossip that there
was a map and compass. No one mentioned a key.”
“Gossip, huh?” Cass knew she was lying her Sicilian ass off.
“Of course.” Adele crossed her arms over her breasts. “Are you accusing me of
something? That’s slander you know.”
“Only if it’s not true,” Cass responded, thinking that as shallow as Adele was, she
didn’t strike her as someone who would try and bash someone’s head in. That she
knew what happened and undoubtedly by who was a given.
“I don’t have to stand here and take this!” Adele snarled at Cass.
“No, I’m sure you can take it elsewhere with the same reaction.”
“Bitch.” Adele went off in a huff.
“Cow!” Cass yelled after her. She didn’t care what Adele thought of her. As if
Evan would want her.
“Think she did it?” Jo asked Cass. “She’s pretty greedy.”
“Yeah, but she’s basically stupid and shallow.” The other women nodded at
Cass’s words.
“Who else, then?”
Cass wouldn’t put it past Murdo and said so. Her one run in with him was enough
to make her suspicious.
“Maybe,” Flo answered. “Word is he went bush a couple of hours ago. Plenty of
time to do the deed and scarper.”
“Maybe he’s looking for the gold.”
Jo had a good point but for one thing. “But he doesn’t have the key.”
“He could shoot the lock off whatever it fits to.”
Cass was bemused. “I think that only ever happens successfully in the movies
and as fascinating as Mundabucka is, it’s no Hollywood.”
* * * * *
Cass eventually gave into the fussing and concern from Flo and Jo and retired to
her bedroom. She was neither tired nor an invalid. While Cass had a slight headache
from the bump on her head, she felt bad about wasting her employer’s time. She was
paid to do a job and not to lie around. She took work seriously. But they wouldn’t
hear of her doing anything more for the day. And, if she was honest, while they’re
fussing was sweet, it was also draining. It was nice people cared. She hadn’t felt that
in ages.
“Crazy place,” she murmured to herself.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Evan responded pushing through the doorway
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