The Hunter’s Treasure

by Lily Diamond

  As he helps me pack up my gear and asks questions about how to work the camera and audio recorder, an idea is growing in my mind. I’m remembering how jealous Chad was at the very thought that I might possibly have moved on, and I’m watching how this hot stranger Drake eclipses my ex in every way without even knowing he’s doing it.

  I’m thinking about revenge. Not romance. I know better than to risk my heart while on the rebound from Chad, even if it has been over a month since I left him.

  But fucking an incredibly hot guy after going on an adventure with him, one that furthers my career on top of everything? Forget free drinks. Right now, I’m wondering how it would feel to have him pin me against something.

  If I can trust him, that is. Some guys put up a hell of a front to get what they want and then turn on you. Even Chad managed it for a while, and he’s an idiot. So I’m still in wait-and-see mode as I put on my backpack, he grabs the big equipment bag, and we both hold up a camera and click on their lights.

  “Okay, so pan around slowly as you walk, but make sure your movement is smooth. Sometimes you have to turn to get a shot fast, but too much shaky-cam and you’ll make your audience queasy instead of excited.” I’m trying to keep my mind on my work and set up a little professional rapport, but my mind keeps straying back to the prospect of fucking him.

  Normally a strange, hulking guy giving me a hungry look in a totally abandoned, isolated location would put my guard up right away. But when I saw those sultry blue eyes and that shock of silver-gold hair that looks perfect for holding onto during a hot make-out session, I have to admit, my judgment got a little skewed.

  Things are working out so far. But as we move down the hall and I do the walk-through part of the show, I think about what could happen once the second bout of EVP is done and we’re leaving the cameras to record back in the mental ward.

  “How do you power all this stuff?” he asks as he practices panning the camera around.

  “Rechargeable battery packs. That big box I left behind is a portable solar power station with a high-capacity battery at its core. I power lights, my heater, and my laptop off of that, and charge the battery packs for the cameras and audio recorder.” I’m focusing through the lens of the FLIR as we walk, letting him lead the way a little, his glowing form showing up in ghostly shades of translucent silver.

  “You really take all this seriously, huh? Most ghost hunters I’ve met are basically hobbyists.” He turns the camera on me, and I smile—not my professional smile, but a real one, just a touch shy. I can’t help it around him, and his gentle way of flirting makes it worse.

  “I’ve got a whole lot of channel followers who have been patiently waiting on a new segment until I finished moving and dealing with some things in my personal life. This was supposed to be my comeback episode.”

  “It’s how I make my living,” I explain. “I run the channel, I gather evidence, I write books and I have a website.”

  “Wow. That’s creative.” He chuckles. “I totally admit, the urban exploration thing has always been more of a glorified hobby for me. Otherwise I would have a bit more of the kind of connections you've got.”

  “Oh, well, it’s a matter of finding the right person and then asking nicely.” I wink at him. Shit. I just winked at him. I’m flirting now without even meaning to, but I guess there’s something about him that makes me feel bold. I don’t even know if I can really trust him yet. Shit.

  Then again, if I can get through this filming without him taking off with my gear, getting creepy, or just being an ass, that will tell me a lot about his character. I hope it works out. I may not have much experience—or luck—with sex, but the heat of his gaze makes me tingle all over.

  Could this be the guy who drives away the bland, bored, frustrated, used feeling that Chad left on my skin with his own heat? Talk about a palate cleanser.

  “So where are you taking us?” He walks slowly enough to take things in as I lead him into the depths of the building.

  “My secret sex dungeon,” comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. I wince, almost hearing the laughter from my imaginary audience. Oh no, I’m not clumsy at this flirting thing at all. Nope!

  He lets out a loud laugh that startles a couple of small bats off the rafters. They flutter and squeak at the edges of our lights for a few seconds before settling. “Oh really. Well, I’m all for it. Prefer if you turn the cameras off for stuff like that, though.”

  His wink makes me giggle in spite of myself. “Uh, well, actually, I thought I’d go straight to showing you one of the weirdest things about this property. Besides me, that is.”

  “Sounds good. Where is it?”

  I give him a wicked smile. “Deep down in the lowest sub-basement. That’s an addition dating back to the turn of the century—but it really saw use around 1918.”

  I am telling this story for my viewers as much as for him. I still don’t know how I’m going to work this tour seamlessly into my special, but I’ll figure it out. Once again, the show must go on.

  Chad’s attempt to derail things has left me even more determined to not only move on with my romantic life, but to kick ass at my channel’s comeback. How Tall, Pale and Handsome here might figure into the second part, I’m not sure yet. I just hope he’s as interested in me as he seems—and that he doesn’t have any really serious skeletons in his closet.

  Chapter Six

  Drake

  Her name is Amanda, and she’s even more fascinating than I had first thought. She’s tireless and focused as she leads me downstairs and down a twisting set of hallways. Now and again, her green eyes give me that smoky look that makes me wonder if her sleeping bag will fit two.

  She’s telling me a story about the 1919 influenza epidemic, and how this hospital has an entire wing that’s been closed down since then. “The outbreak is rumored to have been much worse than was documented. We’ll never know. But one of the reasons this place was closed was that they found a mass grave from that era in the deepest sub-basement.”

  I swallow, feeling a genuine chill. Damn, she’s good. “How did you find this out?”

  “Time talking to people at the Historical Society of Atlanta. They’re the ones who connect me to the old buildings’ property owners and government custodians. They’re the ones who can get you in...if you can bribe me into introducing you.”

  That flirty, but still slightly shy look crosses her face again. She’s smiling a lot more easily now.

  “Are the bones still down there?” Morbid curiosity has its claws in me.

  She laughs a little. “Oh no. Nothing like that; they were cremated and interred. There’s a memorial on the southwest corner of the property. But while Chad and I were wandering around lost, we stumbled on the place where they pulled the bones out.” Her voice goes low and conspiratorial, and I start to understand her giddiness over these spooky old places.

  “Okay, that’s freaky as hell. I have to see it.” This beats any haunted house tour I’ve ever been on. And it’s not like the diamonds are going anywhere.

  As interesting as this history lesson is, seeing her bountiful body move through the dark ahead of me is a huge distraction. I find myself wanting to focus all my attention on her curves, and not on our dreary surroundings. But I’ve got a job to do, and I’m fucking well going to see it through. Still...if I can mix my business with pleasure, I’ll go for it without hesitation.

  But I’ll let her set the pace. I’ve learned enough about the fairer sex to know not to push a woman I don’t know well sexually.

  “It’s down this way,” she’s saying excitedly—when her voice cuts off and she stops walking. “Wait.”

  “What is it?” I instinctively lower my voice and move closer to her, too aware of the weight of the pistol under my jacket. I unzip while I’m thinking about it, and switch the camera to my weak hand.

  “I’m not sure. I’m new with this infrared camera. Give me a second.” She hesitates.

  My fingers slip
under my jacket and unsnap the peace-strap on my holster. Jail changes a man’s instincts. I’m not taking one single goddamn chance.

  “Here, let me see.” I have experience with infrared from my Army night combat training, and once we trade cameras, I take a quick look. There are faintly glowing spots on the floor, and I know what they are at once—the heat residue of human footprints.

  Alarm bells go off and I lay a hand on Amanda’s shoulder. The prints run across our path, from an intersecting hallway leading roughly back toward the direction we had come from. They lead into a room with an open door that is dark inside. No footprints lead out.

  Someone got ahead of us deliberately and they’re hiding out in that room—

  I have barely finished the thought when I see a glowing arm snake out of the doorway and point something dark toward us. On pure instinct, I shove Amanda into the nearest open room and throw myself after her. Bullets bite into the wood of the door frame right after my head passes it.

  Her cry of distress rings in my ears as I drag the heavy door shut behind us. The regular camera goes spinning across the room, the light attached to it going black as its bulb shatters. I grab hold of her and pull her against me, then steer us into the corner, well away from the door.

  We come to a stop with me still playing meat shield, the infrared camera in one hand and my gun in the other. She shivers against my chest as she gets her bearings, and then looks up at me in horror. “What the fuck is going on?”

  I hear feet running toward the door. I let go of her and shove a nearby steel desk in front of it, keeping whoever is on the other side from kicking it open. “Someone’s shooting at us,” I growl. “Is that boy you threw over the sort to get violent?”

  “Chad? He’s never had the nerve,” she mumbles, and though I hear the doubt in her voice a sudden worry strikes me. What if she’s not the target between us? What if whoever shot that bullet is after me?

  Then she freezes and pulls away from me. “You have a gun? Why the hell do you have a gun?”

  Shit. Think fast, idiot. “What do you mean why the hell do I have a gun? This is an abandoned building in one of the worst sections of Atlanta! Why don’t you have a gun?”

  She blinks at me, a lost expression on her face. “I’ve lived here my whole life and never needed one before.” Someone kicks the other side of the door hard and she jumps, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

  “Okay. Look. Stay calm.” I look around, assessing the smallish room with large square drawers set into the walls. I’m no doctor, but it’s pretty clear from the drawers, the steel table, and the many cabinets, that this is some kind of surgery theater.

  Someone kicks the door again. Then two bullets punch through it, pinging off the steel cabinets and biting into the wall—fortunately well above our heads. Amanda screams and I step back and fire at the door, using the same angle as the shooter—and stare in horror as the gun goes bang but no holes appear anywhere in door or wall.

  “What the fuck?” I mumble, looking down at the gun—then duck aside as whoever is on the other side shoots back at me. I manage to get out of the way, but it’s pretty clear that something’s wrong.

  Then I hear the raspy laughter on the other side of the door, and suddenly I know who it is. “Hey Drake, what’s the matter?” Max calls out mockingly. “Something wrong with the gun I gave you?”

  I look down at the gun he convinced me to take, and then over to Amanda, who is staring at me in a mix of suspicion and horror. “Max, what, precisely, the fuck are you doing?”

  But I already know, and I don’t even bother to hide the creeping horror and rage on my face. Max took over as head of the Wanderers while I was gone, and he’s an unstable, overambitious jerk. I suppose he got a taste for it.

  But now I’m back, and in the way. I suspect that he wants to fix that. “Answer me, you psychotic little prick!”

  Max is short. He’s got a Napoleon complex and is three times as belligerent as he needs to be—unless I’m around to rein him in. Which I haven’t been, but...that also means his buttons are easy to push.

  “Hey, fuck you, Drake! You and your ethics? Your fucking rules? Trying to be the good guy? We’re fucking thieves, Drake!” Max’s tone is full of disgust. “You held us back. It’s time for you to go.”

  Amanda is staring at me in fear and suspicion. “Thieves?” she mouths, outrage and disappointment on her face.

  “I’ll explain everything. Just not now.” I’m seething with rage but I keep my voice gentle with her. Not so when I turn back to the door. “I kept you safe, Max. I even risked my freedom to keep the heat off of you.”

  “You think your martyr complex entitles you to keep bossing us around?” He shoots through the door again but we’re safely to the side of the spray.

  “I think that being the most experienced and being more stable than you does.” I can’t help it. I would walk out there right now and beat his face in were it not for the gun.

  "You’re right, Max, we are thieves. Not murderers, not kidnappers, not anything else. Just...jewel thieves. And we’re making a ton of money at it, so what the fuck is your problem?”

  “You’re my fucking problem! We could make a lot more without your bullshit rules holding us back!” I can hear he’s spitting mad, his voice going almost squeaky with anger.

  It would be worth laughing at to mess up his judgment more, but I don’t know how many bullets he’s got left.

  “Oh. Greed, then. And you’re tired of being told what to do. Fine. Fuck off, take our whole year’s earnings. I’ll walk away.” This is ridiculous, and I have no intention of letting Max lead the Wanderers straight into Hell.

  But I have to get Amanda and myself out of here in one piece.

  I hear a brief argument outside. A deeper voice—Oscar, Max’s sweet, dumb bruiser younger brother. “He’s saying he’ll walk away, big brother, come on! Let’s just let him go. You know he’s gotta follow his own rules. He's that kinda guy! That will be the end of it.”

  “Look, shut up!” They’re trying to whisper but aren’t doing a good job of it. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. And besides, I hate the prick! Why couldn’t he have just taken the plea on the gun charge and gotten out of our damn hair?”

  My eyes widen, and then narrow. “So you’re the one who set me up,” I growl. I should have guessed. Max stole six months of my life, and now he’s after the rest.

  Max’s voice turns grave. “There’s more to it than that. See, if I let you two go, nothing’s stopping you or that slut with you from rolling over on me. She’s a witness, Drake.”

  Amanda and I exchange horrified looks. “She’s only a witness because your dumb ass started shooting at us! There were a million ways to get me to walk—”

  Max laughs. “Oh, no, you’re still not getting it. See, I don’t want you to walk. After five years of doing it your way, it’s time to do it my way. And that means nobody lives to talk. Not you or her.”

  “What the fuck went wrong with you while I was gone?” I mumble in astonishment. But I know. Just like jail changed me, a taste of power changed Max.

  “I came to my senses.” There’s a shuffle of feet. “Oscar, break down the door.”

  “But Max...!”

  “Oscar. Now.”

  There’s a heavy thud, and I toss the pistol and sling the camera, turning to look around. “We have to find a way out of here.”

  “Who are you?” Amanda gasps in a shaky voice. I turn around, and in the dim light from her flashlight I see her cheeks glazed with tears.

  She’s in shock. I hurry over to her, reaching her just as Oscar slams into the door again. “Amanda. Please. Listen to me. I will explain everything, and I will find a way to get us out safe. But I can’t do any of that if you freeze on me. Please.”

  The genuine note of pleading in my voice seems to pull her out of it part way. “Okay. Okay.” She looks at me—then pushes away from the wall and starts looking around. It’s a weird ro
om with no windows or obvious way out. But there is one drawer that’s larger than the others, rimmed in some dark color with a small sign on it that I can’t make out.

  “This is an autopsy room,” Amanda breathes. She shines her light around, jumping as the thud comes again. The door rattles hard on its hinges and the wood cracks a little.

  Then her light falls on the drawer, and she gasps. “Oh shit!”

  “What is it?” We both head toward the drawer. I reach over and open it, revealing the large, clean chamber inside, and I notice the big lever next to it. “Another body drawer?”

  “No! It’s the dumbwaiter. See the lever next to it? This is how they got the bodies downstairs to that mass grave without anyone noticing!”

  “So we can go down in it?” I go over and test the box for stability. It creaks a little on whatever rope it’s connected to, but both it and the counterweight seem in good condition. “Good. Get in, sweetheart.”