Better Than Gold

by Mary Brady

  Passion ran deep in her, hidden by the layers life had forced her to create. He found himself inhaling as much of her scent as he could, absorbing her. “Is there anything you can do in the meantime?”

  “I can’t stop it. I don’t even know if I can slow it down.” She sat up suddenly and plucked a folder from the box. “I can’t think of a reasonable and rational way to steer the ship in this rising storm. And even if I had the power to keep everything under wraps, I can’t make that decision for the entire town and I’m afraid to mention anything to the Mayor or the town council. I’m afraid they might take up shovels themselves.” She stopped and looked up at him. “Daniel, what do I do?”

  He could tell by the look on her face that she regretted the question as soon as she asked it, and that she didn’t ignore her misgivings said more about her strength than anything.

  He took the folder from her hand and put it back in the box, and her blue eyes flashed at him.

  She leaned into him, drawing him toward her until their lips were almost touching. The smell of her filled him and her blue eyes sparkled up at him. The sadness had lifted, replaced by smoke.

  “Action...sometimes you just need to take action.” His words came out breathy as she shifted closer. Then her eager mouth moved over his, as his reservations silently imploded until he could barely remember them.

  When he put a hand behind her head to deepen their kiss, she came to him, encircling his neck with her arms. He pulled her onto his lap, pressing her softness into him, his mouth testing, tasting. She met his tongue with hers and...

  ...she broke the kiss as suddenly as it had started and moved carefully off his lap and back onto the floor. “This is—um—wonderful, but the chief probably didn’t consider that we might get along this nicely.”

  “I suppose not.” Cold reality came back swiftly when he realized he had lost control. “I’m—”

  “Don’t you dare apologize.”

  “I might be sorry—”

  “No.” She covered her ears.

  He felt the laughter rising easily inside him. “I might be sorry we met under these circumstances.” He spoke with his mouth very near her hand so she couldn’t help but hear him, nudging her fingers with his lips until she wiggled them in protest. “Or that I have to delay your project, but I’m not sorry I kissed you. You taste like a morning after a spring rain.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  He smiled because that’s what she did to him, made him smile, and she managed to look sexy with her hands still pressed to her ears.

  “Are you finished?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He leaned in and took another taste, which she readily gave to him. Her mouth explored his as she moved her hands from her ears to his chest. When she curled her fingers under the hem of his sweater, he snatched them up in his.

  It didn’t stop her. As her lips explored his face, her other hand reached under his sweater and found flesh. Her touch distorted reason like some crazy spell, stirring things inside him he’d never felt.

  He placed a kiss on the soft skin where the gold chain lay on the nape of her neck and then raised her chin until she had to look into his eyes. “The last thing I want to do is to lead you to believe I have anything to offer you. I don’t and that’s not you, it’s me.”

  She stared at him for a moment, any uncertainty completely gone from her clear expression. “Chivalry is not dead.” She resumed her exploration, taking inventory of the muscles in his abdomen, and then her expression changed to a dare as she flattened her palm against his belly and moved lower.

  “In fact, chivalry might be dead and gone if you keep that up.” His voice was nearly a growl.

  She slid her hand back up to safer territory. “It is alive and well in an anthropologist come to study my bones.”

  He touched a fingertip to the angle of her jaw. “They are great bones.”

  She leaned toward him again, and he stroked the soft skin of her neck. Then he reached into her thick, soft hair and luxuriated in the opulence as the silkiness slid and tumbled through his fingers—and he felt control begin to slip again.

  “Hey, aren’t we supposed to be reading records to see what we might find about those old bones?” he said against her ear and then left a kiss.

  She moved away. That was a shame because having her close enough to touch, smell and taste seemed right.

  “You’re right.” She took her phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. “No signal. I’m—um—going upstairs to check for messages.”

  With Mia gone, the room seemed dimmer, maybe even smaller. The light feeling in his heart receded, and the anger seeped back inside him.

  Was he crazy?

  He needed to think with a smarter part of his body...because his heart could get him in trouble, worse, it could get someone else’s into trouble if he let things go too far.

  He pushed the boxes into their proper order. If he couldn’t fix himself, he for sure should not harm Mia any more than the consequences of that skeleton dictated.

  A few minutes later, she hurried back into the room, tossed the room keys to him and grabbed her coat. “There’s a problem at the site.”

  She ran out the door.

  * * *

  MIA RACED HER small SUV up Church Street. The sun hung much lower in the sky than she imagined it would. They had been in the records room longer than she thought, kissing, touching. And it had been wonderful. Full-on fantasy stuff.

  But reality had returned quickly and succinctly.

  A squad car sat out in front of Pirate’s Roost and when she got inside, two police officers stood in the doorway to the back room.

  “Hello, Officer Gardner.” She greeted Lenny and then she turned to the other officer. “Hello, Officer Doyle.”

  “Hello, Ms. Parker.” The older police officer turned away and stepped into the back room.

  What was there? What did they find? Fear struck hard and she had to make her feet move forward.

  Beyond the doorway, violent destruction had spread granite out across the floor.

  “Oh, no.”

  Chunks, pieces that hadn’t been there before, lay strewn about as if an explosion had taken place.

  Her stomach twisted at the sight of the sledgehammer’s handle resting against the wall.

  “Whoever did this was careful not to break through the plaster of the front wall so no passersby or patrol squads out on Church Street could see what they were doing,” Lenny said, looking at her less sternly than usual.

  “How did you know anything happened?”

  “The Sergeant told us to come by more often,” Officer Doyle added. “We checked in the back and the door was open, it might have been jimmied, but the thing is really old, so it’s hard to tell. Sorry, Ms. Parker.”

  There was no mystery left in the burial chamber. If there had been anything hidden inside, it was gone. “It will be hard to undo this.”

  “Do you think anything of value was taken?” Doyle asked as Lenny prowled, checking the other rooms and windows.

  “Just the integrity of the crypt. They didn’t even take the stupid hammer.”

  “We’ll ask around the neighborhood and find out if anyone saw anything. Do you know if the back door was left unlatched?”

  “Are you kidding?” She made a conciliatory gesture toward Officer Doyle. “Sorry. Since the chief told me on that first day I needed to be vigilant, I have been.”

  “We’ll take the hammer and dust it and the door for prints. There isn’t much else we can do,” Lenny said as he reentered the back room.

  “I think we have to check with Dr. MacCarey also. He’s in town and should be here soon,” she said.

  As she studied the debris, she noticed some of the granite pieces were streaked with brown. She wondered if
the lines were random or purposeful. She sucked in a breath.

  “Are you all right?” Lenny moved to her side.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” She smiled to cover any alarm. Was the brown someone’s blood?

  Lenny’s radio squawked something Mia couldn’t make out. He turned away and answered the call.

  “Is he coming?”

  It took Mia a moment to realize the other officer was speaking to her. “Who? Oh, Dr. MacCarey. I’m sure he is. I can have him call you, if you need to leave.”

  “Are you all right here by yourself?” Lenny asked.

  “I’m good.”

  “Then we’ll be back to take your statements when we can,” Lenny said and then executed a crisp turn and was gone, Officer Doyle hurrying to catch up, carefully carrying the big hammer sheathed in plastic over his arm.

  “No problem. I’ll let Dr. MacCarey know,” she said aloud with only herself as an audience. The officers had gone to deal with lawbreakers elsewhere, and Daniel would be here unless he ran away because he had been kissing the enemy.

  Too bad on many accounts if he ran. She had been looking forward to reading the records with an anthropologist whose experience might offer insight—and she wanted him.

  Hunkering down over a larger piece of stone, she looked more closely. Clearly demarcated brown wavy lines stretched across the gray. The lines could be random. They could also have been put there by someone. Maybe they were some kind of old paint, not blood.

  What if it was blood?

  She had seen no markings on the outside of the crypt.

  What if the man had been alive when he was placed in the wall? What if he were trying to leave a last message? Even a dreaded pirate did not deserve that fate.

  Horror washed over her until she began to tremble and almost fell back into the dust and rubble.

  At the sound of footsteps she stood and moved away.

  “What’s going on?” Daniel demanded and then quickly raised a conciliatory hand. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  When she didn’t answer, he took hold of her arm and turned her gently to face him. “What’s wrong, other than the obvious?”

  She shrugged a shoulder, wondering where the prickly side of this man came from, but let it drop and pointed a finger toward the largest chunk of granite. The patterns in the discoloration seemed easier to see now. Even in the dim light of the dangling bulb the markings looked purposeful.

  He bent down beside the debris and shined the beam of his flashlight across the stones until it landed on the large one. “The markings don’t look random.”

  “There’s another one.” She pointed across the scattered pieces to a similarly large piece with more brown lines.

  “Random or not, it makes a difference until we know for sure,” Daniel said as he continued to scrutinize the debris.

  “I’m so sorry this happened, Daniel.”

  He stepped over debris until he stood at her side. Then he tugged her chin up until he could see into her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m good.”

  He ran his thumb across her lips. “That response sounded automatic.”

  All she could think now was, Touch me, touch all of me.

  “I’m afraid the instant answer is almost always the one I give these days.” She moved away before she stepped up and demanded he put his arms around her.

  “Do you suppose the man was still alive when he was walled up?” she asked as another shiver of horror swept through her.

  “I’ll have to take a closer look at all the pieces before I can make any sense of the discoloration.”

  She heaved her shoulders and sighed. “I just wanted to sell great seafood and a passable hamburger to the tourists.”

  He was already absorbed in the scene and might not have heard her sad lament. Just as well.

  She left him to assess the damage and went to stand in the front window to be sad alone. Falling night brought out twinkling lights in the harbor and in the town.

  It all looked so peaceful, so normal, and she loved every brick, boat and brown dog in the town.

  As the reassuring thoughts filtered through her head, it occurred to her she should be rejoicing. Some of the questions the site had raised had been answered by several swipes of the big hammer. There was nothing else in the crypt. There was no treasure buried there.

  Was it so terrible to want things to be normal?

  She wasn’t even sure she knew what normal was supposed to look like. It certainly couldn’t be finding the man in her wall had been buried alive.

  Normal certainly wasn’t being attracted to the man who had swooped in, helped trash her world and would sail out again as soon as he finished with Pirate’s Roost.

  When she reentered the back room, Daniel was studying one of the pieces of granite. He looked up at her as if he had something he needed to tell her.

  “Did you find answers?”

  “No, but I still have something I need to tell you.”

  Oh, that thing he tried to tell her in the records room.

  “Okay. I’m ready. Tell me.”

  “This morning I spoke with my boss.”

  “That old fuddy-duddy of an interfering man?” Mia paused. “Sorry, I don’t know your boss.”

  “He’s a medium fuddy-duddy of an interfering man.”

  Nervous energy made her laugh at his response, but she was sure she was not going to like what the duddy had to say.

  “He wants me to forbid—”

  She barked a not-amused laugh. “Forbid? He wants you to forbid?” Did this ever get better?

  She started forward and he grabbed her and put his arms around her.

  “Forbid anyone from entering the building until it is decided whether or not this is a town founder.”

  She rested her chin on his chest and looking up at him with a grin, said, “You are so doing a terrible, horrible job. Just look at how many people have been in here.”

  He grinned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Maybe you should charge admission.”

  She started to laugh. “If the duddy fires you, you can come and wash dishes in my— Wait!” She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed back to look into his face. “In my kitchen at home because I won’t have a restaurant kitchen.”

  “The university sent me here because anyone with half a brain could do this job.”

  “Your problem is you have a whole brain, but that’s nothing. Banks lent me a whole boatload of money to build a restaurant on this spot.”

  “That seems to be going quite well.”

  She patted his chest and moved away. “You can come with me when I go apply at a big-box store for a job.”

  She laughed at all the ridiculous things in her life and then she laughed again because it was all she had.

  “What’s going on?” Lenny stood in the doorway, looking most fastidious shifting his gaze between the two of them.

  “Just the usual, Officer Gardner,” she responded.

  Lenny looked at Daniel and frowned. “I’m Daniel MacCarey. The university sent me to check out the site.”

  “With a hammer?” Lenny asked in a serious voice.

  “He didn’t do it, Lenny,” Mia interjected. “Someone broke in after Dr. MacCarey and I left yesterday afternoon, sometime during the night. I’d guess.”

  Lenny gave a single nod. “I’m Officer Gardner.” Lenny stepped forward for a formal handshake with Daniel. “Dr. MacCarey, since the university has jurisdiction over the site for now, Chief Montcalm said we were to defer to whatever you say as far as how the site is to be handled. I’d like to check out the rest of the property if that’s all right with you.”

  “The granite from the crypt may have significant markings on it and
I’d like to handle the pieces myself,” said Daniel, pointing to the chunks and shards of granite.

  “Whatever you say, Dr. MacCarey.”

  Lenny’s radio squawked again and when he was finished talking he made arrangements to meet them at the station to get their statements.

  “Thank you, Lenny,” Mia said when the officers were ready to leave. “I, we, appreciate the police department’s help.”

  “We do our best, ma’am,” Officer Doyle added as they departed.

  Mia hoped with all her might their best would be enough.

  * * *

  DANIEL DROVE UP the curving road, past the gawker’s pullout and away from Bailey’s Cove. The lights of the small town faded fast, and his world seemed to shrink down to the two hundred feet of roadway lit by his headlamps. Uncertainty seemed to lurk out there just out of sight in the eerie darkness.

  So much had changed since the sun had come up over the cove yesterday morning.

  Tonight, by the time the police had taken Mia’s and his statements, four hours had passed. A spate of petty crime, auto accidents and a domestic disturbance kept the officers on duty busy, and it was clear the scene at Mia’s restaurant would need to be left until morning.

  Officer Gardner suggested Mia and Daniel go home for the night.

  Daniel headed from the coast toward the highway. The closer he got to the interstate, the more he thought about the cold emptiness at his condo. He usually didn’t let his brain go there because in almost every quiet place he felt the same feeling of loss and emptiness.

  Except for Bailey’s Cove.

  He supposed it was impossible to watch your family fall completely apart and not have your heart regard most of the world as bleak and empty. “It’s not that I don’t love you, Danny, but every time I see your face, I see Sammy’s,” his wife had told him two years ago as she stood in the middle of the living room in their family home, suitcase in hand.