Skeletons Among Us: Legends of Treasure Book 2

by Lois D. Brown

  “Signs like what?” Maria questioned, wiggling her pinky toe that tingled.

  “Oh, they vary. For you I think you should watch for any hyper vigilance returning—if you start to avoid places again like the cemetery and such. Keep track of your insomnia—some is normal, but if it starts to wear on you that’s a sign your stress levels are too high. And, of course, there is your fear of intimacy.”

  Maria’s slouched shoulders reared back. “Excuse me?”

  Dr. Roberts cleared his throat. “Your fear of intimacy.”

  “My fear of what?”

  The doctor lowered his chin and looked over his glasses, straight into the camera on his laptop. He might as well have been sitting two feet from her. “Maria, you are thirty-two and have had very few real relationships. You are an acquaintance to everyone but a close friend to no one. You shun physical and emotional closeness—and this goes way back according to your records—even before Tehran.”

  Maria glared at her monitor. The second hand on the kitchen clock ticked noisily. She said nothing.

  “You can’t intimidate me.” Dr. Roberts kept a straight face. “But go ahead and try.”

  “I don’t fear intimacy.” Maria leaned in closer to the image of Dr. Roberts. “In fact, gossip around town is that Rod and I are officially …” She made air quotes. “… an item.”

  A deep, loud, scratchy laugh filtered through Maria’s cheap computer speakers. “An item, huh? I’m recording that in your file.” Dr. Roberts began typing.

  “Don’t do that!” Before she could stop herself, Maria’s bottom lip was in her mouth being chewed apart by her front teeth.

  “You’re doing that thing with your lip again.” Dr. Roberts’s face softened.

  “I know.” Maria’s pinky toe burned as if someone held a lit match to it.

  “Listen, Maria. Fear of intimacy isn’t that weird. Seeing ghosts … now that’s odd.” He chuckled to reassure her he meant no harm. “If you could get rid of the ghosts, I’m sure we can work through the other just fine. Promise me before you get the incredible urge to drop your boyfriend Rob—”

  “Rod,” she interrupted.

  “Sorry. Before you drop Rod, promise me you’ll call and we’ll talk things over first. You may need some help deciding what is real and what isn’t when it comes to that sort of … stuff.”

  Maria’s eyebrows flared upward. “Why are you so sure I’m going to drop Rod?”

  Dr. Roberts didn’t answer. He kept a steady gaze on Maria that felt like it could have been laser beams burrowing holes into her flesh.

  “Never mind,” she said. “I’ve got to turn in. And you look like you could use some sleep too.”

  “I definitely could,” the doctor answered. “And you’re doing great, Maria. You should be very proud of yourself. Let’s talk again in two weeks. No one knows what the future holds. No one.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In those days, Apaches had unique, incredibly painful methods of torture for any enemy they captured. To discourage all trespassers, they left haunting reminders for others to find. Victims with eyes gouged out and scalps missing or staked over ant hills.

  —“The Dutchman’s Lost Gold Mine,” by Lee Paul. (Online)

  THE AIR CONDITIONING IN Rod’s truck was on too high for Maria’s tastes. She set down the Woman’s Day magazine she’d been reading onto the bench seat—it was one of the gifts she’d received for being Kanab’s Woman of the Year—and rubbed her arms.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rod saw her.

  “Sorry.” He turned the air conditioning dial to zero. “I forget sometimes.”

  “You forget what?”

  “I forget what a frigid woman you are.” The corner of his mouth playfully twitched.

  The logical part of Maria’s brain knew he was teasing. But wasn’t there always some shred of intended truth in every joke? And what did he mean by frigid, anyway?

  Uptight?

  Intense?

  Focused?

  Yes, those words kind of described her.

  But frigid? That made her sound like the old, jilted Miss Havisham in Dickens’ book Great Expectations—the one who wandered around in her never-used honeymoon nightgown plotting how to destroy the life of every man she came into contact with.

  A sick ball formed in Maria’s gut. The conversation she’d had a few days earlier with Dr. Roberts about her “supposed” fear of intimacy came to mind.

  “Frigid?” Maria tried to keep her voice steady. She didn’t want to sound upset. “As in I have a lower body temperature than the average human being?”

  Rod kept his eyes on the freeway, but he smiled widely. “Frigid, as in I can’t figure out why you’re sitting so far away from me. Why do you think I brought the truck for our drive to Arizona? It wasn’t for its gas mileage.”

  “You brought the truck so you could haul your ATVs.”

  “No. I brought the truck,” said Rod, putting his arm around Maria’s shoulders and sliding her toward his side, “because it has a bench seat.”

  “Oh.” Maria blushed. She thought she’d already been sitting much closer to him than she’d normally sit if, say, Pete, her deputy, had been driving.

  Rod laughed. “Why do you think men own trucks? It’s the only kind of car that still looks cool even with a bench seat in it.”

  Now Maria rolled her eyes. Rod and his cars. She wondered how he afforded all of them. Seriously, she’d lost count of how many he owned. However, doing a quick inventory of the ones she did remember, she realized it was true. The only one that had a bench seat was the truck.

  Maria picked up the magazine and began to peruse its pages once more.

  “I’d love to know what you’re reading that’s so interesting.”

  Maria glanced down at the cover of Woman’s Day that sported a sophisticated-looking couple in the middle of an Eskimo kiss. “Nothing. I was looking at the ads.”

  “Oh come on.” Rod glanced in the rearview mirror and changed lanes. “You were making those exasperated little grunts.”

  “I was?” Maria fingered the pages in the magazine, still smarting a little from Rod’s “frigid” comment which was stupid of her because Rod had only done it as a ploy to get her to sit closer to him. Which she liked, so why had it made her feel a little … unsettled?

  Flipping the magazine open, Maria found what she had been reading. It was one of those relationship tests. The kind that in ten simple questions tell you everything your therapist could never figure out.

  Rod took a quick peek over her shoulder. “Is that one of those stupid personality tests?”

  “Kind of. It’s an even dumber relationship one.”

  “Awesome.” Rod popped a piece of gum in his mouth. “I love those things. Let’s take it.”

  A sprinkle of panic dotted Maria’s insides. What was wrong with her? She liked Rod. In fact, she really liked him. Everyone in Kanab knew they were an item. It wasn’t like the relationship was some big secret. Sure, they were taking things slowly. Both of them had decided that that was best. After all, neither of them were emotionally ready to rush into something … serious.

  But they’d been dating regularly for several months. And now Rod had even asked her to go with him to his law school alma mater in Arizona for a small class get-together. They were going to spend a week in Phoenix, hanging with some of Rod’s former classmates and spending time in the outdoors. She’d agreed to go, taken off work for it, and was even excited about it. So why did the idea of taking some stupid relationship test in a magazine called “Are You the Perfect Couple?” make her hands sweat?

  “Maria, is everything all right?”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. “I’m fine. Just a little spacey. Sorry.” Rod watched the road, but Maria could tell his attention was on her.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll start. You read the first question, and I promise to tell the truth, one hundred percent, if you promise the same. Deal?”
>
  Great. Was there really a way to answer “no” to that question?

  Maria took a deep breath and started to read. After all, the sooner she started, the sooner it would be over. “Number one. Do you talk, either by phone or in person, every day? The answers are: rarely, no, sometimes, and yes.”

  Rod chewed his gum for a minute. “My answer is ‘yes,’ if you count texting.” The truck hit a bump on the highway and the trailer with the ATVs on it rattled. “Next question, please. By the way, I’m going to ace this.”

  “Number two. How many dates have you been on? The answers are: twenty, fifty, never been on a real date, or dated for year.”

  “Hmm. A lot of them. At least fifty,” Rod answered.

  It was true. Rod asked her out at least twice, usually three times a week. They went to most community events, and on the weekends they would drive an hour and half to eat at a five-star restaurant and attend a play or the symphony. Maria recalled the first time she saw him in a tuxedo. The memory made her shiver.

  “Are you going to ask me something hard?” he questioned, poking out his chest.

  “Good grief,” Maria said. “I think someone is a bit too full of himself.”

  As they continued with the quiz, the questions got harder and more personal to the point Maria tried to skip one, but Rod caught her in the act.

  “You’re cheating,” he said. “I can tell. Read every question because guaranteed I’m going to ask you every one of them.”

  “Okay.” Maria lowered her eyes so she didn’t have to look at him as she spoke. “Question fourteen: Are you in love with h-h-her?” She faltered as she read the words aloud. “Th-th-the answers are: a little bit, not sure, probably 85 or 90 percent in love, or I am in total love.”

  For the first time since they’d started driving, Rod gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

  Thank heavens. Maria felt justified. He doesn’t know what to say either.

  “Well …” Rod stalled. “To be perfectly honest, I’d rather not answer that in the cab of a truck, in broad daylight, with my eyes looking at the road instead of at you. I think I’d rather answer it with you wearing that little black skirt you had on the other day at the woman’s conference, seated at a table for two at a dimly lit Italian restaurant, with all the time in the world to watch your every expression.”

  Maria’s face felt like it was on fire. Then her arms started to light up as well. The way he’d said that had made her feel …

  Well …

  It had been …

  Wow.

  Just wow.

  Wow, wow, wow.

  “Is there a question fifteen?” Rod batted his eyes at her as if what he’d said was no big deal. Like the emotions he had stirred up inside her weren’t exploding inside her. For the first time in her life, Maria realized a man wanted her. Rod … could she even think it? … Rod might even love her. But how could he? They hadn’t dated that long. Didn’t love take years to happen?

  “So,” said Rod, a confident smirk on his face. “Any other questions?”

  “Uh, right.” Maria read the next question automatically, hardly thinking of anything else besides an Italian restaurant with Rod holding her hand about to tell her something that would rock her world. “Number fifteen. Is she your first love? The answers are: no, and she knows it; no, but she doesn’t know it; or yes, she’s my one and only.”

  A very, very, awkward silence ensued.

  It was Maria who finally cleared her throat this time. “Well, that one is pretty simple. It’s ‘no,’ and that is why I think these sorts of quizzes are totally stupid. No set of questions can apply to everyone the same way.”

  Rod fidgeted in his seat.

  Maria’s mind raced. Did the writer of this quiz ever think about the guy whose wife of several months ran off and left him with no word of where she’d gone? Huh? Did he think about that when he wrote this crap? No.

  Rod’s former marriage was the one thing he’d never talked about except for the brief moment on that one night sipping hot cocoa in Maria’s yard during the investigation of Mayor Hayward’s murder. What Maria had learned about the marriage had been from her childhood friend, Beth, who knew the ins and out of Kanab like no one else because of her career as a beautician and her gift of listening.

  Of course, Maria had never brought up the subject with Rod. Why would she? The fact that Rod had been married before, his wife had disappeared, and he’d finally gotten a divorce after three years wasn’t exactly fun conversation on a date. Besides, it was all water under bridge. The marriage had been six years ago. A lot changed in six years.

  Rod cleared his throat, and for a split second Maria thought “the conversation” might happen. Maybe he was ready to open up?

  Crap.

  Did that mean she was going to have to open up to him about her experience in Tehran? Because that was something she feared way more than intimacy. If she really was scared of intimacy. The jury was still out for her on that one.

  “Agreed,” Rod said at last. “Those tests are stupid.”

  That was it. Not one more word on the subject.

  Maria felt slighted, and then she felt stupid for feeling slighted. What did she want from him anyway? To talk about it or not to talk about it?

  The cab fell silent. It was like an elephant had sat down and made itself comfortable right in between them on the bench seat, making the rest of the ride to Arizona rather uncomfortable.

  To say the least.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Francisco Vasquez de Coronado challenged the forbidden peaks when he came north from Mexico in 1540. Several members of his band died searching for gold in the mountains, and like victims right up to recent years, their bodies were found headless.

  —“The Dutchman’s Lost Gold Mine,” by Lee Paul. (Online)

  THERE ARE FEW CONSTANTS in life except taxes, death, and the familiar smell of a 24-hour Walmart Supercenter. Rod and Maria had stopped to buy a few items they’d forgotten to bring with them and to get some food for an overnight hike with some of Rod’s old friends.

  The shopping center felt so dull and ordinary, filled with average people going about their everyday, mundane lives. It was what Rod and Maria needed to shake the awkward feeling the ride had left them with. From a stranger’s perspective, they looked like all the other couples shopping for toiletries together—not an ex-CIA black ops leader with her car-loving director of Search and Rescue boyfriend.

  Their shopping cart was parked in the front of the aisle labeled “eye care.” As Rod scoured the shelves for his favorite contact solution—he’d left his in Kanab—Maria made her way to the next aisle over labeled “beauty” where she searched for makeup removing wipes. She found what she needed and made her way back to Rod.

  “Are you still trying to find the right stuff?” Maria asked when she returned.

  Rod nodded. “I have sensitive eyes. I need the kind in a green bottle.”

  “There are a couple of them in a green bottle. What’s the brand name?”

  A sheepish look spread across Rod’s face. “Well, that’s a really good question.”

  “You don’t know the brand name? Seriously?” She laughed. “It’s like you’re this intelligent, extremely competent man who can’t figure out how to tie his shoes.”

  “Hey,” said Rod. “In my defense, my shoes involve knot tying, which I’m actually quite good at. Shopping? Not so much. I should hire one of those ‘personal assistants’ to do it for me.”

  “Or get a wife.” She hoped Rod would hear the sarcasm in her voice.

  “Are you up for it?” A smirk spread from one side of Rod’s face to the other.

  “Hardly. You could never afford me as a personal assistant.”

  Rod pulled a green and white bottle of Baush & Lomb Sensitive contact solution off the shelf. “I didn’t mean as my personal assistant.”

  “You couldn’t afford me as wife either.” Maria grasped Rod around his upper arm, noticing his
firm muscled bicep. “But I am proud of you. Looks like you figured out your special eye care all by yourself.”

  “It was horribly painful. Thank heavens I don’t have to choose a toothbrush.” He pointed to the aisle where hundreds of brushes hung in rows. “That literally would take me the rest of the day.”

  Maria leaned in closely and kissed his cheek. Something about the way he seemed slightly helpless in the realm of shopping endeared him to her. “Let’s go to the grocery section. We’ll need stuff to eat for the hike.”

  “Point me to the protein bars. And, by the way, we should spend more time in Walmart if you’re going to get all frisky.”

  “A kiss on the cheek is frisky?”

  “It is from you.” Rod tried to grab Maria around the waist to pull her in close again, but she darted out of his reach and latched onto the handle of the cart instead.

  “Protein bars directly north east,” she said, pointing forward.

  As Rod and Maria walked down the main aisle, they chatted about nothing important, which, from what Maria could tell, was what all the other couples talked about as well.

  Which brand of bread was the most fresh?

  What flavor of ice cream did he want?

  How many twelve-packs of Coke did she need?

  It was all so basic, and carefree, and … normal.

  The only thing that frustrated Maria was that she couldn’t get rid of the annoying itch at the back of her neck.

  It wasn’t actually an itch that needed to be scratched. It was more like a tingling nerve, something that her brain stimulated when her subconscious was aware of something her conscious mind was ignoring. But in this case she wanted to ignore it. It felt so good to be a regular old couple—like everyone else in the store.

  Unfortunately, her firing nerve wouldn’t leave her alone. In most cases that meant one thing. She was being followed—like the time in high school when a couple of gang members from a different school had followed her in a parking lot and roughed her up. Her nerve had been hyperactive even way back then.

  Maria sighed. Fine. She would see what her “itch” could be so concerned about in the middle of Walmart.