She watched as he padded up the attic steps in his stockinged feet, then she went downstairs. Every time she was with Murph she felt as if tiny fibers of friendship, of mutual support, of attraction, joined them together, drawing them closer. This was the worst possible time to consider a relationship. And yet…Paul Murphy had suddenly become a difficult man to put out of her mind.
When she reached the display case with the rock collection downstairs, she studied the specimens again. Nothing was missing but it was rearranged. The chunks of galena and sphalerite—the only specimens Grandpa had collected from his own cave—were still there.
“I've been meaning to ask you about that stuff,” a voice came from behind.
Sable started and swung around to see Jerri coming toward her from the direction of the family room. Jerri had short curly hair the color of sweet potatoes, which was streaked with blonde at the temples. She was slightly shorter than Sable but weighed about forty pounds more—mostly muscle.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Jerri’s voice was low and melodious. “Craig told me a little about how your grandfather went around collecting all these rocks. He sounds like an interesting man.”
Sable smiled as she remembered. “He was.”
“Craig sure has a thing for all this stuff. He told me about the different stones and the minerals they had in them.”
“Craig's been a spelunker and amateur rock hound since childhood. He knows these hills better than I do.”
“He's smart all right,” Jerri said. “Never thought a plain old rock could be so interesting.” She paused and winked. “Of course that might have something to do with who's talking. But really, are any of these pieces worth anything?”
“Only memories.” Sable picked up a geode and watched the sparkles inside the hollow rock reflect light from the room.
“So that story about the history of this place was all made up.”
“No, it was true enough. Those two partners actually did own this place and they did disappear. But as for the silver, you know how rumors get started. Someone probably found a piece of galena down in the cave and jumped to conclusions.”
“Must've been somebody who didn't know much about minerals. Even I know what galena looks like, all boxy straight sides.” She indicated the piece of galena on the shelf.
“Really?” Sable said. “Not a lot of people know the difference. Are you interested in geology?”
“I’m interested in a little of everything, especially when Craig Holt is doing the talking.” She grinned. “Maybe those guys started the rumor about silver so they could sell the cave for a profit.”
Sable winced at the words as she thought about her grandfather. “That's a thought.”
“Good as any, huh? Wonder how dinner’s coming. I'm getting hungry. Think I'll go take a look.”
Sable watched Jerri leave, then turned back to the case, hating the suspicions that persisted in her mind, hating her jumpy nerves every time someone spoke to her.
Audrey poked her head around the kitchen entryway. “Food's ready as soon as the rest of the men come in. Perry’s first to the table, of course.”
“Simmons is out? I thought he was in the dining room.”
The woman shrugged and shook her head. “His jacket wasn’t on the hall tree. He must have gone outside.”
Sable called Dillon to follow her upstairs.
The moment she stepped into her bedroom, Dillon growled behind her.
She froze in the threshold. “What?”
He brushed past her, obviously on alert, his legs stiff, the fur of his ruff prickling upward with cautious alarm. He sniffed the comforter.
“Dillon get back.” What if someone was in here? They could be under the bed or in the closet. They might even be hiding in the cedar chest. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 16
Murph was descending the last of the squeaky attic steps, brushing cobwebs from his arms and shoulders, when Sable stumbled into the threshold, blue eyes wide.
“Dillon thinks someone’s been in my room,” she said.
Instinctively, Murph reached beneath his shirt and freed his weapon. “I’ll check it out. You stay here.”
She gasped when she caught sight of the pistol.
“Stay here.” Wishing he’d warned her earlier about the loaded weapon, he gripped the gun in both hands and crept down the hallway. Dillon followed, his growls still rumbling. When they reached the open door, Murph paused and listened.
All he heard was the chatter of voices downstairs and Sable’s frightened breathing behind him…directly behind him.
“I thought I told you to stay put,” he muttered.
“Is anyone in the room?”
“I don’t know yet.” He allowed Dillon in first.
The dog growled softly as he approached the cedar chest. He sniffed it, then followed an invisible scent to the straight-backed chair beside the antique chest of drawers. He sniffed at the drawer handles.
“I don’t think anyone’s here now.” Still, Murph entered carefully, arms braced, weapon ready. He crept to the closet, opened the door. No one.
He stepped over to the cedar chest and lifted the lid. Nothing. With one foot, he raised the dust ruffle of the bed and peered underneath. “I think it’s clear.”
Sable came in behind him and gestured toward the cedar chest. “This has been moved away from the bed. I tried to pull the comforter up last night and it was stuck between the chest and the bed frame.” She checked the closet and the bureau drawers.
“Anything missing?” Murph asked.
She sorted through a stack of folded underwear. “The letter.” She looked up at him. “The one he wrote to Mom that we read last night.”
“Not the confession?” Murph asked.
She patted her pocket. “I have it here. I put the other letter in this drawer this morning when I dressed. Perry obviously wasn’t imagining things. I wonder if the other rooms have been searched.”
Murph engaged the safety of his pistol.
“Paul, where did you get that gun?”
“I’ve carried it with me since I arrived in Freemont.”
She sank onto the bed.
“I’ll explain later,” he said. “Right now we have more important things to discuss.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a 3" x 4" photograph. He held it to the light from the window. “Recognize any of these people?”
Her interest focused. “That looks like a really old picture of Grandpa and Otis Boswell, and…a woman.” She frowned and looked closer. “That’s a familiar face.”
“Could it be Audrey?”
Sable felt a fresh chill. She took the picture from him and carried to the window, held it to the light. The woman’s hair was dark, cut in a pageboy with a few tendrils fanning across very attractive features. “It’s her.”
“But this had to be taken thirty-five or forty years ago,” he said.
“She told us she once lived in Eagle Rock and she knows this area. Remember?”
“But why didn't she say anything about knowing Josiah?”
Sable shook her head. “She obviously did know my grandfather.”
“And Boswell.”
“But she never mentioned that. Wouldn’t you expect someone to tell me if they knew Grandpa?”
“She either knows something she doesn’t want to talk about or she’s still connected to Boswell in some way.”
Sable paced away from the window. Dillon paced along beside her like a protective shadow. She and looked up at Murph. “I think I'd better have a talk with her.”
“What if the outrageous is true and she’s our stalker? Shouldn't we treat this as more evidence and keep our mouths shut for now?”
Sable studied the photograph a moment longer, then handed it back to Murph. She gestured at the proprietary hand Audrey had on Grandpa's arm. “What does that look like to you?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said gently.
She turned away as she reached up for the old pocket watch. Her fingers rubbed across the smooth metal.
“You’re always doing that.” Murph said. “Touching the watch as if it reassures you. I’m curious why Josiah would give you something that didn’t work. I know it’s a keepsake but surely it wouldn’t be too expensive to replace the mechanism inside.” Murph reached out and fingered the delicate design of the watch, then took it in his hand and tested the weight. “I wonder…I’d’ve expected Josiah Kessinger to have this repaired before he gave it to you unless there was some reason he couldn’t.”
She turned the watch over. “He had it engraved.”
Murph read the words on the smooth metal. “‘To Sable with love. A treasure for a treasure.’” He smiled at the sentiment. “Maybe I’m grasping at straws right now. Maybe that bump on the head affected me worse than I thought but have you checked the inner workings?”
“I never considered….”
“Now might be a good time to look.”
She slipped the chain over her head. “I took for granted he gave this to me because it had been so much a part of him and he knew I loved it.”
“But it wasn't working when he gave it to you.”
“No, and it had always worked before. I remember what he said when he gave it to me, too, because at the time it sounded kind of strange. He said, ‘You may need it someday, punkin. I know all I have to.’ But I wondered what he meant.” She tried to twist the back plate without result. “Do you have a pocket knife?”
Murph pulled one out, opened it, handed it to her. “Wouldn’t hurt to check.”
She slipped the point of the blade into the tiny groove between the back plate and the body of the watch. With care, she pried at the plate until it slipped into her hand.
A square of thin white paper was stuffed into the casing where the inner workings had once been. Sable used the knife to pry this out.
Murph barely caught the small shiny nugget that fell from the folds of paper.
“Galena?” Sable asked, reaching for the nugget. She caught her breath when he dropped it into her hand. “That isn’t galena. That’s…it looks more like…”
She grabbed the paper from Murph and unfolded it quickly, tearing off a corner in her haste. She scanned the page quickly. “Murph, this is a metallurgist’s assay sheet for a sample of high-grade silver,” she whispered.
“From where?”
“I don't know.”
“You sure Josiah never said a word about this?”
“Don't you think I'd remember that?” She held the nugget to the murky light from the window.
“Could it be from this place somewhere?” Murph asked.
Sable looked up at him. “As far as I know, there's never been silver found in this part of Missouri before, especially not a vein of high grade silver like this.”
“Could that story about the cave be true?” Murph asked.
“You’re the second person to ask me that in the past twenty minutes.”
“What if this is connected to your grandfather's death?”
The words fell between them like chunks of rock, solid with frightening possibilities.
“I don’t know what to think right now,” she whispered.
Murph refolded the analysis sheet with the silver and stuffed it back inside the watch. He took the back plate and snapped it on. “There's still not enough evidence to do more than guess. The best place for this is where it's always been.” He slipped the chain over her head, then smoothed a tendril of soft black hair from her face. Lord, please smoothe all her heartache away, protect her from all harm, and prove that the world isn’t really as frightening as it looks right now.
“Meanwhile stay close to me,” he told her. “If you find something even remotely questionable, you need to tell me immediately.” His fingers caressed her soft cheek and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he allowed a feather-light touch along her neck to rest lightly against the beating pulse at her throat. “Your heart's racing.”
“Of course it's racing. I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
“Murph, if you can have a gun I want to carry one. There's an old .22 pistol down the hall in the closet. My brothers and I used it for target practice. I'm going to—”
“Do you have a license to carry a concealed weapon?”
“No, but this is my home and the police aren’t here or we wouldn’t be resorting to this in the first place. You have a license to carry?”
“Yes.”
This bit of news obviously surprised her but she recovered quickly. “Are you an undercover cop or something?”
“No. I had to work a job out of the country for a while and I was required to carry this for protection.”
She crossed her arms. “You’re quite the surprise. Grandpa would have been impressed.”
In spite of the serious circumstances, Murph felt a grin spread across his face and he couldn’t stop it. He saw Sable’s eyes narrow. She pivoted away from him suddenly, reached for a flashlight that lay on the bureau, and stalked out of the room. Dillon followed at her heels.
Murph had no choice. He had to go with her. “Sable, are you willing to shoot someone, to take a life? Do you even remember how to use the gun?”
“It's been a while but I know how.” Her footsteps didn’t falter as she led the way to the other end of the hallway past the staircase. She pulled open the door to a walk-in closet. “This is where all the hunting gear is stored.”
The heavy smell of gun oil mingled with rancid doe scent that hunters used to attract bucks during hunting season. Sable didn’t even pause to catch her breath. “I hated hunting season.” She opened the lid of a long metal gun chest and pulled out a black .22 pistol that fit perfectly in her hands.
“You did say you knew how to use that,” Murph said.
“Would you quit worrying? It's simple. Let’s see…there are some bullets here somewhere.” She searched all the junk in the chest, which was filled with gun cloths, hunting caps, everything but bullets. Cleaning wires and three half-used bottles of gun oil tumbled onto the floor. Beneath it all lay a cardboard box. She opened the lid and the flashlight beam fell on shotgun shells—and cubed chunks of silvery ore.
Murph heard her swift intake of breath. “Galena,” she whispered.
Murph picked up a broken shotgun shell. Galena spilled from it.
“No.” The beam of Sable’s flashlight faltered.
Murph replaced the shell and reached out to hold the flashlight steady. “I’ve already warned you not to jump to conclusions.” He put a hand on her shoulder.
She slumped against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Did you hear me?”
“Please don't say anything right now.” She reached over to a glass gun case and swung the door open. The case was empty except for one short-barrel shotgun. She pulled it out. “What else could this be but evidence that he salted the mine? He used this gun to shoot the ore into the soft sides of the Seitz mine.”
“You don’t know that. I think there’s something different going on here.”
“See that reloader in the corner? He used it to fill these shells with ore, then he—” Her voice caught. “He salted a barren hole in the ground.”
Murph took her arm. “I thought you were more logical than that. What are the gun and reloader doing here if he used it in Oklahoma?”
“He brought it back here. He certainly wouldn’t want to leave evidence lying around Freemont.”
“I’m sorry for what you’re thinking right now, despite how many times I’ve warned you not to go there. I know how I would feel if—”
“Do you?” She shoved the shotgun back onto a shelf, kept the .22 pistol, and closed the door. “Did you ever have to live with the humiliation of knowing a close family member cheated people out of their money?” Tears sparkled from her eyes in the dim light. She slumped onto a rickety chair.
He knelt beside her and took
her hands in his. “We don’t know all the facts—”
A panicked female voice reached them suddenly from outside. “Help! Somebody come quickly! There’s been an accident!”
Chapter 17
Murph and Sable rushed down the stairs to find Jerri and Bryce scrambling into the hallway from the family room.
Perry burst through the kitchen door, his shirttail half out of his slacks as he wiped his hands on a dish towel. “What happened?” he cried. “Was that Audrey? She was screaming like a banshee. I nearly caught the kitchen on fire.”
“Someone hurt?” Jerri asked. “Again?”
Murph shoved on his boots. He was yanking his laces together when the back door flew open and Audrey stumbled inside. She wore a hunter-orange knit cap and her green wool coat.
“I found Simmons in the creek.” She was breathless. “I’ve tried to get him up but he’s too heavy. The guy’s freezing to a chunk of ice. Come and help me get him inside.”
“Is he breathing?” Murph followed her out ahead of the others.
“I know he was when I first grabbed him because he fought me. I had to wrangle him out of the creek. Then he passed out.”
Murph caught up with Audrey halfway across the back yard. “Look.” She pointed toward the creek a couple of hundred feet away. “I saw him from the kitchen window. When I got there all I could do was grab him by the sleeve and drag him to the bank. It’s impossible to get any traction on that ice. I can’t imagine what he was doing out there.”
The broad-shouldered man was only half out of the frigid rushing water.
Murph scrambled over the treacherous ice to the man’s side, sank to his knees, and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Simmons!” he shouted, shaking him vigorously.
No response. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Murph leaned close and felt no warmth of exhalation, heard no sound. He gently tipped the man’s head back and lifted his chin to establish an airway.
Still no breath, no movement.
“What’s going on?” Audrey demanded behind him
Hidden Motive Page 11
