Paranormal Mystery Boxset Books 1-3: Legends of Treasure

by Lois D. Brown

  It didn’t matter. The point was, her line wasn’t going to hold. The anchor above them had come loose. They were going down. And this time … there was nothing to stop them. Rod’s belay was useless.

  The nut holding them popped out.

  In that moment—the one between not falling and falling—a feeling roller coaster junkies know well—Maria jammed her foot and hand into the crack as far as they would go and twisted. Hard.

  Wrenching.

  Every.

  Bone.

  Her arm and leg shrieked in pain. It shot up into her shoulder and waist. Josh flailed.

  “Stop it!” Maria shouted at him.

  Below, Rod frantically shouted. But between the wind and her adrenaline, Maria heard nothing. It was a matter of seconds before her hold inside the crack would give. Even now the pain was overwhelming—she had to think.

  And fast.

  With her free hand, she grabbed for a cam out of her rack. She needed the right size on the first try. She didn’t have the luxury of going through her equipment for the right one. Her hand found a medium sized cam and she pulled it out.

  Rod was yelling still, but everything she had left inside her was intent on getting the cam into the crack and securing herself to it.

  One-handed, she pushed the cam in and snatched the hammer from her belt.

  Just then, Josh threw up.

  Luckily, he faced away from her, but the stench filled Maria’s nostrils. She hated that smell. Like she hated the men in Tehran who had made her sleep in her own vomit night after night. The hatred bolstered her will to live—to get off this cliff, like she’d gotten out of Tehran.

  She pounded the cam with her hammer with three direct hits and then, with a steady hand, clipped in. It was a strong anchor, plenty to hold both of them.

  “We’re in!” she yelled down to Rod. “We’re in and it’s tight.”

  She leaned into the wall and took a deep breath. They were going to make it. Rod could belay them down safely to solid ground.

  Maria breathed in deeply one more time and then looked down at Rod. The dark-haired woman was still there.

  Why hadn’t he sent her away?

  Now that Maria had a second to look more closely, the woman below didn’t look at all like Linda Erickson, the boy’s mother who had been hyperventilating in the high school auditorium.

  “Search and Rescue should be here in a few minutes!” Rod shouted up toward Maria.

  Maria nodded and gave him the thumbs up, yelling, “This anchor will hold. Bring us down.”

  The moment her foot hit solid earth, Maria felt the searing pain in the leg she had jammed and twisted into the crack. She’d almost forgotten the way she’d contorted her body to buy her those precious few moments she needed to anchor herself to the wall. But it was nothing that wouldn’t heal with a week’s worth of ice packs and ibuprofen. Within seconds, a team of search and rescue members who had arrived detached Josh from her and were treating him for shock.

  Maria’s hands were steady and no longer sweaty as she slipped her harness off and let it fall to the ground. Instantly Rod was at her back. His cedar and herb cologne now mixed with adrenaline and sweat.

  Quite manly, actually.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he growled into her ear as he enveloped her from behind.

  Maria let her body relax in his, letting his strength take some of the ache standing up caused.

  “I mean it,” he whispered forcefully. “No more Spiderman moves.”

  “Spiderman, nothing.” Maria turned and looked into Rod’s worried face. “That was all Superwoman.”

  Rod held her even tighter, and she breathed him in. This was unlike her to be cutesy in front of everyone. She almost didn’t care.

  Maria peeked out from Rod’s chest to see who was looking at them. No one was. Everyone was focused on Josh … except for the dark-haired woman, beautifully composed with dark eyes and milk-chocolate skin. The same woman who had watched Maria’s ascent up the cliff. The two stared at each other for a moment. Each as silent as a statue. The woman gave no expression on her face. A fuzzy glow around the edge of her silhouette.

  No, it wasn’t fuzzy as much as it was … translucent.

  Exactly like …

  The realization sunk into Maria’s soul like it was caught in quicksand.

  … a ghost.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Apaches were probably the first people to set eyes on the Superstition Mountains centuries before the Spanish conquistadors saw its awesome cliffs and crags.

  “THE STORY OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN AND THE LOST DUTCHMAN GOLD MINE” BY ROBERT JOSEPH ALLEN, POCKET BOOKS (SIMON AND SCHUSTER INC.), 1971, PAGE 3.

  Even through the computer monitor, Maria could tell her CIA-mandated psychologist was exhausted. Maria’s kitchen clock read 10 p.m., making it midnight for Dr. Roberts.

  The fact was they were both tired. Maria’s unconventional rock climbing had left her sore and unable to sleep well the last couple of nights. In addition, the ghostly woman she’d seen had been unsettling. She hadn’t been one of Maria’s hallucinations. She’d been real—at least as real as any other paranormal phenomenon was.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen any?” asked Dr. Roberts. “Ghosts, that is.” He held his glasses in one hand and rubbed furiously at his eyes with the other.

  “Now how many of your patients do you get to ask that?” Maria laughed.

  “Don’t avoid the question, Maria,” he answered.

  “It’s been a long time,” she answered. To herself she added, If you don’t count the woman ghost at the Cracks, that is.

  “So you feel you’re still making progress forward?” The psychologist yawned.

  “Definitely.” Maria had decided to not tell Dr. Roberts about the dark-haired ghost because she’d been so benign. She hadn’t scared Maria. Not in the slightest. The silhouette of the woman had had the same “look” as Acalan—the Aztec ghost who had helped Maria solve the murder of Kanab’s mayor a few months back. And real ghosts were much better than the crazy, made up post-traumatic apparitions from which Maria suffered after her incarceration in solitary confinement.

  To top it off, the woman standing behind Rod at the Cracks had been beautiful. An exotic looking creature with straight black hair and petite, distinct features on her face. Like an artist had painstaking created her visage with perfectly shaped bits of clay.

  “Nope,” said Maria to Dr. Roberts. “I haven’t seen Acalan in more than two months. Almost three.”

  “No relapses of any other kind of ghostly apparitions?” Dr. Roberts asked.

  “No, not really.” Maria looked down at her bare feet, noting the turquoise nail polish that had begun chipping off of the little toe on her left foot. Was she feeling guilty? It was the same toe that had almost been cut off by Joe on the red cliffs in the Moquith Mountains. The toe that was to have been her sacrifice to overcome her guilt. Her fear. Her self-loathing.

  “Honestly, I’m doing really well.” Maria smiled at him through her monitor.

  The relief on Dr. Roberts’s face seemed to awaken him from his very-long-workday slump. “I’m seriously so glad to hear it, Maria. You really are doing great. We could probably change our visits to monthly.”

  “Or not at all.” Maria jutted out her chin and opened her eyes widely, as if to ask, How do you like them apples? Kanab’s small-town vernacular was definitely catching.

  To keep himself alert, Dr. Roberts scratched at his scalp through his thick hair. “No, I think monthly chats would still be helpful.”

  Maria frowned. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Dr. Roberts. In fact, as far as shrinks went, he was probably one of the best. But having to talk to him reminded her of Tehran. Of the prison. Of the one-by-one slaughter of her entire black ops team by terrorists. He reminded her of the horrific secrets that had almost been published to the world—or at least to the entire town of Kanab—by Sherrie Mercer, local journalist and mu
rderer.

  But that was months ago. A lifetime ago. Things were so much better now.

  “Listen, Maria,” Dr. Roberts said. “I’ve never yet met someone with PTSD who didn’t have a few relapses. They’re normal and to be expected. And we’ll get through them. You need to watch for signs—big or small—that the anxiety is coming back.”

  “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.”