Not bothering to sit, even if there had been a chair, Rod and Maria downed their eggs standing up. Amy offered to take their plates and handed them a plastic grocery sack out of the pantry. “I’m trying to give away as much of this stuff as I can.” She pointed to Brian’s obsession lying on the kitchen table. “Please take anything that looks palatable to you. You can eat it on the drive home so you don’t have to stop.”
“I don’t think I’d like any of this kind of food, but at least it will make me feel better that I took something of Brian’s for a change.” Rod grabbed a box of Norwegian pretzels.
Scanning the items quickly, Maria took a couple of the more normal items—a box of chocolates from South Africa and a bottle of hot and spicy pickles from Kentucky. “This should last me. It’s just five hours.”
As they walked toward the front door, Amy followed. “Please,” she said, “if either of you are in Phoenix again, shoot me a text. You’re welcome anytime. When you go through something like we all have, it makes you understand one another.”
“Will do,” said Rod.
Maria gave Amy a quick hug and she and Rod were on their way.
Within minutes, Rod and Maria were out of the suburbs and getting onto the freeway. In the passenger seat, Maria was checking her texts. “Pete says the FBI brought Karen Stone in for more questioning. It’s public news.”
“Karen Stone?” Rod stared ahead, keeping his speed as fast as possible without getting a ticket.
“Yeah, apparently she’s got a criminal record that I didn’t know of.” Maria hated to admit that fact. “This text makes it sound like the FBI found something incriminating on her computer. I don’t know if they’ll give me more information or not when I get back.”
The car was silent for a few minutes and then Rod shook his head. “I can’t believe Justin’s been gone two days. It feels like a lot longer. I can only imagine what it feels like for Beth and her husband.”
“It must be awful.” Maria had thought two days in solitary confinement was bad. She was sure it couldn’t compare to having one of your children taken. “I really do think the FBI is the best one to handle the case. But it’s so hard just to sit back and watch. I keep thinking there’s more I should be doing.”
“I know exactly how you feel.” Rod reached into the backseat, trying to grab whatever kind of snack he could find. “When I get stressed I get hungry.”
“Doesn’t everyone? “Maria turned and chose the large box of exotic chocolate. She opened it and downed a couple of dark morsels that tasted slightly bitter and tangy. Honestly, she would have preferred a Hershey’s bar, but this would have to do. She handed the chocolate box to Rod who eagerly accepted it, popped a few pieces in his mouth, and handed the box back.
“Weird,” he concluded after chewing and swallowing. “A little too earthy for me.”
“Agreed,” Maria said, “but it does kind of make my mouth tingle.”
“I wonder how much Brian paid for this stuff.”
“I wonder too. But knowing it’s his and we have it makes me want to eat the whole box.”
“Definitely. Hand me some more.”
Mile after mile, Maria and Rod ate Brian’s chocolate. And mile after mile their conversation grew louder, more boisterous, and slightly off-color.
Maria didn’t notice her lightheadedness at first, but when her fingers started to feel numb she worried she might be allergic to something in the chocolate. She was going to mention it to Rod but decided not to. It really didn’t matter.
In fact, nothing much mattered except eating another piece of chocolate.
The last time Maria’s head hurt as badly as it did at that moment was after a five-hour interrogation by one of the terrorists they called “The Head Banger.” Without opening her eyes, Maria reached up to make sure all her parts were still attached.
Jaw.
Check.
Ears.
Check.
Forehead.
Check.
Nothing seemed to have been permanently removed. Why then did it feel like she had been mauled by a semi-truck?
“Ahhhhh.” The forlorn groan from somewhere to her right finally convinced Maria to open her eyes.
Light streamed through the windows of what appeared to be some kind of an entryway. Across the room was Rod. His man body was half falling off a cheap, fake velvet-wrapped bench. His arms were wrapped around his head like a turban.
“Ahhhhh.” Whether he was conscious or not, Rod was most definitely the source of the questionable noise.
“Where are we?” asked Maria, finally daring to sit up. As she did, she realized the contents of her head—which at some point in her past might have been brains—had turned to unset Jell-O that wobbled and sloshed about.
“Holy Schinke’s!” She put her hands on both sides of her face to hold her head perfectly still to help the swirling inside stop. “I think I have the worst hangover of my life.”
As she spoke, her words sounded so loud it was as if they were being broadcast over a loud speaker in the stinky lobby.
“Is that really my voice?” Maria whispered. Still screaming. Maybe the problem was with her ears.
“Ahhhhh.”
Rod seriously had to stop making that racket.
“Hey,” said Maria. “Hey you. On the bench.”
Slowly Rod lowered his arms that cradled his head. His eyes were mere slits. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes. You’re being noisy.”
Rod scowled. “You’re the one shouting.”
“Oh yeah, and what did you just do?” Maria stuck her tongue out at him. Why had she done that? Her brain hadn’t given her the command.
“That was a wh-wh-whisper.” Rod opened his eyes fully and gurgled. “Your hair is funny.”
Maria reached up to where she thought her hair should be. It was there. Ratted and crazy. “So what. At least I have hair. Yours is so short. You should grow it out a little. That way I could run my fingers through it easier.”
What!
Maria’s hand flew to her mouth and clamped over it. Why was she saying such odd things? What had happened to her?
Just then a SLAM made both Rod and Maria nearly fall off their respective benches they’d been using as beds.
“Holy Schinke’s!” Again, Maria wondered why she was saying that. She didn’t even know what it meant.
“Good morning, lovebirds!” An older man dressed in a ridiculously baggy Elvis Presley bell-bottom flared suit stood in the entryway with Rod and Maria. “How are you two doing this morning? Ready to begin your lives as man and wife?”
“Ahhhhhh.” This time it was Maria who groaned like a sick cow.
Rod tried to stand up. After swaying back and forth as if he was using a long board for the first time, he sat back down. “Man and what? And, by the way, you should get a different suit. That one is stupid. And it doesn’t fit.”
The elderly man laughed. “Still hung over, eh? I’ve seen some pretty smashed couples, but you two made my top ten of all time. Listen, I’ve got some coffee brewing that should help, but the marriage fee only includes one night in the lobby. You two need to get out of here before I open the church again. It’s not good for business to have riff-raff in the front lobby.”
Maria’s comprehension of what the man was saying lagged about thirty seconds slower than his speaking.
Smashed.
Coffee.
Marriage fee.
Church.
“What are you talking about? This isn’t a church?” Maria was truly shouting now, which came off in her head like an atomic bomb. “There are advertisements on the walls and a vending machine in the corner. Churches don’t have those.”
“Hey now, don’t be knocking on my house of worship.” The man grinned and held his hand out to Maria as if he wanted to help her stand.
Not happening.
“You are in the one and only Graceland Wedding Chapel. We’ve been a part of the Las Vegas Stri
p for over seventy years and are one of the most prominent chapels for a traditional Las Vegas wedding.”
Rod and Maria stared at each other. Jaws dropped. Drool spilled out one side of Rod’s mouth.
“Holy Schinke’s!”
Oops. Maria had said it again.
“Why do you keep saying that?” Rod chastised Maria. “It sounds stupid.”
Maria fully agreed with him.
“I’m Preacher Phil and I married you two last night. Couldn’t keep your hands off each other. Now, I know things don’t always look so exciting in the morning, but marriage isn’t all that bad. You’ll get used to it. But if not, don’t worry. There’s a place down the street that can do an annulment. Takes a while and costs twice as much as the marriage though.”
Preacher Phil.
Hands.
Marriage.
Annulment.
“Rod …” Maria turned back to him and saw he was in the process of wiping the drool off his chin with his shirt sleeve. “What in the world did we do?”
Five cups of coffee and an hour later both Maria and Rod were thinking more clearly. Preacher Phil had been kind enough to let them stay in his office while the wedding business continued as usual in the chapel.
From what Maria and Rod had pieced together, they both remembered driving out of Phoenix, talking about Justin, and eating food—Brian’s South American exotic chocolates to be exact.
“You don’t think …” Maria trailed off.
“I do.” Rod massaged his temples. “The guy tried to kill me with some exotic bacteria from halfway across the world. I’m pretty sure those weren’t normal chocolates. He probably used them when he had toga parties at his house or something like that.” A snort of disgust.
“I just don’t understand. Las Vegas isn’t even on our way home. How did we end up here?” Maria couldn’t make herself ask the next question.
Rod did. “And why did we get married?”
“Yeah, and that.” Maria fingered the marriage license on the desk in front of them. For being a Vegas wedding, the paper looked pretty legit. Preacher Phil had given it to them with instructions on how to find the law office of his friend that did annulments.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Rod had stopped massaging his temples and had moved on to the back of his neck.
“Nothing…. You don’t remember…. We didn’t….” Maria stumbled on her words.
“Oh.” Rod’s eyes grew large. “No. I mean.… No!” His voice rose. “You think you and I—?”
“I don’t think anything,” snapped Maria. “I was just checking that you didn’t think anything. Nothing happened, right?”
“Right.” Rod nodded his head. “Preacher Phil said we got married and then passed out in the lobby.”
“Perfect,” said Maria. “I didn’t want there to be anything weird between us.”
“Weird?” Rod looked flabbergasted. “Maria, we got married. Of course things are weird.”
“It’s just paper.” Maria took the license and crammed it into her backpack, pulling out her cell phone at the same time. “We’ll take care of it later. For now, we need to get back to Kanab. Are you in any shape to drive?”
“I don’t think so,” Rod admitted. “I’m still seeing double.”
“Well I think I’m okay to—” Maria interrupted herself. “Oh, dear—forty-six missed text messages. What time is it anyway?”
“Ten in the morning.”
“What day?”
It took putting both of their scattered brains together, but at last Maria and Rod realized twenty-four hours had passed. It was day four into Justin’s disappearance. They had lost so much precious time.
Maria scanned the texts, reading them out loud.
“I’m freaking out. Where are you? –Beth”
“Hey? Did you kidnap my brother? –Grant.”
“This is Agent Carter from the FBI. Please respond now.”
“Can you come to my house tonight? I have information. –Ms. Tuttle”
Rod’s face had paled hearing the kind of mess their disappearance had caused.
“Rod, get on your phone and call Grant. Let him know we were accidentally drugged and … detained. I’ll call the FBI and Beth.
“Do I tell Grant about the marriage?” Rod asked.
“No!” said Maria. “For pity’s sake. That’s so embarrassing. Just let them know we’re on our way. I’ll go get the car and bring it around front. We have to get out of here. Now!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"No one knows where that treasure chest is but me,” Fenn says. “If I die tomorrow, the knowledge of that location goes in the coffin with me."
“SEEKING ADVENTURE AND GOLD? CRACK THIS POEM AND HEAD OUTDOORS” NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, AIRED MARCH 13, 2016. HTTP://WWW.NPR.ORG/2016/03/13/ 469852983/SEEKING-ADVENTURE-AND-GOLD-CRACK-THIS-POEM-AND-HEAD-OUTDOORS
The guilty box of chocolates rested in front of Maria on the table between her and FBI Agent Carter. Luckily, she still had some of the evidence to justify her and Rod’s bizarre disappearance in the Nevada desert for twenty-four hours.
Agent Carter had taken several samples of the candy and was getting them tested for drug specifics. They had also corroborated details with Amy, checking on the time Maria and Rod left Phoenix and what they took with them.
Not that the FBI thought she really had anything nefarious to hide, but everyone was guilty until proven otherwise. Maria knew that, which is why she had done all she could to relieve their suspicions.
“Again,” Maria said, “I truly am so sorry.”
Agent Carter was not one to gush forgiveness for Maria and Rod’s day-long disappearance. Instead, he got straight down to business. “FBI computer experts found Karen Stone had done research on Steven Veil’s treasure within the last six months. Of course, so have millions of other people and, unfortunately, that is the only solid piece of evidence we have connecting her to the case. She’s offered no confession. She’s also offered no alibi. But we can’t hold her for much longer. She’ll be set free tomorrow morning. We’re pursuing a few additional leads.”
“Anything specific?” asked Maria.
“Maybe.” Agent Carter slid several photographs closer to Maria. “Recognize anyone in the photos?”
It didn’t take much to find the unintelligent face of the man she had apprehended at the Kanab creek last week. “Yes.” Maria put her finger on his face. “Pete arrested him for possession of drugs. Later, we learned he was wanted for additional crimes. We released him and the woman he was with to Las Vegas officials. But, last I heard, he jumped bail. I believe his name was something Fossum. Where was this photograph taken?”
“At the Kanab reservoir, the day you made the water give birth.”
Maria winced hearing an FBI agent use the illogical “give birth” phrase. She employed an ignore-and-change-the subject tactic. “Who took the photos?’
“Mark Lyon at Kanab’s newspaper. He and your assistant went over every picture Mark shot that day. These were, of course, very interesting. This man knew both you and Justin, and he had a vendetta against you.”
“Absolutely,” said Maria. “Is he still in town? Do we know where he—”
“No.” Agent Carter exhaled his frustration. “But we have put out an APB for him in all of the Western United States. We’ll find him soon.”
“What can I do?” Ever since learning she had wasted an entire day high on exotic chocolates, Maria had been anxious to do something—anything—that would speed along the case. Beth was probably out of her mind at this point. Maria was heading to her house as soon as she was done with the FBI.
“We feel we’ve been hitting up against brick walls. We thought we would be further along. Typically the perp would have contacted the Hills again by now. We finally got in touch with Steven Veil, the art dealer from New Mexico. I guess he gets a lot of death threats—people wanting him to give them the location of the treasure or they’ll kill him. You know, that sor
t of thing. So the man lives in hiding. Anyhow, I finally sent an agent to New Mexico to track him down. The Veil poem has stumped Floyd.”
“It’s a riddle,” corrected Maria, “not a poem.”
“Yeah, whatever. Anyhow, I think it’d be good for you to be here when we question Veil. Maybe see if there is some sort of a connection between you and him or the Hills.”
“Do I have to go to New Mexico? I worry about being out of Kanab again for that long. We only have three more days until the ransom note says I’m supposed to solve the riddle.”
“No. The FBI is bringing him to Kanab so I can question him personally.”
“What time?”
“He’s arriving at ten a.m. tomorrow. We’ll bring him into the station.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
Beth and Maria had cried together for the last hour. One would stop and then the other one would begin. Maria had repeated again and again that she was certain Justin was okay, but Beth was completely distraught. And why wouldn’t she be? She had no sixth sense, and she certainly had no reason to think that Maria had any special reason to believe her feelings were anything but emotion.
But Maria knew her feelings were different. They were more like thoughts that Maria’s soul confirmed deep inside her. Justin was alive. She knew it.
The FBI had insisted Maria not discuss the case with the Hills, just in case someone in the family or close to them was the kidnapper, but Maria was trying to do her best to console her friend.
Nothing was working.
“Beth, you have to believe me. Justin is alive. I absolutely know it.”
“Because of something the FBI said?” she asked.
“You know I can’t talk about the case, but no, it’s not the FBI who told me he was okay.”
“Then who did?”
A deep breath. “I feel it.”
“I need evidence. I have to know my little boy is okay.” Beth wiped at her eyes with her tissue.
Maria studied Beth’s face. Could she tell her friend that she could see ghosts, call skeletons out of the water, and fight men who were half bird, half human? No, not in Beth’s current state of mind. But Maria had to help relieve her worry.
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