“I think it might be time to have some fun and show everyone what happens to people who don’t mind their own business.” His glance moved down to her chest. Jolene’s mind whirled a mile a minute despite the churning in her stomach caused by Buck’s lustful leer.
She was just about to bring her knee up hard, right where it counts when a large hand slapped itself on Buck’s arm, pulling him away.
“Don’t lose your head there, buddy.” Kyle stared at Buck with hard, cold eyes. “You can have all the fun you want later. Right now we have this shipment to get out.”
Chapter Seventeen
Celeste sprinted behind Belladonna. She had a good idea of where the cat was heading but she still didn’t want to lose sight of her. At the end of Main Street, the cat turned to the right, headed straight for the graveyard and trotted to the back. She stopped at the grave where they’d seen Lily’s ghost days before.
“This is where we came before,” Morgan said.
Belladonna blinked at them, waiting for Cal and Fiona, who had fallen behind.
“What’s this?” Cal asked as he made his way past the old gravestones.
“We think it’s Shorty’s grave,” Celeste answered. “Lily brought us here the other day.”
“Is she here now?” Morgan asked.
Celeste looked around, her mood deflating when she saw no sign of Lily’s ghost. “No.”
“Lily? Are you here? We figured out how to get vindication for Shorty and now we want you to show us the key.” Celeste sighed, crossing her arms across her chest. “We kept our part of the bargain,” she added hopefully.
Just then, a wind kicked up a swirl of sand. Belladonna let out a loud “Meow!” and started digging furiously in the sand.
“What the heck?” Celeste squinted at Belladonna. About to pull her away, Celeste saw a wisp of vapor swirling around in front of the cat. Lily?
The four of them watched as Belladonna dug about five inches down into the sand, and then hit a granite slab.
“Hey wait a minute,” Cal said excitedly. “I think that’s the corner of an old grave marker.”
He squatted down next to the cat using his hands to scoop away the sand. The girls gathered around, their heads bent as they watched him reveal a fifteen-inch long by six-inch wide slab. Belladonna padded off to the side and started cleaning herself.
“I thought these graves were unmarked back here, but I guess the sand just covered them over after all these years,” Morgan said.
“There’s no name on it.” Celeste frowned down at the granite slab. “It looks like one of those plaques that lay flat on the ground.”
Cal started pushing sand away from the front of the marker. The marker was actually two pieces—the top, which was an inch thick slab and then another piece under it that was a little smaller than the top. Cal had revealed two inches of the smaller piece. “No name, but the initials SH are right here on the front.”
“Shorty Hanson!” Fiona exclaimed.
“Yeah, but how does this get us closer to the key?” Morgan asked.
The four of them stared at each other for a few seconds … or five of them counting Belladonna. Finally, the cat strolled over to the marker and lay down across it, her paw dangling over one corner.
“Mew.”
Celeste saw Cal’s eyes go wide as he watched the cat.
“That’s it!” He reached over to where Belladonna’s paw dangled and grabbed the corner underneath the slab. Wiggling his hand back and forth, he grunted and bent down almost level with the ground, then pushed and shoved.
Celeste gasped as she heard the scrape of granite on granite and saw Cal pull out a piece of the marker to reveal a small compartment, like a drawer. Inside was an old rolled up piece of paper and a small book.
“Wow, look at that.” Morgan reached into the drawer and pulled the two items out.
Cal straightened up, brushing the sand from his hands. “Putting special drawers in gravestones is an old and not often used custom. I would never have guessed a gravestone in the old west would have one, but when I saw Belladonna practically pointing to this section of the stone I figured I should look.”
Celeste smiled. She’d known Cal’s expertise as a history buff would come in handy.
“Why would someone want to put a drawer in a gravestone?” Fiona asked.
Cal laughed. “Well normally, it’s for loved ones to put mementos in … stuff they don’t want to just leave out in the elements on top of the grave. But in this case, it looks like it was used for something else entirely.”
“I’ll say.” Morgan carefully unrolled the piece of paper and angled it toward Cal. “Does this look like the key you need to decrypt those symbols in the mine?”
Cal stared at the paper, the corners of his lips curling up in a smile. “Ladies, I think we’ve found the key.”
“So I guess Lily came through with her end of the bargain.” Celeste slid her eyes over to Belladonna. “Although in kind of a roundabout way.”
“I guess so.” Cal pushed the little drawer back into place and replaced the sand he’d moved around. “Now let’s get over to the mine and see if we can use this key to figure out where the treasure is.”
***
Kyle shoved Jolene back to the ground beside Emma and shot her a look of warning before he walked off.
What was that about?
Jolene glanced over at Emma who appeared to be working at the ropes behind her back.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I found a rough chipped rock and I’m rubbing the ropes. We gotta get away.”
“Hold on,” Jolene said. “I’m almost out of mine, but we need to time things carefully. Wait until I give the signal.”
Jolene kept her eye on Buck, Kyle and the others while she wriggled her hands out of the rope. Cartons of guns, ammunition and, Jolene assumed, other weapons were stacked up on one side of the cave. It looked like they were loading them onto the carts to move them out … to where?
Jolene guessed there was a truck waiting at the other end of the tunnel. Kane must be using the empty mines as a storage place for guns he was clearly selling illegally.
Jolene’s stomach clenched as she looked around. There were six men including Kyle and Buck and they were all armed.
Could she and Emma win against six of them?
“Hurry up,” Buck snapped. “We need to get this shipment out in the next hour.”
“Then next week do it all over again,” one of the men said.
“That’s what pays the bills.” Buck grunted as he hefted a heavy crate onto his shoulder and walked it to the cart.
What would happen once they were done moving the guns? They’d turn their attention to her and Emma. Jolene knew she would have to make her move before then, but what, exactly was she going to do?
She noticed Kyle giving her looks out of the corner of his eye and prayed he didn’t suspect that she’d wriggled free.
Jolene closed her eyes and summoned all her energy. She knew that if she thrust out her hands, an arc of energy would burst out jolting anything in its wake. The problem was she didn’t have much control over where the energy went and inside the mine with all the ammunition that could be dangerous. She didn’t want to blow up the whole mine, especially with her and Emma in there.
A movement inside one of the tunnels caught her eye and she turned to see Deputy Styles hovering just inside the tunnel. Jolene’s heart lurched—once he joined them, she’d be outnumbered seven to one. She looked back at the men.
They were almost done loading the crates into the cart, she couldn’t wait until they moved the cart out—it was now or never.
***
Celeste, Cal, Morgan, Fiona and Belladonna sprinted to the Jeep.
Fiona pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call the others and let them know to meet us at the mine.”
Cal’s phone chirped as he whipped the car onto the road. He picked it up, looking at the display.
&
nbsp; “Looks like I’ve got a message … maybe it’s from Luke.” He pressed the button and stuck the phone to his ear.
Celeste glanced over in time to see him frown. “Is something wrong?”
He put the phone away and shook his head. “Not really. That was my attorney and she said she couldn’t find anything about the rezoning of the hotel.”
“Darn it! Jolene’s not answering,” Fiona said from the back. “I’ll send her a text. Luke and Jake are going to meet us there.
“Hey what was that book you found?” Celeste turned to face Morgan who was leafing through the small book with Belladonna sleeping on her lap.
“It’s a diary … Lily’s diary,” Morgan said without looking up from the book.
“Really? Does it say why she married the sheriff … and if she had Shorty’s baby?” Celeste asked.
“I don’t know.” Morgan flipped a page. “I haven’t gotten to that part yet. It starts when she comes to Dead Water. She was an accomplished singer, you know. Came to sing in the saloon.”
Celeste’s heart tugged as she pictured a young, innocent Lily coming out west to sing, then meeting Shorty and falling in love … until Deke ruined it. She turned back around to face forward. They were almost at the mine and soon they’d have the treasure for Luke’s company. Then they could work on getting the vindication that Lily wanted.
She felt her heart rate bump up with the excitement of finding hidden treasure. It wasn’t about the money—she had plenty of that already—it was about the thrill of the chase. Oh sure, they’d be paid well for the job, but Celeste liked the excitement more than the paycheck. She had no idea what Luke’s company would do with it after they found it, but she’d been told they usually restored most of the treasure to the rightful owners—after taking a generous finder’s fee, of course. She liked the thought of that … maybe some of it would even go to Lily’s heirs.
Cal pulled the Jeep to a stop, interrupting her thoughts and everyone jumped out and ran for the mineshaft that Celeste had found the symbols in.
Then they stopped short.
“No one else is here … should we wait?” Morgan peered into the mine.
Fiona shaded her eyes and looked down the road. “I don’t even see any dust. It might be a while.”
Cal had the paper with the key to the symbols already unrolled in his hand.
“I don’t see the harm in going in and doing some preliminary scouting,” he said. “We’ll be that much further ahead when they get here.”
The four of them ran into the mine. No one noticed Belladonna following silently behind them—they were too intent on the symbols on the wall.
Celeste aimed the beam of her flashlight on the symbols on the wall and Fiona shone hers on the paper Cal held. Cal looked back and forth between the wall and the paper.
“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” he said. “This middle symbol is like an arrow … it tells you the direction. But the first symbol coincides with a letter. I think A is for the first marking, B for the second etc. The last symbol I believe is like a yes or no. Yes means we should follow the direction of the arrow … no means we should not.”
Celeste made a face. She didn’t really understand any of it. “Okay, if you say so.”
“So, if I’m right, we should take this tunnel here.” Cal pointed to the tunnel on the right, and then looked at the sisters.
“Sounds good to me.” Morgan shrugged and headed off to the right.
They repeated the process at the next fork with Cal interpreting the symbols from the key and then directing them down one of the tunnels.
As Celeste followed Cal’s instructions through the maze of tunnels, she felt a seed of doubt take root in her stomach. She trusted Cal and knew he was an expert with codes … but what if he was wrong this time?
They hadn’t made any marks so that they could find their way back, and if Cal’s interpretation of the key was incorrect, they could be lost in the mine forever.
***
Jolene let the rope fall from her wrists. She shot her hands out in front of her and yelled. “Stop!”
An arc of energy shot out toward Buck like a bolt of hot, white lightening. It struck him in the chest, knocking him off balance. Kyle’s eyes widened as he watched Buck fall. He turned toward Jolene and she saw the startled look of surprise in his eyes as he reached for his gun.
Jolene heard the click of pistols and her heart stalled in her chest when she noticed all four of the men were aiming their guns at her.
“Take this!” Emma yelled from beside Jolene as she hurled a large rock at one of the men, striking him in the head and knocking him to his knees.
Jolene put her hands up, ready to aim them at the first man who approached. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Styles run into the cavern, his gun out. But something was strange … instead of pointing the gun at her as she expected, he was pointing it at the gun runners—and so was Kyle.
The gun runners must not have noticed, though, because the three left standing were advancing on Jolene. She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust out her hands to ward them off.
She heard Kyle say, “Get back and put your hands up—the party’s over.”
And then the cavern exploded with a deafening boom.
Chapter Eighteen
As Celeste followed Cal down another tunnel, her earlier doubts took root and she decided to voice her concern that they should turn back and wait for the others, or at least come up with some sort of plan to backtrack their way out.
“Hey, you guys, I think we should—”
Kaboom!
Celeste’s heart leapt into her throat. “What was that?”
“It sounded like some sort of an explosion and I think it came from straight ahead!” Cal sprinted in the direction of the noise “Come on!”
Celeste took off after him following him down the tunnel, around a turn and out into a large cavern. Her heart stopped when she looked across the cavern and saw—
“Jolene!” Celeste stared at her sister who was standing about fifteen feet away, her hands up to her ears and her eyes screwed shut. Jolene opened one eye tentatively, then the other, both eyes growing wide when she spotted Celeste.
“What are you doing here?” Jolene asked.
“We were following the markings in the tunnel.” Celeste surveyed the room. Five men lay on the floor. Two were on their stomachs, hands cuffed behind their backs. Two others were being handcuffed—she recognized one of the men doing the handcuffing as Deputy Styles. The fifth lay on his back out cold with an ugly welt forming on his forehead.
“What the heck is going on here?” Morgan demanded, as she walked over to the cart full of guns.
“We caught a bunch of gun runners, that’s what’s going on.” Emma stood from where she had been crouching next to Jolene and brushed dust off her pants, holding out the side of her shirt that had a big hole in it. “And someone shot at us.”
“What?” Fiona narrowed her eyes at Jolene and Emma. “How did you guys get in here and why are you hanging around with gun runners?”
Celeste saw Jolene glance nervously at the two men who were doing the handcuffing.
“Wait … you guys are both good guys?” Jolene asked, narrowing her eyes in disbelief.
“That’s right.” The one who Celeste didn’t recognize jerked the cuffs tightly on his captive and stood up. “I’m Kyle Donahue … FBI.”
Jolene gasped. “Wait a minute … you’re not in the FBI, you’re the bartender.”
Kyle favored her with a lopsided smile and spread his hands at his sides. “Just a cover.”
“B-but you dragged me in here and tied me up.” Jolene sputtered.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I was trying to get you out of the mine when Buck caught us.” Kyle grimaced. “I had no choice but to bring you here or it would have blown my cover. But, I did try to keep the ropes loose.”
“What about Emma?” Jolene’s forehead creased as she put her arm around the older woman.
“Oh that ugly one, Buck, found me in the mine. I’d seen the strange activity and decided to investigate. He wasn’t so nice with the ropes.” Emma rubbed her wrists and Celeste’s heart tugged when she saw the raw red marks the rope had left.
“And what about you?” Jolene turned to Deputy Styles. “You tried to grab me in the tunnel!”
“Yes, I was trying to get you out of here so you wouldn’t get hurt with all this going on.” He waved his hands around to indicate the guns. “But you bolted.”
“So, this is why you threatened to arrest us if we went into the mine?” Celeste asked Styles.
Styles nodded. “Yep. I’ve been working with the FBI for months to blow the lid off this operation … I couldn’t risk you guys coming in and messing it up or getting yourselves hurt.”
“And Sheriff Kane was working with the FBI too?” Fiona asked.
“Oh no.” Kyle shook his head. “He’s the ringleader of this operation. My main goal was to catch him.”
Celeste stared at the men on the floor. Kane wasn’t among them. “But he’s not here.”
“That’s right … we were waiting for Kane to get here so we’d have the proof to arrest him, but someone …” Kyle slid his eyes over to Jolene. “Took it upon themselves to stir things up and we had to move forward with our plan prematurely. He’s probably already gotten word about what happened and hightailed it out of town.”
“And that’s why Kane wanted me to move off my land and why he wanted to close down the hotel,” Emma said. “So no one would see the comings and goings of his gun operation.”
“It was in his best interest to make sure no one noticed what was going on here,” Kyle said, his eyes narrowing at Celeste. “I know Emma came here because she saw activity and wanted to investigate, and Jolene saw Emma’s dogs and came in thinking Emma might need help … but what are the rest of you doing here?”
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