“You’re a good man, Asa Canyon,” Alice said.
“No, I’m not, but I think that I’m learning.”
On the way to the hospital Asa radioed a call for a surveillance car to be sent to Sarah’s house. He didn’t have any indication that there was likely to be more trouble, but he just wanted to play it safe.
The doctor at the hospital said that Officer Martin was fine. The man Sarah had captured was suffering from a concussion and was still unconscious. He was expected to come to at any time and if Asa wanted to question him, he’d better stand by.
Asa talked a nurse into providing a cup of decent coffee and settled down to wait. It was nearly two o’clock. He closed his eyes. Might as well try for a nap.
Knowing Sarah Wilson was both calming and exhausting. One way or another she managed to keep him awake all night, either by intruding in his life or his dreams. There seemed to be no way to shut her out.
He sighed and thought about her wide, open smile and about her contention that he was a nice man. And he decided that perhaps nice was like beauty. It was in the eyes of the beholder. To Sarah, he was nice. Maybe that was enough.
Eight
Sarah couldn’t help but think of Mr. Grimsley. She could still see his fear, feel his desperation in wanting her to open the safe. He had been so concerned about its contents. It didn’t seem fair that he’d lost his life over something so worthless as Confederate money.
But life wasn’t fair. It didn’t seem fair that she’d lost her father, or that she’d fallen in love with a man who was determined not to love her back. She wasn’t even sure when she knew that she loved him. Perhaps it had been in her heart since that night at the lake, and it had waited quietly for her recognition.
In a moment of stress Asa had admitted that he loved her. But he certainly didn’t seem happy about it. And she was afraid she’d never be able to convince him that she wasn’t going to be one of those temporary people in his life.
She closed the downstairs doors, making certain that the lock was secure. Then she went upstairs and locked the door to her living quarters. Once inside, she pulled up the grate and locked those doors. The barn was secure, though she didn’t know whether she was keeping someone out, or keeping herself in.
Something about the safe caught at her emotions. It was broken, its small door hanging from one corner. At least she could put it back together. If she fixed something, she might feel better. She placed the safe on the table and switched on the light. Pulling up a chair, she studied the small lead box, trying to decide why it had been so difficult to open.
Then she saw what she’d missed before. The open door wasn’t where she’d expected. It had been intricately placed within the engraved lines that made up the outer squares. Nobody would notice it because of the design. Sarah realized the lock was operated by application of pressure. The combination lock was a red herring, meant to fool anyone trying to open the safe. She could have worked on that lock from now to next year with no results.
In the process of returning the door to its proper mounting she felt a tiny indentation just inside the opening. She pressed it. A drawer beneath the door slid open. A secret compartment. Could this be what Mr. Grimsley had been searching for? To still her rapidly beating heart Sarah took a long deep breath. Inside the tiny drawer was a folded slip of yellowed paper.
Sarah started toward the phone, anxious to share her discovery with Asa. Then she remembered the phone was out. She’d show it to him tomorrow when he came by. No, he needed to know now. The paper might be important. She’d take it to him. But he’d told her not to leave. The last time she’d disobeyed him she’d almost been caught. This time she’d follow orders.
But she had to know what Mr. Grimsley had been looking for. Surely Asa would understand that.
Carefully she removed the paper from the drawer and unfolded it on the table. Pulling the lamp closer she studied what appeared to be an architectural drawing. The lines were faded, the writing almost illegible, but it was a map of some kind. There was a house on one half of the paper, and a room that looked almost like a reflection in a mirror. A wall behind a wall?
The second half of the page was less understandable. It seemed to be a trail or a tunnel leading to a second building. Something about the second building looked familiar. There was a drawing of an intricate carving over the door, giving the suggestion of an animal.
A lion. That symbol was part of the ornate design over the door of the old Bank of Smyrna building. And the house in the drawing had to be the Grimsley house. This was what Lincoln Grimsley was after. The drawing showed a tunnel from the Grimsley house to the bank and beyond to the railroad.
Underground Railroad? Had the Grimsley house and the bank been part of the Underground Railroad during the days of slavery? Or had the tunnel been set up to allow the banker to escape with his gold? Perhaps no one would ever know. All that had been passed down apparently was this map.
She took it into the kitchen, where she continued to study it as she served herself a wedge of the apple pie she hadn’t gotten a chance to serve Asa for dinner. Its cinnamon fragrance made her think of Asa, and how much sharper her sense of smell, and taste, and touch had become since he came into her life.
Her mother had told her that she had to teach him to love. How was that possible when she didn’t know how? There was no question about their bodies being right for each other, but what about themselves as people? Asa was strong, hard, the Lone Ranger, wearing a mask as he rescued damsels in distress and disappeared into the sunset. She was more like silly putty, adapting herself to the situation and the person she was with according to need.
How could they possibly find a common ground?
How could she do without him, now that she knew what it was to love a man? It was more than just responding to someone in pain who needed her. Asa was strength. He was forever and she needed that kind of anchor. In her most private moments she knew that part of her giving was because giving satisfied an emptiness inside her. That emptiness was gone now that Asa had filled it.
She took a bite of the pie and reached inside a kitchen drawer for her magnifying glass. It wasn’t there. It had to be somewhere. She finally located it in the bathroom cabinet. Maybe Asa was right. Maybe she ought to organize her cabinets better. She’d wasted valuable time.
The magnifying glass brought the faint lines into better focus. As she followed the path of the tunnel she realized with startling clarity where it led. Not just to the bank but, if she interpreted the drawing right, straight into the vault.
Lincoln Grimsley wasn’t looking for money in the safe. He was looking for the tunnel to the bank vault. He and the intruder she’d captured had planned to rob the bank. Suppose these two weren’t the only ones involved? Sarah brushed aside any concern about not following orders. She carefully folded the map and, gathering her keys, made her way outside to Henry.
After giving a brief thought to stopping at the house to call Asa, she decided not to wake her folks again. She’d stop at the first public phone.
She’d just check out the bank first. If the man she’d conked on the head wasn’t the only member of the gang, the others might already be destroying the house or the bank, or worse. Asa might have questioned the injured man and found out what she knew. Asa! He could be in real danger.
“Oh, Asa,” she uttered in fear, “please be all right.”
If she hadn’t been so caught up in worrying about Asa, she would have been more careful about leaving the barn. She might have realized that someone was following her. The car didn’t show itself until she pulled into the parking lot of the bank. The two men who jumped out and dragged her from the van were carrying guns and they were very serious about getting inside the bank. Sarah was a locksmith. She was better than the treasure map they’d been searching for.
The intensive care unit sounded like a hundred machines whirring in unison. Asa glanced around and shivered. Death was one part of his job that he’d never
had a stomach for. He’d been nineteen in Vietnam when his commanding officer had died saving Asa. The memory still slipped inside his dreams and reminded him that death was waiting for him. Since then the morgue and the hospital were about as close as he wanted to come.
The man’s eyes were closed. His arms had needles and tubes attached to them. Asa could see that he was breathing, but the movement of his chest was shallow. Asa was told that his vital signs were good, but he was still unconscious.
The hospital workers were wrong.
At the sound of Asa’s boots on the tiled floor, the man’s eyes flew open. A look of resignation passed over his face and he sighed.
“Did you get Fred and Lennie?”
Asa felt his heart sink. He’d hoped that there was only this man and Lincoln Grimsley.
“Yes. What did you hope to accomplish? All this for a safe full of Confederate money.”
“Then there was no treasure map.”
“What made you think there would be?”
“That bragging old fool. I should have known that cock-and-bull story about a secret way to get inside the bank was phony. What’d Fred and Lennie do? Get tired of waiting and bust in? That sounds like something they’d do.”
The bank? What is the fool talking about? “No,” Asa said. “The truth is, until you told me, I wasn’t sure there was a Fred and Lennie. Now that I know that much, why don’t you tell me the rest of it?”
“What’s it worth to me?”
Asa took a step closer to the bed and leaned over the man. “It’s worth your life. You tried to hurt somebody that I care about. You trashed her shop and you would have hurt her, just as I’m going to hurt you, if you don’t tell me everything.”
“But—” Fear welled up in the bedridden man. “But you’re an officer of the law.”
“Yes, but first I’m a man, a man you don’t want to make any more angry than he already is.”
The criminal began to talk.
Ten minutes later Asa was on his way to Smyrna Village. He put in a call to Snow Sims, instructing him to meet him at the bank. He was too late. When he got there, a car and a van, a red van with a smiley face, were already parked outside.
Where was she? His heart sunk.
The door to the bank wasn’t locked. Sarah had to be inside. But why? He’d radioed for another surveillance car to watch her house. How could she have gotten away? Unless the back-up didn’t get to her barn in time to stop her. Why hadn’t she stayed put? Why had she come here?
Asa drew his gun and pushed the door open, sliding silently inside. He could hear male voices in the back, behind the tellers’ cages and the offices. He followed the sound, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t find Sarah trying to rescue someone from somebody.
Then he saw her in the beam of a flashlight. She was standing beside the vault, her toolbox open on the floor beside her. Two men were standing over her. It was obvious that Sarah was being instructed to open the vault. Had she disregarded his instructions and come here on her own, or had she been brought?
One of the criminals was holding a gun. From the intruder’s descriptions, Asa guessed this one was Fred. His desperate expression told Asa that he’d better do something and quick. They’d already killed one man and Asa was certain that they were jumpy enough to kill again.
“All right, girl,” Lennie said. “One more time. Are you going to open this vault, or do we give you a little swimming lesson like we gave your old friend, Lincoln?”
“I’ve already told you that I never saw Lincoln Grimsley before he came into my shop. And the safe he wanted me to open only contained a lot of Confederate money. The man who broke in my house will verify that I’m telling the truth.”
“Yeah, and where is he?”
“He’s in the hospital. He was injured, trying to steal the safe.”
“Listen, girl,” Lennie said menacingly. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull but we don’t believe you. Crackerman wouldn’t have let himself get caught. You did something to him. The way to get into the bank vault was inside that safe, Lincoln swore. Why else would you be here? You must have found the combination.”
“Sorry, men,” Sarah said, in what she hoped was a convincing voice. “There was no combination. You killed that old man for nothing.”
“Then it won’t matter much if we kill you for the same reason, lady,” Fred said in a voice that seemed even more deadly than Lennie’s.
Sarah let out a nervous laugh. Why hadn’t she followed Asa’s instructions? Why hadn’t she waited for him to return and give him the map? Because she’d been worried about him. And that worry had overruled her better judgment.
Lennie stepped back. “What’s so funny, girl?”
“Nothing. It’s just that there’s no way I could open this vault, if I wanted to. It has a time release on it that’s operated by a computer. Only the bank president and another bank officer can override the controls and they aren’t here.”
“Then you better find another way because we intend to get into that vault.” Fred pressed the barrel of the gun against Sarah’s cheek.
She gasped. She didn’t want to die. Not now, not when Asa had come into her life.
In the shadows Asa considered his options. Sarah was telling the truth, but they wouldn’t believe it. Sooner or later it was going to occur to one of them that she was no use to them. Everything was falling apart. They’d already killed once. Asa couldn’t allow them to kill again. He had to do something now.
“I’m the bank president,” Asa called out, and stepped into the room. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Asa—”
“Do not, I repeat, do not open your mouth, Sarah Wilson,” Asa said with the threat of murder in his voice.
“Well, well,” Lennie said. “The bank president, eh? Then you’re just the man we need.” He made his way to the front door and looked outside for a long time before turning back to Asa. “What are you doing here?”
“I left something in my office, and I came by to pick it up.”
“So, if you’re the president, open this vault.”
“I can’t, and even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“I don’t much think you’re in a position to bargain,” Fred said, leveling his gun at Asa.
“Oh, but I am. There is no way that the vault can be opened until 9 A.M.”
“We don’t believe you,” Lennie said, his voice growing more agitated. “This woman is a locksmith. She’s already admitted that she opened Lincoln’s safe. She can open this one. Maybe she needs some persuasion. You her boyfriend?”
“I’m her friend, yes.”
“I thought so from the way you looked at each other.” Lennie reached inside his coat and pulled out his gun, aiming it at Asa. “Maybe you’d like to keep each other from getting shot?”
Sarah felt her heart contract. Not Asa. Asa couldn’t die. She couldn’t stop her father, but she could stop this. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, but no words came. “No!” she finally screamed, reaching out and jostling Lennie just as he pulled the trigger. A muted sound pierced the silence. The bullet found its target—Asa’s shoulder.
A spurt of blood circled the bullet hole as Sarah gasped. For the first time in her life, Sarah felt a raging anger toward another human being. No amount of money in any vault was worth Asa’s life.
“Wait!” she screamed in desperation. “I don’t have the combination, but I know how to get into the vault.”
“How?” Fred was suspicious.
“Come with me.” Sarah whirled around and started toward the front door.
The bank robbers were too startled for a second to stop her. Then Fred realized what was happening and followed.
“Hold on, girl,” Lennie barked. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to show you another way to get into the vault. Mr. Grimsley’s safe didn’t contain the combination, but it had something just as good. If you two want to get inside that vaul
t, you’d better follow me and you’d better do it quick.”
“She’s lying!” Asa’s voice thundered. “You don’t need her. This is my bank and I’m the only one who can open this safe. You’re just wasting time. If you want to get inside where the real money is, you’ll have to work with me.”
The sound of sirens in the distance cut through the talk. The lights of the patrol cars flashed on the wall through the glass front door. Fred whipped around. “Ah, hell. Sounds like the whole force out there.”
Lennie shifted from one foot to the other. “We’d better get out of here.”
“We can’t,” Fred said, as the sirens died and doors began to open and close. “There are too many of them.”
“I can get you out of here,” Asa said. “Let the lady go and I’ll arrange for the manager to come in. Together we can open the vault.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to bleed to death in a standoff. The money’s insured and I don’t want to die. It’s the only choice you have. Take it or leave it.”
The two men looked at each other desperately. “All right,” Fred agreed. “But remember, we’ve killed one man and we can kill you too. The electric chair doesn’t keep count.”
Sarah glanced at Asa, who was standing ramrod stiff. The circle of blood on his shoulder was widening. “I won’t go without you,” Sarah said. “If you stay, so do I.”
“Sorry, Sarah. I travel alone. I told you that in the beginning. Nothing’s changed.” Asa could see that she had no intention of going along with his plan. He had to do something. “Sarah, I lied. Jeanie was the most important thing in my life. She still is, not you.”
He tried not to see Sarah wince. He only hoped he could convince her that he was serious; otherwise she’d do something foolish.
“You were something new, a nice diversion for a while,” he added in a rush. “But Jeanie won’t stay with Mike. She’ll come back. She always has.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sarah countered softly.
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