The Treasure Box (The Grace Series Book 2)

by Mark Romang

  At some point he may need to give up on finding the Lafitte gold and concentrate on making his escape. But he hadn’t yet reached that point. He still held out hope he would soon hold doubloons in his hands. That was his destiny, and he couldn’t deny its fulfillment, at least not yet.

  Arcadias walked into the parlor. Every head turned toward him. He hadn’t felt this much attention since he taught history class at the university.

  “What do we do now, Arcadias? We’re trapped,” Iris whined.

  Arcadias looked at his girlfriend. “I don’t know yet. I’m still working on a plan. What I do know is that we don’t panic. We can’t allow fear to hamper our reasoning.”

  “I can tell you what you should do first, Arcadias,” Rafter said.

  Arcadias turned his head, focused his gray eyes on Rafter. “I’m sure you can. But I don’t think I can trust your advice.”

  “I’m going to tell you anyway. You need to hook the landline phone back up. Or keep my cellphone or yours handy and turned on. If a negotiator can’t talk to you and gauge your mental state, a SWAT team will knock down the door. You might just buy yourself a couple of hours by simply establishing a communication line, time you can spend looking for your treasure.

  “More importantly, you can put yourself in even better standing if you release us. That’s their primary concern out there. They already know you’re a hostile shooter, and that you’ve killed a cop. Now they’re determining if you’re a risk to pull the trigger again,” Rafter said.

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Believe it or not, I had a different career before I became an artist. I was a hostage negotiator.”

  “How ironic, Jon,” Arcadias said. “How does it feel to be on the other side, the hostage instead of the negotiator?”

  “I don’t like it. I’ve seen what happens when a hostage scene goes bad. We’re headed in that direction if you don’t lay down your gun.”

  “Are you threatening me again, Jon?”

  Rafter shook his head. “I’m just being straightforward. Unless you hook the phone back up and start talking, a raid will take place soon. And you don’t want that. I’ve seen a SWAT team in action before. It’s terrifying. They come in with overwhelming force and firepower. They want to scare you into submission.”

  Rafter paused before adding, “But a rescue attempt is their last resort. They’ll likely want to make you feel uncomfortable first. Cutting power to the house will be their first tactic. With no lights you won’t be able to see to find your treasure.”

  Arcadias mulled over his captive’s advice for a few seconds. There was some truth in Rafter’s words. And he definitely required more time to achieve his purpose. Even though he dreaded it, maybe he needed to talk with those outside. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Earlier you said you were a guest in this house. You were right, Arcadias. And as your host, it’s my duty to make you feel comfortable,” Rafter answered.

  Arcadias shook his head. A sarcastic smile flashed across his face. “That’s gracious of you, Jon. I can tell you’re warming up to me. A bond is beginning to form. But the bond is temporary and tenuous at best. Don’t push it.”

  ****

  His arms trembling from holding the Dewalt reciprocating saw overhead, Damien Charbonneau balanced his two-hundred pound frame on the four-rung stepladder. He’d found the stepladder in the pantry—the first good fortune to happen to him since they’d arrived. Although the stepladder was old and a bit rickety, it still held him steady and put his work within reach.

  Damien stood on the top rung and worked on cutting a large hole in the ceiling, a hole big enough to grant him access to the servant’s staircase behind the cement wall. Plaster dust and sawdust rained down onto his head continuously.

  As he guided the saw he prayed he wouldn’t break a blade. If the blade broke they were finished. The treasure would remain hidden.

  A strange thought suddenly entered his brain. Damien wondered who the recipient of his prayer was. God would never help him vandalize a home. God and crime were polar opposites and could never coexist.

  Damien shook his head and pushed the spiritual thoughts out of his mind. If Arcadias and he were to find the treasure they would have to do it on their own, by their own strength and their own gray matter. He had no doubts Arcadias could find the historic loot given enough time.

  And yet a nagging thought badgered Damien, heckled him without letup. What good would it do to find Lafitte’s gold? They would never leave the house with it, would never be able to spend even a single doubloon. They were all headed to prison. A cell at Angola likely would be his home for the rest of his life.

  Nonetheless, Damien enjoyed cutting the hole. Working kept him busy and distracted him from his gloomy future and the lawmen gathering outside. He welcomed the sweat rolling down his brow and into his eyes, and enjoyed the muscle fatigue plaguing his arms.

  After a few minutes of cutting, Damien took his finger off the saw’s trigger switch and examined his work. He already had a big hole cut in the pantry ceiling. Now he needed to cut out a section from a floor joist so he could swing his legs over the cement wall. But first I need a break from sawing, he thought, and climbed down the ladder.

  Damien set the reciprocating saw on the floor and climbed back up to the top rung on the ladder. He turned his headlamp on to its brightest setting, grabbed the top of the cement wall with his gloved hands and wriggled his way up the wall. He stuck his head through the hole. His heart quickened when he saw the staircase leading up to the attic. The staircase looked like something from a horror movie set. Dust covered the steps and cobwebs formed an eerie gauntlet to anyone wishing to use the staircase.

  Damien’s eyebrows seesawed when he saw footprints on the steps. Like footprints in fresh snow, these footprints disturbed the dust and looked like they were recently made. He had a good idea who made the prints. It had to have been Jon and Annie. Before they escaped the attic they descended the steps looking for a way out.

  His curiosity piqued, and his arms rested, Damien inched his dangling feet back onto the stepladder. He scurried down the stepladder and grabbed his saw, determined to finish the demolition and ascend the servant’s staircase, the secret room his final destination.

  The treasure hid close by. He could feel it in his gut. The hidden gold beckoned him to come and find it, crying out silent petitions only he could hear.

  I’m going to find it. Before the cops drag me away I’m going to find the treasure, Damien swore to himself. He climbed up the stepladder and went to work cutting a big C-shape into the overhead joist blocking his entry.

  He hardly noticed the sawdust showering his face and hair. Gold fever gripped him. His brother’s obsession with Jean Lafitte’s hidden stash no longer seemed so odd. He understood now. Arcadias wasn’t crazy after all.

  After five minutes of cutting he stopped his saw. He reached up with his left hand and tugged on the joist. A big section of wood came free and crashed onto the floor. Damien placed the saw a safe distance away atop the cement wall. And then he grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up. Once his stomach rested atop the cement wall, he swung his legs over one at a time and dropped onto the first step.

  A dust cloud billowed up. He coughed, and then started climbing. Cobwebs tickled his arms and brushed against his sweaty face, sticking to his skin. He looked at the footprints on the dusty steps as he climbed the narrow staircase. This forgotten staircase lay dormant for so long. But tonight it had visitors aplenty.

  Damien reached a landing. His breath caught when he spotted a revolving door standing ajar. Beyond the door he spied a tiny room, hardly bigger than a closet. The hidden room!

  He pushed the door open a little more and stepped inside the room. His headlamp revealed more footprints. He could tell they had been recently made. Jon and Annie no doubt made them. There were large footprints and smaller ones—the small footprints obviously left by Annie. Damien scanned every square inch o
f the room but didn’t see the treasure box described in Rose Whitcomb’s journal.

  Although he thought the Rafters knew more than they let on, he didn’t think they took the treasure box out of the room. There would have been an outline of the box in the dust had it been in there.

  Confident he’d missed nothing, Damien left the hidden room and continued up the staircase. He came to a door leading into the attic. Goosebumps broke out on his skin. He could sense the treasure was very close, and that it resided somewhere in the attic. The gold tugged at him.

  His pulse racing, Damien opened the door and stepped inside the attic.

  Chapter 41

  Newton Laskey removed his vibrating cellphone from his sport jacket. He looked at the screen; a text from his wife.

  He read the message. I wish you were here. But I’m not mad. I know you’re keeping the nation safe. I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.

  Laskey put the phone back into his pocket along with his guilt. He’d long ago mastered the art of postponing his marital obligations. But at some point he knew a big decision would have to be made. If he continued working these long hours his marriage would erode even further. He loved his wife, but he also loved his career. Something had to give.

  A pair of headlights turned into the driveway. Laskey watched the headlights grow larger.

  The Bedford Police SWAT team rolled up the driveway in an armored rescue vehicle. As soon as the armor-plated vehicle pulled to a stop, doors in the back swung open and officers deployed out the back of the ARV with practiced efficiency. Standing in the background, Newton Laskey witnessed them maneuver into place. A nauseous feeling twisted his stomach.

  Two marksmen climbed up into trees and aimed their scope-mounted Remington 700 sniper rifles at the plantation house. Two other Special Weapons and Tactics officers snuck onto the upper gallery and, using black paracord, hung charcoal-colored ball cameras from the gallery columns. The baseball-sized cameras dangled in front of the windows and rotated four revolutions per minute, streaming video to a Personal Display Unit—PDU, held by another SWAT officer. All these preparations took only a few minutes.

  Laskey watched a tall SWAT team member talk privately with Sheriff Tubbs. He strained his ears but couldn’t hear the conversation. Laskey pretty much knew the topic being discussed though. The SWAT leader, a lieutenant, wanted to know when he could send in his men. Legality held them up for the moment. SWAT teams often find themselves in hot water for making raids without warrants.

  Not long ago, Sheriff Tubbs ordered a deputy to go and retrieve the needed warrants. An off-duty judge could still issue the warrants even though it was far past courthouse operating hours. The deputy had a list of judges to contact in case of an emergency. He would keep at it until he reached one of the judges.

  Laskey flinched at a hand touching his shoulder. He turned and saw his agents, Kevin Brubaker and Otis Grant smiling back at him. “What are you two so happy about?”

  Brubaker continued to grin. “Your theory about the cop and the shooter knowing each other holds water, Newt.”

  Laskey felt his heart quicken. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Kevin. What did you find out?”

  Brubaker took a long drag on a cigarette. A smoke cloud billowed out his mouth as he began to speak. “Facebook strikes again. We found out that the Charbonneau brothers and Josiah Barrett went to the same high school together. Arcadias and Barrett graduated the same year, and both are Facebook friends.”

  “Good work, guys. Maybe your discovery will delay the raid. This SWAT team is ready to roll. They’re just waiting for warrants. And they might not wait much longer,” Laskey said.

  “That’s fine as long as they can distinguish the good guys from the perps,” Otis Grant said.

  Laskey massaged his brow. His head throbbed from all the lights. The red and blue cruiser lights flashed onto the house, the grass and trees, and everyone’s face like a disco ball. All the flashing lights served a purpose though. They hopefully intimidated the perpetrator(s) inside and bullied them into surrender.

  “And so from the info you just discovered, Kevin, we can surmise that one of the Charbonneaus answered the door when Officer Barrett showed up. They then talked for a while, Barrett turned to leave, and Arcadias or Damien then gunned him down. Why would they do that? And what do you think the conversation was about?”

  “That is the million-dollar question, Newt,” Brubaker said. “And I don’t know the answer.”

  Laskey turned to agent Grant. “How about you, Otis, do you have any thoughts on the matter?” Although he looked like he could play running back in the NFL, Otis Grant’s mind was even stronger than his body. Not only did he possess keen intelligence, his uncanny perceptive abilities left his peers wondering whether he was borderline psychic.

  Grant shook his head. “I’m as baffled as you are, Newt. Either Jon Rafter has lost his mind, or the guests have taken over. Somebody inside felt threatened by the cop and felt the need to shoot him. Whoever they are…they’re hiding something.”

  “Or maybe the cop was in on it,” Brubaker mumbled.

  “Are you serious, Kevin? Do you really think that? The cop came here looking for an old man, not to check in on a criminal enterprise,” Laskey said. “I admit, though, it is a strange coincidence that Barrett knew the Charbonneaus.”

  Brubaker shrugged. “I was just thinking aloud, Newt. It’s been a long day. My brain is tired. Ignore my last comment.”

  The sound of a siren approaching stopped their conversation. Another cruiser pulled into the long driveway and headed their way, traveling at a rapid clip. The sheriff cruiser skidded to a halt near the other squad cars. Laskey watched a deputy hop out and trot up to Sheriff Tubbs.

  “Do you have the warrants?” Tubbs asked.

  The deputy nodded. “It took some doing to find a judge not out of town and at home, but I have one search warrant for 149 Levee Road and one arrest warrant for Jon M. Rafter, M as in Mark.” The deputy started to hand the warrants to the sheriff, but Tubbs shook his pumpkin-sized head. “Give the warrants to the Lieutenant, here.”

  The deputy handed the warrants over to the SWAT team leader. “I guess we have what we need now, Sheriff,” the lieutenant said.

  Tubbs nodded. “Any time you boys want to rush the house, feel free. It’s your call. But just remember that Jon Rafter used to be a hostage negotiator. He knows exactly what you will do and plan accordingly. He may have even booby-trapped the house.”

  Laskey stepped forward. “Sheriff, you might want to hold up. I have some information on the Charbonneaus you should consider.” Laskey was about to elaborate when another deputy jogged up to the sheriff, interrupting him.

  “The landline is back on,” the deputy blurted out. “Someone inside just turned the phone back on.”

  Chapter 42

  Arcadias strode toward the ringing phone sitting on the fireplace mantle. He’d put the cordless handset there after plugging the base back in. He grabbed the phone and left the parlor. He hit the talk button once he reached the foyer. “Hello?” he said.

  “Hello, I’m Roy Nixon. I’m calling from outside the house. I’m a negotiator with the Bedford Police Department, and I am your friend. Can I ask who I’m speaking with?”

  Arcadias gripped the handset with a shaky hand. He almost said his name, but his brain stopped the signal to his vocal cords at the last moment. “You’re speaking to Jon Rafter. I’m the homeowner.”

  “Is everything okay in there? Does anyone need medical attention?”

  “Everyone is alive; if that’s want you want to know, Mr. Nixon.”

  “But do they need medical attention? And please call me Roy.”

  “I think they’ll survive this night okay.”

  “Can you please tell me the names of everyone in the house?”

  Arcadias searched for a reply, an answer that wouldn’t give away too much. His brain acted sluggish all at once. After a moment’s hesitation he decided the
truth wouldn’t hurt in this instance. “Arcadias and Damien Charbonneau, Ned Hoxley, Keith Jepson, Colette Williams, Iris Landry and my wife, Annie.”

  “You sound anxious, Jon. Are you having a bad night?”

  “I’ve had better ones.”

  “Talking it over might help. I’m all ears, Jon. And I want you to know, I have no hidden agenda. You can trust me. Think of me as a friend.”

  Arcadias began to pace. He walked back and forth in front of a mural on the foyer wall. He occasionally glanced at it. Like Rafter’s other works, it was brilliant. But for some reason the mural irked him. His hatred for Rafter continued to grow. And he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  In the mural David played his harp for the mentally unstable King Saul, using music to soothe the king’s tormented soul. “It’s personal, Roy. It has to do with Annie and me.”

  “Did you have an argument with Annie?”

  “How did you know?”

  “A lucky guess, I suppose. What was the argument about?”

  “I found out Annie is having an affair. The worst part is we’re getting ready to adopt a newborn baby. That’s why Keith Jepson is here. He’s our attorney and is helping us through the adoption process.”

  “That’s a tough thing to find out, Jon. I guess the argument became pretty ugly, huh?”

  Arcadias sighed dramatically into the phone. “I kind of snapped, Roy. I struck Annie. And then Damien Charbonneau’s girlfriend tried to intervene. I shot Colette in the arm with a longbow.”

  “Is Colette okay?”

  “She’s resting comfortably.”

  “Is Colette bleeding?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “How about Annie, is she okay. You said you hit her.”