by Shawn Grady
“What part is that?”
“It’s a fissure down the middle of the brain. Something didn’t look right about it, so he forwarded his concern to the resident neurologist here. Turns out he had localized the cause of the seizures. The neurologist said it’s called Benign Rolandic Epilepsy. Knowing the cause enabled him to prescribe some specific things that should dramatically limit future seizures. But the best part is, by the time she’s thirteen or so, she’ll have outgrown the condition altogether. It’s completely temporary.”
Silas shook his head and grinned. “Sounds like an answer to your prayers.”
“It really is.”
Weathers strode down the corridor with his wife.
“Chief.”
He presented a hand to Silas. “Thanks for bringing home our best pilot, son.”
The shake pained his sore knuckles. He turned a wince into a smile. “I’m afraid that story is backward, Chief. It’s Captain Westmore here who saved me.”
He winked at her. “Can’t say I’m surprised with that one. How’s little Madison doing?”
Elle glanced from Silas to Maddie and stroked her little girl’s arms. “Very, very good.”
———
Silas cut into the steak Mrs. Weathers grilled for them back at their Tahoe cabin. A couple days had given him the ability to chew without too much pain. With Chief Shivner arrested after Silas related to the FBI incriminating info given to him by Bo, the Feds wanted fresh management put in place and the opportunity to question all those in the original Command staff. Weathers seemed uncomfortable with the time off and no longer being in the fray.
He stared at his plate. “I spoke with Mansfield’s sisters the other day. Breaking the news was difficult, to say the least.”
Silas nodded. “We owe him our lives.”
Madison fidgeted in her seat and squished the mashed potatoes with her fork. Elle set a hand atop Maddie’s and admonished her to eat and not play.
Weathers straightened. “I’ve scheduled a line-of-duty-death memorial for him to be held in two weeks. It will coincide with Pendleton’s.”
“What about Monte?”
“Given the sketchy details surrounding Pendleton’s death, a quiet family service is being held instead. Everything so far points to him being part of the plan to kill the both of you.” His brows furrowed. “Too often Forest Service memorials are for multiple firemen. I’d hoped I had attended my last.”
Silas stared at the bending colors in his water glass.
Weathers stabbed a bite with his fork. “On another note, I received a call today about the gold find.”
Elle replaced Maddie’s napkin across her legs. “What did you learn?”
He glanced at Maddie, who was absorbed in a song she sang quietly as she pushed food around on her plate. “The flame front consumed not only the cabin but most of the old man’s remains. But the FBI ran a search on a few personal record fragments and discovered a relative back east. A distant cousin.
“Come to find out, this relative knew about the gold but not the man. According to him, the gold cache was something of a family legend. He wasn’t aware of its exact location and had never been interested in finding it.”
Silas swallowed. “Millions of dollars of gold, and he wasn’t interested in finding it?”
“To be fair, the man is well-off.” He took a bite.
“But . . .”
“But, you’re right—that’s not the real reason. According to the FBI, two of the man’s ancestors, brothers, lived out west in the 1800s. They staked claim to a large gold find on the 4th of July.”
“The Independence Find.”
“As you know, a number of miners were injured and some killed under the brothers’ watch, and the workers’ families received nothing. After a fatal collapse involving one of the brothers and the surviving brother’s wife, the surviving brother shut down the mine and took the next several months packing out the ore by mule deep into the wilderness, where we now know he stored it inside a secret underground vault.”
Elle nodded. “The bunker we came across.”
“Nobody knows for sure why he hid it. Thought it was cursed? Maybe the guilt associated with it was too much. The sole knowledge of its location almost passed with him on his deathbed. He spent the last years of his life tortured by a growing mental illness and in the midst of a paranoid delusion, he divulged his secret to a family member. It took on the form of a familial legend and was passed on as such through the generations.”
“The sins of the father . . .”
“To the family, if the legend was true, it was blood money. They chose to keep it a buried secret. Perhaps a penance of sorts.”
Silas set down his steak knife. “Not to mention a protection from lawsuits.”
Elle shifted in her seat. “From the surviving families of the miners who died. But how did the man from the cabin find it?”
“I asked the same thing. Apparently, deeper into the interview, the wealthy man mentioned a story his father told him about a cousin who also suffered from mental illness. The cousin had shown up one evening at their home asking for money. He spoke of setting out on a backpacking trip in the west. The father sent him off with a hundred dollars, and the cousin was never heard from again.”
Silas scratched the back of his neck. “So he discovered the gold cache and wanted to keep it for himself?”
Weathers shrugged. “That, or he felt compelled for some reason to be its guardian. I’m not a psychiatrist, but the FBI profile inferred that the old man’s motives might have been driven by transference of his own guilt for something onto the crimes associated with the gold. I don’t know. It’s over my head.”
Elle huffed. “And Shivner thought he could just sail off into the sunset with the gold then, didn’t he?”
Weathers raised and lowered his eyebrows. “Didn’t count on the gold having a guardian. Since it legally belongs to the surviving family, the Feds needed to know what their wishes were. Ninety percent will be set aside for descendents of the miners injured or killed in the family’s gold operation. Of the remaining ten percent, they requested five go to Bo Mansfield’s next of kin and the other five to Pendleton’s.”
Silas breathed deep. “Bo asked me to see to his sisters. To make sure they were okay.”
“This will provide more than enough to pay for their educations and to buy homes, if that’s what they’d like.” Weathers lifted his glass. “To the lost, then.” He glanced from Silas to Elle. “And to the found.”
CHAPTER
46
Again at the doorway, one foot from the slipstream.
Silas cinched the parachute straps over Elle’s white lace dress, shaking his head with the thought of how fast the past year flipped by.
Wind whipped through her curled locks. A pair of goggles rested on her forehead, and a new diamond band shined on her finger. Silas pulled her against his pressed black tuxedo and tightened everything down for their tandem jump. He ran his thumb along the unfamiliar band on his own ring finger. An unending circle, once worn by her father.
The engines roared. Verdant hillsides rolled out below them. Madison sat on the bench seat, strapped between the Weatherses. She grinned, gripping Rose tight in her lap.
Elle set her goggles in place and blew her a kiss. Silas waved. Elle leaned back. “You sure you’re ready for this, Kent?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and shouted over the din. “I can’t help but follow you.”
She laced her fingers with his.
Three.
Hands on the doorframe.
Two.
Feet on the threshold.
One.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to all who stood with me through this long-fought and rewarding labor.
To Jesus—there is no greater joy than walking in step with you.
To Sarah Beth, my constant companion and beloved bride—thank you for your unwavering support and partnership
throughout.
To my children—Daniel, Claire, and Noah—you are our wonderful joy.
To my mom—somehow you made it into this book as well. No surprise there. Thank you for the gift of your abundant love.
To our treasured parents and all our extended family—for your continued support and advocacy.
Thank you to Karen Schurrer for her intuitive editing, to Dave Long for his support for this story, to Noelle Buss for all the publicity support, and to the entire talented team at Bethany House Publishers.
Thanks to Janet Grant for your wise counsel and savvy representation.
To Mike Berrier, Katie Cushman, Carrie Padgett, and all those who’ve been there since the beginning—you’re my brothers and sisters of the pen.
Special thanks to former smokejumper Pete Briant for sharing your insight and providing me an inside glimpse into that unique world.
Thanks to Jeremy White for loaning your fireline pack for the cover design team.
Thanks to you, the readers, both near and far—please keep in touch. ([email protected])
And finally:
To all the smokejumpers and wildland firefighters who battle through smoke, heat, and grit to save lives, property, and the environment—from the most remote recesses of our nation to standing between flame fronts and homes—may God bless you and keep you in His abundant grace.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHAWN GRADY has served for over a decade as a firefighter and paramedic in Reno, Nevada, where he lives with his wife and three children. Booklist says Through the Fire “certainly shows that Grady has promise as an author” and that he “captures the novel’s milieu perfectly” in his follow-up thriller, Tomorrow We Die—a book Romantic Times declares “a definite page-turner.”
Visit his Web site at shawngradybooks.com.
Books by
Shawn Grady
* * *
Through the Fire
Tomorrow We Die
Falls Like Lightning
