Wood, Fire, & Gold

by Jackson, Pam

  Andie was numb, overcome from Tivoli’s revelation. The memories of Roger flooded back to her: his sweet smile and the gentle calmness that had comforted her. He wasn’t Clay, and she knew now that she didn’t have the same desire or unbridled love for Roger that she did for Clay, but he should not have had to die because of her alliance with Tivoli—or because he’d fallen in love with her. She was sick to her stomach at the thought of poor Roger dying, all because of his forgiving heart.

  “You’re a disgusting human being, Giovanni, and you will burn in hell!”

  “Well, so will you, my dear. Let’s say you go first,” he snorted. He put the blade of the knife close to Andie’s throat and tightened his grip at her waist as he began walking her across the room.

  With a sudden burst, the front door flew open. “Let’s say it’s you that gets a bullet in your brain if you don’t throw down the knife right the fuck now!” Clay stood in the open front door with a 9mm Glock aimed at Tivoli. “Don’t do it, asshole. It’s over!”

  Chapter 34

  Clay’s breath was still ragged from sprinting back to the house when he heard the helicopter overhead. He knew the difference between the sounds of government agency helicopters and the high-speed, personal variety—one sounds like a tractor and the other purrs like a new kitten. Unfortunately, it was the kitten.

  “Tivoli, right?” Clay aimed his Glock at Tivoli with lethal intent. “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about you. And you do fit the description of a self-righteous asshole. Put the knife down or you’re dead.” Clay’s nostrils flared as he tried to tamp down his impatience with the deadly situation unfolding in front of him. Hostage situations get worse as the clock ticks—and this situation was going to be fucked before it started if he didn’t check his emotions at the door.

  Clay watched the tears swell in Andie’s eyes. The fear would paralyze her if he wasn’t able to get a shot off soon. His eyes assessed the room, and he realized a body shot was out, since the large leather sofa shielded the major arteries in Tivoli’s legs and abdomen. This was a close quarters showdown, and a head shot was what he needed—the round to Tivoli’s head would have to be swift and deadly, or Andie could suffer a fatal knife wound at Tivoli’s hand. But at this angle it was impossible. Andie’s head was shielding the T spot on Tivoli. This was a sniper’s sweet spot: the triangular area on the face that consists of the eyes and mouth, with the nose as a center target. One precise shot will take down the bad guy without the hostage becoming collateral damage. Reasoning with this egotistical turd wasn’t going to be easy, but Clay had no other clear choice.

  “Put the knife down, Tivoli. The feds are already looking for you. It’s better to turn yourself in for a plea against Ospina.”

  “Ha! Not a chance. I’m not leaving Andie alive unless you get me the fucking Atros Fallis, right damned now! Don’t fuck with me. The two of you found it. I know when someone is trying to screw me.”

  Tivoli squeezed Andie closer to him, and he now hid his face almost entirely behind her. There was no way Clay could make a head shot without killing Andie, too.

  Time for Plan B.

  “Listen to me, I have the Atros Fallis—”

  “No! Clay, don’t give it to him, ever!” Andie interrupted, screeching her plea across the room and squeezing her hand over Tivoli’s to try to remove the blade from his grasp.

  Tivoli shook Andie hard. The tip of the knife touched her delicate skin, ready to slice her neck like a ripe pear.

  “Shut up, bitch! Let your man talk. Okay, tell me where it is, and just maybe I’ll let her go,” Tivoli sneered.

  “It’s safe. I have it hidden at another location.” Clay stared into Andie’s terrified eyes, trying to communicate his next move with her.

  “What?!” Tivoli shifted his stance and pulled closer to the fieldstone fireplace. “Ha! You fucking expect me to fall for that? She’s dead, and I’m willing to die for it, too. I’ll slice open her pretty little throat and just have you shoot me. I really don’t give a fuck. Now stop your games and get me the Atros Fallis.”

  Clay could see the situation unraveling as the seconds passed. Tivoli was losing his shit, and Clay noticed a shiny .38 stuck in Tivoli’s waistband. This situation was desperate, and desperate measures had to be countered before Tivoli started waving his pistol alongside that big-ass knife. Clay just prayed Andie would catch on to his plan.

  Clay calmly told Tivoli that the Atros Fallis was hidden in an abandoned shed on the property several hundred yards away from the main house. It was pure bullshit, but Clay was buying time as he tried to communicate with Andie through eye contact. She was smart, and he knew she’d been trained by her father at an early age to pick up on tells and simple head gestures to assess her surroundings. He prayed she would understand.

  C’mon, girl. Look at my eyes. Follow them.

  Outstanding! She was onto his plan. Clay watched as she followed the path of his eyes to the piano and the piano bench next to the doorway where he was standing. Her eyes opened wide when she figured out what he was doing. She nodded slightly in agreement, acknowledging that she needed to distract Tivoli for Clay. But that distraction, Clay realized, could be deadly for Andie if he didn’t precisely execute this fucked-up plan. Plan B is always a risk.

  “Listen to me, Tivoli. Let Andie go and we’ll go get the book together. I’ll even put down my weapon.” Clay slowly placed the Glock on the floor and slid it toward Tivoli with his booted foot. He raised his hands in a surrendering fashion and casually stepped to his right, closer to the piano bench. “Seriously, we can all go and get it. Just let Andie put some clothes on. She’ll freeze out there in that T-shirt.”

  Tivoli shook his head and swallowed a lump of confusion. “No! She stays here with me. You go get it. And if you don’t bring it back within five minutes, she’s dead. I’m tired of playing these games with you—go now!”

  This was it—now or never. His gut twisted with guilt over his decision to follow through with the plan. Fuck it, here we go. He nodded to Andie to be ready; he was apprehensive but curious to see what Andie’s part of the plan would be. C’mon, sweet girl. Show me what you’ve got. He nodded to indicate it was go time.

  Clay watched as Andie’s hand gripped Tivoli’s knife hand. She hooked her fingers in between Tivoli’s fingers. With her free hand hanging down, she reached back and ferociously squeezed Tivoli’s balls. She rolled her shoulders forward to gain the proper momentum and then lunged her head backward to crack the back of her skull against the bridge of Tivoli’s nose.

  Tivoli screamed in pain and released the knife. With a sudden jerk, Tivoli reached his hands up to his bloodied, broken nose.

  This was Clay’s moment. He pivoted, flipped open the wooden lid of the piano bench, and pulled a hidden SIG Sauer P228 from inside. He was glad Andie had remembered he’d placed it back in its hiding spot after the night he’d caught her trying to make off with his uncle’s map. He stood with legs firmly planted and squared shoulders, taking aim at the T spot on Tivoli’s face. With a flash from the muzzle of his SIG, the round hit its mark, and Tivoli crumpled to the floor like a boneless heap.

  Clay jumped over the sofa and landed on the floor at Andie’s side. He lifted her chin and pushed the tousled strands of hair out of her face, eagerly stroking her lips with his thumbs while cradling her head in his large hands. “Baby, please tell me you’re okay. Christ, that was some fucking head butt!” He smiled to lighten the events that had just happened and placed a tender kiss on the tip of her nose. “It’s all over, darlin’, you’re safe now.” He pulled her close to his chest and cradled her head and shoulders in his possessive arms. Her sobs were coming faster and stronger. He knew this was complete mental surrender to the trauma she’d endured. Shit! He wanted to burn the house and the hunting cabin to the ground right now to erase the nightmares she had endured.

  It was over. Tivoli was dead, and the Atros Fallis was safe from unworthy men.

  Chapter 35

  Th
ree weeks later

  The muddy ground of the rural cemetery was squishy under Andie’s chestnut colored Chanel riding boots, and Clay helped her over a mud puddle with thick tree roots sticking out of the brownish-gray water.

  “Hey, are you sure this is it? There are several more churchyards in Harriman, New York. Did you do your research right, or what?” Clay furrowed his brow and realized he had just insulted a professional historian. “Uh, yeah. I take that last question back.”

  “Yes, you’d better.” Andie smiled and curled a finger to coax Clay along the narrow, muddy path. “C’mon, Mr. Badass. Don’t tell me a little old cemetery spooks you? Besides, it’s the middle of the day.”

  Andie moved ahead on the path, stopping short of two worn limestone headstones, one small, the other large and more ornate—each with barely legible epitaphs carved into the grayish-white rock. Acid rain and centuries of the elements most likely had eroded the beautiful scrolls and skull and cross-bone motifs that had once decorated the eighteenth century headstones. A large stretch of spring grass and roots filled the void between the two headstones—almost as if another body was buried there, with no marker to recognize the occupant of the grave.

  “This is it. The remains of Claudius Smith are buried here in this unmarked grave between his brother, Julius, and their father, David Smith. I found the site in a national registry that had been closed and warehoused since the sixties. I hardly think anyone knows his remains are buried here.” Andie bent down and cleared away several sticks and rocks that were sprawled across the grassy space.

  “I can’t believe you talked me into this, Andie,” Clay said as he removed a black backpack that was slung across his shoulder. “I mean, I’ve done some crazy shit before, but never have I dug up a grave!”

  “Listen, Chicken Little, we’re not digging poor Claudius up, we’re returning his property. Well, sorta his property.” Andie rubbed her fingers across the tip of her nose and then grabbed the collapsible shovel from Clay’s backpack. “Let’s just agree that Claudius should remain the custodian of the Atros Fallis, and by burying it with him in his grave, we can keep it safe. No one knows we have it, since your official report failed to mention that we recovered it at the cave. We are the only two witnesses to its existence. Well, who are still alive, that is.”

  Clay cleared his throat and shot Andie a wry smile. “You know, your logic scares me sometimes. And what gets me is, I can’t believe I actually agree with you. Give me the shovel, woman. Who knows what we’ll find in this grave? My heart can’t take any more treasure hunts with you.”

  Andie smiled and pinned him with a bold look. “Yes, I know. Besides, my treasure hunting days are over for a while. My electronic ankle bracelet gets put on tonight. For the next three months I’m under house arrest; the only treasure I will find will be in my cookie jar. Or maybe in my bed, if a certain someone needs a place to rest his weary head after a long night of fighting bad guys.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry, angel,” Clay said, shoveling mounds of dark dirt to the side of the grave. “My new ‘unofficial’ position with ICE is monitoring a certain female antiquarian who has a knack for sweet-talking men into dirty jobs.” Clay arched a dark brow and let out a dry laugh.

  The tip of the shovel hit something solid with a muffled, dull tap.

  “What is it, Clay?” Andie knew full well that it was a coffin holding the remains of Claudius in his unmarked grave.

  “It’s what you said we would find—a wooden coffin. Hand me the Atros Fallis before I lose my nerve standing in this hole.”

  She watched him cover the green, copper book with the same animal skin it had been wrapped in when they found it. He slipped it through a jagged hole in the dilapidated wooden cover of the coffin. He jumped from the hole and began refilling the grave with dirt.

  Andie knew it wasn’t the fact that there were human remains in the coffin that had Clay a little unnerved; it was his personal attachment to Claudius that was beginning to wear on him. She had noticed his expression changing as he’d driven her Mini Cooper into the cemetery. She knew this ordeal was troubling him, and the sooner they buried the Atros Fallis and headed back to her apartment in Manhattan, the better it would be for both of them. The last several weeks of testimony and questioning by federal agents and judges would have been enough to wear any seasoned agent thin, but Clay was resilient and had never let Andie take the fall for leading him deeper into her own crusade to retrieve the Atros Fallis. The charges against her for illegal antiquities trading were reduced, resulting in only a home confinement sentence of three months. His own career was temporarily placed on hold; he’d been reprimanded and placed on leave until a review board could clear his name.

  As Clay finished refilling the grave, he turned his head and scanned the cemetery like an alert guard dog. Andie knew that look all too well, and she became flushed with panic.

  “What is it? Do you see anyone?”

  “No, it’s just me. Years of watching your own ass causes a certain amount of paranoia to set in, but now the only ass I’ll be watching is yours.” He put his arms around her waist and pulled her in for an explosive kiss. His lips were cool against hers, and she immediately let his prodding tongue enter her mouth. His kisses were always passionate, and even during the last few weeks of federal scrutiny, his affection for her had not waned.

  “Hey,” she murmured against his lips. “I have something for you.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the reddish-brown ribbon that had once belonged to Katherine. “I took it from Claudius’s journal before the FBI confiscated it for evidence. I guess I really do have sticky fingers when it comes to this case.”

  She reached around to gather the length of his hair and used the ribbon to tie it into a small knot at the nape of his neck. Her arms found his shoulders, and she paused to stare into his flickering brown eyes. A comfortable silence fell between them, and she pushed herself closer into his embrace, burying her head against the warm thickness of his chest.

  “Sweet angel, we’ll always be together. There is no other woman I’d rather be with. I’m finally home. Let’s say we finish what Claudius and Katherine started and love each other for the rest of our lives.”

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head as a red-tailed hawk soared overhead.

  # # #

  “Do we retrieve the Atros Fallis, Father Thomas?”

  “No, my son, I believe the Atros Fallis is safe now,” the older priest said, closing his dark raincoat over his portly belly.

  The two men stood quietly in an old-growth area of the cemetery as they watched the couple leave in a red Mini Cooper and exit onto the main road.

  “We will monitor those two just to make sure they don’t try to recover the Atros Fallis again, but my gut says they are trustworthy.” Father Thomas ushered the younger member of the Jesuit Brotherhood out of the brush and onto the dirt path leading to their vehicle in a parking lot opposite the cemetery.

  “It seems to me that Claudius was perhaps pious enough to inherit the powers of the Atros Fallis.” The young brother revealed his observations of the case to his superior, Father Thomas. “Claudius never surrendered the book to our eighteenth century agents who offered him money and power for it—not even at his time of execution did he reveal its location to Abimal Young.”

  “True, my son.” The aging priest knocked mud from his boots with a teak wood cane as he neared the parked car. “Piety does not necessarily pertain to men serving God. Even an eloquent thief can make his mark to change the world. Let Claudius Smith watch over the Atros Fallis for eternity. He deserves that honor.”

  About the Author

  Pam Jackson was raised in New Jersey, just a few miles away from New York City and spent many years hiking the hills of the Ramapo Mountains searching for answers to the Claudius Smith mystery.

  Her years of researching the legend and history is born into her first romantic suspense novel, Wood Fire & Gold.

  She now resid
es in Austin, TX with her husband, daughter, enforcer-pup Hondo, and super pooch, Gretchen.