“Next came the Dewey decimal number.”
“Which took us to a book about brothers.” Her stomach lurched. “If my dad found this gold thanks to his metal detector, you can bet that Robbie was right beside him at the time.”
“TheBrothersbook sent us to the gold mine and the gold nuggets.”
“Which led us to a calendar page and a request that we talk to Robbie about the day before Dad’s arrest. Also, that we ask Juneabout a poem—which turned out to be about Carla.” Suddenly, the cold seemed to invade her bones.
“The clues weren’t just meant to take you from Point A to Point B,” he stated.
“No. They were purposeful. It’s almost as if he wanted to ... explain.” They’d uncovered a porthole-sized view of the buried gold, but they’d yet to uncover the full length of the stash. “What I don’t understand is why he’d leave this for me.”
“To provide for you?”
“He already provided for me in a law-abiding way. I have all that I need.”
“Was he a ... fan of the Confederacy?”
“He was a Civil War buff. He knew a lot about the war, but no. He was not a supporter of the Confederacy’s ideals. In fact, the opposite.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t find this on his own land. If he had, he’d have left it buried there for you.”
“Correct.”
“Which means this was taken from someone else’s property.”
“Stolen.”Dad. What were you thinking?
She forced her thoughts to organize. “Part of me is shocked that he would take this.” She was loyal to her father. At this point, though, it wouldn’t do her any favors to wrap herself in a blanket of denial and refuse to acknowledge his flaws. “The other part of me can admit that this isn’t totally out of character for him. He was a bit of a maverick. He’d been pursuing the unsolved mystery of the gold most of his life, ever since his mother told him about it. When I picture him finding this, I can also picture why it would have been hard for him to go through the proper channels and hand it over.” Sighing, she shook her head. “I really wish he had. I don’t see how he could have thought I’d wantanythingto do with this.”
He watched her, his brows drawn together.
This gold was no doubt worth a fortune. A mind-boggling amount of money. A frightening, soul-destroying amount. “I haveintegrity.” Her voice quavered. “I would never want to take possession of anything that’s not rightfully mine.”
“I know.”
She’d always yearned for someone to see her and value her, just as she was. Luke did, and that truth quieted some of the turmoil within.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
She crossed her arms, trying to find comfort by lacing them tight. “I joked earlier about the size of the backpacks. But now I’m glad they’re big. I suppose I want to carry all of this out of here and take it to the nearest ... I don’t know? Police station?”
“We don’t know how long it will take us to uncover all the bars. Or how much the total amount will weigh.” He scowled at the hole. “I say we call the police, tell them about the discovery, and let them come and handle the rest.”
Instantly, she saw the wisdom of his suggestion. “That’s a better plan. We might have to walk a ways, though, before we can place a call. On the way in, the GPS continued to work, but we lost all the bars about three-fourths of the way here—”
Luke abruptly raised a hand. He’d heard something.
She froze, senses straining.
She heard it, too. A motor of some kind.
Luke moved with incredible speed. He lunged to the first flashlight and extinguished it. Then to the second and extinguished it. She dashed for the headlamps, flicking them off.
Darkness fell over them, thick and sudden.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Luke was a teenager, he’d made a hobby of dangerous situations. When he’d worked at the chop shop, they’d come with the job. When he’d been in prison, they were part of the culture. He’d cultivated nerves of steel.
