“Well, yeah. We weren’t gonna keep it or nothin’.”
“Right. Just helping the elderly from the goodness of your heart.”
“Please,” pleaded the third boy, who had blond hair and big, scared eyes. “Don’t turn us in.”
“Yeah,” said the smaller one. “I’m up for a scholarship, and this would ruin everything.”
“Let them go, Matt.” I stepped forward.
Matt’s head whipped toward me, then back at the boys. It was too dark to see his expression. “For all we know, they’re out every night, robbing old people blind, taking things they think they’ll never miss.”
Matt’s light illuminated the blond boy’s chagrined expression. “We wouldn’t do that. We’d never do that. Please. We didn’t mean any harm. We just wanted to find the treasure.”
“Yeah,” Mike mumbled. “Nothin’ exciting ever happens in this town.”
Matt paused as if he was thinking it over.
“Gran would want them to have a second chance,” I prompted.
Matt sighed. “This appears to be your lucky day, boys. Get on out of here—and keep your mouths shut. I won’t be so lenient if I find another group of kids digging here tomorrow.”
The boys scrambled for the fence.
“Wait! Don’t forget your shovels!” I called.
“She means your parents’ shovels,” Matt said.
Only one boy—the one who said he needed a scholarship—came back. “We’re really sorry. Thank you.”
Grabbing the shovels, he tossed them over the fence and scrambled after them. His shorts ripped on a ragged board.
The sound of pounding footsteps receded into the distance. “Thanks,” I said to Matt.
“No problem.” He strode toward me, his light pointed at the ground. “Why didn’t you stay in the house like I asked?”
“I thought I could help.”
“With that?”
I followed his gaze to the poker in my hand. I grinned sheepishly. “It was all I could think of. I didn’t know you’d be armed.”
“I’m not.”
“But you said stop or you’d shoot—and you had your hand on something in your pocket.”
He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket along with a baby monitor. “I couldn’t just go off and leave the girls unattended.”
Adrenaline was coursing through my veins. It was short step from fear to outrage. “You let those boys think you had a gun?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I didn’t know who I was dealing with when I said that.”
“Exactly.” The danger he could have been in made me furious. “So if they’d been armed, they might have shot you.”
“All the more reason you should have stayed in the house.”
“That is not the point!”
“So what is?”
