4 Buried Secrets (16 page)
Authors: Leighann Dobbs
He nodded at Jake before shoving Dixie in his direction. “I trust that you can get our friend here to the proper authorities.”
Then Mateo nodded at Celeste and her sisters, turned and disappeared into the dark tunnel.
“Hey, wait!” Jolene sprinted after him.
Emma watched Jolene. “Well you people are a lot of fun, and this treasure sure is pretty, but the real treasure in my life is my dogs, so I suppose I should get out of here and make sure they’re okay. I wonder if they’re still waiting for me outside the mine.”
Jolene came sprinting back into the cavern. “He got away. I’ve never seen anyone disappear as fast as that guy. What’s with him, anyway?”
Celeste shrugged. “Who knows … he sure does seem to disappear pretty quickly but I’m glad he showed up when he did.”
Jolene screwed her face up. “Yeah, but I wonder what he meant about our path’s being destined to cross.”
“Some things are better found out in due time,” Emma said to Jolene. “I gotta go check on my dogs, but I want to thank you for risking your life to come in here and help me.”
“Aww … It was no problem.” Jolene and Emma hugged.
“Can you find your way out?” Celeste asked.
“Oh, sure,” Emma said releasing Jolene and heading toward one of the tunnels, “I know my way around here pretty good. See you folks later.”
Emma stopped in front of Dixie on her way out and fixed her with a glare. “You know, I knew you were no good … just like your Momma. Papa said you and she influenced my grandma to disown him so you could have all the family money and I never wanted to believe it. But I guess he was right.” Then she disappeared down one of the tunnels.
“We’ll come by to drop those letters off tomorrow,” Morgan shouted after her.
“Well I better find someplace where there’s cell phone service so I can call the home office and tell them we found the treasure.” Luke looked at Buzz and Gordy. “Can you guys stand guard until we figure out how to catalogue it and pack it up?”
“Sure boss,” Buzz said.
“And I better get Dixie to the sheriff,” Jake added.
“And we better get Belladonna back to the hotel so we can give her a big treat for being so brave,” Morgan added, taking the cat from Celeste.
Cal slipped his arm around Celeste as they all started out of the tunnel.
“Boy there sure were a lot of buried secrets around here,’ Celeste said.
“Yeah.” Cal squeezed her close. “This was fun, but I can’t wait to get back home and have everything back to normal.”
“Me too,” Celeste said “But there’s one thing I have to do first.”
“What’s that?”
“I have to keep my promise to a ghost.” Celeste looked over her shoulder into the cavern. The misty figures of Lily and Shorty stood next to the treasure watching her. She winked at them and then they turned around, and walked away arm in arm, their figures fading slowly until they finally disappeared.
Jolene wiped the sweat from her forehead as she watched the intricately carved headstone with Shorty’s name, birth and death dates being lowered into place. Glancing back toward the deserted town of Dead Water, she watched as a tumbleweed rolled across the street.
It was silent except for the sounds of the machinery and the discontented mewls coming from Belladonna who sat unhappily trapped in her cat carrier at Jolene’s feet. Jolene could hardly blame the cat, but they were on their way to the airport after this and they’d had to secure her in the crate. Buzz and Gordy had already gone ahead with the luggage—all she had to do was get the cat there safely and she couldn’t risk her wandering off. As Jolene breathed in a lungful of the dry, stifling desert air, she felt a pinch of longing for home. She could hardly wait to get out of here.
“I hope this gives Lily … and Shorty, some peace,” Celeste said as she helped settle the stone into the hole where the old marker had been.
“It’s a beautiful stone.” Fiona ran her fingers across the marble carving on the top. “I don’t know what more we could do.”
“Except hopefully get another edition of the Dead Water book written,” Morgan added.
“Hopefully that will satisfy them and they won’t come back to haunt us,” Jolene joked.
Celeste laughed. “Well I think Lily and Shorty are all set … Deke, on the other hand might not be too happy.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t a nice ghost,” Fiona said. “But in the long run he actually helped us figure out where the treasure was and helped get Shorty’s name cleared.”
“How do you figure that?” Jolene’s forehead pleated as she looked at her sister.
“Well, he was the one that told Celeste to look near Shorty’s homestead. If he hadn’t done that, we would have never found the pink ring or met Emma. And if
that
never happened, we might never have gotten Emma to trust us with the letters.”
Jolene nodded. “True, I guess he did help our cause.”
“Seems like he and Sheriff Kane would have gotten along just fine,” Cal said. “Did they ever find Kane?”
Emma shook her head. “Nope. Just like that FBI guy said, he must have gotten wind of what was going on and high-tailed it out of here.”
“That explains why Buzz and Gordy saw him loading his car with boxes and head out on the highway when I had them tailing him,” Luke said. “Too bad I didn’t know what he was really up to or I could have had them stop him.”
“What was he doing with all those guns, anyway?” Fiona asked.
Luke shrugged. “Turns out he was selling them to militant groups … illegally of course. He was using his connections in law enforcement to get used guns cheap and selling them to the groups for a profit. It can be quite lucrative.”
“No doubt,” Cal said. “And he had the perfect place to store them—in the old gold mines.”
“Yep, the railway carts were still there and he could stockpile the guns inside the mine and then when he made a sale, he used the carts to move them out to trucks waiting at the entrance of the mine,” Luke added.
“So, was Dixie really making up all the stuff about Kane trying to close the hotel?” Morgan asked.
“Well, not everything,” Jake said. “When I finally handed her over to Deputy—I mean
Sheriff
—Styles I found out that Kane really was trying to drive her out. Just as we suspected, he didn’t want people anywhere near the mines and, even though the hotel was far away, it was on the one road that led to them. Guess he figured his operation would be safer if no one was on that road to see his comings and goings.”
“But she did make up the part about the rezoning meeting,” Luke added. “She used that as an alibi. Of course if we’d double-checked that we might have suspected she was up to something sooner.”
“But she seemed so nice,” Celeste said. “I felt sorry for her … we even wanted to invest some money in the hotel!”
“Unfortunately her mamma had a big influence on her.” Emma’s face hardened and her eyes got a faraway look. “Dixie’s mother was my second cousin … or something like that. Anyway, she was an angry, bitter person and for some reason she hated my father. I never got the real story, but somehow she got my grandparents to turn against my father.”
Jolene’s heart tugged at the sad look on Emma’s face.
“She carried a lot of bitterness and hatred her whole life. I guess it just ate away at her and she ended up going over the edge. She was obsessed with getting back what she thought was rightfully hers” Emma said. “I guess she meant the necklace and whatever else was stolen in the robberies.”
“Ironically, she would have gotten it anyway,” Luke answered. “My employers return any treasure recovered to the rightful owners provided they have indisputable evidence.”
Jolene narrowed her eyes at Luke. “Well, if that’s the case, won’t the necklace go to Emma, now? Or at least to the other descendants of the Vanderbeek woman?”
Luke smiled. “Yes it will. In fact, I’ve already looked into it and it appears Emma is the only direct descendant left. I’ve talked to my boss and he’s arranging it so you get the necklace.”
Jolene felt her heart swell as she looked at Emma. “Emma, that necklace is worth millions!”
Emma smiled. “Well I can’t say I have much use for
millions
—I’ll probably donate most of it to the local animal shelter. Money don’t mean much to me. I’m more grateful that you girls found out the truth about my family and found this.” Emma held up the little diary they’d found hidden in the old grave marker.
“There’s one thing that bugs me,” Morgan said. “Why didn’t Lily ever look for the treasure?”
Emma tapped the diary on her hand. “In here it says she hated that treasure for everything it caused her. She didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
“Did she say Deke forced her to marry him?” Fiona asked.
“In a way,” Emma replied. “She really felt she had no other choice. Deke had promised to make life miserable for her if she refused. And she was pregnant. Of course, she didn’t let Deke know about
that
. She suspected he was the robber all along, but after she married him she found out he was for sure.”
“So she took the key and handed it down to her granddaughter.” Fiona said it more as a statement than a question.
“Yes. And she made sure Deke would never enjoy the treasure,” Emma said grimly.
“With the wolfsbane she grew in her garden?” Morgan raised a brow at Emma.
Emma nodded. “She did what she had to do.”
“Well everything seems to be much clearer now.” Celeste pursed her lips. “Except the part about Mateo being a guest at the hotel and showing up in the mine.”
“I guess he was the one asking about us in the bar,” Jolene said. “Unless that was another thing that Kyle made up. But I still think it’s strange that he’d be at the hotel and not let us know. I mean why all the mystery?”
“Yeah, and he sure cleared out of there fast,” Fiona said. “I would have liked to have thanked him for his help, but he was gone before we got back … almost like he was never there in the first place … like some sort of ghost.”
“He sure is mysterious,” Morgan added. “But don’t worry, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again.”
“Well, now that I’ve read the diary, I think it really belongs back in here.” Emma squatted down beside the headstone, now firmly set in place, and pulled open a hidden drawer, just like the one in the original marker. She slid the diary in, then slipped the key from the chain on her neck and added that. Cal bent down and added the paper that held the key to decoding the symbols.
“Well, I guess that’s it, then.” Celeste patted the top of the headstone and turned to walk away. “Rest in peace, Shorty. Our job here is done.”
Jolene picked up Belladonna’s carrier eliciting an angry meow from the cat and followed them to the cars that were parked several feet away at the edge of the cemetery.
They bid Emma good-bye and Jolene loaded Belladonna into the Escalade, and then piled in with her sisters while the Luke and Jake took the Jeep.
Jolene settled into the back seat as Fiona, who had wrestled the keys from Morgan on the way out of the hotel, drove away from the ghost town.
“Well this was certainly an interesting trip.” Morgan twisted in the passenger seat to face Jolene and Celeste in the back.
“That’s for sure,” Celeste answered.
Jolene saw Morgan’s eyes narrow as they drifted to her throat and her hands flew up there instinctively. She felt the cold metal of the necklace she was wearing—a silver heart shaped locket with a garnet stone.
“Where did you get that?” Morgan’s brows creased in a V as she reached out to touch the locket.
“I found Belladonna batting it around in the room when I was packing this morning,” Jolene said, a strange feeling taking root in her stomach as she leaned forward in her seat to let Morgan inspect the locket. “It must have been in the suitcase, I guess.”
Jolene saw a shadow passed over Morgan’s eyes. “That’s just like the one Mom always wore.”
“It is?” Jolene frowned down at the locket. She’d been a self-absorbed teenager when her mother died and hadn’t noticed the jewelry she wore. Well, not consciously anyway, but that explained why the locket had seemed so familiar when she first saw it.
Celeste leaned forward to look at the necklace and Jolene heard her sharp intake of breath. She saw Fiona angle the rear-view mirror so that she could get a look at it too. “It is!” both sisters said at once.
“But that’s impossible.” Morgan's voice trembled. “She was wearing it when …”
Morgan's voice trailed off and Jolene’s stomach twisted. Her mother had jumped to her death from the cliffs outside their seaside home, and if she’d been wearing this necklace ... well, it would have been smashed on the rocks or lying at the bottom of the ocean.
“Well, there are probably plenty of lockets that look like it. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” Fiona said.
“Right, of course.” The relief was evident in Morgan’s eyes.
“Yeah, it couldn’t be the same locket … that would just be too weird,” Celeste said.
Right. It was just a strange coincidence, Jolene thought as she sank back into her seat and tried to squelch the nervousness that lapped at her stomach.
As she stared out at the passing desert scenery, she tried to convince herself there was no reason to get nervous over a crazy coincidence.
And she might have succeeded too, except there was just one problem … she didn’t believe in coincidences.
The end.
***
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Leighann Dobbs discovered her passion for writing after a twenty year career as a software engineer. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband Bruce, their trusty Chihuahua mix Mojo and beautiful rescue cat, Kitty. When she’s not reading, gardening or selling antiques, she likes to write romance and cozy mystery novels and novelettes which are perfect for the busy person on the go.