4 Buried Secrets (8 page)

Just then, another ghost started to materialize next to Shorty. A woman. The same one Celeste had seen in Dead Water—the one who wanted vindication. Celeste felt a chill. She hoped the ghost wasn’t planning to get her revenge right now. The woman looked directly at the symbols illuminated by the flashlight.

“The key is in Dead Water,” she said.
 

“Key? What key?” Shorty and Celeste asked at the same time.

 
The female ghost opened her mouth to speak, then her eyes widened and she started to fade away as she looked at something behind Celeste.

Celeste turned and saw the ghost of Deke, the old Sheriff of Dead Water. It was like a ghost party in there, how many more would show up?
 

Deke ignored her and fixed a ghostly glare on Shorty. His feet were planted shoulder length apart and his hands hung at his sides like he was ready for an old Western gunfight. Which Celeste supposed wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities as the ghosts were both from the old west and Deke
had
shot Shorty in real life.

“You can’t have her, she’s mine,” Shorty said causing Celeste’s stomach to lurch.
Was he talking about her? What was he planning to do to her?

“Not this time, Shorty.” Deke glanced over at Celeste. “You should stay out of this, just like Lily should have.”

Celeste didn’t know who Lily was but she couldn’t agree more. The air in the tunnel was becoming stale with tension and she could hear noises coming from somewhere deep in the mine behind Shorty. It sounded like voices, but distorted with echoes.
 

More ghosts?
 

She didn’t want to stick around to find out, so she turned and ran.

***

Celeste burst out into the section of tunnel where the two shafts split off, almost knocking over Jolene who had arrived at their meeting spot only seconds before.

“What the heck?” Jolene turned around and grabbed Celeste’s arm to keep them both from toppling over. Her eyes narrowed when she looked at Celeste’s face. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Celeste nodded taking a deep breath. “Three, in fact.”

Jolene peered into the dark tunnel. “Down there?”

“Yeah.” Celeste felt an icy finger run up her spine as she looked back over her shoulder. “This place is giving me the creeps, let’s get out of here.”

Eager to leave the ghosts behind, Celeste moved forward as quickly as the light from her penlight allowed.

“I also found some markings on the tunnel,” Celeste said as they headed toward the mine entrance. “I took pictures of them on my phone.”

She pulled one of the pictures up and showed it to Jolene just as the tunnel dumped them out into the fresh air. The sun was setting and Celeste could see Morgan, Luke, Jake and Fiona just coming out of the tunnels they’d explored.

“Did you find something?” Jake nodded toward the phone.

“Some strange markings on the tunnel,” Celeste said showing him the screen. “I don’t know if they have anything to do with the treasure, but I’m going to send them to Cal and see if he can make heads or tails of them.”

“And she saw some ghosts,” Jolene said to Jake.

“Oh really?” Jakes eyebrows lifted. “We didn’t find anything.”

“Neither did we,” Luke added. “Just a bunch of rocks and sand. Tell us about the ghosts.”

Celeste glanced back at the mine uneasily. “One of them was Shorty. I recognized him from the picture. He didn’t seem pleased to see me … told me to get out. I asked him about the markings on the wall but he acted like he didn’t even see them. Then she showed up.”

“She?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah, the same ghost I saw in Dead Water. She wasn’t there long though, because then the Sheriff showed up and scared her away.”

“Wait, I thought the sheriff was a good guy,” Fiona said.

“He is,” Celeste said. “At least I think he is. Not sure why the woman disappeared when he showed up but it seemed like he and Shorty were going to have some kind of fight. He told me to stay out of it and I got a weird feeling so I got out of there as fast as I could.”

“That sounds kind of scary.” Morgan looked back at the mine opening. “It’s good that you listened to your ‘weird feeling’. I know mine are always right.”

“Yeah, I just wish I could have found something out about the treasure.” Celeste pressed her lips together. “Although the woman did say something strange and I wonder if it's some kind of clue.”

“What was that?” Luke asked.

“She said something about the key being in Dead Water.”

Jolene sucked in a breath and everyone turned to face her.
 

“Do you know something about a key?” Jake asked.

“No.” Jolene’s bottom lip caught between her teeth. “It’s just that Walt, the old guy in the bar, said when his grandmother was a little girl she overheard one of the ladies in Dead Water and the Sheriff fighting about a key … she said the sheriff told the woman the key was buried in Dead Water and she’d never find it.”

“What is the key for?” Fiona asked.

Celeste shrugged. “I have no idea … I don’t even know if we can trust her. When I saw her ghost in the cemetery, she said she wanted vindication. So, I wonder—does the key have to do with that or the treasure?”

“Either way, it seems like another trip to Dead Water is in order.” Luke narrowed his eyes at something behind Celeste and she turned around to see a cloud of dust approaching them.

“Who’s that?” Morgan squinted toward the dust cloud.

“Looks like the police,” Jolene said.

Celeste’s stomach sank as the brown and black Sheriff’s car pulled to a stop. Sheriff Kane didn’t seem too happy with them last time and she didn’t want another run-in with him. But Kane wasn’t driving. Another cop got out. Tall and blond, he wore a Sheriff’s Office uniform and a pair of those annoying mirrored sunglasses.

“What are you folks doing here?” Celeste looked at the deputy tag on his shirt thath gave his name—Styles.

“Just taking some scenic pictures, Deputy Styles.” Fiona poured on the charm, twirling her red curls.

“Didn’t you see the ‘No Trespassing’ sign?” Apparently, Fiona’s charm hadn’t worked because Styles was pulling out a pad of pink paper.
 

“Are you writing a ticket?” Jolene asked.

Styles fixed her with a glare—or at least Celeste thought it was a glare, she couldn’t tell with the sunglasses. “Yep. You people know better than to be out here, I think. Didn’t Sheriff Kane warn you?”

“Not here. Over at Emma’s,” Luke answered.

Styles raised a brow and scribbled something on the pad. “This here’s a two hundred and fifty dollar fine. Next time I’ll throw you in jail.”

“What?” Jolene’s eyes flashed as Luke calmly took the paper that Styles had ripped from the pad. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t throw us in jail for trespassing.” She glanced at Luke uncertainly. “Can he?”

Luke just shrugged.

Styles whipped off his glasses, his sharp hazel eyes addressed each of them in turn. “I can put you in jail. But listen, it’s for your own good. It’s not safe around here for more reasons than one. It would be best if you people went on your way and did your historic research in some
other
town.”

He shoved the glasses back on, got in his car and sped off.

“Well, what do you make of that?” Fiona stood, hands on hips while she watched the car drive off.

“I get the sneaking suspicion this isn’t
just
about trespassing,” Morgan said. “There’s more to this and I have a gut feeling Deputy Styles wasn’t telling us the exact truth.”

“Yeah, it’s becoming obvious the law doesn’t want us here,” Jake said.

“And some of the ghosts too,” Celeste added.

“Which makes me want to stay and dig into this even more,” Luke said. “The way they are acting combined with the break-in makes me think the police—or someone—wants to scare us away from the treasure and if that’s the case, it must mean we are getting close.”

Once they got back to the hotel where there was cell phone service, Celeste sent the pictures of the symbols to Cal.

“Do you think the treasure is in the mine?” Morgan asked as she plucked some of the turkey giblet meat out of the bag and put it on a dish for Belladonna.

“Maybe,” Celeste said. “It sure seemed like Shorty was hiding something back there. But I’m not sure I want to go down there … I heard some ghostly voices.”

“Maybe the treasure is haunted.” Fiona reached into a bag full of fried chicken that Dave had saved out from the Hotel dinner menu for them.

“Aww, come on,” Jake said looking into the bucket and picking out a drumstick. “If you guys fought off those pirates, surely a few ghosts won’t scare you.”

Celeste laughed at Jake’s reference. Earlier that year, they’d had to fight off modern day pirates who were determined to take a treasure that had lain, unbeknownst to them, underneath their home. The pirates were a nasty bunch, but the girls had combined their skills to defeat them.
Could they do the same thing with ghosts?

“So tomorrow we go to Dead Water and what, exactly, do we look for?” Jolene interrupted Celeste’s thoughts.

“The key,” Morgan said piling a chicken breast and a roll onto her plate. “Whatever that is.”

“It doesn’t make much sense.” Jolene scrunched her face up. “What’s this key open, anyway?”
 

“Maybe Shorty put the treasure in something that needs a key to open it,” Fiona offered.

“Or maybe it’s more like a map that shows us which tunnel to take to get to the treasure.” Celeste picked at the coleslaw on her plate, glancing anxiously at her phone.
 

When was Cal going to get back to her?
 

Before they got together, Cal had been a real ladies man—a confirmed bachelor with a different date every night. She pushed aside a tingle of nervousness that tried to establish itself in her belly. Cal wasn’t out with someone else, she was sure of it. He wouldn’t do something like that to her … would he?

“Did anyone find out anything about the new occupant here in the hotel?” Luke asked and Celeste looked up from her cell phone vigil.
 

“Nope.” Everyone shook their heads except Jolene.

“The bartender told me that someone was in the bar asking about us.” Jolene shoveled mashed potatoes into her mouth. “I wonder if it was him.”

“And if it wasn’t, who would be asking about us and why?” Jake asked around a mouthful of chicken.

Celeste’s phone chirped with an incoming message and she dove for it. Her heart surged when she saw it was from Cal.

“Cal says the words could be like a code, but you’d need a key to decipher them,” Celeste informed the group a few minutes later.

“Like the key we needed for the journal?” Morgan asked, referring to the journal of one of their ancestor’s.
 

The journal they’d found in the attic had eventually led them to the treasure under their house, but it had been written in code and had to be translated. Without Cal knowing what kind of code it was and how to find the translation cypher, they never would have found the treasure.

“Yeah.” Celeste smiled down at the phone, her stomach fluttering. “He said he’s coming out to meet us here tomorrow night.”

“And you have that big smile plastered on your face because you’re happy he can help us decode the symbols?” Fiona’s teasing remark caused Celeste’s cheeks to warm.

“Of course.” Celeste plastered a wide-eyed innocent look on her face.

Morgan and Fiona snickered.
 

“I’m going to do some more research on the treasure and see if I can get a lead on this key.” Jolene dumped her paper plate in the trash, then got behind the desk and tapped on the computer. “It might help us to know exactly what we’re looking for.”

Celeste threw out her own plate and settled onto the micro-suede couch noticing it was a lot more comfortable than the old one. Belladonna jumped up onto the end table beside her, knocking the book Dixie had lent them into her lap.

“Oh, I guess I can flip through here and see if I find anything useful.” Celeste opened the book, looking at the table of contents. Belladonna reached a velvety paw out and touched the page.

“Careful, Belladonna. This book is on loan.” Celeste gently pushed the cat’s paw aside but Belladonna just put it right back on the book, this time lifting the edge of the pages with a finely honed claw.

“Cut it out, I don’t want the pages to get ripped.” Celeste picked the cat up and put her on the floor.

“Meow!” Belladonna jumped back up onto the couch swishing her tail in Celeste’s face. Celeste took her hands off the book to push the fluffy white tail aside. Belladonna shot her paw out to the pages of the book, flipping some over to a section of old pictures.

“Hey, I said—”

Celeste stared down at the page in the book, her words catching in her throat. Sitting in the middle of the page was a picture of the ghost Celeste had seen in the mine and at Dead Water. She wore a fancy dress, her hair piled high on her head. Underneath the caption read, ‘Lily Sweetwater’.
 

Where had she heard that name before?

“Is something the matter?” Morgan asked.

Celeste looked up at her sister. “I think I just found our lady ghost.”

“Really?”

Celeste held the book up and pointed at the picture. “It says her name was Lily Sweetwater.”

“Maybe we should Google her and see if that leads us to any clues,” Fiona said, glancing over at Jolene.

“Did you say Lily?” Jolene’s forehead creased.

“Yep. Sweetwater.”

“Remember how I told you about the old-timer in the bar and how his grandma followed a lady around? The lady fought with the Sheriff about some key,” Jolene said.

“Yes,” Celeste replied.

“Well, that lady’s name was Lily,” Jolene said. “And I think he said she was married to the Sheriff.”

“Deke?”

Jolene shrugged. “I guess so. He never said the Sheriff’s name.”
 

“Well this all can’t be coincidence,” Morgan said. “I have a feeling it all ties together somehow.”