Adrien English Mysteries: A Dangerous Thing & Fatal Shadows (45 page)

By now I had worked out most of the details, like why Livingston, who everyone agreed was as straight and true as the needle on a compass, had to die the minute he got wise to what was happening at the site.

As for my former caretaker, Harvey must have been playing how-does-your-garden-grow on the mountainside and seen Livingston shot. Ever a lad with his eye to the main chance, he must have tried to cut a deal. My guess was he had threatened blackmail, probably claiming he held some incriminating evidence like photos. That would explain why his trailer had been searched a couple of times. I suspected there never was any evidence, but either way, the blackmail scheme had backfired. Livingston’s body had been planted in the barn to incriminate Harvey, and Harvey himself had been killed and dragged off to look like he’d rabbited.

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Josh Lanyon

While I climbed, I reconnoitered. Maybe I should have taken the time to search for one of my grandmother’s guns. What happened when I did catch them up? I didn’t have a gun, and I didn’t exactly have a plan; the force of my personality was not going to get us far.

I stepped wrong and went down on my knees. As I knelt there, panting and perspiring, I heard a sound. A minor explosion that resembled ... a sneeze.

My heart lit and soared like a Roman candle; I’d recognize those tormented sinuses anywhere. Crawling a few feet, I peered through the bushes. And sure enough, a few moments later I glimpsed the top of three heads through the trees branches shading the trail below; Jake’s gilt hair shone like a knight’s helmet.

He was alive.

I crept forward as quietly as possible. Melissa was walking on Jake’s right; Marquez followed close -- though not too close -- behind. He carried a rifle aimed at their backs. I’d have bet money on a 30.06 load.

“Hurry it up!” His voice carried in the still air.

I didn’t envy his task; even from my hiding place it was clear from their rigid body language that Jake and Melissa were waiting for the first opportunity to turn on their captor.

Marquez knew it too, if his strained white face was anything to go by.

How the hell had both Jake and Melissa managed to fall into Marquez’s clutches? But wasn’t it just typical of these damned “A” personality types, always thinking they knew best, always thinking they could handle whatever cropped up?

On hands and knees, I slunk forward. I had to get ahead of them. That was our best chance. But if I stood up, Marquez would spot me and probably start shooting. He was scared and desperate, so there was no predicting.

And in the clear mountain air even the sound of a snapping branch seemed to carry a mile. I could go back and wait for the sheriffs. It was probably the smartest thing to do. It was obviously the safest -- and I was sure it was what Jake would have wanted me to do. I also knew it was not what Jake would have done were our positions reversed.

I moved the branches aside, listening tautly.

Reassuringly, Jake’s voice floated up. He sounded calm, even conversational. “You don’t have the gold then? You just think you know where it is.”

“It’s there.”

“It’s been over a hundred years, pal. Anything could have happened to it.”

“If someone else had found it, it would have made history. Royale’s wife didn’t find it; she died in poverty.”

“That’s my point,” Jake said. He was doing the cop thing: keep ’em talking; it distracts and builds a bond whether the bad guy wants it or not. “If the gold was there someone would have found it before now.”

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“Before my great great grandfather was murdered by Royale and Salt he sent my grandmother a letter saying the gold was hidden in the mine.”

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I recalled Dr. Shoup saying only a few days earlier. How right he had been.

“Royale could have moved the gold before he died,” Melissa said scornfully. “Which means you’ve killed two people for nothing.”

“Shut up and walk!” Marquez sounded harassed. Clearly he was making it up as he went.

What had gone wrong, I wondered?

The bushes were thinning. Dropping to my belly, I made like GI Joe, creeping along over the hard ground. This is another thing that looks a lot easier in the movies than it is in real life. In real life dragging yourself over rocky ground without making any noise is a slow and painful business. And as quiet and careful as I was being, I was still afraid they could hear the shift and slide of stones, the snap of twigs. I could sure hear them.

But slowly, surely I gradually pulled ahead of the trio in the road below. A few more yards of this and it would be safe to stand again. The dragging along on elbows was painful; my hips felt bruised.

Suddenly it occurred to me why it was so painful: I still had Melissa’s cassette player in my pocket.

As this realization sunk into my tired brain, I felt a spark of hope. Vigor renewed, I humped along, scraping myself raw over rocks and pinecones and tree roots.

The voices behind me faded. Scrambling to my feet, I ran like hell across the hillside, and then down through the trees.

I reached the mine a scant two minutes before they appeared down the track. I had just enough time to prop the cassette player in the ‘V’ of a pine branch. Hands shaking, I pressed play and slid up the volume, praying the recorder didn’t fall off its perch.

Up close the chanting sounded so obviously synthetic, I couldn’t imagine how it had fooled anyone, but as I moved away from the sound, it got creepier. More believable.

Inching down the hillside, I hid behind a thicket, sweating and trying to get my breath.

It didn’t take long before I heard their voices.

“So if Shoup was working with you, why kill him?” Jake was saying reasonably. As they drew even with my hiding place I could see Jake’s eyes rake the hillside, the road, looking for his chance. For a second his eyes seemed to find mine in the thicket I hid in, but his expression never changed.

A bruise darkened his forehead, but he was okay. He was alive and on his feet, and I planned on him staying that way. I felt around on the ground for a tree limb long and thick enough to use as a club.

“Because he finally figured out I ... had disposed of Dan -- Dr. Livingston. And that scum ball, Harvey.”

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Josh Lanyon

“Disposed of? You mean killed?”

Melissa said, “You mean murdered? Because that’s what it was. Cold-blooded murder, you bastard.”

“Shut up!” Marquez shouted.

“Yeah, shut up,” Jake growled. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

Melissa stopped walking. “Do you hear that?” Her head jerked from side to side in disbelief. “What is that?”

About time too. I was beginning to think the three of them would never shut up long enough to hear the ghostly voices soughing on the afternoon wind.

“That’s enough!” bit out Marquez, his pale face glistening, his glasses shining like insect eyes in the sunlight.

“I hear it too,” Jake said.

“It’s the goddamn wind!” Marquez shoved at Melissa with the rifle barrel. She fell to her knees in the road and put her hands to her face. Jake wheeled to face Marquez.

I thought Marquez would blast them then and there, and I stood up.

Jake didn’t charge though, instead he said, “Listen! Hear ’em? Sirens.”

Sure enough, the distant wail of sirens could be heard echoing through the mountains.

“Bullshit! Hurry up, get in there!” Thoroughly rattled, Marquez tried to nudge Melissa to her feet with the rifle barrel. She wasn’t cooperating and I didn’t blame her. If he got them inside the mine they’d never walk out alive.

Keeping a wary eye on Jake, Marquez poked at her with the rifle. Suddenly Melissa surged to her feet, swaying, wheeling to face Marquez. Marquez gasped and stepped back from her, the gun shaking wildly.

Unnervingly, Jake also stepped back from her.

His body blocked my view of Melissa, but I could see Marquez’s face and I thought, it’s now or never. Sucking in a deep breath, I bellowed over the taped chanting -- and the distant cry of approaching sirens, “Police! Drop your weapon!”

Marquez swung the rifle my way and both Melissa and Jake jumped him.

Things got confusing at that point, like one of those cartoon fights where all you see is a giant ball of dust and the occasional fist or foot. Jake wrestled for the rifle, which fired once into the sky and once into the forest before he wrested it away from Marquez. Marquez cursed and hung on with both hands, but Jake was bigger and used to fighting.

All the while Melissa howled like a war chief right out of cowboy cinema, clawing and kicking anybody she could reach.

I slithered the rest of the way down the hillside and circled the action, trying to see how to help without getting in the way or getting shot. Catching sight of Melissa’s snarling face I got the shock of my life. Her eyes were glowing red like something out of The Exorcist.

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The fight didn’t last long. Jake closed on Marquez, punched him twice, and Marquez went down. Jake leaned over him, panting hard.

“Get up,” he ordered. He spared me a look. Just for a moment the grimness of his face eased. “Hey.”

I managed a smile, half my attention still drawn to Melissa’s demonic gaze.

Marquez, his glasses hanging from his ears, his nose bloody, tried to push to his knees.

Suddenly he launched himself forward, diving toward the mine entrance.

“Halt!” Jake yelled. Melissa screamed.

Marquez didn’t check. Jake fired into the timber frame of the mine opening. Undeterred, Marquez wriggled though the wooden slats still half-covering the mouth of the mine and disappeared inside.

“God damn it!” Jake swore.

We raced for the entrance.

From inside the mine Marquez screamed hysterically, a full-throated, sharp bloodcurdling shriek straight out of Edgar Allen Poe that tailed and then abruptly cut off.

The silence that followed was more terrible than that dying scream.

Jake and I stared at each other, and then he started to climb through the boards.

“No, wait!” Melissa cried. We both grabbed for him.

“The stairs are gone!” I shouted, locking my arms around him.

“He’s fallen down the mine shaft!” Melissa said. Her face was blanched of color, her eyes

... they were still glowing. Hastily I looked away.

Jake stared at us like we were speaking in tongues, and then to my utter amazement, he pulled me against him in a rough embrace that nearly knocked the remaining wind out of me.

“I owe you one, baby,” he muttered against my ear. I could feel his heart banging away with exertion and excitement against my own. It was the most beautiful sound in the world, and I closed my eyes as I listened and thought, I love you.

Old news really. I guess I’d known since I left LA. I guess that was why I’d left LA, because there wasn’t any future in it. Not really. The things I wanted from life -- and Jake --

weren’t things he could give. But somehow at that moment it just didn’t matter.

I barely heard Melissa babbling, “He must have forgotten that the stairs had rotted away.

I know we told him. Kevin and I noticed when we were out here. Only the top two rungs are left. I know we told him. He forgot. He must have forgotten.”

“Maybe he knew,” I told her.

Jake’s arms tightened around me like he was picturing himself tumbling down the shaft on Marquez’s heels. “Poor bastard,” he muttered against my ear.

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Josh Lanyon

I nodded, sick with the thought of what a difference a few minutes would have made. If it had taken me longer to get out of the cellar, if I had waited at the house for the sheriffs, if I had taken my time running across the hillside -- it would have been Jake and Melissa’s crumpled bodies at the bottom of that mine shaft. In fact, we might never have found their bodies, might never have known what happened to them.

What a nice little legend that would have made.

“No one could survive that fall,” Melissa said, though neither of us was really listening to her. “He’s dead. He must be. Maybe he meant to do it all along. Maybe ...”

The sirens were close now, wailing through the trees like electronic banshees. As the first car appeared on the road, Jake released me and stepped back. He massaged the back of his neck self-consciously.

“He must be dead,” Melissa repeated. “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Astonished, I realized that the shadows were lengthening. Another day gone in Paradise.

I looked up at the heavy skies. There was a hint of rain in the air. In fact, it felt cold enough for snow. I rubbed my nose hard. “What happened?” I asked Jake. “Why the hell did you come back here?” I stopped as color rose in his face.

“I had a bad feeling,” he said. “You gave in too easily this morning. I know you -- well, I thought I did. I started thinking you were going to come back here and do something ...

dumb.”

“Dumb?”

“Like in a book. You know, gather all the suspects in the drawing room and try to trick the murderer into confessing.”

“So you did something dumb instead?”

The clearing was suddenly full of cop cars and uniforms. The sound of voices and slamming car doors carried on the late afternoon.

Jake said, “I ... er ...” He cleared his throat. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shoup confronted Marquez. He was waving this old newspaper in his face. Then Marquez popped Shoup. That’s when she showed up. He glanced at Melissa, doing a double-take at her flaming red orbs, and breaking off what he was saying to exclaim, “And lady, what is with you?”

Melissa met our gazes blankly. Then she gave a weak laugh, and popped out the trick eyeballs.

* * * * *

I gave a half laugh.