Guarding the Treasure (15 page)

She hesitated, and then took a shallow breath. “No, it's fine, Professor,” she said, trying to dismiss his touch from her mind.

“Good and I would like you to call me Kian. No more professor, is that clear?” he said, the smile still on his face but a decisive demand in the tone of his voice.

Uneasiness swept through her body.
I'm not going to argue with a man I just met. A man I know very little about
, she reasoned in her mind. “Yes, I think I can do that,” she said quietly before addressing him by his first name. “Kian,” she finally said, gingerly eking out a smile.

 

“I'll pick you up tomorrow,” Kian said as he watched her open the car door and slip out.

The minute her feet hit the ground, she hastily shut the door, wanting something solid between them. “No, I would really like to walk to town and meet you at Folks Pub again, that is, if you don't mind?” she asked, peering through the open window. She watched him tap his finger on the steering wheel, his body language contemplating her answer. He leaned over to look directly at her.

“No, that will be fine. Shall we say about two again?”

She smiled for a moment, as warmly as she could fake. Was this the same Professor Smith she had talked with through email and met just hours earlier? His pleasantness was back, but who was that other man she had been afraid of just a short time ago, and would he return? “Great, I'll see you tomorrow.” She turned quickly away from the car and started for the cottage.

“Sophie, be watchful at all times, in the light and in the darkness,”
sounded in her ear.

She turned to see if the professor had spoken. He was still watching her, his eyes still looking after her, that same cold, twisted smile on his face. She turned back to the cottage and opened the door, shutting it hard behind her. “Be watchful at all times,” she repeated out loud but heard only the blood pounding in her ears. Sophie turned on the light and threw her bag in the chair. Her mind went at once to the diary. The old document lay open on the kitchen table along with the interpretation in the folder lying next to it. She was drawn to it and sat to look at it, focusing her eyes near the bottom of the page.

“Three, you know of my brother's plans in two days. Why does he long to carry out his evil wiles near the far wall? Yes, I know it is a beautiful place in the early afternoon, with its long shadows and heavy leafed-out vines supporting large hangings of flowers. But the night, the night brings out a smell of nauseating bittersweet dampness that signals the undergrowth is dying and in the process of decay. Why would my brother desire for his guests to witness such natural sickness and death? And why ask Olivia to the gathering? Each time she visits, he is taken in deeper by her exquisite beauty, yet is disgusted by a spirit or power that surrounds her as he puts it. What is his plan? It is as if there are two of my brother, each equally sadistic. Oh Three, his revenge has gone deeper to affect more than just his family. I witness that he enjoys what takes place.”

“Anya, why do you fret so? Do not depend on your own understanding; trust in Three to protect you. And the walls you ask about? They are meant to protect those on the inside from the outside. But this wall must be torn down from the outside to rescue those within from themselves.”

“Three are you saying that I must be rescued from myself? Diary, I hate and fear the words that I write next, will they be my—?

“He is calling me again. My eyes steal to the door each time I hear him, Three, when he speaks my name. Oh diary, Sean asks to see me early. This makes it many days this week, always trying the handle on my locked door. I plead with him to leave me, but he insists on looking upon me, making it clear with his words that I am to be kept for him and his use.”

“You will be rescued when the walls are torn down. So who will you put your trust in, Anya? Surround yourself with me, with the wisdom of Three and those I put on your good path.”

Sophie jumped, her hand automatically gripping her chest. There was a sudden intrusion into her reading. It was her phone ringing. Her breathing slowed. “It must be Kevin,” she whispered with a pang of relief. She'd been so caught up in the diary that she had forgotten to call him. She looked at the flashing display—Gates. “Hello?”

Kevin grinned.
Now, that
sounded sheepish
, he thought, pulling the phone from his ear to get a quick look at the face on the display. “Sophie, it's Kevin, is everything okay?”

She cleared her throat. “Yeah, the phone startled me a little, but I'm fine.”

She didn't sound fine, but Kevin decided not to push the issue just yet. “I was wondering if you were going to give me a call before two in the morning, so I decided to take the chance you'd be alone, and if not, your Professor Smith is going to have to share you for a few minutes,” he said, pulling the towel tightly around his waist.

In the rented cottage, Sophie shifted in her chair, trying to alleviate both the pain in her back from sitting so rigidly and the something that kept gnawing at her brain. “No Kevin, I'm alone.”
At least in body,
she thought as her eyes flitted to the diary once again.

A smile came to his lips. “Good.” But there was something she wasn't telling him. Kevin sensed it in her tone. Even so, knowing Sophie was alone was a welcome confirmation to go along with the joy he felt at just hearing the sound of her voice. But what had she been up to, he wondered? Something was definitely different. He started to put two and two together. His heart sank—she hadn't fallen in love with the professor, had she?
Can't be, people don't fall in love that fast,
he thought, pinching his bottom lip nervously. But then again, he had, with the woman on the other end of the line. “Are you sure everything's all right?” he asked again. “You sound different.”

She thought for a moment and then touched her shoulder. The tension from earlier was gone and a relaxed feeling had taken over. Sophie knew why. It was the words of Three. ‘Those he puts on your good path.'
My good path,
she thought. It had to be Three—her day had been anything but totally enjoyable. “Yeah, Kevin, I'm really good,” she said calmly.

They both started talking at once then laughed.

“You first, Sophie,” Kevin said, lying back on the bed.

She sighed, the peacefulness now filling her entire body. “All right, I know you're going to ask about Kian, so I'll just tell you so we can get it out of the way. I found him interesting, among other things.”

“Kian, huh? So you're on first name basis already,” he said, not listening to the last half of her sentence.

“He insisted, Kevin, so I went along with him. We talked for some time at the pub and then he took me for an unexpected drive to Goregoo Castle.” She had mixed feelings about telling him of the professor's seemingly strange personality traits. She understood the man on the other end of the phone, and anything less than positive information would end up in complete disaster.

“So that was it? You found him interesting, and he took you to the Castle? There must be something you're not telling me, babe. I thought he'd be the man of the century, or at least above average in looks, height, and intelligence.”

Sophie didn't respond with words. She decided to let him think about his comments. “I'm spending time with him tomorrow so—”

She was cut short by the reporter in Kevin. “What time tomorrow, Sophie?” he asked, sitting up and grabbing a piece of paper. His suspicion had been activated, and the firing squad wasn't far behind, but this time it was okay. She knew his motive now. He loved her, after all, and she was spending time with a man he didn't know or trust. He made that clear before she even left the states.

“I'm meeting him at Folks Pub again around two.”

“So what are your plans tomorrow? That is, if you want to tell me.”

She ignored his question. “Kevin, the diary spoke to me.”

“Yeah?” he asked, knowing she had just given him a deliberate slip into another subject. That was his specialty.
Nice one
, he said to himself. But he still needed more information about her plans so his informant could be ready to follow her if necessary. He'd have to wait for a better time to ask again.

“Yes, I heard it speak to me after I was out of Kian's car.”

Kevin pinched his lips again, this time not from nerves but out of curiosity. “That's weird, Sophie,” he said. “How do you know it was the diary? Maybe it was just a thought running through your head. You're a smart girl, you know, and I've heard about things like that happening to people with high intelligence.”

“Kevin, it was the diary.” Her voice raised, and with strong conviction. “When I walked through the door of the cottage, the diary was open on the table, and the very words I heard were written on the bottom of the page. The same words Three had said to Anya.”

The word
supernatural
entered Kevin's mind. He had once researched the world of the unexplained and mystical, finding most of it to be little more than people who wanted something to take place in their lives that could never in reality happen on this earth. But Sophie didn't believe in the supernatural, nor was she reading anything into the diary—at least he didn't think she was.

“What did it say to you, Sophie?” he asked, pen still in hand.

“It said to be watchful at all times, in the light and in the darkness.”

He took down her words, his mood falling into something more serious. “What page are you on?”

She squinted, trying to make out any markings at the top or bottom of the open diary. “I'm not sure,” she said, her fingers rubbing where the numbers should have been. “This is really strange.”

Kevin's pulse quickened, the volume rising in his voice. “What's strange? Come on, Sophie, numbers. I need page numbers.”

She hesitated. “They're gone.”

His heart had moved to his throat, beating extra hard. Hard enough that sweat droplets had formed on his brow. “Gone? What do you mean, they're gone? Are you looking at the original diary or the one from Smith?”

“Kevin, I was reading from the interpreted version. I don't know how, but I can read the original, too, and the page numbers, they've completely vanished.”

Kevin imagined Sophie scouring the old document for numbers or anything that could possibly answer the question at hand. Her voice started cutting in and out, but it wasn't the connection. Sophie was confused.

“This doesn't make any sense,” he heard her say.

“You're right, Sophie. None of this makes sense. The original is in Gaelic.” He took a deep breath, letting it out in mid-sentence. “You can't read it.”

“Kevin, listen to me. This same thing happened on the plane. What's going on with me?” she asked in a whisper.

The desperation was loud and clear in her words, even though her voice continued to soften. Kevin pinched his bottom lip again, thinking. It was hard to imagine Sophie being desperate or confused about anything. He didn't understand what was happening, but there had to be a logical explanation for it, but what? “Sophie, what are you reading right now?” He wanted to keep her talking as long as he could.

“Anya's brother visits her in her bedroom in the mornings. She fears him, but Kevin, Three is there with her. He tells her to trust in him and the good people he puts on her good path. I don't understand who the good people are or what the good path is. I have so many questions. Kevin, I'm getting tired. I need to go.”

“Are you sure you can't talk any longer?” He waited for an answer. “Sophie, are you still there?” Kevin quickly moved to the edge of the bed.
She needs my help
. The feelings he had for her were deepening, and she needed to be protected. Then there was that strong hunch. That gut feeling that told him there was more to this than met the eye.

“Good night, Kevin.”

The click of her phone was loud and had a disturbing finality to it. “I need to know where she was reading,” he said, pulling on a pair of jeans while searching for Theresa's cell number in his phone. He slipped into shoes as he pulled a T-shirt over his head, grabbed a jacket, and headed to the street to flag a taxi. “Theresa, Gates here, how far are you in the diary now?” he asked, slipping the cab driver the address of the main office.

“Good evening to you, too, Gates,” she fired back.

He exhaled. “Sorry, Theresa,” he said, laying his head back on the headrest, “I need to know where you're reading right now in the diary.”

“Are you serious?” She sighed loudly into the connection. “Without looking, I couldn't tell you where, but I can tell you I'm just about done interpreting. Why do you need to know at nine o'clock at night? We have a meeting set to go over the diary when you get back from Washington.” There was a long pause. “Gates, what are you up to?” she asked.

Gates knew good and well she thought him guilty of compulsive behavior. “I'm not returning to Washington before I fly to Ireland. I'm hoping to be out of the country as soon as possible, maybe right after we meet tomorrow.” He gave Theresa time to think. She was smart, too smart, and would be putting questions and conclusions together before he had an answer.

“Tomorrow? When did the plans change Gates? I thought A. J. had a man ready to follow Ms. Hanes.”

“He does. Look, I just got off the phone with Sophie. Can you meet me at the office? I'm in a cab, already on my way. I can explain everything to you there.”

“Gates?” He could hear her talking to someone in the background. “I'll have you know that I'm spending the evening with a really neat guy, who happens to be my husband, whom I haven't seen in weeks.”

“This is really important, Theresa.”

“So is he,” she said.