Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series)

All characters in this publication are
fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.

Trouble and Treasure

Trouble and Treasure Book One

Second Edition

Copyright © 2015 Odette C Bell

Cover art stock photos: Handsome young couple
posing © konradbak. Licensed from Depositphotos. Ancient map ©
Bonsa. Licensed from Dreamstime.

www.odettecbell.com

Trouble and Treasure

An action adventure packed with danger,
mystery, and just enough romance, the Trouble and Treasure series
follows the adventures of Amanda and Sebastian as they try to track
down one of the most valuable treasure maps in the
world. 
...
Amanda
is just an ordinary girl, but when she wakes up one night to find
everything from common criminals to highly-trained mercenaries
traipsing around her house looking for the 'goods', her life takes
a turn towards the adventurous and far too
dangerous.
Sebastian is a lawyer who just happens to have an unusual
hobby: he's an esteemed and accomplished treasure hunter. But when
he meets Amanda, that all changes. On the run for their lives with
every criminal
unit he has
ever heard of on their tails, Sebastian has to somehow keep
Amanda safe while getting his hands on the Stargazer Globes, the
greatest treasure map in the world. Only problem is Amanda screams
too much. But then again, Sebastian has a problem too,
he lies.

There was a noise coming from downstairs;
from somewhere around the vicinity of the front door I heard a
scratching.

It was subtle at first – the light touch of
an object brushing against the grain of the wood.

I rolled over, sending a dusty, dog-eared
velvet pillow tumbling off the bed and onto the equally dog-eared
carpet below.

I closed my eyes, intent on going back to
sleep. The noise, however, didn’t stop, and this damn house was so
large that even the tiniest sound was magnified like a trumpet as
it echoed through these empty dusty halls.

It was probably some unusually persistent
woodland creature, I decided, and rolled over again.

A badger maybe, a squirrel? Some lonely
puppy dog that’d bolted from one of the near-by country estates
only to find life in the rolling woods not nearly as fine as life
in the manor?

“
Oh, fine then.” I grumbled, pushing the
covers off with a great harrumph. If whatever was scratching at my
door was so damn intent on ruining the woodwork, I'd give it a
piece of my mind.

I thundered down the stairs, tying the cords
of my thick dressing gown around my middle.

“
I hear you. I hear you,” I mumbled under
my breath, “Keep your damn tail on.”

I reached for the handle.

I opened the door.

I didn't see the enterprising woodland
creature I expected.

I froze. My stomach sucked in with a
tension-filled, electric charge as my eyes widened at the sight
before me.

A gun. It was a gun. There was a man with a
gun on my doorstep, and the gun was pointed right at me.

The sudden shock spread across my body,
sinking hard into my legs and hands.

Every part of me screamed out to run, but
the surprise nailed me to the spot.

The man was large and wearing a dark black
leather jacket, leather gloves, and a black woolen balaclava.

“
Get in,” he rumbled, sounding like a rasp
grating over wood. “Scream or try to run, and you're fucking
dead.”

I shook, the ties of my bathrobe banging
into my knees.

I couldn't think. I couldn't move. All I
could feel was nervous tension pressing against my body like a
balloon ready to pop.

“
Get in,” he repeated, tone so deadly it
sounded like the gun was for show. From his sheer size and intense
menace, this guy looked like more of a threat than anything old me,
Amanda Stanton, in her lumpy old bathrobe could muster.

“
D... d... don't kill me,” I
whimpered.

The guy replied by using his free hand to
shove me back from the door. He pulled the door to behind him with
a poignant, careful silence.

My breath filled my awareness as I battled
for air. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

He looked around the place, then fixed his
gaze on me. “Take me to the goods.”

I stared at him in horror.

Goods?

Did he think I was a drug dealer or some
country-living weapons stockist?

“
I... I don't know—”

“
The fucking antiques, lady – where are
they?” He shoved me, pushing me further down the
hallway.

He apparently didn't think the antiques, or
‘goods,’ could be in the hallway – perhaps where he came from all
'goods' were kept in basements or attics or in the back of your
sedan right next to the bodies....

That thought chilled me through. It seemed
my body had turned to the fragile snow that settles above drifts –
the kind that can be blown away only to melt in the warmth of a
breath.

The antiques, I tried to repeat to myself.
The antiques. He's after the antiques.... Which ones? I couldn't
stop, turn, and politely enquire whether he was after some ‘30s-era
tins or a complete collection of hippie magazines from the ‘60s,
could I? This old house was chock full of antiques.

This guy could be after anything, and he
wasn't about to play nice and rational to get it.

I sucked in a breath, trying hard to stop
myself from hyperventilating. I had to calm down. There was a man
in my house with a gun and he was after antiques.

Give him the correct antiques and he goes
away, right? In which case, he could have all the freaking
antiques, because we were having a special sale for violent armed
burglars today. “Take it all,” I pushed the words out, proud I'd
managed it in one go.

Slowly, painfully, I was pulling myself
together. My legs were wobbling less as he pushed me down the
hallway, and the ringing heartbeat in my ears pulsed into a steady
white noise.

He shoved me in the back with his gun. “No
games.”

Well at least that ruled out the
collector's-edition board games I'd unearthed the other day, a
trite (but situation-inappropriate) part of my mind concluded.

As the man pushed me towards the darkened
library at the end of the hall, another wave of fear broke against
me, and my feet tingled with the undeniable urge to run.

My eyes darted to the side as we passed the
ornate dresser I'd polished only that morning; it still had the
spanner I'd picked up out of the garden shed sitting there. It was
well within reach.

I briefly flirted with the idea of grabbing
it up and clocking the guy with it – but rationality caught up with
me and pointed out that would be a great way of getting shot/and or
punched so hard my teeth ended up in China.

I heard something off to my left: a soft
thud and a short scrabble. Perhaps it was those woodland creatures
I'd dreamed up earlier deciding to try their own paws at breaking
and entering.

Join the party.

The scrabbling turned into a tinkling as a
window broke in the library before us.

The burglar froze; he obviously didn't think
it was a vandalizing bunny rabbit in there.

“
Shit,” he said, as quiet as a single drop
of water on glass. He grabbed a hand around the top of my chest and
thrust me to the side, out of the view of the open library
door.

The sudden contact and press of his large
bulky arm squeezing into my throat sent such a race of adrenaline
barreling through me that I jolted hard.

The abstract concept of the gun at my back
had turned into the undeniable reality of an arm closed tightly
around my neck.

Desperation kicked through my
immobility.

I screamed. I drove my foot into the guy's
knee and twisted to the side.

That's when three guys with guns burst from
the darkened library. These guys weren't of the leather-jacket,
home-burglar variety either. They looked like those SWAT teams I'd
seen on TV: machine guns, goggles, helmets, a variety of straps and
pockets, and stances that had the undeniable menace of
training.

I noticed the men, noticed their guns,
noticed that they’d sprung from my library... and I cracked. It
tipped me over the edge.

I grabbed the spanner – the one on the
dresser, the one still within reach – and I swung it behind me.

It connected with the guy's nose in a
haphazard fashion, but there was a definite and welcome cracking
sound.

He dropped his gun, his arm slackening
around my throat. I ducked down, dropping to my hands and
scrabbling to the side like some crazed crab in a scruffy dressing
gown.

About a second later, there was a thump as
the SWAT guys tasered the burglar with all the speed and efficiency
of, well, SWAT guys.

The burglar's body jolted from the sudden
violent rush of electricity, and he fell to the floor with a thud
that shook the lamp shades above.

He was down. His gun was gone. He was
unconscious.

I sat on the ground, back pressed against
the wall several meters from the prone man, staring at the scene.
The shock and surprise of the situation – and the harrowing,
unpredictable, relentless pace with which it had unfolded – had
reduced me to a simple pair of eyes backed up by a spluttering,
panting breath.

But it was okay now; it was over. The
cavalry had come.

I stared up at the three men in my hallway.
One leaned down and grabbed the blaggard's gun, another peeling off
to check the burglar, and the other... he stood there and stared
down at me.

This was the point – TV had taught me –
where gallant police officers should be saying “It's alright ma'am;
everything is okay.”

Silence.

The guy took several steps towards me,
leaned down onto his knees, and rubbed the back of his hand across
his chin.

The hair on my arms spiked.

Something wasn't right.

“
Where are the artifacts?” the guy asked –
voice toneless.

Oh – my – god.

I didn't answer; I stared at the guy in
shock.

He looked back. “Take us to the
artifacts,” his voice didn't change in pitch; there was no emotion
there, only a mechanical ease.

He didn't stand up. He waited.

Again?

I blinked, shook my head, and felt the press
of tears welling in my eyes. This was all too much. Getting free
from a burglar intent on stealing my goods, only to run into a
trained team of mercenaries (because they sure as hell weren't the
police) after my more sophisticatedly-named 'artifacts.’

What on e
arth were these people after?

He motioned me up with a flick of his
hand. “Up.”

I didn't want to get up. I wanted to curl
into a ball and wake up. This was all so sudden and so
unpleasantly, pressingly real.

“
Artifacts,” he repeated the single word.
He spoke with the right amount of force behind his tone to let me
know he didn't need to threaten me. He was a mercenary with two
mercenary buddies and a couple of machine guns; I was a puddle of
adrenaline fatigue and bathrobe. He would win.

I silently pushed to my feet. “Take
everything you want,” I said through a clenched jaw. “I don't know
what you're after. Just take everything.”

One of the other mercenaries held up a hand
to his ear. His face stretched with a controlled but recognizable
tension. He made a fancy gesture to the leader.

“
Move,” he said to me. For the first time
emotion curled through his voice. It was bitter and sharp like
vinegar to a wound.