4 Buried Secrets (12 page)

She munched on the tangy chips as she drove down Route 51. The traffic was light and her attention drifted from the road to the desert landscape. The dry, sandy land was a huge contrast to the lush green hills, woods and ocean of her hometown, Noquitt, Maine.

Still, the desert did have some appeal. She liked how the flat contours of the land allowed you to see far into the distance. Like right now, she could see the hill where the mines were even though it was probably more than a mile away.

Jolene crunched off the corner of a Dorito as she looked over at the mines.
Was there a centuries old multi-million dollar treasure there waiting for them?

A blur of brown caught her eye. She slowed the car, her eyes searching in the direction of the blur. Was that a dog? Scanning the area, she saw it
was
a dog, and it wasn’t alone. The two dogs looked just like Emma’s dogs, Clive and Lucy. But what would they be doing up at the mine? And where was Emma?

Jolene pulled over to the side of the road and tipped the bag of chips up to her lips, emptying the crumbs into her mouth as she stared over at the hill. It looked like the dogs were running in a frenzied circle around an opening in the hillside opposite the mine entrances she’d explored with her sisters.
 

After several minutes of staring, she realized Emma was nowhere in sight. Her heart froze as she remembered how Emma said the dogs never went anywhere without her.
 

Was Emma up there and in trouble?

She shoved the car into drive and peeled out from her spot on the side of the road, the tires squealing as she u-turned to reverse direction and head back toward the road to the mine.

“Looks like these letters span the six months before Shorty was killed.” Celeste pointed to the letters that were now laid out in neat rows on the table.

“It’s a true love story.” Fiona sighed.
 

“With a twist,” Morgan added. “It looks like the Sheriff was also vying for Lily’s attention.”

“And making things hard on Shorty.” Celeste pointed to a passage in one of the letters. “Here he writes, ‘I fear Deke is doing whatever he can to prevent my mining efforts and causing me to be unable to provide for us’.”

“Sounds similar to what our favorite Sheriff, Sheriff Kane, is doing right now,” Morgan said.

“In this letter, Shorty alludes to Deke trying to run him out of town.” Cal pointed to the corner of one of the old letters.

“Wait!” Celeste’s heartbeat sped up as she scanned one of the letters they hadn’t read yet. “This might be the clue. It talks about the stagecoach robberies.”

“What’s it say?” Morgan’s brow creased as she turned her head sideways to try and read the letter.

“It’s written by Lily … she mentions that she’s afraid the robber might come to town.” Celeste looked up at the rest of them. “I guess she didn’t know the robber was Shorty.”

“Was it?” Fiona bent over another of the letters, her read curls cascading over the table. “This letter written by Shorty says he got a tip on when the stage is coming through and he might take a ride out and see if he can confront the robber.”

“Maybe he was just saying that so Lily wouldn’t be suspicious of him,” Cal said.

“Or maybe what Emma said was true and he really wasn’t the robber.” Morgan frowned down at one of the letters. “Lily says here that, as far as she knows, the sheriff is the only one that knows the stagecoach times in advance.”

“This last letter from Lily is kind of ominous,” Celeste said. “Lily writes ‘we must hasten our plans. Deke said he will stop at
nothing
to make me his … and our package won’t wait’.”

Celeste looked at the date of the letter, a heavy rock forming in her chest. “It’s dated the day before Deke shot Shorty.”

***

Jolene found the road to the other side of the hill easily enough and sped toward where she thought she’d seen the dogs, the Escalade kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake.

She came upon Clive and Lucy running circles outside a dark opening in the hill—a mineshaft they hadn’t known about. She jumped out of the car and the dogs ran over to her.

Jolene squatted down to the level of the hounds. “Hey guys, where’s Emma?”

Clive licked her hand as she stroked the silky fur on his chest. Lucy whined and looked back over her shoulder at the mine entrance. Jolene could tell the dogs were filled with worry and apprehension.

“Is she in the mine?” Jolene asked the dogs as she squinted into the dark opening.
Of course she was in the mine, where else would she be?

Jolene stood and walked over to the entrance, the dogs following at her heels.

“Emma?” She yelled into the mine.

The only answer was her own voice echoing hollowly through the tunnels.

She stepped inside. The shaft was wide at the opening, but narrowed pretty quickly. She shuffled in a few feet, noticing the dogs stayed just outside the opening.

“Cowards,” she said over her shoulder at them. The dogs whimpered and hung their heads as if they understood.

She forged ahead, calling Emma’s name but not getting any response. Where was Emma and why had she come into the mine alone? A shiver danced up her spine as she remembered Emma’s insistence that something fishy was going on up here and her vow to investigate.
 

Maybe she’d fallen and needed help … or met with foul play. Either way, Jolene had to do her best to help her.

Ten feet in and Jolene couldn’t see a thing. She patted her pockets, her heart sinking when she realized she didn’t have the little flashlight Luke had given her the other day. She did have one thing though, her Smartphone.
 

Pulling the phone out of her pocket, she switched it on. The lack of bars told her there was no reception inside the mine, but she didn’t want to make a call, she wanted to light the way.
 

When she’d gotten the phone, Morgan had insisted she install an application that lit up a light on the end of the phone so it could be used like a flashlight. Jolene had thought it was silly, but now she could see how it would come in handy.
 

“Where is that?” She scrolled through the apps until she found one that looked like a flashlight. She pressed on the icon and a pang of relief shot through her when a bright light came out of the end of the phone. Shining it into the darkness in front of her, she continued on.

It felt like the tunnel walls were closing in on her. It was less than three feet wide and she could reach out and touch both sides. Her heart thudded in her chest as she breathed in the stale, lifeless air. Sweeping the light across the floor and walls, she made slow progress.
 

“Emma?”
 

No answer.

Jolene ventured in deeper. She was wondering how far she should go on her own before she backtracked and called for help when the tunnel widened out into some sort of room. Directing the beam of light around in a circle, she could see there were three tunnels off the room.
 

Which one did Emma take?

She crossed over to the first tunnel and shined the light in. Then repeated it for the next.
 

Her heart leapt into her throat as she turned to shine her light toward the third tunnel and came face to face with Deputy Styles.

“What are you doing here?” He spoke in a low growly whisper.

Jolene shrank back from him, her stomach sinking.
 

“What have you done with Emma?” she demanded.

Confusion flickered across his eyes. “Emma? What are you talking about?”

“I know you have her in here.” Jolene’s eyes darted around the cavern seeking an escape route.

 
“You shouldn’t be in here … come with me.” Styles grabbed her elbow pulling her back toward the way she came.
 

Jolene jerked her arm away. “Don’t touch me!”
 

Styles stepped back; his hands came up in front of him, palms out. “Whoa there, I’m just trying to make sure you don’t get hurt.”
 

His voice was low, barely above a whisper. His eyes darted to the other passages giving him the look of a nervous maniac. She couldn’t see his aura, it was too dark in the tunnel but she sensed his energy and she knew he was up to something.

Had Styles discovered Emma in the mine and done something to her? Was he planning to do that same thing to Jolene?
 

Jolene knew she needed to get away from Styles. She peered over his shoulder anxiously. Her best route of escape was taking the tunnel she’d come in on—at least she knew where that one ended up. But, Styles was standing in front of it blocking her way out.
 

Jolene did the only other thing she could think of to get away—she pivoted on her heel and ran down one of the tunnels that led further into the mine.

“What does she mean by ‘our package won't wait’?” Morgan asked. “What’s in the package?”

“I have no idea.” Celeste frowned at the letter. “Maybe it has something to do with the treasure?”

“I still don’t see what she wants vindication for,” Fiona said.

“I think we need to read between the lines.” Cal looked down at the letters. “The letters reveal some things we didn’t know, right?”

“Sure, like Lily and Shorty were lovers … or in love … or whatever.” Morgan made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

“And that Deke wanted Lily for himself,” Fiona said.

“So we can conclude that there was friction between Deke and Shorty,” Cal added.

“In this letter Lily wrote that Deke would stop at nothing to make her his.” Celeste tapped the letter. “So, maybe he didn’t shoot Shorty because he was the stagecoach robber, maybe he shot him to get rid of him.”

Morgan shot out of her chair. “That’s right! She also said that Deke, being Sheriff, was the only one who knew what time the stagecoach was coming. What if
he
was really the robber and shooting Shorty was just a way of killing two birds with one stone?”

“Playing the hero that killed the robber
and
getting Shorty out of the way so he could have Lily to himself,” Fiona said.

“But no more robberies happened after Shorty was killed,” Celeste pointed out.

“Even better,” Fiona said. “That was a perfect setup. Deke probably already had enough money from the previous robberies, so all he had to do to
prove
he was right about Shorty was to simply not rob any more stagecoaches.”

“It’s a pretty good plan,” Cal added. “No one bothered to look into the robberies any further … and Deke gets the girl.”

“But why
did
he get the girl?” Morgan’s brow creased. “From the tone of the letters Lily didn’t like Deke much.”

Celeste screwed up her face. “That’s a good question. And then she remembered seeing the pink stone ring when Lily’s ghost put her hand on her stomach … as if …

“She was pregnant!” Celeste blurted out. “That was
the package
she referred to in the letter.”

“
Shorty’s
baby,” Fiona said.

“That might explain why she married Deke. She
had
to,” Morgan added. “Unwed mothers didn’t have a great life back in those days … and with Shorty dead, she didn’t have many options.”

“I guess it was lucky for Lily that Deke died two weeks after they married,” Fiona said. “At least she got the benefits of being the widow of the Sheriff.”

“Was it luck or something else?” Morgan went over to the book about Dead Water and flipped to the section with the pictures. She brought the book over to the table, holding it out. “See this picture of Lily with the garden in the background?”

“Umm hmm.”

“Well, look at that plant, right there.” Morgan tapped on a section of the photo. “Do you recognize it?”

Celeste pressed her face closer to the book. “That looks like wolfsbane!”

“It
is
wolfsbane,” Morgan said. “And we all know what wolfsbane can do.”

Celeste nodded. She knew exactly what wolfsbane could do—it was used in herbal remedies, but you had to be very careful because if used in excess it could act as a poison. Morgan had some growing in her herb garden back home and had been falsely accused of using it to kill someone earlier in the year.

“Emma said that Lily was an herbalist … she knew exactly how to use this plant,” Morgan added.

“So, she must have figured out that Deke killed Shorty under false pretenses. Maybe Deke even forced her to marry him somehow. But it looks like she might have gotten back at him in the end.” Celeste chuckled.
 

“I’m kind of glad she did. Deke sounds like a jerk,” Fiona added.

“So she wanted vindication for Shorty,” Cal said. “To let the world know he wasn’t the robber.”

“Wait. If Deke was the robber, then does that mean the treasure isn’t buried in Shorty’s mine?” Fiona looked at them uneasily and Celeste’s stomach sank.
 

What if the treasure wasn’t even in the mine and this was all a wild goose chase?

“But then what would the key be for?” Celeste asked.

“Actually, the perfect place for Deke to hide the treasure would be in Shorty’s section of the mine. That way he’d be able to come up with extra evidence that Shorty did it, in case anyone else came sniffing around,” Cal offered.

“That makes sense,” Celeste said. “That explains why Shorty’s ghost couldn’t see the markings on the wall—Deke must have made them
after
he killed Shorty.”

“There’s only one way to find out for sure.” Cal pushed his chair back and stood. “We need to take a trip to Dead Water and ask Lily.”

***

Jolene’s heart pounded against her ribcage as she ran down the tunnel, the flashlight illuminating only a couple of feet in front of her. The sounds of Style’s voice echoing through the chambers behind her telling her to come back made her run faster.

A split in the tunnel made her stop short.
 

Left or right?

She bolted into the tunnel on the right and ran smack dab into a wall of hard muscle and flesh.