Search Me (25 page)

With a groan, I asked, “Great. Now what?”

“Well, we can hike up the rest of the way carrying all the equipment. Or we can do this.” Maddox stomped on the accelerator, and the truck barreled forward, twisting and bending the iron as it crashed against the gate. I gripped the side of my seat as the impact jostled and shook my body. Finally, we mowed through it, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

“I told ya this bad boy was an epic beast, didn’t I?” Maddox questioned, with a grin.

“Oh yeah, it’s epic,” I murmured, my teeth chattering as we rattled over the uneven ground.

Maddox threw the truck into low gear and gunned the engine, sending us lurching uphill. It had been a long time since any kind of vehicle had been up the path. “I sure as hell hope this isn’t private property. The last thing we need is a gun-fight with a crazy redneck guarding his land,” Maddox mused.

“Tell me about it.”

But then all worries about a ‘sawed-off shotgun wielding property owner’ faded as my eyes honed in on something in the distance. I leaned forward in my seat to stare out the windshield. Instead of a better view, I was rewarded with banging my head on the roof after we went over a bump. The pain was momentarily forgotten as the sight of a rocky formation came clearer in my view. “There it is!” I cried pointing.

“I’ll be damned,” Maddox replied. He gunned the accelerator, sending us careening towards the mouth of the cave. Once we had almost reached it, he let up on the gas and pulled us to a stop in a thicket of trees. After he killed the engine, he turned to me. “You wanna do the honors of calling Jensen?”

At the thought of speaking to Jensen, my throat closed up like I’d swallowed sawdust. I shook my head and croaked, “You.” Maddox nodded and took my phone. It was beyond bizarre that to speak to Jensen he had to call Dad’s cell-phone.

Someone answered on the second ring. “Yeah, it’s Maddox. We’re at the cave.”

I couldn’t hear the reply. I only saw the flash of frustration on Maddox’s face. “That’s a totally bullshit time frame! We have no idea what we’ll find when we get inside.” His expression darkened. “Fine. We’ll call you when we have the gold.” Then he hung up and threw my phone against the dashboard. It made a horrible crashing noise before falling to the floorboard. His eyes widened. “Shit! Sorry about your phone. Jensen just…really pissed me off.”

“What did he say?”

Maddox turned to me. “He’s giving us an hour to find the treasure and then call him back. An
hour
! He’s fucking crazy!”

My mouth ran dry at the prospect, and I had to fight the rising panic that threatened to overtake me. “That’s it?”

“Yeah. So we better get moving. Now.” In a flash, he hopped out the truck and slammed the door, causing me to jump. I craned my neck to watch him start snatching and grabbing the tools we would need. He worked like a man possessed. I guess he was battling some of the same feelings I had. As much as I wanted to lose it, I knew I couldn’t. I needed to be strong for Maddox and in the long term for my dad as well.

After grabbing my purse, I scrambled out the door and went around to the truck’s bed. Maddox mumbled under his breath a few expletives directed at Jensen. I tentatively murmured, “I can carry something.”

He jerked his head up, and his expression momentarily softened. “Sorry about going apeshit there for a minute.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. I think we both feel the same way about Jensen.”

“For some reason, it’s hard for me to believe you want to put a bullet between his eyes as much as I do.”

I shuddered at the picture he painted in my mind. “Eesh, well, I don’t know about that.”

Maddox grinned. “I didn’t think so.”

“Trust me, I want to hurt him.
A lot
. But more than anything, I want him punished—like more of a long, lengthy prison sentence where he doesn’t get to call all the shots. That would kill the control freak.”

Leaning over to hand me the lantern, Maddox asked, “And do you also hope that while he’s in prison, he gets made into some dude’s bitch?”

I couldn’t keep my cheeks from flushing as I ducked my head. “Maybe,” I finally admitted.

Laughter rolled through Maddox as he slung the shovel and a pick axe on his shoulder. “Aren’t you full of surprises?” With his free hand, he cuffed the back of my neck. “Let’s go get the treasure, and then figure out how to castrate Jensen later.”

After I tossed my purse over my neck and shoulder, I gripped the lantern handle tight. We waded through the high grass and weeds that flowed like ocean waves in the breeze. “Watch out for snakes,” Maddox cautioned, and I momentarily froze in fear. But my inner voice screamed,
Get it together, Lane. Quit acting like a scared little princess all the time.
So I picked one foot up and started again.

Debris blocked the cave’s entrance, illustrating just how long since anyone had been inside. Maddox and I sat the equipment down and started moving the rocks, branches, and tree limbs. After we had cleared enough to get in, along with having an easy getaway, we gathered up our tools and headed inside.

The lantern did little to brighten the way as we stepped into inky darkness. Our steps echoed off the walls, repeating eerily over and over as the sound came back to us. I shivered and stayed practically on top of Maddox’s back. The next thing I knew something sticky started clinging to me. I shrieked and dropped the lantern when I realized we were caught in an intricate weaving of spider webs. Sputtering, I clawed them off of my face and arms while Maddox casually swept them away. When I finally recovered, he shot me an amused look over his shoulder. “Guess you’re not a fan of spiders, huh?”

“You think you’d remember that from when we were younger. I always freaked out and made you kill them.”

He grinned and turned around. “Ah, that’s right. Jeez, you’re such a girlie girl.”

“Oh shut up,” I grumbled, snatching the lantern.

Reaching over, he plucked a blob of something out of my hair. I could only imagine it was more spider webs. “But I like you just the way you are.”

I smiled. “Aren’t you the charmer?”

It was then I turned my attention back to the cave. As I gazed around, my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Taking in the desolate surroundings, I tried imagining how it must’ve been for Pretty Fawn, sneaking away from her tribe in the middle of the night to this very cave with Avery Jensen. Plotting and planning with him about their future life once they could run away together. And then how horrible that last time must’ve been for her after he had been killed—the time when she came here to end her life. I also had to wonder when the Jensen family gene pool had gone sour enough to produce someone like our ex-con, attempted murderer, and kidnapper Jensen.

Maddox’s voice caused me to jump. “What are you thinking about?”

“Pretty Fawn and Avery Jensen being here.”

“Hmm, like if they ever got it on while in here?” he asked, wagging his eyebrows up and down.

“No, pervert, that’s not what I was thinking.” Although truth be told, the thought had crossed my mind…more than once. To change the subject, I asked, “So what’s the plan to find the sacred fire location, Captain?”

Maddox rolled his eyes. “Well, smartass, we need to find the center of the cave. According to the Cherokee Lore book, the sacred fire was part of the seven principle directions and always in the center.”

“Wow, you actually read and paid attention. I’m impressed.”

Ignoring me, he said, “Once we’ve semi-located the center, we need to start examining the ground. There has to be some kind of markings—a burned indention in the stone or cut rock—something to show there was once a fire.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

We forged ahead, trying to keep a measure of how far we were going and how far we’d come. It wasn’t easy with only the lantern and a flashlight to see with. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only about twenty minutes, I started to get antsy. The familiar feeling of panic crept into my mind, and I started having a hard time keeping it together. My mind started spinning.

I tried calming myself by drawing in a few cleansing breaths, but anger, along with frustration, started swelling in my chest. For some reason, I’d thought we would waltz into the cave and find some leftover logs or a pile of soot and ash strewn on the ground. How could I have been so stupid? Two hundred years had wiped away any remnants of Pretty Fawn and Avery’s meeting place. I started to feel the frail thread of my sanity snap. “This is just fucking great!”

Maddox’s mouth gaped open at my profanity-laced exclamation. I kicked a stray pebble, sending it scattering across the ground, before cocking my head to glare at him. “Yeah, you heard me. Twenty minutes of searching and nothing. Not even a cracked rock to alert us if we’re close. Just how are we
ever
supposed to find where the sacred fire was? We can barely see in here!”

“Lane, remember what we talked about staying strong and keeping it together,” he warned.

“That could take hours, and we’ll never find it in time. And Jensen…he’ll…my dad.” And that’s when the anger broke into raw emotion. The world spun around me, and I had to fight to find my breath. Even then, it came in ragged pants, and I felt like I would hyperventilate.

Maddox jerked me to him, crushing me against his chest. I gave over to my emotions then and let the desperate sobs roll through me. He only let me cry for a minute before his fingers gripped my chin and forced me to look into his eyes. “Now listen to me. We’ve come too long and too far for you to lose it now. I want to see the Lane who was going to kick Jensen’s ass not thirty minutes ago. Okay? And look, if we start running out of time, we’ll call Jensen and explain. That’s part of having a plan. Going to pieces is not. Got it?”

Snubbing and sniffling, I brought a hand across my running nose. “You’re right. Flaking out isn’t going to get us anywhere, so I’m sorry. And even though I said it before, I’ll really try to keep it together this time.”

He brushed his thumb across my cheekbone, surprising me once again with his tender side. “That’s my girl.”

I smiled up at him. “You know, after what you said in the truck and now here, you’re pretty good at the whole tough love thing.”

“Just be glad you weren’t in my platoon. I would’ve kicked the shit out you to get your focus back.” At my outraged look, he chuckled. “I’m military, remember?”

Smacking his arm, I said, “Yeah, well, don’t ever forget I’m a civilian.”

He grinned. “Point taken, Princess.” After rubbing his hands together, he gazed around the cave. “All right then. Let’s get back to work.”

Maddox then handed me another flashlight out of his bag. I clicked it on and started pointing the beam around the walls for any clues. While I did that, Maddox put the lantern down and then kept his flashlight beam to the ground and examined it for any burned marks.

A flicker of something with wings caught my attention. Shit, the last thing on earth we needed right now was a flock of rabid bats. I craned my head and shone the flashlight up to the top of the cave. I wheezed out of a sigh of relief when I didn’t see any winged creatures staring back at me with beady eyes.

But then my heart stopped and restarted. I squinted my eyes to see a discolored patch of the cave ceiling right above me. It looked…blackened.

“Maddox!” I cried.

He whirled around. “What?”

“Look up there. Does that kinda look like burned marks on the cave roof?”

Stepping over to me, he kept his gaze trained on the ceiling. “Yeah, it does.”

“Think it means the sacred fire was somewhere around here?” I tapped my foot along the ground, hoping that I would magically hear the hollow spot where the treasure was buried.

“I sure as hell hope it does.” Maddox brought his gaze off the cave ceiling and then swept it along the floor. He repeated the action several times. “Okay, it’s got to be somewhere along here.” With one foot directly in front of the other, he walked a small perimeter that could have allowed for the smoke stains.

Taking the shovel’s head, he started tapping it on the floor like I’d tapped my foot. I stood stock-still not wanting to miss the telltale sign. And then it happened. It wasn’t quite like the sound that hollowed out wood made, but it was definitely different. Maddox jerked his head up. His wide-eyed, open-mouthed gaze mirrored my own. “Shit, I think this is really it,” he murmured.

Wanting visual proof, I beamed my flashlight over to where the shovel was. I gasped at the sight of large fissures in the ground where the rock had once been cut or broken. Time and the elements had fused it almost back together. There were also the signs of burned indentations where the fire had been. “It is. Start digging,” I cried.

Maddox snorted. “This isn’t exactly dirt, you know.”

Excitement surged through me to where I squirmed all over like a puppy. “I don’t care what it is. Just make a hole or something.”

Giving me an epic eye roll, Maddox brought the hard edge of the shovel down on one of the cracks. He kept repeating the process, banging a trail that widened the crack until the rock started crumbling away. I dropped to the ground and started frantically picking up the broken pieces and flinging them behind me. Maddox joined in as well, freeing and hurling away rocks. Finally, we’d cleared away enough of them that I could actually see inside the hiding place.