Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) (10 page)

T
he lady behind the counter returned. She didn’t hand the
book to Amanda; she handed it straight to me.

I dipped my head in a gentlemanly way. I
even tried to keep my attention on the lady as I thanked her,
though every part of me wanted to run to the car, ditch Amanda, and
find out what was in the book. I controlled myself until we were
out of the library and heading back towards the car. Then the
temptation of what lay between the worn and aged leather-bound
pages got too much for me. I untied the two leather strings holding
the book in place reverently, and I opened it in my hands.

Jesus Christ, I thought to myself, sweat
prickling over my brow and collecting between my fingers. This
was... it was.... I flicked through the pages, my attention
consumed by the possibilities that lay within. In meticulous
cursive handwriting, with even more meticulous and detailed
drawings interspersed from page to page, Arthur Stanton talked
about the remaining four Stargazer Globes with all the authority
and detail of a man who'd held them.

I shook my head, overcome by the realization
of what I had in my hands. That would be when Amanda made a noise.
It was halfway between a hiccup and the quietest of screams. I was
ready to dismiss it as one of the numerous and annoying squeaks she
made all the time, as if she was one of those children’s toys you
squeeze to get them to make humorous high-pitched squeals.

“
Um, do you think that guy wants something
from us?” she asked, voice quiet and light.

I glanced up, and the first thing I saw was
a middle-aged man in tweed with a fine woolen scarf. I snorted and
didn’t bother to answer Amanda.

“
Ah, Sebastian,” she tried again, this time
her voice far higher and far tighter, “Are you going to do
something?”

I snapped the book closed, ready to tell
Amanda to grow up and stop being so pathetically paranoid. The only
thing the man in tweed looked like he wanted to do was rationalize
our finances and sell us stock in his company.

That would be when I saw the other man, the
one walking across the road to us, the one who was about 6’5, with
a stocky build, a thickset neck, and a face that looked like it had
been bashed in more times than a piñata.

“
Get in the car.” I pressed the keys into
her hand, and after the barest moment of hesitation, gave her the
book also. “Lock the doors.”

I didn’t bother to turn to check to see
whether she was doing as I told her to; if there was one thing I
knew about Amanda Stanton, it was she was pretty good at running
away from trouble. There was no doubt that trouble with a capital T
was walking across the road to me. I shook my head, realizing my
only weapon was tucked under the driver seat of my car, not that I
could whip out some guns and start shooting at this guy on a sleepy
British village high street. But this guy wouldn’t have the same
compunction.

I saw him reach for something behind him,
saw the glint of metal as he pulled it out from the back of his
pants. Fuck, this was it.

I ducked behind a lamppost, for all the
protection it would give me, before the guy could start shooting.
As he did, the first bullet ricocheting off the pavement by my
feet, I heard screeching tires. The part of my brain that wasn’t
currently over-invested in trying not to get shot, realized they
sounded like my tires; and yes, I was enough of a car-man to know
what my own tires and the rumble of my own engine sounded
like.

My Lexus screeched to a halt in front of
me, whatever bullets my attacker had fired moments before slamming
into the doors and body of the vehicle. Amanda was in the driver’s
seat and she was screaming like a banshee, hat still on her head,
wide red lips all I could see as she navigated around some of the
most powerful and high-pitched screams I’d ever heard. Somehow she
kept it together enough to lean back and open the door for me. I
didn't need any more incentive. Keeping low, I rolled into the back
of the car, slamming the door behind me and smacking the back of
Amanda’s seat as I shouted at her to “go, go, go.”

Still screaming, she hit the accelerator,
tires screeching on the uneven cobble of the village street as a
new set of bullets slammed into the side of my car. I was no fool,
and all of my cars had reinforced metal plating; considering my
job, well, my other job, it was a given.

Amanda had her foot anchored down all the
way down on the accelerator, and my car's engine revved with a
great roar as I caught sight of the thick-necked goon running
towards us. His gun was aimed right through the glass at Amanda. I
jumped up, moving between the front seats, and tackled Amanda as I
tried to cover her body with mine. The car swerved as her hands
slipped off the steering wheel, but I managed to grab it and yank
it hard to the right before we could careen into several parked
vehicles. More importantly, the bullet meant for Amanda's head
missed its mark and lodged itself into the driver’s head rest. I
didn’t let Amanda up, one arm still pressing down roughly on her
back, my other hand latched on the steering wheel, but I was sure
to yell at her to keep her foot flat on the fucking
accelerator.

Several more bullets whizzed past, one
smashing into the side of my driver’s-side mirror, but in a moment
I managed to turn a corner, leaving the thick-necked goon
behind.

I still didn't let Amanda up, keeping my own
head low, about level with the dash-board as I checked wildly from
side-to-side in case more bastards with guns popped out of the
woodwork. Then, driving so fast that the car got some air time as
we went over a speed hump designed to slow people down before they
got into town, I removed my hand from Amanda's back.

I grabbed her hat, throwing it into the
passenger seat. She straightened up, body convulsing as she shook
wildly with fright.

I thought I’d seen the gamut of her possible
expressions, but this was a new one. Her eyes were as wide as they
could be, a couple of tears even streaking down the sides of her
cheeks, her lips open and still with fear.

While I was intending to make some tough
wisecrack or point to the passenger seat and tell her to move over,
I paused. “It's all right, Amanda, it's all right,” I
managed.

She looked back at me, wide eyes closing a
touch as she wiped at her tears with her wrist. She kept her foot
on the accelerator through it all.

I indicated the passenger seat with a
flick of my head. “Try to keep your foot on the accelerator, and
move over.”

“
I can drive.” She turned her head back to
the road, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands while my hand
still held on tightly at the top.

“
Trust me, honey, we don't need your type
of driving.” I didn’t let go of the steering wheel, but neither did
she.

“
I don't know....” She took a rattling
breath that pushed her chest out and up against the tight linen of
her shirt.

Distracting though it was, I only looked
down briefly.

“
I think we just need you shooting more,”
she finished her sentence.

“
I can shoot and drive,” I snapped back,
wondering what kind of treasure hunter couldn't.

Before I was ready to push the issue, she
swerved, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands and using her
wrist to pivot my hand off. Before I could complain, I heard a
gunshot, and my remaining passenger-side mirror was shot off.

“
Fuck,” I managed tersely, peering through
the window and seeing another massive goon with a gun, twisting on
his feet as he stood in the middle of the road, tracking us as
Amanda zoomed past him and firing off several more bullets that
slammed into the trunk of the car.

I didn't bother wasting my ammo on him, as
Amanda sped up and shot around the corner, blocking us from
view.

Without another word of protest, I climbed
into the passenger seat. “Put your seat belt on,” I commanded her,
though I didn’t even bother to touch my own; if we faced any more
brazen, gun-toting criminals smack bang in the middle of the road,
I would need to have the freedom of movement to twist around in my
seat and shoot from any angle. I didn’t bother grabbing Amanda’s
hat and handing it to her either, reasoning it was fairly obvious
people were on to us.

Soon, with Amanda’s impressively quick and
competent driving, we hit one of the far narrower but less exposed
roads. There was a long ditch on one side that led down to
farmland, and on the other side the woods and hedgerow pressed up
to the verge.

I didn't speak, and surprisingly Amanda
didn't attack me with a volley of questions. Instead, keeping one
hand on the steering wheel at all times, she picked glass out of
her hair and threw it out the gaping hole in her window. There were
several superficial cuts over the back of her hands, and a light
one across the top of her head along her hairline. Through it all,
she kept driving, and though I didn't want to admit it, Amanda was
pretty good.

With the woods growing even thicker on
both sides of us and the road growing ever more circuitous, Amanda
let out a big sigh that jumped around a bit, as if it was turning
into a hiccup at the end.

Before I could say something suitably macho
and maybe comforting, she took a surprise turn. Rather than
continuing along the road, as I thought she would, she took a
sudden turn onto a gravel road that led up through the woods. She
slowed down enough to give the tires traction on the new surface,
but then sped up halfway through the turn, hardly losing any speed
at all. As I didn’t have my seat belt on, I had to fight hard to
keep myself steady, legs sprawling out everywhere, shirt even
riding up and over my belt.

“
What the hell are you doing? Where are we
going?” I snapped out my words as soon as I had steadied
myself.

Face still pressed with concentration,
cheeks dry from where they’d once been splattered with tears,
Amanda didn’t take her eyes off the road. “We are going to the
first location,” she said through a sniff, “Before anyone else can
get to it.”

“
Sorry?” I asked, grabbing a hand at my
tie, loosening it, and chucking it into the back seat along with
Amanda's hat.

“
Keep up, Sebastian, we are going to get
the first globe, before anyone else can.” She still didn’t take her
eyes off the road. Which was probably a good thing, because my
expression was some ridiculous mix between impressed and
incredulous. Was she joking, was she about to take us to the
police? Or was this irascible, overemotional chick taking the
driving seat and getting us to where we needed to be well before
I’d even thought of it?

Rather than question her, I leaned back
between the seats and tried to find the leather-bound journal I’d
seen on the back seat as I’d rolled into the car earlier. I twisted
around as I searched for it, my leg pressed up against Amanda's
arm. When I got it, and twisted back into my seat, I fancied I
caught her staring at my butt. “Enjoy the view?” I asked as I
grabbed both hands to either side of my suit jacket and tugged it
until it was neat.

“
Fuck off,” she exploded.

I grinned as I began to search through the
old, yellowed pages of the journal.

Before I could waste my time searching
through every page for the clue that would tell me that Amanda was
on track here, she reached over, eyes still on the road, snatched
the book out of my hands and pressed it up against the top of the
steering wheel as she flicked through it. She found the page and
handed it back to me without a single word.

I let my eyebrows press up and tipped my
head to the side as for the second time that day I forced myself to
reassess Miss Amanda Stanton.

As Amanda continued along the road, as
fast as she could considering the massive potholes and the uneven
terrain, I read the page she’d handed to me. There was a scant,
quick picture of a church drawn on one side with the caption “Holy
Church of St Carlotta.” I narrowed my eyes. Not only had I never
heard of a church by that name, as far as I knew there wasn't a
saint by that name either. I kept reading, and on the other side of
the page there were several numbers jotted down; they looked like a
set of directions, six points in space that were obviously meant to
be the three-dimensional equivalent of an X marks the spot. I ran
my tongue over my teeth and swore quietly.

Before I could ask Amanda whether she was
sure she was on the right road and whether she was sure this church
existed at all, we crested a hill, the thick, dense woods falling
back beside us to reveal a naked hilltop. Right on top of that
hilltop, with the woods encroaching on all sides, sat a rundown
church. There was a small graveyard off to one side, covered in old
leaves and fallen-down branches that had cracked most of the
remaining headstones. In front of the church was an old turning
circle, the gravel dirty and mostly washed away, deep cracks and
grooves channeling through it as god knows how many years of water
had run its course. In the center of the turning circle was an old
stone statue. What it had once been, I had no idea; it was almost
completely crumbled. Next to the base stood a round chunk of stone
that might have once been a head, and as Amanda brought the car to
a stop next to it, I realized that what remained of the base of the
statue was a torso and a single hand raised in prayer, the rest of
it being eaten away by age and weather.

Amanda turned the engine off, pulling the
handbrake up, but I put my hand over hers as she did. Not even
bothering to turn to her, my gaze still locked on the crumbled
statue outside, I shook my head. “Don't. Leave it down; it will be
a quicker getaway.”