Chapter 18
18
Monday, 10:45 a.m.
“ A day and a half ago I was in Palm Beach,” Stoney said, holding the heavy blue blanket close around him. With the huge parka he wore beneath that, he looked like a giant, grouchy grizzly bear. “There is snow outside, Sam. Snow.”
She grinned at him before she went back to studying her map. “Just think of it as solid water.”
“That’s stupid. This is stupid. Addison wants you to go after Will Dawkin’s stash, except he won’t help, he won’t admit it’s real, and he would actually prefer if nobody did anything but go bird hunting and help him count up his Picassos.”
“It’s complicated. And he promised me he wouldn’t shoot any birds.” Looking at the map in light of the new stuff she’d read about Will Dawkin yesterday, she could immediately eliminate two of the possible locations she’d marked. “But at least I’m not going behind his back anymore.”
“Oh, yay. What are you supposed to do when – if – you find the damn thing, then? Go tell Addison you figured out his stupid challenge so he can pat you on the head and decide you’re trustworthy enough to marry?”
“This is not a game show,” she retorted. “And I haven’t decided what I’ll do when – when – I figure it out. Yoda knows there’s no ifs and tries allowed.” She traced the old road with one finger, winding in and out of the hills and valleys, touching villages and curving close to the handful of massive estates, including Canniebrae, that dotted the area.
Will Dawkin had been a commoner, the bastard son of a tanner and a priest’s daughter. The Church – and her dad – had not been kind to her. The locals, though, had taken her in because she’d apparently been much nicer and more charitable than her father. She’d taken a position at The Bonny Lass back when it had been a traditional coaching inn. Will Dawkin had spent most of his evenings there growing up.
His life of crime had begun when several of the local lords, in the wake of the Battle of Culloden, had begun throwing nearby tenants and cotters off their rented lands in an effort to keep their own properties solvent. Having more sheep equaled allowing fewer people to clutter up their grazing land. The Highland Clearances was when Will Dawkin had started holding up coaches and riders and robbing them. Despite the turmoil, the village of Orrisey had remained intact. Hell, from what she could tell, it had thrived, even back then.
Now it had that old Highlands charm with a second-place award to prove it, and wi-fi and internet despite nearby Balmoral. It had both a quaint bakery and a high-end dress shop where even a professional shopper like Eerika had found something worthy of purchase.
“You figured it out, didn’t you?” Stoney said into the quiet attic.
Samantha blinked, lifting her head. “What?”
“I recognize that look on your face, honey. You and your maps – you figured it out. You know where the loot is.”
“I know where I think it is.” She tapped the outline she’d made of The Bonny Lass. “Finding out for sure will take some finesse.”
Stoney made his way over to where she sat. “Isn’t that the pub?”
“It is now. Two hundred fifty years ago it was an inn where Will Dawkin’s mother worked in the kitchen.”
“That’s a little obvious, don’t you think? Wouldn’t the Redcoats or whoever would have known that and stomped through there a long time ago?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” She looked at the map again. “Somewhere really close to The Bonny Lass, but not obvious. Somewhere that could be protected.” She folded the map, old, familiar tension and anticipation pulling at her. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug, and she was definitely still addicted. “Wanna go for a drive?”
He shook his head. “I find the jobs. I don’t go on the jobs. Plus, snow.”
She could have used another pair of savvy, cynical eyes who knew what to look for. At the same time, Stoney’s people didn’t exactly hail from the Highlands. Him poking around would be even more noticeable than her doing it – and she had a lot more practice at blending in and being unnoticed, anyway. “Are you going to stay up here, then? The notebook I’m using for cataloguing is on the gaming table.”
“Addison’s not worried I’ll pilfer something and sell it to one of my contacts?” He picked up the notebook and flipped it open.
“ I’m not worried.”
“Maybe, then. Or Mercia invited me to the library for cocoa at eleven o’clock. The library has a fire. Plus, cocoa.”
Samantha laughed. “The great Walter Barstone, tamed by a cold day.” She offered him a fist, which he bumped with his own. “Mercia likes old timey card games. So do you. Play one with her. I’ll be back soon.”
“Take a walkie-talkie.”
“Roger that.”
Rick had vacated the house hours ago to head back down to The Bonny Lass with Donner. That Japanese guy deserved all the trouble Rick decided to send in his direction. On top of the trouble he was making for Addisco, Mr. Kigomo was also making things more difficult for her, because she would have preferred being able to visit The Bonny Lass without Rick and Donner glowering at her.
Stomping into her heavy hiking boots, she tucked her jeans into the tops to help keep her feet warm and dry. A heavy sweater of nondescript olive went over her black Godzilla T-shirt, and a gray, fleece-lined coat over that. Lined leather gloves and a wool hat later, and she looked ready for either the Iditarod or an REI commercial – anything but a joint casing expedition and a possible B and E.
Maybe that was a good thing, though. The village was on Canniebrae land – Rick’s land. A snatch and grab followed by a quick getaway wouldn’t work, and she had the feeling that what she might find would be way more complicated than any of her previous jobs, anyway. Whatever she decided, she was going to have to be able to stand by it. And to live with it.
Yule arrived at the front door as she trotted down the last flight of the main staircase. She had no idea how the butler knew when to be where, especially with the power still out and a lot of dark, murky hallways to contend with, but he was really good at it. “If anybody asks,” she said, adjusting the black wool cap to cover her ears, “I’m heading down to the village for a while. One of those pairs of shoes I saw is calling to me.”
“The jeep’s already gone down,” Yule returned, “and the truck won’t start again. Shall I have Briggs saddle Lily for ye?”
“No,” she blurted, probably with too much volume. “Don’t worry about it,” she continued. “I go running all the time. A walk’ll be nice.”
He freed a sturdy, straight stick from the umbrella stand. “The snow’s beginning to melt. Take a walking stick to help ye with yer footing, and dunnae stray from the road, Miss Sam.”
Straying from the road was exactly what she meant to do. “Thanks, Yule. I’ll be careful. I’ve got a walkie-talkie with me, just in case.” She patted her right pocket.
Nodding, he pulled open the door. “I’ll tell Mrs. Yule to have a nice hot soup ready for ye when ye get back. I reckon ye’ll need it.”
She stepped outside and headed down the drive, the thin layer of snow there not so much crunching as collapsing into a slick, icy mud under her feet. Well, this was going to be fun. The walking stick was going to be a lot handier than she’d expected, even if it did kind of make her feel like Gandalf the Grey.
Her breath clouded when she exhaled, but so far, the inhale still felt refreshing. A mile down the road she might be ready to go Donner party (the cannibal one, not the dinners at the lawyer’s house), but so far so good. This road merged into the old one at the foot of the hill where Canniebrae perched, but today seemed like a bad day to try a shortcut. She stuck to the winding road.
Without the confining car or the horror of horseback riding, she felt more of a sense of place. Clumps of snow plopped down from the branches above her, where somewhere up ahead a fox yapped and a crow cawed in response. The late summer birds had probably been stunned by the early snow, but the year-round animals had to be more used to this kind of weather.
As for her, she’d done a job in Paris in January that had nearly frozen off her fingers, and one in Helsinki where staying still enough to fool the motion sensors had been almost impossible because she’d been shivering so badly. Both of those gigs had involved climbing up the outside of a building, which had meant no parka, thin gloves, and the only good part of it – a full face mask.
Now her cheeks were cold, but the rest of her felt downright toasty. If this was how the semi-honest life was going to treat her, so far it was pretty nice. Especially the nights. Last night she hadn’t been hanging onto a ledge by her fingertips; she’d been hanging onto Rick. Nothing could beat that ride.
Aside from all the other thoughts traipsing through her mind as she turned up the old road to head toward the village, the Scottish Highlands were really pretty, and ancient, and not quite peaceful as much as biding its time, and she liked it here. Sure, she’d go stir crazy after a couple of weeks, but right now she was still discovering – or rediscovering – priceless works of art in the attic and elsewhere.
It took nearly half an hour, but the village finally came into sight through the trees. Samantha stopped to pull out the second and third pages of her map. The landscape looked a little different in the snow, but as long as there were no open holes she didn’t know about, tracking down her X-marks shouldn’t be too difficult.
Unfortunately, MacGyver the jeep was still parked at The Bonny Lass, which eliminated any plans of wandering in to ask to see how they stored their whisky in hopes of seeing the cellar. She could wait out in the cold for Rick and the lawyer to leave, skip the pub, or invent another reason for snooping around, or start with theory number two about the nearby hiding place. She clapped her gloved hands together. Number two it was, then.
Sighting the shallow ravine just west of the village, she lined her map up with the village’s main street and then trekked around through the deeper snow until she came up on the far side. She stabbed through the white stuff with the walking stick, using it as a solid ground detector, and followed the trail she made down to the ravine’s floor.
Back in Jacobite times, which would have been just prior to Will Dawkin’s appearance on the local roadways, churches frequently had hidey holes and escape tunnels. Those had been mostly for Catholics when Henry the Eighth had gone Protestant, but later they’d come in handy for anti-British agitators and supporters of old King James the Second and bonnie Prince Charlie. Those holes and tunnels would also have been useful for any thieves and smugglers looking to keep stolen goods somewhere safe.
The question was, had The Bonny Lass once had an escape tunnel, and did it still have one? She crouched, digging the stick into the side of the ravine. With the snow this wasn’t going to be easy, damn it. She would have to hope the warming trend continued so she could take another look tomorrow or the next day. If an opening was down here, it would be well hidden even under optimal conditions; anything obvious would have been found a long time ago.
She searched for twenty minutes, until the cold began sinking into her fingers despite the thick gloves. Tucking her hands beneath her armpits, Samantha straightened – then ducked again as a pair of heads came into view on the higher ground beside the ravine above her. Villagers on their way to lunch or not, she did not want to have to make up a story about why the future Lady Rawley was sneaking around in a ravine.
“Nae, I dunnae see anything,” a male voice said. “Are ye certain she didnae decide it was too cold and turn back?”
“I sent Freddie up to the widow’s walk,” Yule’s slightly distorted, mechanical-sounding voice came. “She’s nae come back up the hill.”
“Why do the bloody tourists think this is Disneyland?” the nearer voice returned. “We dunnae have animatronic deer, and the trails dunnae have railings or loos.”
The radio crackled again. “Miss Sam’s a clever lass. Keep yer eyes open. If ye’re listening, Jamie, dunnae tell his lordship. Nae until Rob makes his way along her trail to the village to see if he comes across her. And ye keep looking, Duncan.”
“Aye. I meant to spend the day drinking, but tramping through slush is just as fine, I reckon,” the close-by voice took up again.
“Thank ye, Duncan.”
“And what aboot the cousin, Yule?” Duncan returned. “He still looking for trouble?”
“Aye. But be patient. They’ll nae be here much longer.”
“He needs to go back to selling cars. It’s nae wise for a man to be so greedy.”
“He’s still hunting about the house, Duncan. I doubt he has the smarts to move past pulling up floorboards.”
“Ye’d best be right about that, Yule.”
Samantha stayed where she was until the footsteps and voices above faded. That was how Yule always knew where to be, even in a sprawling house with iffy electricity. That was how the villagers kept in contact with each other and with Canniebrae, even with intermittent cell service and one wi-fi hot spot for miles around. They’d probably come up with the walkie-talkie solution years ago, and she’d thought she was so clever to have Stoney send a box of them up for the Canniebrae guests.
“Turtles are faster than you are, Sam,” she muttered to herself, too annoyed for a minute to even acknowledge that Yule and the Duncan guy had just confirmed that she was right. The entire village was part of this. Everybody knew about the treasure except for her, Reg, and the Viking. Well, just Reg and the Viking now, because she’d figured it out now – in theory, even if she hadn’t set eyeballs on anybody’s gold yet.
Taking out her own radio and plugging her earphones into it, she tapped the talk button twice, paused, then tapped it three more times. She counted to five, and the earbuds crackled twice. Letting out her breath, she switched to the channel two above three, which all the guests were using. She pressed the talk button again. “Stoney?” she whispered.
“I’m glad you haven’t forgotten everything,” his voice came back.
“I don’t forget anything.”
“Okay, okay. What’s up? And why are you whispering?”
“The villagers think I’m lost in a snow drift. They’re looking for me, and I don’t want to be discovered digging through mud looking for their gold.”
“ Their gold?” he repeated, instantly picking up on that, as she’d known he would.
“Later. They have their own walkie network. See if you can find the channel they’re using. Be discreet. Yule’s in on it, too. I don’t know who else might be.”
“Roger that. What are you going to do?”
“Get found.”
That done, she moved back to channel three, pocketed the headphones and the walkie-talkie in separate pockets, and scooted along the ravine until it shallowed out beyond the village. This puzzle had just gotten a lot more complicated. From what she could piece together, it wasn’t just the owner of The Bonny Lass who knew where Will Dawkin’s loot was and had also been benefitting from it. It was probably the entire village and everyone between there and Canniebrae. If she knew one thing, people hiding treasure didn’t want it discovered, they didn’t want it taken away, and they really didn’t want publicity about it.
Even if Rick knew some of this, which she assumed he did, he hadn’t known about the communication going on between his home and the village. If he had, he would have used it. And if he didn’t know just how many of his own employees were involved, then he couldn’t know all the facts. Yule knew Reggie and Eerika were looking for the treasure, which meant the entire village knew. A couple of those villagers might feel more threatened than others. This was all suddenly more serious than tracking down a long-forgotten sack of gold coins.
Another trio of men rounded a hill beyond her, and she sidestepped deeper into the trees. The good thing about the rapidly-melting slush was that tracks distorted and disappeared almost instantly. The bad thing about this was that the locals knew the area a lot better than she did.
Scrambling up the muddy, brush-tangled hill, she kept low and angled back east in the direction of Canniebrae. As soon as she cleared the village she found a sheltered, northern-facing slope, rolled down it to cover herself in snow and mud, and then hiked back onto the road.
She spied a couple of people eyeing her as she trudged past the jeep and up to The Bonny Lass’s door, but she busied herself with shaking off muck and pretended not to notice. With a last breath she pulled open the pub’s door and stomped inside.
“Oh, good,” she panted, as Rick saw her and practically leaped out of a booth to his feet. “You’re still here. I thought I was going to have to move in to The Bonny Lass, because I am not walking back up that hill.”
Rick reached her and caught her arm, and she leaned harder against him than she needed to. “What the hell happened?” he asked, the worry on his face making her feel a little guilty. But this was for his benefit, as much as it was for hers.
“I’ll fetch some hot cider, m’laird,” Jamie MacCafferty called, digging beneath the counter.
“Cocoa, if you have any,” she countered, letting Rick help unzip her heavy coat. “Yule warned me to stay on the road, but I saw a stag and decided to get closer so I could take some pictures, and then I tripped and rolled halfway down the mountain. The deer took off to go have a laugh with his deer friends, and it took me like half an hour to climb back up to the road.”
“I’m glad ye found it, lass,” The Bonny Lass’s owner said. “People do get lost out here permanently even on fine days. I’ll get ye yer cocoa.” He vanished into the kitchen, no doubt to announce on his own walkie that the idiot Yank had turned up on her own. That suited her just fine.
“He’s right, you know.” Rick hung up her coat by the door and then pulled off her wet gloves, taking her cold hands in his warm ones. “What were you thinking?”
“I had my walkie-talkie,” she returned, no longer having to fake her teeth chattering. “I wasn’t ready to give up and call ‘dumbass’ on myself yet.”
“Is it bad that I’m kinda happy you aren’t good at everything?” Donner said, pulling off the light jacket he wore and actually draping it over her shoulders.
“Wow. You do care,” she noted.
“No, I don’t. I just don’t want my wife hearing that I wasn’t being a gentleman.”
“I’m telling anyway. You gave me your jacket.”
“Good,” he retorted. “I’ll get extra credit points for this. And I’m loaning you my jacket.”
“Children,” Rick broke in, urging her into the booth and then sliding in next to her. “What actually happened?” he murmured, wrapping her into his arms and giving her a kiss on the temple to disguise the question.
“Exactly what I said,” she returned. “For all our sakes.” Two men and a woman sat at one of the other booths, just within earshot of any normal-voiced conversation. Until she knew differently, every person who lived in the village was part of some sort of treasure conspiracy.
“Great,” Donner muttered. “If you get me in troub—”
“Seriously, Tom,” she whispered, knowing that her using his first name would catch his attention. “Shut the fuck up.”
The attorney blinked. “Okay.”
“Until I fell down, it was actually a really nice walk,” she said in her normal tone as MacCafferty reappeared, a steaming mug in hand. “Thank you so much, Mr. MacCafferty. I think my bones may be frozen.”
He chuckled. “It’s Jamie to all, Miss Sam. Take small sips, or ye’ll burn yer mouth. I hope our scenery was worth it.”
“It is stunning out there. And I thought it was gorgeous even without the snow.”
“Ye should see it here when we’ve a blanket of the stuff and nae just a wee dusting.”
Samantha laughed. “That was quite a wee dusting.”
“Och. Nae for the Highlands.”
He offered to dish her up a bowl of soup, and she accepted with a grateful nod. “You are a kind man.”
“Feeling any warmer?” Rick asked, still holding her close.
“Starting to.” Her left side, pressed against him, felt definitely warmer than the right. Her fingers, wrapped around the warm mug, began to tingle as feeling thawed into them. “Did I interrupt the Japan thing?”
“No,” Rick answered. “I think we’ve got it straightened out. We’re just waiting for a confirmation email.”
“Did we win?”
He shrugged. “We’re happier than they are, I imagine.”
“That’s a win in my book.”
“Yes. Which means weather permitting, Tom will be leaving in the morning.” Rick lifted an eyebrow, clearly inviting her to respond in kind.
Dammit. She needed Stoney right now. Especially if what she’d just figured out was true. There was a big difference between a hidden treasure and a protected treasure. After some of the conversation she’d overheard earlier, the villagers were really concerned with keeping their stash secret. Considering that Rick was being all, “figure things out, if you please, but I won’t help you do it,” an actual ally like Stoney was pretty valuable.
“Samantha?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know what it means. Stoney hitched a ride in. Are you going to make him hike out?”
“He’ll fly out.”
She frowned. “Technically Donner was here a full day before Stoney showed up.”
“I came on business, you know,” the lawyer protested. “Not to earn you groupie points.”
“Stoney is not a groupie. And here is here, whatever the reason. I want fair time.”
Now Rick was frowning, too. “This is supposed to be our holiday. Anything else you may be up to is between you and me.”
“And Reggie,” she added. “But we can talk about that later.”
“Mm hm. Tom, refresh your email, if you please. I’d like to get back to Canniebrae.”
From Rick’s tone he was annoyed, and while she got why, there were also a couple of things he didn’t know yet. “Me, too,” she seconded aloud, taking another sip of the near-scalding cocoa. “I’m deliriously imagining a nice, hot shower.”
Donner hit a couple of keys on his laptop. “And…confirmed,” he said, then punched a fist into the air. “You got ‘em.”
“We got ‘em,” Rick countered, his expression easing into a smile.
Because he’d gone to the trouble of making it for her, Samantha downed half of Jamie’s really tasty chicken and potato soup. She hadn’t felt nearly as cold as she’d looked, but she knew how important it was to play the game well. Finally Donner gathered his things, and Rick helped her back into her damp coat.
“You should wear mine,” he rumbled. “It’s dry.”
She put a hand against his chest. “Thanks, tough guy, but I’m not that delicate.”
Rick tilted her chin up with his fingers and kissed her mouth. “But you are that precious.”
That warmed her up very nicely. “You’ve already got me, Brit,” she said, zipping up his coat before he could take it off and give it to her. “You don’t need to make me all swoony.”
“As my youngest would say,” Donner commented, holding the door open for them, “’Ew. Get a room.’”
That was probably what Olivia would say, but then she’d just turned ten and hadn’t discovered boys yet. Olivia was a normal kid, as were Mike and Chris, Donner and Katie’s other two kids, and all of them still fascinated Samantha. By the time she’d turned Olivia’s age she’d acquired Rolexes, rings, bracelets, and necklaces right off of people while she smiled at them and asked for directions, or help finding a parent, or cab fare, or anything to get them distracted. “Ew, get a room” was normal kid vocabulary, and she’d never been a normal kid.
Donner actually climbed into the Jeep’s back seat without her having to challenge him to an arm-wrestling contest for the shotgun position. Maybe the “Tom” thing had freaked him out more than he wanted to let on. But hey, the front seat was the front seat, even if the steering wheel was on the wrong side.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Rick asked, glancing at her as he backed MacGyver out of its parking spot.
“That depends on whether you want onner-Day to know about the reasure-tay and the ighwayman-hay,” she answered.
“Jesus, what are you, twelve?” the attorney grumbled.
“You implied this was a matter of safety,” Rick cut in, before she could give Donner a few more choice words in pig-Latin. “I’m afraid your safety trumps my sense of honor. Spill.”
Well, now she was going to feel really crappy if she was wrong about this. “Yeah. Okay. I don’t have any proof, but here goes my theory. If you know I’m on the wrong track, say something.”
“I—”
“Not you,” she aimed at the back seat.
Samantha shook out her hands. She liked figuring things out. She was good at it. Usually, though, the problem was how to get into somewhere unseen, grab a thing that wasn’t hers, and get out again. She might ask Stoney to round up some mirrors or a hand-held EMP device or something, but generally she kept her solutions to herself. Gabbing about them made things more dangerous for her. But she wasn’t a solo act any longer. She had to be a team player.
“Okay,” she repeated. “Will Dawkin hid his stash somewhere in or under The Bonny Lass, because he was comfortable there. He knew the people, and he knew the area. More importantly, the villagers took in his mom when her dad threw her out for being pregnant. So, when he started getting too famous and too hunted he took what he needed and got out of Dodge before he could get the people he cared about in trouble.”
No interruptions so far, but she hadn’t gotten to the tricky stuff. “When he left, he told his mom where he’d hidden the rest of his booty. I assume one of them drew a map. Then, because she felt grateful to the villagers and couldn’t risk her own safety by suddenly going from cook to rich lady, she told them where the cache was hidden. All of them.”
“How much loot are we talking about?” Donner asked.
“A lot. Will Dawkin really didn’t like the upper classes, and he had a long career as far as highwaymen go. Anyway, at first the villagers had to be really careful, because it was a tough time to be a Highlander. They used just enough to keep the village intact, the rents paid, and everybody fed and housed. After all, cash on the laird’s land belongs to the laird – or he could use the excuse of finding the stolen loot to have everybody arrested and use the village land for sheep like most of his neighbors were forced to do.”
“But the statute of limitations expired a long time ago,” the lawyer countered.
“And as long as nobody blabs, it’s still free money. No taxes, no keeping a portion while the rest goes to the government because it’s not just gold but antiquities. It’s been keeping the village going for over two hundred years, and they’ve been smart enough about it to slide into the Second Quaintest Village position instead of going all the way to the top.” She grimaced. “It probably scared the shit out of them when you found their stash,” she said, looking over at Rick. “But you were a kid with a sick mom, and so when you promised never to say a word about any of it, they trusted you.”
“After they impressed upon me how important it was to keep their secret,” he said, the first time he’d interjected anything during her entire recital.
She nodded. “They were taking a chance. You were the future laird, after all.”
“We came to an agreement. I still think it took them years to relax again.” Rick blew out his breath. “I didn’t come back because of…because of my mum, but they wouldn’t know that. Who knows what they expected, and how long they’ve been waiting for disaster.”
“You didn’t realize that.” Pulling off a glove, she ran her fingers along his cheek. “But now Reggie’s shouting to everyone that he wants to find the treasure. And Eerika wants a reality show where finding the loot would probably be her hook.”
“He hasn’t gone down to the village since he got here.”
Oh, boy . “I wasn’t the first one to come up with the walkie-talkie idea.”
Rick slammed on the brakes, nearly sending them skidding off the road. “Someone in my house is feeding information to the village?” he snapped, the leather covering the steering wheel creaking as he clenched it through his gloves.
“I only figured that out this morning when I heard Yule on a radio asking if anybody had stumbled across me. I think he was worried I’d gotten lost.”
“Yule. My own bloody butler. He is so—”
“Two hundred fifty years, Rick,” she interrupted. “It’s the reason they have nice shops, quaint houses and B and B’s, and a good school. They’ve used that money way more wisely than most people would. Nobody’s driving Aston-Martin’s but you.”
He snapped his jaw closed again. “That was a little uncalled for.”
“I know. Just making a point here.”
Rick slammed his hand on the gear shift, then shoved it into reverse to back onto the road again. “I get it. I’ll ask you to stop digging, then.”
“Done,” she returned promptly. “But I’m not the problem. They don’t know that I know stuff. Reggie and the blonde leading him around by the dick are the problem.”
“Then I’ll close the house this afternoon.”
“If Reggie’s serious about this, which he seems to be, he’ll be up here again as soon as your back’s turned, and you know it.”
“I know it. I was hoping you’d come to a different conclusion.” The swearing Rick started after that was pretty impressive, even for him. She sat back and waited until he started forming regular words again. “I just finished dealing with another man whose greed outweighed his common sense,” he snapped. “It…irks me to have to buy off my own cousin for the same reason.”
“Then talk to him. He’s not stupid. Do you really think he’d be willing to risk a relationship with you for some trinkets? I mean, why not just tell him that most of the money is probably gone?”
“Eighteen years ago, the crates still looked pretty substantial,” Rick rumbled.
“Reggie doesn’t need to know that.” She scowled. “I mean, come on. These people are just trying to make their lives a little easier. It’s not like they’re Wakanda, hiding the real, ultra-sophisticated village under an invisibility shield. They’re looking out for their families. I wouldn’t take this gig.”
“Well, that would make me back off,” Donner commented.
“I can’t pass that on to Reg though, can I?” Rick said, his tone still curt.
His tone hurt a little. She knew he didn’t like her past, but now she couldn’t decide if he was ashamed of her, or if he disliked having to keep her secret from his family. Neither choice made her feel any better about any of it. “Gee, no. You’ll have to come up with another reason he shouldn’t pilfer your tenants’ nest egg. Pull over. I’m walking.”
“Your coat’s wet.”
“My cold, evil heart will protect me. And it’s only a quarter mile. Stop the jeep.”
“We’re nearly back. Stomp off once we get up the hill.”
Samantha opened the jeep’s door. With a curse, Rick slammed on MacGyver’s brakes. As soon as she stepped the rest of the way out, Samantha slammed the door shut again. The jeep paused for a second, then continued up the road toward the house.
She let out her breath, fogging the air around her head. If Donner hadn’t been in the car, she had the feeling that wouldn’t have gone quite as smoothly. None of this – the highwayman treasure, Rick’s cousin, the villagers – had anything to do with her. All the same, her past seemed to be jumping into the middle of everything they did or said about any of it.
Maybe because of who she’d been, who she mostly still was except for the stealing part, she didn’t think Reggie would convince very easily. Like Rick had said, any offer of money to dissuade Reggie would probably just convince him that his take from the loot would be worth more, and that Rick viewed him as nothing but a greedy road bump.
Looking over the rise in the direction of the vanished jeep she crouched, pulling the map from her jacket pocket and balancing her elbows on her knees. The loot had been at The Bonny Lass. She was certain of that. Rick had found it there eighteen years ago – which also meant that was where the famous missing map had indicated the treasure lay.
The villagers knew Rick still had the map, and even if they trusted their laird that meant two things outside their control pointed to the pub. If it had been up to her, she would definitely have moved the stash, and she would have done it the minute Rick and the Addisons had left the Highlands eighteen years ago. It still presented some problems, though.
First of all, the loot needed to be safe, protected, and somewhere strangers wouldn’t just stumble across it. Second, it had to be someplace where everybody could gather to either count the gold or get their share of it or vote on the money’s use without the scores of tourists who visited the Highlands’ Second Quaintest Village during the summer would think something weird and cultish was going on. The villagers couldn’t do all their business with walkie-talkies, after all. Third, it probably needed a secondary way in or out in case of emergency, and because traditionally it had had all that.
She tapped her gloved finger on the rectangle with the cross in the middle. The church. It met all the requirements, plus that choice had some irony attached to it. After all, Will Dawkin’s grandfather had been a pastor. Yep, her money was on Saint Andrew’s. Of course since she’d just agreed to give up the hunt it didn’t matter, but it would have been like putting together a puzzle except for the very last piece. At least now she felt like she could declare the mystery solved, with or without a hundred percent proof.
Well, mostly solved, anyway.