Chapter 6 Secret in the Cistern #3
“Unless they came in on a glider.” Kaya’s voice rose uncertainly.
“If not, we’re right back to square one, wondering if aliens beamed them down.
” She nibbled on her lower lip, staring into the distance.
“You know what? Uncle Uri mentioned having a search-and-rescue team in the area for a few hours. He described how they split into groups and spread out to cover more ground. Some with scent dogs and some without dogs.”
“I remember him saying that.” For the life of her, April couldn’t make sense of it.
“Which doesn’t explain how Tiffany strolled out of the barn later that evening.
A dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times more powerful than humans.
If she had been there earlier, they would’ve picked up her trail. At least that’s what logic tells me.”
“Fine. Then let’s try being illogical for once.” Kaya’s eyes snapped with excitement. “I just thought of something crazy. So crazy it might actually make sense.”
“Let’s hear it.” April’s idea tank was running dry.
“What if Traitor Tiffany and her evil accomplice arrived with the search-and-rescue team?” Kaya waved a hand expressively.
“On the surface, it sounds illogical, but Uncle Uri said the search crew split into teams, and not all of them had dogs. Tiffany would’ve just needed to be in a group without dogs, right? ”
“That would put her on site, yes.” April was amazed by Kaya’s cleverness.
Her attention to detail, along with her ability to think outside the box, was going to make her a good attorney.
“It doesn’t tell us why she risked being detected by the scent dogs, who were actively searching for her that day.
It does, however, give us a plausible explanation for how she did it. Way to go, you!”
“Thanks! I enjoy being illogical.” Kaya did a little victory jig, then leaned back against the wall.
“We just have to figure out what was so urgent that Tiffany had to take care of it in the middle of a search party for herself…whoa!” She gave a yelp of surprise and straightened as the wall behind her moved.
The wooden panel she’d been leaning against swung open, creaking eerily on a trio of rusty hinges. It was more than a wall panel. It was a secret door!
“Stand back,” Bo demanded, leaping around Kaya with his gun drawn.
On the other side of the door was a steep flight of stairs. He produced a flashlight and aimed it downwards. “Can’t see much from up here.” He used the toe of his boot to nudge the head of an old rake into the yawning opening. It clattered down the stairs and landed with a muted thud at the bottom.
April moved to his side, flipping on her cell phone flashlight to further illuminate the space.
“Careful,” Bo warned. “We don’t know what’s down there.” He shielded her as best he could with his broad shoulders.
“Is anyone there?” April called.
No one answered, and she didn’t expect them to. The stillness in the building had an empty feel to it. “I’m going down,” she announced.
“After me,” Bo growled, moving down the stairs ahead of her with his weapon and flashlight clutched in front of him.
At the bottom, he must have found a light switch, because fluorescent light illuminated the area.
In the next moment, she heard him mutter, “Oh, boy!”
“Are you okay?” she called anxiously.
“Yep. All clear,” he called back. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
She hurried after him with Kaya right on her heels. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, all April could do was gape.
It was the storm shelter they’d been hoping to find while digging and scraping the floor in the barn above their heads.
They’d missed it because the concrete ceiling was five to six feet below ground level, only one way in and out.
The earthbound room was the antithesis of the weathered exterior of the barn.
It was clean and tidy. It was also wired with electrical power and water. There was air movement, too. April soon discovered why. A mini-split HVAC system was mounted on the far wall.
“What is this place?” She eyed the antique wooden table in the center of the room. Four leather chairs on wheels were rolled up to it. Storage boxes were piled everywhere, filling the room with the scent of paper and…was that smoke?
It was faint and stale.
A closer examination of the boxes showed scorched corners on a few of them. They’d been in a fire.
“As badly as I want to, we’d best not touch anything before the police arrive,” she cautioned.
“We don’t want to contaminate whatever this is and any trace evidence that might be clinging to it.
” Fingerprints, hairs, clothing fibers, and other things that might identify who’d been rummaging through the boxes.
“Um, April?”
The urgent note in Kaya’s voice made April spin around.
She found Kaya pointing at a label on one of the boxes.
“This stuff is from the County Clerk’s Office.
” It was the same place Tiana Dakota had been working when she’d gone missing.
A hand-written date was scrawled on a corner of the box, indicating that the box was more than thirty years old.
There was no way it was a coincidence. What was in the storm shelter might very well have something to do with why Tiana Dakota had gone missing.
April took out her phone and mechanically dialed Gil. Raising the phone to her ear, she waited impatiently while it rang.
There was a long-suffering note in his voice when he answered. “Do you ever take a break?”
“Not today, my friend.” Too much was at stake. “Listen, who’s on duty at the police station on Sundays?” She didn’t want to call 9-1-1 since the scene inside the barn technically didn’t qualify as an emergency.
“A skeleton crew.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Poor choice of words, considering everything that’s going on.”
“You have no idea,” she murmured.
“Why? What’s up?” he asked sharply.
“We’re at Callie Haywood’s barn. Being the team player that I am, I texted you about it earlier.” She rolled her eyes for Kaya’s benefit.
“That’s telling him, boss lady,” Kaya snickered.
“I saw your text,” Gil growled. “It read like an FYI, Miss I Never Rest. Are you calling for backup?”
“More like a bag and tag crew, but I have a question first.” It was eating away at her. “By any chance, was there a fire at the County Clerk’s Office around the time Tiana Dakota went missing?”
“Yep. Why?”
“Some of the boxes were moved here after the fire.” She was looking at them.
“No kidding?” He gave a mirthless bark of laughter.
“It was a gas leak. Half the building burned down. They saved as much as they could, but a bunch of stuff couldn’t be salvaged.
File boxes, furniture, and plenty of other stuff.
It was a nightmare recovering and replacing the land deeds.
A few of them ended up in court disputes. ”
“Wow! That’s awful.” She brought him up to speed on their latest discovery inside the storm shelter.
He gave a low whistle. “That’s an odd place to store files from the County Clerk’s Office.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she agreed.
“Hold on!” His voice grew disbelieving. “Luke already had a team out there, along with a pack of K-9 search-and-rescue dogs. How’d they miss something like that?”
“Easy.” She shared Kaya’s accidental discovery of the secret door. “She almost fell through it.”
Her gaze landed on a set of documents arrayed on the table. “Um, Gil?” She was looking at deeds — lots of them. They were surrounded by a scattering of erasers, scalpels, bottles of ink remover solution, and correction tape, suggesting something far more sinister was afoot.
It took her an extra second or two for her brain to register that Gil had answered her a few times already.
“Sorry about that,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging. Guess I zoned out for a minute.”
“Are you in any danger?” He sounded genuinely worried.
“Not at the moment. I’m with Kaya and Bo. He’s armed.” She could hardly tear her gaze away from the land deeds. “This is bad, Gil, really bad.” She gave him the skinny version of what she was looking at.
“I’m on my way,” he promised. “I’ll call the sheriff and fill him in on what’s going on. He’ll scramble a team to process the scene.” She could tell he was already moving toward the door as he disconnected the line.
Gil joined them inside the storm shelter within the hour. Luke and a couple of his deputies were right behind him.
April spent the rest of the afternoon helping them collect and bag evidence and sweep the room for fingerprints.
The room held all the earmarks of deed altering via signature removals and the forging of new signatures.
More specifically, someone or several someones had been illegally adding to the large and rambling acreage that comprised Haywood Ranch.
It appeared they’d been mainly targeting estates of the deceased.
“I smell some forthcoming arrest warrants,” one deputy muttered.
“What I don’t get,” Kaya sighed, gazing in dismay around the room, “is Tiffany’s role in all of this. She had her whole life ahead of her. We were this close to earning our law degrees together.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together for emphasis.
“The police will figure it out.” April suspected Tiffany Masterson had done it for the money. Law school wasn’t cheap. Some people did the dumbest things for far less monetary value than what they were staring at in this room.
After every file box and stick of furniture had been removed from the storm shelter, including a box filled with tattered and stained women’s clothing, April moved to Gil’s side.
“You proved you weren’t kidding when you said I could have all the resources and backup I needed. ” He’d made it happen on a Sunday, too.
He was surveying the room gravely, arms folded. “Of course, I meant it.” He met her gaze. “Is it just me, or has your forensics work crossed over into investigating?”