Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
“Ihate this.” Xander said it for maybe the fourth time since they’d left his house and gone to Sebastian’s. Nothing was very distant from anything in Hot Springs Junction, but he still felt as if he was too far away if Iago needed him.
Xavi, who had left two of his new assistants in charge up at the coffee shop, glanced up at him from where he was doing puzzles with Abby. “I don’t like it. It sucks. Sebastian can tell you all about it. But you’ve got to let him do his job.”
Sebastian gave him a sympathetic smile, handing him a cutting board where he’d chopped up carrots to put in the stew Xander was making.
“I know this is a slightly different situation since Iago is your pregnant omega, but every time I leave Colton to do one of these work sites, my heart dies a little bit.”
“Oh, that’s a great thing to tell me.” Xander couldn’t help it. He was not feeling it. He got that Sebastian was trying to sympathize, and he did empathize with Sebastian in return, but right now he was on edge.
This was his house, so this was his fault, and it was his problem.
Xavi wrinkled his nose. “But it is so cool that Iago’s the one that’s going to be fixing your house, right? And how weird is it that you live on top of a mine?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Xavi, everyone in town lives on top of a mine. This whole place is a mine.”
Xavi pursed his lips and he knew, without question, that the next thing out of his friend’s mouth was going to piss him off. “Do you ever worry about sinkholes?”
Xander looked at Xavi. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Nothing. If a sinkhole happened underneath town hall, it would have to go down three floors before it got to be...”
“Now, this whole place has been around a long time.” Sebastian shook his head. “You know that as well as I do. It’s solid.”
Xander stared over. “So what do you think it is?”
Sebastian shrugged. “If I had to guess? Somebody killed somebody, buried him, and backfilled the mine to make it look like it never happened.”
Xander’s eyes felt as if they were going to bug out of his head. “And if we find actual bones, then what?”
“You call Mark down in Secret Springs. He’ll run an investigation, discover that the bones are old, and bury him.”
Xander could only stare at Bastian. “I hate how you sound like you know all of this.”
“I watch a lot of Forensic Files. And Mark works part time for the State Police.”
“Wow.” Xavi grinned. “I didn’t know that.”
“Don’t fuck with him,” Xander told him. “He’ll arrest you.”
“That could be fun!”
“He’s very, very taken,” Sebastian warned.
Xavi rolled his eyes. “I did know that. Don’t worry I’m not gonna try to make a play for the cop.”
“Have you seen the new geology guy?”
Xander wrinkled his nose. “Do not be trying to hook up Xavi with that Dr. Duke guy.”
“Doctor what?”
Sebastian shot Xander a mischievous glance. “His name is Doctor Duke McDonald, he’s from Mesa State University, and he’s a geologist. And ghosts freak him out very much.”
“He made a play for Iago, like two minutes in,” Xander griped.
“Oof. Did you clean this plow?” Xavi’s eyes were wide, and he was shaking his head as if he knew what a bad idea somebody coming onto Iago was.
“Nah, gonna let the ghost do that for me. She’s obviously attached to Iago as well.”
Xavi’s dark brows drew together at a frown. “Okay, back up. I’ve missed something. You’ve been bitching ever since you got here, but I really don’t understand what’s going on. A lady ghost? I thought there was just a sheriff.”
Together, he and Sebastian explained what had happened at the house, and Xavi was wide-eyed and impressed, his eyebrows flying up by the time they were done.
“Wild. There’s a sheriff’s badge, a female ghost, a piece of mine shaft that nobody knew about, and maybe a dead body or two. You didn’t tell me that she was in love with Iago or whatever, though. Do you think Iago will get possessed like Mason did?”
“No!” Xander whacked a piece of stew meat with his meat mallet. “No one is getting possessed. Least of all my pregnant omega.”
Sebastian and Xavi exchanged glances, and Xavi held his hands up, shoulders rising. “Sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean it. You know I don’t want anything to happen to your Iago.”
He blew out a gusty sigh. “I know. I just hate the idea of him being there without me.”
“You’re going to do what Colton, Gent, Law, and Mason can’t do? You hating the ghosts so much is likely to get you in the way if something happened.” Sebastian bumped hips with him before going back to sit down. “I would just chill out if I were you.”
“Never in the history of the words “chill out” did somebody who is told to “chill out” actually do so.”
But Sebastian had a point. He was a cook, not a professional ghost hunter; he wasn’t even an amateur ghost hunter. He would end up getting somebody hurt if he went the wrong way and zigged when he should have zagged.
“I know it’s tough. I hate leaving Colton there when what if something happened, and he fell or he hurt his leg again, and he couldn’t get out.
But, then again, I trust him, and I trust Gent and the others to know when it’s time to hit the road.
They’re professionals, and I have to believe they know what they’re doing. ”
He stared at Sebastian for a long moment. “I hate it when you make sense.”
“So we do what we can. We get together all sorts of supplies, including medical ones. We make food, we watch the kids, and we keep an eye on our cell phones and on the radio.” Sebastian pointed across the way where a walkie-talkie was on a charging stand. “If they need us, they will holler.”
“And I’ll make stew. And bread. And something for dessert. What do you guys think I should make for dessert?” He needed to keep his hands and his mind busy.
Xavi grinned at him. “I think you should make a chocolate cream pie.”
“Of course you do.” It was Xavi’s favorite, but he also knew it happened to be Gent’s favorite, and that Iago loved it as well, so that was what he’d do.
In the meantime, he would probably fret a lot, but he wasn’t going to take it out on anyone else anymore.
This was his problem, and he would deal with it.
“Whoa! There’s a false floor here! Check this out.” Dr. Duke was getting really excited down there in the mine shaft, and Iago had to admit he was glued to his screen.
This was gonna make the best episode of the best show ever.
Apparently there was a piece of rock cut to look like it was a continuous slab, slotted into the shaft that went down into the mine in order to block it off.
That took some goddamn work. Whoever had done that really had something to cover up.
“So how do we get it open?” Colton asked.
All of them stood a goodly distance away while the geologist explored, just in case.
He thought that was probably wise. Gent had stayed upstairs with him and was monitoring on another computer, rapidly making notes, Mason and Law were down there with Colton and the geologist, running the camera and recording all of the ghost activity.
“I think, and I hope I’m right, that it’s counter-weighted. We just need to figure out where the opening is that would help us get a tool in there. It’s kind of like a puzzle.”
“So somebody really had to know what they were doing?” Mason asked. “I mean, that seems like a lot of work, am I right?”
“You are absolutely correct. This is skilled work here. This isn’t a quick cover-up. I imagine there was very little traffic this way by the time this was done, so no one even noticed. By the time anybody would have seen the work, it was over.”
Colton wrinkled his nose and pursed his lips. “I guess it would be easy enough to just assume, if you noticed this shaft being gone, that you were in the wrong place, if you were a miner. I know shafts got closed off all the time as the veins of ore dried up.”
Dr. Duke gave Colton a thumbs up. “Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t as if your average Joe would be wandering down here. These would have been closed off already, yes? There were homes on top of these areas.”
Even as he listened to the guys, Iago was researching furiously on his second screen. Hank had turned up some good records for him, and he was pushing through them.
Helena had been willed the house by the local sheriff, a Lefty Daniels. It was odd because Iago had records of this family who’d lived here before Helena had moved in. No bill of sale, just the will and the changing of the deed, paid in cash with no receipt.
“So it looks like there was a sheriff here, guys. That would explain the badge. He willed the house to Helena, but I don’t see where he paid for the house or where it was transferred to him. Just deeded from him to Helena.”
Colton shook his head, and the expression was almost constipated. “Did you say the person before her had lost an entire family? What if they did this? Is there anything that says the sheriff helped? How did the family die?”
“Well, there’s no record of that, at least not that I’ve found, yet.
There was no wave of disease here at that time, so maybe the newspaper abstracts we haven’t gone through yet will shed some light.
” And he could get more information on that by going out to the cemetery too.
“In the morning, I’ll go out to all the different gravesites, if you want, start making notes. ”
“And take Law with you. That way it’s recorded.”
“Sounds good boss.” He scribbled notes on the notebook next to his laptop, and he saw Gent doing the same thing.
“I think I’m gonna need a crowbar.” Duke was down on his knees now, tracing his fingers around the edge of something on the floor.
“I can send one down.” Gent rose and went to the toolbox they had in the parlor. There wasn’t much there to break if tools came up flying out of the box and slammed around. He went over to the mine shaft and tied the tool to a rope before lowering it to the guys below.
“Thanks.” Duke set it aside, still running his fingers along the floor, searching.