A Finder's Fee (3 page)

“I’m glad it was over before she was killed in the storm. Like always, Dae. You leap before you look.”

“I guess it’s part of who I am. Will you help me?”

“What do you need?”

That was one of the things I loved about Kevin. He was always there for me, no matter how crazy something was that I wanted to do.

“It’s going to take a lot more than my collapsible shovel to get down low enough to reach her house. It’s under about twenty feet of sand and mud. We have to get the bones out right away.”

“And I have the small excavator to make the storm cellar bigger for storage.” He nodded, understanding. “How are we going to dig over there, right off of Duck Road, with all the other activity going on? Surely the town manager, or someone who works for the contractor, will want to know what we’re doing.”

“That’s why I’ve been digging at night. I’ve been sleeping in a tent next to the site during the day.”

“With a camping shovel. It’s going to be harder to disguise the excavator, even at night. We’ll have to get some lighting too.”

“I know. I have a plan for that.” I smiled at him.

“It isn’t one I want to hear, right? That’s why you’re recruiting me, right? You don’t want anyone else to get into trouble.”

Part of that was true. After all, Chris Slayton, the town manager for Duck, would probably help me. He might lose his job if we were caught. What could they do to me and Kevin?

If I was caught digging up there, there might be some bad press for me. I was running for mayor against councilman Randal “Mad Dog” Wilson. But I figured people had already made up their minds about who they were going to vote for in just over a week.

Everyone loved Kevin and would do almost anything to keep the Blue Whale Inn open. I couldn’t see a downside there.

He wasn’t done with other ideas. “What about going to the historical society with this information? People have to stop work on construction projects all the time because of historic artifacts. This is about as historical as it gets.”

“That would take too much time.” I got to my feet, agitated by the idea. “We couldn’t stop them from drilling fast enough. This is the only way.”

Kevin stood up and put his arms around me. I was glad he cared enough to get so close despite the sand and who-knew-what-else I’d brought in with my clothes.

“Okay.” His tone was gentle. “We’ll do it your way. It’s hours before dark. Take a shower. Change clothes. Get some sleep.”

None of that was part of my plan. “I should be out there, protecting the site. What if someone disrupts my work?”

“The only way I’m going out there tonight is with Dae O’Donnell.” He stared into my eyes. “If you can’t slow down enough to get some rest, I might be forced to believe what Shayla and Ann said—that you’re possessed by Maggie Madison. Let’s not go there. Okay?”

I
had no choice. I needed Kevin’s little digging machine
to reach what was left of Maggie’s house before tomorrow morning. I didn’t know how to run it. I couldn’t stop the drilling process in time by myself. It had to be this way.

It had taken the best part of the last three days, since I’d put on the amber necklace, to figure out all the details. It had been hard overcoming what had seemed like a fantasy world. The area where I’d found myself was nothing like the place I lived. Nothing was where it belonged. I’d felt like Alice in Wonderland.

To begin with, it was all I could do not to be sick. I don’t get motion sickness, but this was something entirely different. I wasn’t aware of where I was for several hours. When I woke up from my first meeting with Maggie, I was shaking so hard I couldn’t get up from the burgundy brocade sofa in Missing Pieces.

Gradually, I understood what had happened. When I put the amber necklace on again, I was better prepared. But the process had taken too much time. When I realized what had to be done, I was already almost too late.

It looked like I was still going to have to wait to see this thing through. I tried not to worry. It was going to work out.

Kevin drove me home in his old red Ford pickup after our conversation. He had to be at the Blue Whale Inn for the party at lunchtime, so he’d convinced Ann to stay with me at my house. Obviously, he still wasn’t quite sure about my story.

That stung a little.

Gramps was out with someone from the mainland in his fishing boat, the
Eleanore
. Talk about someone doing things that didn’t make much sense. Fishing during an ice fog was dangerous and not worth whatever his charter had paid him.

Gramps and I were cut from the same Banker cloth, I guess. People who went back generations on the barrier islands did what they had to do to survive. He was proud and tough. I always hoped I was that way too.

He’d left some macaroni and cheese in the refrigerator along with a note telling me to call him before I went out again. I knew he worried about me, though he tried not to show it. We were the only two left in our family after my mother and grandmother had died. I tried hard not to make him have to wonder where I was, or if I was safe. Sometimes that wasn’t easy.

The hot shower felt good as I washed three days’ worth of dirt off of me. I put on a heavy sweater, jeans and thick socks when I was finished. It was barely two
P.M.
What was I supposed to do until it got dark?

Ann was sitting in my window seat, overlooking the Currituck Sound. I laughed as she fended off claws and teeth from Treasure, the black cat Betsy had given me last year. For some reason, he only seemed to like me, Gramps and Kevin. Most of the time, that was all that mattered.

“Will you put this thing in a cat carrier or something?” Ann yelped when Treasure bit her. “I’m not staying here and watching you sleep with it tearing me up. What’s wrong with it anyway? Does it need catnip or something?”

I scooped up the cat I’d grown to love and sat down on the bed with him on my lap. “He doesn’t like strangers.”

“I can see that. What about the witch? Did he like
her
?”

Treasure hissed at her then settled down to purr on me. “I don’t know what I can say to convince you. Maggie didn’t take me over.”

“So you have full recall of everything that happened to you, everything you did, in the last few days?”

I had flashes of total clarity, but I had to admit—to myself—that most of the last few days were a blur.

When Maggie and I had parted company earlier that day, I’d been at the town hall site, lying on the cold ground. I could see that I’d been digging—not very successfully—trying to reach what was left of Maggie’s home. I suddenly remembered about Kevin having the excavating equipment and walked to the Blue Whale Inn.

I was sure I knew when I was looking through Maggie’s eyes, and when I was on my own. As I’d told Kevin and the others, everything was gray and surreal when I was with Maggie in the past.

It was different when I walked to the Blue Whale. I knew I was in my own time and I knew what I was doing.

“So that’s ‘no’ on that score.” Ann sat down and looked out the window. “There’s a good chance this entity was using you, Dae. I know your motives are good, but we don’t know what her motives are. She may still be using you to get whatever she wants. Now you want Kevin to help you.”

Her words brought a few doubts sailing along like clouds across the sea. The incidents of the past few days had been odd, even for me. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Ann would point that out. I shored up my resolve and remembered that this quest meant a lot to Maggie. After hundreds of years, her spirit would be united with her lover’s and a wrong would be put right for the people of Duck who’d hated her.

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” Ann asked. “Is it personal, or just that Duck pride standing in the way of admitting you might be wrong?”

I lay back on the bed and forced myself to close my eyes. Everything inside of me was jumping around like I’d had too many energy drinks. I tried to relax. “I only have a few hours before we can work at the site. I should get some rest.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me. I didn’t have to see her to feel her gaze. It was as sharp as a shard of glass trying to slice away my defenses. Ann was a powerful psychic. I wouldn’t let her in.

“Yeah. You do that.” She got up and opened the bedroom door. “And if there is someone else inside you, let me just say to her that you aren’t alone anymore. Don’t make us hurt you.”

Ann left the room quickly after her ominous words. I waited with my eyes closed until I heard her talking on the phone downstairs.

I jumped out of bed and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

“Are you all right?” I asked Maggie.

“I’m fine. You?” The words came from my mouth but the tone and dialect were different. Maggie had originally come from Surrey in England. That, and the old-fashioned English she used, made our voices very unique.

“I was worried. I didn’t know if I’d lost you when the beads broke.”

“Oh, my friend, there is so much more that binds us now than the beads. Is this your home?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “The bathroom. Sort of a room for the bedpan.”

She giggled. “What now? Do you hope to fool your friends?”

“That would be nice. I can better look for your lover’s resting place without their aid.” Her dialect was beginning to rub off on me. I had to watch it.

“Then I will do my best to stay hidden.” She looked around the bathroom. “This is a place of wonder! And so many handsome men. Would that I could kiss them all.”

Maggie wasn’t a witch, but I’d learned she was a tavern wench who liked men a lot. Though she swore she’d given her heart to a sea captain named Thomas Graham, she liked to flirt. That had brought a whole other realm of trouble to her with the wives of Duck.

“Well, for now, let’s keep it quiet. I don’t want anyone else to guess what’s happening.”

“I can do that,” she said. “It will be simple to sit back and look at your amazing life.”

I went back to bed and must have fallen asleep right after because I was dreaming again of all the things I’d seen in the past with Maggie.

I hadn’t expected their clothes to be so coarse and plain. Most of the dresses, trousers and shirts were shades of brown, barely held together with rough twine. The people were dirty and thin—some almost skeletal. It hurt to look at their frail, white-faced children.

Somehow I’d imagined my Duck Banker ancestors being a hale and hearty group, able to spit in the eye of hurricanes and keep on sailing.

Instead, they were a dour, unfriendly bunch—wary of strangers, fearful of anything or anyone who didn’t look or sound as they did. Their dwellings were crude, barely able to withstand wind and rain.

How had anyone survived that time to get us to this one?

Then Ann was shaking me, telling me it was time to go. Kevin was already set up at the town hall site.

It was dark outside. Gramps was home. He wore his worried frown as I went downstairs in clean clothes and dry boots.

I still felt like a zombie, barely able to shake off the memories of my dreams. Maybe I looked like one too.

He hugged me tight for several long minutes while Ann tapped her foot impatiently near the door. “What’s going on, Dae? Your note didn’t say much and all of your friends were worried. Are you all right? Where have you been?”

There wasn’t time to explain. Every moment of darkness we lost would make it that much harder to reach the remnants of the old house by morning. “I promise I’ll explain when I come back. You have to trust me.”

His broad face was an angry thundercloud. “I know we try not to step on each other’s toes. We’re both adults. But you’re not going anywhere without me until I know what you’ve been doing. You look like death warmed over, as your grandmother used to say.”

“Gramps—”

“I’m not kidding, honey.” He put on his heavy jacket. “I’m going too.”

Ann shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

We took Gramps’s golf cart down the silent streets of Duck toward the new town hall site.

Kevin had managed to find one of the big yellow tents that were being used by the contractor working on the geothermal site. He also had lights. The tent glowed like a beacon in the darkness. I hadn’t counted on that problem.

I wasn’t sure anymore that it was possible to do this and not get caught. I hoped I could keep everyone else out of trouble.

Even inside the tent, it was still cold. The ice fog hung on everything with its frozen breath. Shayla and her grandmother had come too, wanting to be there when we located Maggie’s bones. Flourine had added even more beads and feathers. Shayla had opted for her usual classic black with no additions.

Everyone huddled in their heavy coats and jackets as Kevin started the small digging machine. Until that moment when I’d wanted everything to be quiet and secret, I hadn’t realized how loud it was.

“This doesn’t make any sense, Dae,” Gramps said again—the second time since I’d basically explained what we were planning to do. “You can’t be out here digging this close to Duck Road, in a restricted construction area, and not get caught. You could lose the election if you tell anyone what you’re doing. You’re playing with fire.”

About that time, I wished I
were
playing with fire so I could get warm. “I’m sorry, Gramps. I have to do this. You don’t have to stay.”

He shook his head and muttered something about needing a permit but he didn’t leave.

Kevin’s excavator made my puny efforts at moving dirt and sand feel like wasted energy. That was the only real doubt I had about my relationship with Maggie Madison.

Why hadn’t I thought about getting help? Why hadn’t I thought about Kevin’s excavator?

I’d labored out there—for however long it was—when I could’ve been done very quickly. I might even have had time to tell the historical society so they could help. The town would have been sympathetic, if approached through proper channels.

Was it because Maggie was thinking for me? Or had I still been mentally lost in the past where excavators and town regulations didn’t exist?

It was as though when I woke up at the site I remembered there were better tools to work with. Maggie had lived hundreds of years in the past. She wouldn’t have thought there was anything better than a shovel. Was that why I was out here digging with one?

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t dare let anyone know I had any doubts about what had happened. The group around me felt like tigers waiting to pounce on any weakness that might lead them to the
witch
.

I watched as Kevin plied the hard, sandy ground with the metal equipment. The pile of sand grew steadily around him. It wasn’t long before he’d reached something.

“What’s that?” Shayla squinted down into the dark hole.

“It doesn’t sound like witch’s bones to me.” Gramps stood beside her.

Whatever it was had red paint on it. Bright red paint. I could only see about three feet of it, but nothing like it would have been here four hundred years ago.

“Let me take one more swipe at it,” Kevin yelled over the noise of the machine.

I watched the bucket go down and come back with another load of dirty sand. The color was different this far down—more burnt orange than the pale sand on top. I knew that was because of sand washing away and the town replacing it every year. It usually wasn’t even local sand. Archaeologists of the future were going to have a headache someday when they tried to figure that out.

As the bucket came up and moved away, something else of what lay beneath us became visible. There was more bright red paint and the number twelve.

“It’s the top of an old car.” Ann sounded almost excited. “Are we going to have to go through a car to reach the witch’s hovel? Did she mention a car was resting on her, Dae?”

Gramps peered hard into the hole. I held his arm as he almost got too close to the edge. “What is it?” I asked as he drew back.