Always Friday (13 page)

Tess ruffled through the papers beside her and pulled out
one. “
Zelda Marie Gossett, age seventy-six.
” She looked over at Dan, an
impish gleam in her eye. Although he was good-naturedly going along with her
scheme, she suspected that he was still skeptical. Perhaps validating some of
the facts in the old journal would help dispel any lingering doubts. “Why don’t
we stop by and check it out? The cemetery is just up the road from the library
and museum where Laffite’s journal is displayed. It’s not far.”

An hour later they were standing in front of a glass case
that held the original diary. Tess glanced around to make sure they were alone
in the small museum, then pulled a copy of the letter from “Theodore Lucas” out
of her leather portfolio.

“Look,” she whispered, holding the sheet next to the worn
volume. “Anybody can see that the handwriting is the same.”

Dan looked from the letter to the faded pages protected by
the glass case, then back to Tess. He smiled and dropped a kiss on her nose. “I
believe you, honey.” Lacing his fingers through hers, they wandered to the next
display, peering at pictures of Jean Laffite, alias John Lafflin, and family
from his later years in St. Louis.

After they left the building, they drove up the hill to a
cemetery shaded by a small grove of trees on a high land rise. They walked
slowly among the stones, many weathered and dim, others newer and deeply
chiseled.

As they searched, Tess said, “The man who originally owned
his land was a good friend of Laffite’s. I suppose he continued to use this
place as a cemetery after Laffite asked to bury ‘one of his men’ on the hill.”

“Probably.” Dan squatted by an old marker and ran his
fingers over the words. “Here it is. Zelda Marie Gossett, born February 10, 1816, died April 18, 1882. Casey Prophet was only six years too late to find
the place. I wonder what happened to the original stone that marked the place
where he buried the treasure?” He stood, dusted his hands on his jeans, and put
his arm around Tess as they both looked down at the ground where a fortune in
gold and gems had once been secreted.

“I don’t know. His description says it was a granite cross
with vines and blossoms carved across its surface.”

Tess slid her arm around Dan’s waist and leaned her head
against his shoulder as they stood on the hill and surveyed the gently rolling
land below. Only the occasional twitter of birds and the faint buzz of insects
in the grass entered the quiet. A fresh spring breeze rose and rustled through
the grove of trees, swaying the branches and whispering and hissing among the
leaves, as if to tease them with its secrets. It blew over the fields of yellow
wildflowers growing in the meadows and moved across the land so that the simple
blossoms rippled like a vast, softly waving sea of sunshine.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked. “It must have been about
this time of year that he was here. He said that, in the springtime, the cross
overlooked a yellow sea.” She shivered and Dan hugged her close, running his
hands over her arms.

“Cold?”

Tess shook her head. “Awed, I think. He must have stood on
this very spot almost two hundred years ago. He must have watched the
procreators of these very flowers.” She snuggled close to the strong man whose
presence warmed her inside and out. “Oh, Dan, I just know we’re going to find
the treasure. He meant for us to find it.”

Dan lifted her face and looked into her eyes. He smiled and
brushed a few wind-tossed strands of hair from her face. “I’ve found my
treasure.”

He bent and kissed her with a tenderness that brought tears
shimmering to the edge of her lids as they fluttered and closed. She sighed,
slipped her arms around his neck, and returned his kiss. Never had any moment
been so perfect. Never had anything felt so right.

*    *    *

“Let me handle this,” Dan said out of the side of his mouth
as they walked into the records office at the Polk County courthouse.

As they entered, a middle-aged woman, whose dark brows were
arched in a thin line of perpetual surprise, looked up from her sandwich. She
smiled and wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. “What can I do for you folks
today?”

Dan smiled and stuck out his hand. “I’m Daniel Friday from Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. And this is my wife, Tess.”

His wife? Tess resisted the urge to elbow him in the ribs.

The lady took his hand and returned his smile. “Delia
Boynton. Assistant County Clerk.” She nodded to Tess.

“My grandmother is working on our family’s genealogy, and we
promised to stop by while we were on our vacation and get some information for
her. I hope you can help.” Charm oozed from him.

The clerk patted the back of her short curls, which were a
bright shade of red somewhere between David Caruso’s and Aunt Olivia’s. “Why, I’ll
be happy to do what I can. I’m interested in genealogy myself. What do you
need?”

Out of his pocket, Dan pulled a slip of paper with the
information Tess had written on it. “In the eighteen-eighties, a man named
Nathan Power owned a farm near the Trinity River. He was a cousin on my
great-grandfather Power’s side. We’d like to know where it’s located and if any
of the family still owns the property. My grandmother has a diary that her
father wrote telling about the beauty of the land there. We promised her that
we’d stop by and see it and take some pictures for her.” Dan smiled again.

Delia smiled back and Tess rolled her eyes heavenward. Dan
was spreading it on by the shovelful. But, she had to hand it to him. It seemed
to be working.

The thought that they might be getting close pumped a shot
of adrenaline into Tess’s bloodstream that tripped her heartbeat into doubletime
and brought a flush of excitement to her face. The Prophets had discovered that
the fourth site was on Nathan Power’s farm. After they determined that the loot
was buried under Nathan Power’s chicken coop and were about to retrieve it,
Power had sicced his dogs on them and the Prophets had left in a hurry. The
chicken coop was sure to be gone and the old codger had long since met his
maker, but Tess knew where the landmarks were. She crossed her fingers behind
her back and made a silent entreaty.

“Why, sure thing,” Delia said, patting the back of her hair
again. “It’s slower than Dish Taylor’s coon hound around here today. Why don’t
y’all have some lunch and come back in about two hours? That should give me
enough time. I’ll copy everything your granny might like to have for her
research, too. Fifty cents a page.”

They found a little cafe off the square and slid into the
red plastic booth. When the waitress brought them water and menus, Tess took a
medicine bottle from her purse and shook a tablet into Dan’s hand.

After he downed it, Dan smiled. “You should have been a
nurse.”

“Not me. I can’t stand the sight of blood.” Looking up from
the menu, she said, “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but are you having
any trouble with your stomach?”

He shook his head. “It hasn’t bothered me in a couple of
weeks. Taking time off from the company, staying in Galveston . . . being with
you, Tess . . . especially being with you”—he took her hand and rubbed his
thumb across her palm—”has been the best thing that could have happened to me.
Getting sick was worth it. It gave me the chance to meet you.”

His smile, his touch, his words sent ripples of pleasure
over her. Her voice was husky with emotion when she tried to answer. “Dan, I—”

“You folks ready to order?” The waitress stood poised with a
pencil and order pad.

“Give us another few minutes,” Dan said, releasing Tess’s
hand. When the woman left, he asked, “I don’t suppose I could talk you into a
greasy, juicy hamburger and french fries, could I?”

Tess laughed. “Not on your life. I’m thinking more along the
lines of macaroni and cheese and green beans.”

He breathed a long-suffering sigh. “I was afraid of that.”

They decided on lunch, and when the food was brought, Tess
only pushed hers around on the plate.

“Nervous?” Dan asked.

“Excited.” She put her fork down. “Maybe ‘antsy’ is a better
description. I’ve dreamed of living in that house since I was a little girl.
Dan, I can’t explain to you how I feel about it. Obsessed, maybe. It’s always
fascinated me, drawn me into a kind of spell as if its rusticated walls are
magical. Even as an adult, after I came to realize that it was out of my price
range, somewhere inside of me, there has always been a secret longing to have
all those gables and towers and wonderfully carved corbels for my very own. I’ve
spent hours looking at it, wandering through it, dreaming about it. Does that
sound crazy?”

He reached for her hand and smiled. “Not at all.”

“I can picture how exquisite it will be when it’s restored.
Now, because of a man who was born about the same time as our country, we can
make it beautiful.” She squeezed his hand and beamed with bubbling
anticipation. “My fantasy is about to come true. I can hardly wait.”

“Tess— “

Her smile faded. “Yes?” Her tone was a warning.

“Eat your squash.”

*    *    *

Tess and Dan stood on the bank staring out over the ninety
thousand-acre Lake Livingston, seventy-five square miles of deep, green, murky
water. In the distance a speed boat roared across its surface with a skier in
tow.

“Oh, Dan,” Tess wailed, burying her face against his
shoulder. “I was hoping Delia Boynton had made a mistake.”

He rocked her back and forth and patted her back. “I’m
sorry, honey, but it looks like Nate Power’s chicken house is in the middle of
the lake under fifty feet of water.”

“How could they do this?”

He shrugged helplessly. “Progress?”

An idea occurred to her and she drew back, excited. “We can
hire a team of divers.”

Dan shook his head and kissed her nose. “Sweetheart, the
landmarks are gone, too, and all we have is a general idea of which two hundred
acres the farm was. It’s impossible.”

Tess sighed and wiped her eyes. “Damn! And after you paid
Delia twenty-three dollars for that stack of deeds and plats and tax roll
lists.”

He smiled and they walked back to the SUV. “Why don’t we
drive on to Lufkin, find a motel, and get a fresh start in the morning?”

“A motel?” She raised an eyebrow. “One room?”

“One room.”

Tess laughed. “Let’s go.”

*    *    *

Sometime after midnight, Dan awoke. He missed the warmth of Tess’s
body next to his. His hand searched the empty space of the king-size bed.

“Tess?”

“I’m here,” she whispered from the shadows.

“What are you doing out of bed?” He got up and went to the
window where she stood naked, staring out the blinds at the distorted
reflection of the motel’s neon sign on the swimming pool.

“Just thinking, planning. I didn’t mean to wake you. I
couldn’t sleep.”

He stood behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and rubbed
his face in the fragrance of her silky hair. “I’m getting used to having you
beside me. I miss you when you’re gone.”

Crossing her arms over his, she absently rubbed his arm.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“Lots of things.”

“The treasure?”

She nodded. “I wonder what it will look like and how we’ll
dispose of it. The booty the Prophets found in the seventh place near San
Augustine was four metal chests full. Some of it was gold coins, some was in
gold and silver bars, and some was jewelry and precious stones. If we find gold
coins, I imagine that the collector’s value will be greater than the
weight-value of the gold.”

“I imagine.”

Dan rested his cheek against the crown of her head and
savored her sweet scent and the feel of her bare skin against his. His heart
ached for her. He knew that the chances of their finding anything after all
this time were almost non-existent—even a hundred years ago the Prophets had
only been able to recover the goods from one site—but he couldn’t bring himself
to dash her hopes. When she talked about the treasure, the look of joyful
anticipation on her face was worth all the gold in the world.

A part of him wanted her to be able to hang on to her dream
as long as she could. He understood about dreams.

But another part of him—the pragmatic part— wanted her to
abandon her search before she had to face the pain and reality of coming up
empty.

All he could do was go with her and stand by her and love
her enough to ease some of the disappointment she was bound to suffer when the
fifth and sixth spots on the map yielded nothing. When this thing was over, and
she was finally satisfied that there was no treasure to buy a decrepit castle
in Galveston, he would take her back to Pittsburgh with him. Because of Tess,
he’d already stayed longer than the month he’d promised himself. After they
were married, he would even build her an exact replica of her beautiful-ugly
mansion. Hell, he’d buy the damned thing in Galveston and have it shipped stone
by stone to Pennsylvania if that’s what it would take to make her happy. He
couldn’t think of anything he wouldn’t do for Tess.

“Tess?”

“Hmmmm?” She leaned her head back against his shoulder as he
nuzzled the satin-soft skin at the pulse point of her neck.

“I love you.”

She turned in his arms and looked up at him. Even in the dim
light he could see the beauty of her smile. It bathed the darkness with
sunshine and wanned his blood.

“Dan?”

“Hmmmm?”

“I love you, too.”

The clerk at the Angelina County courthouse was busier than
Delia but just as helpful. And to Tess’s everlasting relief, as far as they
could determine, the area they were looking for this time was not underwater.
By early afternoon, they were headed to the fifth spot, located several miles
outside of Lufkin, a small town in the Piney Woods of central East Texas.