Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3) (36 page)

Really gone, if Ari’s guess that it was Purty was right. And she was sure she was right, because the idea of
death
was emanating off this woman. Hopefully, not Ari’s death.

“Did he…”
Careful, Ari.
“Does he know about the gold?”

“He found some, and then we found…other stuff.” She gave her head a hard shake. “Honey, if you want a chance of surviving this, do not say another word or ask another question.”

Ari could tell she meant it this time, so she stayed quiet, concentrating on the road and then the bridge that took them to Fort Myers Beach.

“I’m not sure where to turn,” she told Michelle. “You have to put it into your GPS.”

“I don’t have it. Use yours.” She gave Ari her cell phone to thumb with one hand, and the first thing Ari noticed was that she’d missed two calls from Gussie, after the earlier ones from Luke.

But he hadn’t called again. So, either he didn’t get the text she’d sent, didn’t decipher the secret message, or didn’t care. No, that last one wasn’t an option. He cared, and he’d be there…she believed that. She didn’t know how or why, but that’s how faith worked.

She found the GPS, and the address for the museum was still programmed in, giving them the directions immediately.

The only sound in the car was the computerized woman on GPS, guiding them to a tiny finger of land that jutted into a waterway. When they reached the end of the street, Ari’s high beams bathed the entrance to the circular street that formed the perimeter of the small peninsula.

Access was beyond easy. But then what?

“Where is this office you were talking about?”

“On the property. We obviously can’t drive in. We’ll have to climb over that chain and walk to the building.”

Michelle looked around and made a gesture for her to back up. “Go to the street and park in one of the driveways. I don’t want some roving night guard to see your car here.” Which was exactly what Ari had been counting on. Crap.

Ari did as she was told, pulling into the last driveway on the residential street that spilled right into the entrance of Mound House. That house was dark, and the driveway empty.

Maybe the residents would wake up or come home and notice a strange car in the driveway and call the police. Hanging on to one more thin hope, Ari turned off the ignition and waited for the next demand.

“Give me your keys.” Michelle held out her free hand and took the keys that Ari pulled from the ignition. Then she opened the back door, keeping that damn gun in Ari’s face. She stood far enough away that Ari couldn’t shove the door at her, get the keys, and run.

“Lead the way,” Michelle ordered.

And now the gun was jammed into Ari’s back.

“I need light.” Ari slowed her step and pointed to the car she was loath to leave. “I can use my phone flashlight.” Maybe she could lean into the backseat and send an emergency 911 call. “Let me get it.”

“I have a flashlight on my phone,” Michelle said, killing that idea as fast as it came. She added a nudge with the gun, shutting up Ari and her ideas.

They climbed a few steps up a rise to where a thick metal chain hung from white posts that probably encircled the entire property. Why bother, Ari thought dejectedly. Anyone could break in here.

They trudged over grass, then found the paved path that led past the two-story Case House in the middle of the property.

“Is it in there?” Michelle asked, nodding toward the structure.

The truth was, the box wasn’t in there, and since the building was under a lot of reconstruction, it didn’t look like there was an alarm system, or Ari would have lied and said it was. Her best bet was the office.

“No. It’s in a small building down around the other side,” she said. “Near the water.”

As they walked, a plan formed. If she could get away fast enough, maybe she could find some shadowy place and hide. She’d been through the property and in the underground mound exhibit. She knew her way around this area, and Michelle didn’t.

But could she get away without getting a bullet in the back?

They arrived at the small wooden structure that served as the offices, that three-quarter moon she’d made love under last night offering plenty of light. Too much light to hope for a safe escape.

“That doesn’t look too tough to break into,” Michelle said.

Sadly, it did not. No flashing lights of an alarm system, no padlocks, no guard dogs. What the hell?

Michelle pushed her around the building, toward the back, then closer to a window. Still holding the gun at Ari’s back, she guided them to the glass to peer into a darkened room. It was the conference area where Ari had met the first time with Dr. Marksman, empty but for a table and chairs.

Silently, they moved to the next set of windows, which appeared to be a kitchen area. And, last, to the lab that lined the back wall.

“Holy shit!” Michelle exclaimed. “There it is! You were telling the truth!”

The Rueckheim & Eckstein box with the Cracker Jack logo sat right on his desk, empty now, Ari supposed. So the sheriff’s deputies hadn’t come here yet, or if they had, they’d taken only the artifacts—and the gold bar—and ignored the box they came in. How would Michelle feel about that? Mad enough to fire a gun at Ari?

“There’s probably nothing in that box now,” Ari said.

“Oh, yes, there is, and we’re going to get it right now. The sliding glass door is open.”

“It is?” Ari peered at the slider on the other side of the office and, sure enough, Dr. Marksman had been distracted or lazy enough to leave it open an inch. Damn it.

They rounded the back of the building, walked right up to the sliding glass door, and opened it without so much as an alarm beep. Frustration welled up inside Ari, and she dug for another plan.

Except there wasn’t one.

Michelle made her slide open the door—cleverly leaving Ari’s fingerprints everywhere—and nudged her inside.

“Open the box,” Michelle ordered, pulling out her cell phone and flicking on its flashlight.

Ari touched the box and carefully lifted the lid. “It’s empty.”

“Like hell it is.” Michelle came closer, peering over the top into the box. “That’s a false bottom.”

It was? Ari reached in and tapped the wood, but it felt solid, not hollow at all. “Are you sure of that?”

“Positive. We…I put it there.”

She looked up at Michelle, the flashlight making the lines deeper all around the other woman’s eyes. “Why?”

“To hide something.”

“What?”

Michelle’s smile was slow and wry. “You know, if I tell you, I’ll have to kill—”

She froze at a sound. Outside. Footsteps.

“In there.” She pushed Ari toward the open door of a small powder room. Ari hesitated, squinting into the darkness to see a figure moving, a flashlight cast down. He moved slowly, deliberately, like—

Michelle saw him, too, shoving Ari into the room with her free hand and never once giving an inch with that damn gun. Without making a noise, Michelle shut the door and turned to face Ari, who actually had to bite her lip to keep from screaming the words that ricocheted around her head and heart.

Was that Luke?

“One word, one squeak, one breath, and you’re dead.”

Ari blinked at her, having absolutely no doubt Michelle was telling the truth. “Why?”

“Because I’ll kill you.”

“But why? All of this for gold?” Did it really have that kind of power over people?

“For freedom,” she mouthed, getting closer. “You know what it’s like to be under a man’s thumb, under his control, forced to…” She shook her head. “No, you don’t. But I do, and I found my ticket out, and I’m…shhh.”

A heavy footstep near the slider made Michelle’s eyes flash with fear and determination. With the barrel still jabbing her in the back, Ari followed orders and stayed still and quiet.

Except for her brain. Her thoughts were screaming to Luke, hollering for his attention, demanding he come in and save her.

Another footfall, and then the glass door rattled as it slid wider.

Come on, Luke. I’m here. You know it. You feel it.

A footstep on the office floor confirmed he was in. He had to see the box.
Check the bathroom, Luke.

Silence.

Seconds ticked by endlessly, into two or three long, miserable minutes, maybe more. Finally, Michelle backed away from the door and seemed to breathe for the first time.

“All right,” she whispered. “Let’s do this.” She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the office, and suddenly sucked in a noisy hiss, followed by a dark curse.

Ari looked past her, eyes fully adjusted to the darkness, and stared at the empty desk.

The box was gone.

“Someone’s gonna die,” Michelle ground out.

Ari had a very bad feeling that someone might be her.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Luke spotted the Mazda and Arielle’s license plate from the corner of his eye. Why would she park in someone’s driveway? A hundred different scenarios played out in his mind, none of which made any sense.

Could someone have taken her against her will? Did she have a late meeting with Marksman? Would she have come back to retrieve the artifacts, or the gold? Did it matter to her?

Parking on the street, he stared at Arielle’s car and reached under his truck seat, grabbing his Glock. He hadn’t fired a gun since the bullet that had killed Cerisse and her father. On his next assignment, he’d never even taken his weapon out.

And now, he almost didn’t trust himself. But he took it anyway, along with his flashlight and phone.

He climbed out of the truck and strode to the little blue subcompact, shining a light inside. The first thing he saw was a cell phone that looked like Ari’s on the backseat floor and then a small brown handbag he recognized as hers on the passenger seat. She left her car without either one?

He backed away from the vehicle, turning toward the darkened land at the end of the street. That fat, circular peninsula known as the Mound House museum was where the Case House was.

Pointing the gun down, he headed toward the entrance of Mound House, jumping the metal chain fence and peering toward the acres of land.

He turned off his flashlight and easily navigated without it. He’d been there once before, and that was all he needed to find his way. In fact, he closed his eyes periodically to hear better, but the only sounds were critters in trees, the occasional bird, and some crickets.

And a splash.

He stopped dead, turning to his left, recognizing the rhythmic sound of a paddle hitting water on his left. He was immediately transported to the Camopi River, the
splat splat
of a pirogue cutting through the water on a smuggling mission to or from the gold mines. The natives moved like silent night creatures, but a well-trained Legionnaire could hear that nearly imperceptible sound of moving water.

Who was rowing down this canal this late at night?

Someone moving fast, he decided, someone cutting the water with somewhat desperate strokes. Luke hunched down and headed toward the sound, off the path, around bushes to the water’s edge, checking out the deserted landscape. It wasn’t a likely place to take a late-night canoe ride.

He followed the sound, staying behind a row of mangroves and pepper trees until he had to stop or possibly be spotted, waiting for the rower to appear in the thin moonlight. A man in a dark jacket paddled the boat, steering into a small landing and climbing out with the help of his oar.

He was heavyset and fairly tall, but too far away for Luke to make out any features. The man left an old metal canoe and walked with purpose toward the Case House, a jacket with a hood blocking any chance of Luke getting a read on the guy’s face.

Luke hung back in the bushes and watched the man, following at a safe distance.

He passed the Case House and kept moving, headed toward the tiny office building where Luke and Arielle had taken her crate of seashells for examination.

The man walked around the back, and Luke followed, watching him approach the sliding glass door, then he walked right in.

He disappeared into the building, and Luke waited, peering around in the shadows, listening, trying to get close to a window without being seen.

Was Arielle here? Why couldn’t she send him some telepathic message, damn it? What had she said she did to get her words from the universe? Close her eyes, block everything out, listen.

But all he heard was the man’s footfalls as he left the same way he came in, and Luke backed into the shadows, weapon drawn, ready to do whatever needed to be done.

The man carried a big box, running. No, not a box.
The
box. The Cracker Jack crate. It had to be empty by the way he moved. Luke had carted that box with its original contents, and it had weighed at least eighty pounds. The man moved with more purpose now, following the same path he’d come, heading back to his canoe, carrying the container as if it held…gold.

But that wasn’t possible. Surely no one left that single bar in there.