Freedom's Treasure (25 page)

“I never finished the journal,” Anna eased into the chair and left her cane where she could reach it easily. If only Dock would step slightly closer, she’d swing at his head like Babe Ruth aiming for the stands. “When I left off Samuel was in Grand Rapids.”

“You’re telling me you’ve had the journal all this time and didn’t finish it? And you honestly think I’ll believe you?” Dock shook his head. “I’m not a moron, Anna.” He stared into her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Everything,” Anna stated. “Why should I cooperate? It’s not like you plan on sharing. Why should I do all the work and get none of the gain?”

Dock’s face turned red and he whirled. “You’ve done all the work? You? I’ve been on the trail of Samuel’s treasure for years. Years! And you, you come strolling into town, stumble onto the right cabin, literally trip over the best clues and now you want all the credit? I don’t believe this shit.”

“Oh my God, get over yourself,” Anna snapped at Dock. “Better yet, tear down the cross and build a freaking bridge with it. There is something seriously wrong with you.”

Anna thought Dock was about to have a conniption fit and she braced herself. Sure enough he swung out and slapped her hard enough to knock her from the flimsy chair. He started screaming random obscenities while he circled her. He never kicked but she could see him thinking about it.

Finally he ran out of steam and Anna stopped counting seconds in her head. It was nearly impossible to maintain any strong emotion for more than 5 minutes at a time. Dock seemed to average 90 seconds. She could use that to her benefit, she just had to figure out how.

She crawled to the couch, letting him have a glimpse of the hatred and fear mixed on her face. Give a little, get a little, she thought. She sat on the couch and considered how she could drive the madman nuts.

Hunter flew down the dirt roads with nary a thought about the pebbles, rocks and sticks that were banging into the bottom of his new truck. His thoughts were racing faster than he was driving and he couldn’t believe he’d been so foolish as to leave Anna alone when he knew, he
knew
, someone was after information she may or may not have.

The fight had been petty and ridiculous, he understood that. He also freely admitted that he handled the aftermath incorrectly. This was going to be his chance to amend that.

Hunter slowed as he reached Dock’s driveway. He figured there was a 10% chance that Dock had brought Anna here to encourage her to spill her knowledge. When he didn’t see Dock’s truck or any lights on in the trailer he hit the gas and zipped past. He had a feeling the final showdown would happen at Anna’s cabin but he would have been remiss in his hero duties if he hadn’t checked here first.

Half a mile from the cabin Hunter turned his headlights off and cruised by slowly. There were lights on inside and, without shades or curtains on the windows it was similar to looking into a fishbowl. He locked in on Dock pacing around the front of the cabin and wished he’d thought to bring his sniper rifle. Shaking his head he decided to make do with what he had brought. It should take care of the problem and then some.

He parked near the lake, not knowing it was the same place Dock had parked the night he’d destroyed the cabin. He twisted the bulb for the interior light and propped the door open. When no illumination showed his position he climbed slowly from the truck and left the door open. One never knew when a quick getaway would be necessary, he knew.

With his dark camouflage and a dark hood called a balaclava covering his face he blended perfectly into the night. The moon was half full which provided some light but not enough to make him visible. Hunter moved slowly through the woods and took an indirect angle to the cabin. The wind was picking up and clouds swept across the moon bringing the deep black of night.

Hunter knew the stairs to the deck creaked. He also knew he had to get on the front porch. He considered his options and made a decision. He stepped up on one of the logs near the fire pit and used the added height to lever his body up onto the deck. Staying on his stomach he rolled to the window. He lifted his head and peeked through to see where Anna and Dock were in relation to each other and the window he looked through.

Anna was seated near window on the opposite side. Hunter crouched and ran through his options once more. He quickly slid to the other window and tried to hear what they were saying. The speech was muffled but he could hear tones. Dock was annoyed, working his way toward angry. Hunter wondered what Anna had been saying to him.

When he was sure that Dock had moved toward the back porch Hunter scratched and tapped at the corner of the window.
Shave and a haircut… two bits.
He waited a beat and did it again. He hoped Anna knew it was him and not some random woodland noise.

Anna kicked her heels against the couch over and over. She had two reasons for doing so. She was keeping track of time and it was driving Dock crazy. He kept staring at her, twitching, but refused to admit she was getting to him.

Dock had been pacing around the cabin and Anna was waiting to decipher the pattern. If she knew what he was going to do next she could counteract it with something, anything, to distract him. The wind had picked up outside and Anna could hear the muffled sound of trees rustling. Then she heard something familiar. She cocked her head and listened hard while making sure she didn’t change pace with her heels.

Shave and a haircut… two bits.

Yeah, that got her attention. Anna fought the urge to stare out the window and will Hunter to appear with guns a-blazing. She turned back to Dock and watched him grow increasingly agitated.

“He’s not coming,” she said it with a matter of fact tone. “We got into that fight yesterday and I left him. Remember? I’m pretty sure you were watching from the diner.”

Dock stopped walking and looked at her from the corner of his eye. He snorted. “He loves you. Trust me, he’s coming.”

“Then maybe you should have clued me in to your plan and I could have called him instead of sending him texts that can’t possibly be readable. God,” she shook her head, “this isn’t well planned out at all, is it?”

A muscle in Dock’s jaw jumped. “You’ll forgive me if this is my first kidnapping and I don’t follow your ideal plans.”

Anna nodded her head. “Forgiven. Now, what’s the plan?”

The hand without the gun swiped through his shining blond hair. “We wait,” Dock nodded. “We wait and you use that brain that never shuts up to figure out where the treasure is. Use the maps on the table and get to work. We don’t have all night.”

“I thought we did. I thought we had as long as we needed.”

“Sarcasm is a bitchy thing, Anna.”

“Yeah, well having a gun waving around doesn’t exactly bring out the best side of me.”

“You should work on that.”

“Yeah, I’ll hop right on it,” Anna rolled her eyes. “You know, it’s hot as Hades in here. Why don’t we crack a window or open a door or something? It’s the middle of summer, for Pete’s sake. I can’t think when it’s this hot.”

“I’m not here to make you comfortable.”

Anna stood. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” She strode to the window she’d heard the scratching at and unlocked it, raised it open. Then she opened the door and used her backpack to prop it open.

“Hey! I didn’t say you could open the door.”

“You didn’t say I could open the window either yet here we are,” Anna opened the other window in the front of the cabin and hoped Hunter had some sort of plan. She was running out of ideas and at any moment she might push the wrong button and end up having Dock put an unnecessary hole in her.

As she walked by the table something caught her attention. She stopped but didn’t turn to the map. She knew if she looked directly at it she’d lose whatever train of thought was starting to creep in. She kept her gaze on the floor as she considered the topographical map. “Huh,” she whispered.

Dock whirled. “Huh, what?”

“Give me a minute,” she murmured. She hated having a Eureka moment without being able to share it.

Anna was sure she’d just solved the question of where the treasure was buried. The answer wasn’t in the journal, per se, it had been in the letter that fell out of the pages. She had no desire to share this information with Dock, however, and schooled her features. She desperately wanted to grab the copy of the journal that had the story Hunter first told her about Samuel and Mary Ellen but she didn’t want Dock to know she’d had an epiphany.

Instead she changed the subject all around. Passive aggressive as it may be with Hunter right outside the window, she had questions she wanted answered. If he wouldn’t answer them yesterday then she’d get the answers today from Dock.

“So, Dock, I was wondering something.”

He looked at her, an eyebrow raised.

“Why, exactly, do you and Hunter hate each other so much?” she kept her tone innocent and was sure she could feel Hunter wince.

“I don’t know that we hate each other.”

“Seriously?” She looked at him in disbelief. “People don’t generally try to take other people’s heads off unless there’s some serious emotion attached to it. Let me guess, you love him so much you have to kill him?”

Dock gave a harsh laugh. “No, that’s not it. Okay, maybe we do hate each other.”

“I’m so glad you admitted that,” she stated dryly. “Now perhaps you could tell me why?”

On the deck Hunter wanted to stand up and scream the answer. Instead he waited patiently for his opportunity to go in there and take Dock’s bastard head off. He admired Anna’s spirit and realized he loved her more than he’d thought. She was distracting Dock and giving him time to come up with a rescue plan. Unfortunately he was failing in that regard.

“It’s stupid childhood stuff that got blown out of proportion,” Dock said. He’d have been content to leave it at that but Anna was having no part of it.

“Then what was the final straw? The trigger, so to speak?”

Dock turned away from Anna, paced into the kitchen. “What is taking Hunter so long?”

“I told you, he’s not coming. You misunderstood everything there. Why won’t either of you idiots answer my question?”

“Mostly because it’s none of your business, Anna. Did you ever think of that?”

“Um, it became my business when you two put me in the middle of it. Or didn’t you think of that?” Okay, she was getting angry. That probably wasn’t the best way to deal with someone who was emotionally, if not mentally, unstable. “And if you start the story with, ‘Back when we were in high school’, I swear to God I’ll scream.”

“You’re a funny girl,” Dock said, laughing.

“I think you meant woman and I wasn’t trying to be,” Anna stared at the map and tried to get her bearings. She didn’t need it any longer but she felt the need to double check her theory.

“Fine,” Dock sighed. “Back in the day Hunt and I were best friends-“

“Blah blah blah,” Anna interrupted him. “He got to be quarterback, he got the girl. Seriously, Dock? That was nearly 20 years ago.”

“If only that’s all it was,” Dock turned to face her. “There was an accident after we graduated. Hunt’s dad gave us summer jobs cutting down trees and logs for firewood. Sell it to the locals, tourists, whatever. We were out in the woods, I don’t know where Hunter had gone off to. It seems like we needed oil or something for the chainsaw.”

Hunter’s stomach clenched and bile filled the back of his throat. He tried to never think of what happened to his father and to hear it told from a disinterested standpoint would drive him crazy.

“I was high up in a tree, taking some dead branches off. One of them fell and it hit Edward.”

“Oh my God,” Anna whispered.

“He was in a coma for almost a month before he died.”

“And Hunter never forgave you.” The horror was evident in her eyes. “You were both kids so surely he knew you didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I’m not sure it matters when it’s your old man who dies,” Dock told her. “Edward was everything to Hunter. They camped, fished, rode motorcycles together. All the shit my old man never did with me. He was just as likely to smack me around than to take me camping.”

“I’m guessing Edward took you along with them on these excursions?”

“Some of them, yeah.”

“So he was a surrogate father to you, too?”

Dock’s eyes dampened. “So now you know. Will you drop it, please?”

Anna thought about what she’d heard. The tone of voice Dock had used told her a lot, including the fact that it most likely wasn’t an accident. She didn’t want to believe that an 18 year old kid had it in him to kill a man through jealousy but 18 year old kids did stupid things all the time. As for murdering someone, well, they sent high school kids off to fight in wars, didn’t they?

She nodded. “Yes, I’ll drop it. My heart breaks for that boy.” She purposely didn’t mention it was Hunter her heart ached for. This sociopath deserved nothing from her but if he wanted to think he had her sympathy, all the better.

“Have you ever known someone who had all the answers, regardless of what the question was?” Dock was continuing his train of thought, apparently. Anna did her best to not tune him out.

“Um, not really,” Anna figured it would be best not to mention that she was one of those people.

“They always do the right thing, know what to say in social situations, have a spare $100 when you need it, that sort of person.”