North Dakota Weddings (42 page)

After a thorough search of the museum, including the basement classrooms, they ended at the hallway emergency exit between the offices and receiving room.

Amber noticed something resting on the floor at the end of the hall. She walked to the exit and Michael followed.

“What’s this?” She lifted a stainless steel water bottle with the Nike emblem. An image flashed in her mind. “This is Brandon’s. Maybe he jogged here. That could be why his Jeep isn’t in the parking lot.”

“Who else is here, then?”

“Brandon said he’d meet us here and that he’d found something, too.” Amber frowned.

“I don’t like this, Amber.” Michael began pacing the hallway, peering into offices. He lingered at the receiving room where the artifacts had been then peered into the windows of other offices.

“Why didn’t he wait for us?” she asked.

“I think I know the answer to that.” Michael motioned for her to join him, looking through the glass window of Jim’s office.

Amber tried the door and it easily opened. A chair was knocked over, paperwork scattered across the floor.

Michael picked up a paperweight and turned it over. “Blood.”

“I’m calling the police.” Amber phoned 911 and explained the situation and that she believed foul play was at work. In her opinion, the dispatcher asked too many questions, keeping her on the phone too long. Amber squeezed the cross on her necklace, and then suddenly, an image of Brandon, holding the cross in his fingers came to mind. He’d referenced looking for little clues.

“ You just have to pay attention.”

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” she said and hung up.

“What is it?” Michael asked. “Why would you hang up on them?”

“He left the water bottle next to the door. If you go out that exit you connect directly with the trail to the digs.”

“How do you know he didn’t simply drop it?”

“Because I just know, all right? He meant that to direct us.”

Amber shoved the door open, remembering the day she’d heard Brandon’s words of caution.

“One misstep could land you at the bottom of a pinnacle.”

Just keep him talking
.

Walking down the dark trail with a gun to his back, Brandon considered every tactic to escape his predicament. He wasn’t going down without a fight, and though he’d tried that in Jim’s office—a nasty knot on his head to show for it—Jason had pulled a gun.

Brandon’s hesitation to involve the police had been a mistake. But as they said, hindsight was always twenty-twenty. There were many things he’d change now. For one, if he had it to do over again, Brandon would have followed his heart from the beginning where Amber was concerned. But he’d been reserved, too worried about what others thought of him, how things would look to his donors. Too worried about carving out a successful career.

Now he clearly saw that Christ was the only one from whom he needed validation.

A painful jab in his back reminded him to focus on the current state of affairs. Keeping Jason talking could serve as a distraction. “You don’t want to do this, Jason.”

“Oh…” Jason sniggered. “I
want
to do this.”

“Come on. You’re going to add murder to your crime?”

Another jab and Brandon stifled a moan.

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to make you suffer. You humiliated me.”

“You’re going to kill me because I let you go?” Brandon asked. Did he dare remind the guy that he’d merely used his position as a means to an end?

“Who said I was going to kill you? You’re going to kill yourself.”

Tension jolted through Brandon’s body. Still a mile to hike before they reached the digs, he considered scrambling through the wooded area. But Jason knew the terrain better.

Making me kill myself is still murder
. Brandon thought he knew what Jason had in mind, and he had no plans to cooperate. If he died, it would be by Jason’s hand and not some “accident.”

On the chance that he made it out of this alive, Brandon thought to draw as much information as he could from Jason. “Can you at least tell me who you’re working with?”

“You’re really pathetic, you know that? I’d think that would be obvious by now.”

Obvious? Brandon tried to wrap his mind around Jason’s words while he stayed aware of his surroundings, hoping for an escape. Hoping that Amber would see the evidence of a scuffle in Jim’s office, hoping she would notice the water bottle he’d left
behind—Please, God!—and
call the police. Hope and a prayer was all Brandon had.

The trail ended at the digs. If Jason planned what Brandon thought, they still had a ways to go before reaching the cliff ’s edge.

Brandon slowed his pace and received another sharp jab in the back. He bent over, gasping for breath. “Can we rest for a minute?”

“You’ve got three seconds.”

Or what? You’re going to shoot me here?
Then it wouldn’t look like a suicide, but rather a murder. Brandon wasn’t about to press the man on that point. “Back to whom you’re involved with. I’m afraid it’s not obvious, Jason.”

Brandon stood tall, waiting for Jason’s answer, hoping he wouldn’t hear the name Michael.

In the moonlight, Jason looked incredulous. “Jim. Who else?”

Jim?
Brandon staggered back a few steps. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter at this point, does it? Now get walking. I haven’t got all night.”

Brandon started hiking again, this time much slower. He’d grown numb with the jabs to his back and was in shock over the news about Jim. He had come with Brandon from Landers and had been in charge of accessioning the collections there. He’d known him for years. If what Jason said were true…how many dollars and relics had he skimmed from the museum without Brandon even knowing?

What a fool he’d been! Except…he was still holding one card.

When should he play it? “I don’t get it, who can a person ever trust?”

“That’s a good question. I’m afraid if you don’t know by now, you’re not going to have time to figure that out.”

They’d reached the edge of the butte. Brandon refused to step too close. He wondered if he could fall off and somehow survive.

“I know who I can trust,” he said.

“I don’t think I’m interested. Now, jump.”

“I can trust God because no matter where I go, He’s there with me.”

Even at the precipice of a cliff
.

“ ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.’ ”

Brandon spoke the verses from Psalm 139 as though his life depended on it.

“I’m done listening. If you’re not going to jump, then you can just face God now.”

Brandon wondered why Jason didn’t simply push him, but maybe Jason knew that Brandon would pull him over with him. Not a chance would he go over alone. Unless…

The card! Play the card!

W
ait. The artifact you have is a fake.”

“You’re lying.” “I’m not, actually. I commissioned an artist to create replicas of the most expensive pieces. The genuine artifact is in the vault.”

“You’re trying to trick me. I can tell the real thing from a replica. Now turn around and face your demise.”

Fear warred with peace as Brandon did what he was told.

Every muscle in his body tightened when he heard the sound of the gun cock. A shot rang out, echoing through the Little Missouri Badlands.

Brandon jerked with the sound, believing himself shot. How was this supposed to feel? He felt…

Nothing
. What was going on?

Was he too shocked to feel pain? He wavered at the edge of the cliff, losing his balance.

This is it
.

A million regrets plunged through his soul—slowly, as though he could see each one outside of time.
Amber, I’m so sorry…
.

Arms gripped his body, yanking him back from the edge. He slammed into the ground next to someone.

Catching his breath, he rolled over to see the most beautiful face in the world. “Amber?” He slid his hands over his chest and abdomen. “I’m not shot?”

She smiled. “No. But I thought I’d lost you.”

“You saved me.” Brandon wanted to ask what had taken her so long. Grunts and scuffles drew his attention to the fight. He climbed to his feet, helping Amber to hers.

Jason struggled with another man.

Amber cupped her hands against the sides of her mouth. “Michael, be careful.”

Sirens screamed in the distance, drawing closer.

Brandon came fully to his senses. Amber and Michael had come to his rescue. Michael was still fighting with Jason.

Smack
. Michael landed a good punch into the center of Jason’s face. The man fell back but managed to cling to the gun.

Michael stomped on Jason’s wrist and kicked the gun out of his reach. Brandon scrambled for it. Jason recovered and shoved Michael to the ground, falling onto him with more punches. Clearly the stronger fighter of the two, Michael freed himself, leaving Jason groaning in the dirt.

Brandon stepped forward and took aim. “Don’t move.”

At that moment, four police officers surrounded them, breathing heavily, their weapons at the ready. Brandon slowly set the gun on the ground and raised his hands as instructed, as did Michael, Amber, and Jason.

Grand.

“Dr. Selman.” Officer O’Riley stepped forward. He attended Brandon’s Bible study. “What’s going on here? We received an emergency call from the museum and then a second call explaining someone was in danger at the digs.”

Amber cleared her throat. “If it weren’t for Michael’s call, you might not have known we were headed to the digs in time to help us.”

While struggling to catch his breath, Brandon explained to his friend that Jason, and allegedly the museum curator, had stolen an artifact. Then Jason had tried to force Brandon from the cliff.

Dismissing Brandon, Amber, and Michael for the time being, the police cuffed Jason and ushered him up the trail.

As Brandon looked on in stunned silence, he tried to process everything that had happened. One second, he was on the verge of losing his life, the next, he was alive, standing next to Amber.

“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. She meant everything to him. Why did it take a near-death experience to make him see how important she was? There wasn’t any need for him to take his time. But did she feel the same?

As he held on to her, cherishing the moment, he realized asking her to marry him would interfere with her plans for her education. How could they make it work?

Though he didn’t want to end the embrace, Brandon noticed Michael standing quietly in the dark.

Brandon walked over and offered his hand to Amber’s brother. “I want to thank you for what you did.”

No words could express how Amber felt as she listened to Brandon thank Michael. Watching Jason holding the gun on Brandon, she’d almost crumpled.

But she’d drawn on something deep inside. Or maybe Someone. “You have no idea what a hero Michael is. He tackled a man with a gun.”

“So I gathered. And apparently, just in time,” Brandon said.

While Michael tackled Jason, she had yanked Brandon from the brink of death.

“No kidding. The bullet missed.”
I thought I’d lost you
. Was he hers to lose, despite his kisses?

Brandon took Amber’s hand as the three of them began the arduous twomile hike up the trail to the museum.

“Earlier this evening,” Brandon said, “you mentioned you discovered something about the artifact. If not for that discovery and your plans to meet me, I might be dead now. Mind telling me what it was?”

Amber started to answer, but Michael spoke up. She was so proud of him.

“I received a message from an old contact wanting to offload an artifact. He needed to move it quickly.”