The Promise (23 page)

She gave him a watery smile. "Well, I made my try for
a better life, but I guess I just wasn't meant to be anything but a
whore. And I can't say that my life has been all that bad. I mean I
had a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter. Most folks never
even have that much. Maybe I was just being greedy to want more."
She ducked her head.

Patrick tipped her head up with a finger, his eyes
searching hers. "You're being no such thing. Everybody has a right
to find their own way, Loralee, no matter what happens to them. And
I can't believe your husband would want you to quit living just
because he's gone."

He wasn't certain if he was saying the words for her
or for himself. But either way, he knew they were true.

And living was just what they were going to do.

Michael frantically scanned the bookcase,
trying to find some clue as to how to open it. He was supposed to
protect her, not lose her through a trick door.

With a hissing swish, the books started to revolve
again and Cara stood in front of him, a sheepish expression on her
face. "How's that for unusual?"

Michael grabbed her, holding her close. "Don't ever
do that to me again. I thought I'd lost you."

She pushed back, her eyes meeting his. "I'm sorry, I
had no idea the thing was going to do that. I just lifted the lid
on the urn and whoosh, I was revolving."

"How did you get back?" His pulse still hammered in
his ears.

"Elementary, my dear Watson, I just put the lid
back." She grinned and reached for it again.

He intercepted her arm, taking a firm grasp of her
hand. "Hold it. If we're going to do this, we're doing it
together." He stepped into the recess with her. "Ready?"

She nodded, looking as if this was a great adventure.
Maybe in her world secret passages were a common thing, but in his
time they usually spelled trouble. He lifted the lid and the wall
groaned and spun slowly, revolving until they were standing in
another room.

He moved out of the alcove, dragging Cara with him,
the lid still in his hand. The room was small, lit by a narrow
window, and in contrast to the rest of the house, it was in
shambles. A large map was tacked over a ramshackle desk, littered
with files, books and more maps.

Large velvet drapes hung haphazardly across an
adjacent wall as if they'd been hung in great haste. He walked over
to the map, squinting in the poor light, trying to see what it
depicted. A brass bar hung above it and brightly colored stick pins
dotted the paper contours of mountains.

Cara reached around him and clicked a knob at the end
of the bar. The map was flooded with bright light. Definitely an
improvement over kerosene lanterns. Hell, it was even brighter than
the new electric lights they'd installed in Silverthread. "Does any
of it look familiar?"

She studied the map, biting on her bottom lip, a
habit he was beginning to recognize. "Maybe. See these grids?" She
pointed at a series of overlapping boxes outlined with different
colors.

Each box was marked with a name. Dealers Best.
Homespun Dreams. The Big Bonanza. "Mining claims."

She nodded. "And from the looks of the topography,
I'd say it's the area just north of Silverthread."

He looked at it, struggling to find something he
recognized. Some claims had been marked with a colored pin and
others had been crossed out with a large X. He dropped his gaze to
the desk. The maps here were older. Some of them dating back to
before his time, each of them marked similarly to the one on the
wall.

The books were all about lost mines, legend and fact
mixed indiscriminately it seemed. And the files were marked with
coordinates and held notes on topography, the names of mountains,
gulches and streams carefully recorded. "I'd say he's looking for
something."

"The Promise."

Her hushed voice came from behind him and he pivoted,
startled to realize she'd moved from his side. She had drawn back
the velvet curtain and stood transfixed. Light from the window
streamed across the little room, illuminating a wall covered with
paintings. Cara's paintings of the mine.

And right in the center, surrounded by its
companions, hung
The Promise
.

*****

"They're here." Cara whispered, her mind
scrambling to make sense out of what was rapidly becoming an insane
situation.

"The son of a bitch stole them."

She turned to look at Michael, tears filling her
eyes. "At least they're not gone. When I saw the crates burning, I
thought…" In two strides he was standing behind her, his arms
wrapped around her, giving her needed strength. How was she ever
going to live without him?

"They're safe, Cara. And we'll get them back, but
right now I think we ought to get out of here. I wouldn't like for
Nick to find us here in his little hidey-hole."

He started to pull her away, but she placed a hand on
his arm, still staring at the paintings. "Wait a minute." There was
something here, something more than stolen paintings. She just
needed to figure it out. She took a step back her gaze sweeping
across the wall of paintings. Next she studied them each in turn,
finally ending with
The Promise
.

There was logic here. She gasped as the light finally
clicked on in her brain. "They're in order, Michael. He's put them
in order."

She turned to look at him. He was frowning at the
paintings, obviously struggling to follow her train of thought.

"I painted them randomly, as the light changed or the
spirit moved me. But these are hung in specific order. As if they
were a map. See, he's grouped them using the sun. East to west.
Michael, he's trying to find the Promise."

"You're saying he stole your paintings to use them as
a map?"

"Yup. I know it sounds crazy, but you have to
remember that the Promise has been considered a lost mine for at
least ninety years. I found it totally by accident. And if the
light hadn't been just right, I'm not sure I'd have seen it at
all."

"But even if I accept that as true, why in the world
would Nick be going to such extremes to find an old abandoned mine?
The Promise played out four years ago. Hell, just under a hundred
and fifteen years your time."

She cringed at the confusion and bitterness playing
across his face.

"It doesn't make sense, Cara."

"I know. But Nick is a deliberate man. So there is
logic here. We're just not seeing it."

Michael stared up at the paintings. "You never
actually told me about Nick Vargas."

"I guess we kind of got side-tracked." She focused on
Nick, letting her mind pull together what she knew about him.
"Nick's dad owned the bar before he did, and to hear Nick tell it,
he practically grew up there, hanging on the words of the old
timer—men who'd lived through Silverthread's glory days. That's
where he got his interest in history."

She reached for a thin book on the desk. "This is
his.
Silverthread Boom to Bust
. It chronicles Silverthread's
rise and fall, so to speak." She flipped open the book to a
photograph of a tin-starred lawman, his angelic continence at odds
with his steely-eyed gaze.

She shivered, closing the book and dropping it back
on the desk. "Anyway, I don't think his life was a good one. His
father drank, and I think he slapped Nick around some. But I don't
know for sure. It was all a long time ago. Most of it before I was
even born. Nick talked about it some, but only a little."

Michael frowned, his mind obviously working on the
puzzle. "None of that ties him directly to the mine, yet he seems
to be obsessed with it. Why?"

She crossed to the desk, randomly picking up one of
the books and leafing through it to the index. Turning to the P's
she ran her finger down the list until she found the entry she
wanted. Flipping back to the referenced page, she scanned the
paragraph about the mine, feeling Michael's breath on her cheek as
he looked over her shoulder.

"What does it say?"

"Not a lot. A version of the story about your mother.
With the added caveat that neither Zach nor Rose was ever seen
again."

Michael's eyes hardened. "Best for all, I'd say."

Cara reached for his hand. "This book is right,
Michael. Anything could have happened to them." She read further.
"It goes on to say that the silver was never recovered and is
considered by some lost treasure. Could that be what Nick was
looking for? The silver?"

Michael blew out a breath. "You said it yourself,
Nick is a deliberate man. He'd have to have something more than a
legend to go on. Besides there's no silver at the mine. My mother
and Zach took it with them. The reason it was never found was that
they spent it." His last words came out flat and harsh, colored
with bitterness.

Cara wanted to hold him. to make him see that not
everyone was as callus as his mother had been, but now was not the
time.

"I think we should go. Vargas could be back any
minute."

She nodded, and put the book back on the table,
managing to knock a map onto the floor at the same time. Reaching
down to pick it up, she noticed a slip of paper stuck between the
back of the desk and the wall.

"Wait a minute, there's something down here." She
slid her hand behind the desk and came up with a tattered newspaper
article.

Gooseflesh broke out along her arms as she read the
faded print.

Macpherson Killed in Gunfight

Silverthread, Colorado. Patrick Macpherson was shot
and killed yesterday in gunfire exchanged at his ranch, Clune.
Macpherson, 21, was fleeing Sheriff Amos Striker at the time.
Striker was attributed with firing the fatal shot. Macpherson stood
accused of murdering two Silverthread prostitutes.

A lifetime resident of the valley, Macpherson
surprised everyone with his duplicity. Owen Prescott, a close
family friend, attributes the change to the recent death of his
father, Duncan, and disappearance of his brother, Michael.

Duncan Macpherson was found stabbed to death along
the road to Clune two days before his son was killed. Sheriff
Striker suspected that Macpherson's older brother Michael might
have killed his father in an argument over a silver strike.
However, in light of recent events, suspicion has now turned to
Patrick. "I don't believe any of this," Prescott said. "It's all so
tragic."

Instability seems to run in the family. Duncan was a
known drunk and womanizer, and Macpherson's mother Rose ran away
with her lover years back, reportedly taking a small fortune in
silver with her. Although this latest transgression fits the family
profile, it comes as a surprise to those who knew Macpherson.

"Guess you just can't ever tell about folks," Amos
Striker said. "It's a sad day..."

Cara stopped, frustrated. "That's all there is. The
rest has been torn away." She knelt by the desk, squinting into the
gloom, hoping for the rest of the article. "There's nothing
here."

Michael leaned down and grabbed the article from her
hand, his eyes darting across the page. "This isn't right. It can't
be right." The pain in his voice threatened to undo her. He looked
terrified and she wanted to do something,
anything
to erase
the look. "If this is right, then everyone in my family is dead.
Patrick … my father…" He crumpled the article in his hand. "This is
a lie."

"We don't know anything for certain, Michael. We
don't even have the whole article."

He rounded on her, his blue eyes turning black with
anger, his fingers digging into her shoulders. "My brother didn't
kill any whores."

She bit her lip, trying not to cry out in pain. He
wasn't even seeing her. He would never intentionally hurt her. He
was blinded by rage. As if reading her thoughts, his grip loosened
and he gently massaged the skin he'd been gripping so ardently.

"There's just no way Patrick would kill a woman—any
woman." His words were softer now, deceptively calm. "These charges
aren't true." He waved the wadded up article in punctuation of his
words.

Cara tugged on his arm. "This isn't the place to talk
about this, Michael. We need to get out of here. We need to get
you
out of here. We'll take the article. Nick won't even
miss it in all this mess. Come on."

Grabbing the urn's lid from off of the desk, she
pulled him into the alcove and slammed it into place. The mechanism
whirred and scraped, and they returned to the immaculate
office.

Michael moved slowly, his mind no doubt numbed by the
things they'd discovered. She had to get him out of here. She had
to get him home—to 1888.

And if she was right, she had to do it as quickly as
possible.

*****

Michael paced back and forth across the rug,
his emotions tied in knots. He was marooned in the twenty-first
century and because of it, his brother and father were dead. While
he'd been cavorting like a stud in heat, someone had murdered his
father and then set his brother up to take a fall. He was supposed
to have protected them.

"Michael?" Cara's touch on his arm pulled him out of
his reverie. "There's no sense in blaming yourself. It wasn't your
fault you were shot. In fact, I'll wager it was related somehow to
all of this."

"Maybe so. But how. Damn it, how? And where does Nick
Vargas fit into all of this?"

"I don't know." She stared down at the crumpled
newspaper article, her eyes narrowed in thought. "And I'm not sure
it matters right now."

"How can you say it doesn't matter?" He knew he
sounded harsh. Knew that he was hurting her, but his pain was so
deep, so emasculating.

She held out the article, as if somehow it contained
all the answers. "Michael, what was the date when you were
shot?"