Forbidden Ground (28 page)

He heard Keith swear and then the forklift started again. The man was skilled with that, and fast. Had Keith shoved rocks over the mica ledge at him and Kate? And what else? Could he be working for or with Brad? Brad had tried to get along with Keith lately, and they’d talked a lot.

Staggering in a zigzagging path down the tall stacks of tree trunks, planks and cut wood, desperate to get clear to his car, Grant tried to keep Keith from catching a glimpse of him.

29

E
ven if Carson killed her, Kate didn’t want him to get his hands on that authentic Beastmaster mask. He was the real beast here.

On the way down the basement stairs with the gun pressed to her head, Kate wondered if she dared try to pass off her mask on the Ping-Pong table as the ancient one. Or if she did show him the real one, would he be so stunned at its magnificence, like she’d been, that she could catch him off guard? She could get his gun, shoot him if she had to, run upstairs, get help for Grant.

She decided not to risk passing off the mask she’d made as the authentic one. Carson was familiar with it, and the Ping-Pong table had lights above it, so he would see the mask clearly. She could try stalling, especially since Grant had the key to the box, though she supposed it could be opened by force.

She led Carson into the game room and easily removed the five wood panels, since Grant had not replaced the hutch. He’d left the big hook on the floor, too. Could she hit Carson with it or one of the wood panels? She took her time maneuvering the heavy masonry blocks onto the floor.

A terrible thought hit her. Here she was, showing Carson what Grant had just entrusted to her care. If she and Grant managed to get out of this, would Grant ever believe that she hadn’t meant to give his treasure away?

She was hoping Carson would get frustrated with her slowness, offer to help, lay the gun aside for even a moment, but he didn’t.

“These blocks are heavy, and the box back here is, too,” she told him.

“You’re a strong girl. Take your time. I’ve got klieg lights out back if we enter the mound after dark. This Glock and I can be very patient. And Velma told me that Brad is living with Grant’s ex, so I don’t expect him to show up here. Today, we have plenty of time, just you and me.”

She struggled to slide the box out, hurting her wrist and breaking her nails. She shoved her business card back inside the dark space. That Grant had wanted to be sure someone phoned her if he was gone and someone found the mask was not for Carson to know. She cherished the thought that Grant had at least done that for her, and before she made him tell the truth.

“Like I said, Grant has the key, so I can’t open it,” she told him.

“But you’re very good with an excavating needle pick, aren’t you?” He tossed one onto the floor beside her. “Use it to pick the lock. Ah, just think, the real thing at last. Proof of the Celt-Adena link. Does it help to know that you were right? I’d say the size of the box means it is quite spectacular.”

“I don’t know how to pick a lock,” she said.

“Try it. Do it. Now.”

She hated this man. She was going to stop him whatever it took.

* * *

As soon as Grant cleared the corner of the building, he broke into a full-out sprint for his car. It was only then he realized how dizzy he was. He reeled, went way off balance.

The buzz of the forklift motor stopped. He heard a shout behind him, followed by footsteps.

Grant lifted one hand to his head as if he could steady himself. With his free hand, he dug for the key in his pocket as he ran. If Keith caught up to him, he’d be no match for him in this condition. Now that he’d tried to kill him, there would be no holds barred.

His fingers seemed clumsy. When he glanced at his car again, it seemed to tilt, almost to stand on end.

He aimed the key for the lock, but it, too, seemed to be moving. He scratched the door paint, tried again.

Keith was close, too close. Desperation and rage poured through him. This man he’d trusted had tried to crush his skull like Paul’s, like those long-dead Adena.

As Keith lunged for him, Grant grabbed at some hanging plants outside the mill. One came loose by its chain. Gripping that, he swung the plant at Keith and connected with his jaw. He went down on all fours, then scrambled up and lunged at Grant again.

* * *

Although Kate could not manage to pick the lock of the box, Carson didn’t put down the gun to help her. “All right,” he muttered. “Bring the box. No more Q and A, no more stalling. I’ll take it like it is.”

It was heavy, but she lifted it in both arms. Her skin was so slick with sweat she almost dropped it. She managed to keep the needle pick, though she wasn’t sure what good it would do against a gun. But she held the pick tight under the huge box as she slowly made her way up the stairs. However pitifully small, she’d try to stab him with this pick when she got her chance. She had to keep fighting the most primitive fight-or-flight response. Stay calm, look for a way to outsmart one of the smartest people she’d ever known.

Outside, she was shocked to see only one man near the mound, a tall, muscular guy who greatly resembled Keith. And the mound—the entry was open. She could see a narrow passage into it!

“Take the box and guard it with your life,” Carson told the man.

She managed to hide the pick before he pulled the box from her aching arms. She trembled from the strain, excitement and terror. If she went in there with Carson, she knew she wasn’t coming out. How she had longed to get a glimpse of the interior, but now she wanted to run. Should she risk that, let him shoot her in the back? Maybe Gabe could trace the bullet and gun to Carson—if they ever found her body.

“You first,” Carson said and gestured with his gun toward the dark, gaping entry. “Didn’t you used to say you wanted us to explore things together?”

“You’ll need a lot of light in there,” the other man said, putting the box down and handing Kate a big light and Carson a smaller one. “You won’t believe the stuff inside. Creepy, like some horror show. Man, can’t wait to close that up again. I’ll wait here.”

Kate knew what her fate was then. He did intend to leave her inside, shot or not. Even if he interred her alive, she would run out of oxygen. Carson would be back soon to take artifacts from here, either pretend to be shocked to find her body—or get rid of it. He’d make his name with a careful excavation and claim her Celt/Adena theory was his.

* * *

Grant hit Keith with the plant a second time, again in the face. The big man fell back onto his rear. Keith rolled over and lunged at him again.

Grant managed to sidestep the attack. Maybe his equilibrium was improving. A car horn blared. A door slammed. Someone driving by saw them. He heard Brad’s voice. “Keith! Grant! What in— Stop it!”

“It’s him!” Grant grunted. “Him!”

“Him what?” Brad shouted and pushed them apart. Keith swung a fist at Brad and connected with his jaw.

“He tried to kill me!” Grant shouted. Dizzy as he was, he pulled Keith away from Brad and kneed him in the groin. The man he’d trusted doubled over and threw up. Grant shoved him to his knees, facedown in his own vomit. “He climbed with Todd the day before he fell, probably sabotaged his harness! He called me and said you were drunk, on the catwalk inside. It was a setup so he could kill me!”

Brad scrambled up and helped Grant subdue the bigger man. Grant pulled the length of chain from the hanging plant and wrapped its links around Keith’s wrists behind him.

“And you believed him about me being drunk again?” Brad muttered, as he spit out a tooth. “Thanks a lot.”

“No, thanks for helping. When the Mason boys stick together, look out.”

“Together again. You know, you look like hell,” Brad said.

“Dizzy. Can’t drive. Take me home. I’ve got to call Kate, tell her what happened.”

“You need a doctor. Let’s call Jace first to come arrest this bastard. He must have been killing off Gabe’s friends to get back at him. So, the Simons boys stick together, too. I was probably on his hit list next—that right, Keith?” Brad demanded. He picked up his tooth and put it in his pocket. He was bleeding from the mouth.

“Let me borrow your phone,” Grant said. “I’ll get the sheriff, but I gotta call Kate first.”

He dialed her number but she didn’t pick up. He couldn’t imagine she’d leave the house where she’d finally found the mask. She wouldn’t take it out of its hiding place and go to that damned Carson—would she? He was hoping that he and not that horrible mask was the answer to all her prayers.

* * *

Praying hard, clutching the needle pick in her right hand, shining a bright beam of light ahead of her, Kate entered the dank dirt passageway into the mound. Behind her, Carson held his gun on her. He prodded her in the back with it more than once. It was much too narrow in here to turn on him and try to stab him with this little needle pick.

The thrilling moment of discovery she’d always longed for was ruined now. Whether it was the Adena who had passed through here centuries ago, Grant’s grandfather decades ago, four scared boys or just Carson’s lackey today, all she wanted was out. Even her passion to know what lay within was nothing next to her desperation to live.

And here, in this very passage linking life and death, what had sacrificial slaves or prisoners thought they would find within as they made this final journey? Praise? Honor? A glorious afterlife? She knew one thing. Once inside, she had to ignore whatever wonders or horrors she saw and concentrate on finding a way to escape.

She was sweating, but she shook with chills. Her stomach cramped. Dust bit into her nostrils, fierce fear into her heart. She could feel herself breathing harder in the scant, stale oxygen, hemmed in by the big log beams that lined this passageway. Suddenly, it opened into a low, broad space with a beamed ceiling.

She almost stumbled over a pickax Carson’s man must have left inside. “Well,” he said. “He didn’t have my safety lecture in my Archaeology Fieldwork class.”

If she wasn’t ready to cry, she would have laughed. At one time, like an idiot, she would have thought that was clever. Now her moment of triumph in the tomb was going to be a deadly disaster.

As their light beams probed the interior, they gasped in unison at what they saw: two elaborately dressed, intact skeletons with dust-covered weapons and jewelry arrayed around them, guarded by prone corpses with smashed skulls.

Life—the idea of life with Grant—had never seemed sweeter.
Now or never,
she thought. “Oh, Carson, look there!” she cried. “Another Beastmaster mask!”

She flashed her beam of light directly into his eyes and ducked. The gun went off, echoing, seeming to shake the chamber, though the sound was probably muted outside.

She crawled away from him, waiting for pain, but she had not been hit.
Yet.
Carson cursed, used his light, then scrambled for his gun instead of her. It had landed on the wooden bench where the two main corpses lay. For a moment, their shifting light beams made it seem as if the dead bodies moved. It wouldn’t do her any good to run out when Carson’s lackey waited there. In that split second, she spotted something better than the needle pick she still held. She grabbed a big ax head near her.

As Carson spun toward her with the gun, she lunged and hit him with the ax head, cutting his neck. With a cry and a curse, he threw her back against a support beam, then raised the gun.

Just like the day she and Grant kissed at the mica seam, a small cascade of dust sifted down on them. Above, something rumbled. Carson, holding his bleeding neck with one hand, looked up for a moment and the cloud of dust turned to a dribble of dirt. She leaped away as he tried to cover his eyes. Dust and dirt in larger chunks cascaded at him. He covered his head and tried to duck.

He shot where she had been. He screamed, trying to clear his eyes as the two beams above them groaned and sagged, then gave way. The earth beneath Kate’s feet seemed to shift. With a huge belch of dust and shudder of earth, the roof of the burial chamber caved in.

Kate threw herself under the corpses’ bench and covered her head. When the rumbling sound finally stopped, she lifted her head and, coughing up dust, opened her eyes. The wan light that had marked the exit was gone, covered by a mound of dirt. She was trapped in utter, solid blackness with the dead.

30

A
fter Jace arrested Keith Simons, Grant insisted that Brad drive him by the house on the way to the Adena Regional Medical Center.

“Her car’s here,” Grant said as they pulled up.

“So—a good sign.”

“Then why didn’t she answer her phone? If she went outside for something, I think she’d take it with her.”

He’d filled Brad in on showing her the mask. Brad admitted he’d moved his arrowhead to his safe-deposit box in the bank. Together, both walking wounded, they got out of the car and walked toward the house.

“Kate!” Grant bellowed inside though it made his head hurt more. At least most of his dizziness had subsided. He didn’t stop to wash the dried blood off his head or change his shirt. He’d been urging Brad to call the town dentist right away and take his tooth in to see if it could be reimplanted. But now nothing mattered but Kate.

He went down to the basement. The light was on. He saw the hiding place was open and the box gone. Had she betrayed him?

“Grant!” Brad shouted down the stairs. “You’ll never believe this. Keith’s brother’s out by the mound. Ned, the one who you said got ticked off and quit the mill.”

As exhausted as he was, Grant ran up the stairs and straight outside. Dusk was edging toward darkness.

Ned saw him coming and shouted. “Hey, I was hired to dig out this mound. She’s with that professor guy,” he added, holding up both hands and backing away. Grant figured he was probably going to grab the shovel behind him for a weapon. The mask box lay just beyond, so had Kate turned traitor?

“He—I mean she,” Ned stammered. “She hired me to dig out the entry. Hey, what happened to your head?”

“Get off my land. Go see if you can raise bail money for another of your lunatic brothers, because Keith’s been arrested.”

“For taking trees?”

That news staggered Grant. Keith and Ned were the tree thieves. But that was secondary to finding out who’d really ordered Ned to dig out the entry to the mound. He didn’t want to enter it ever again, but he had to get Kate and Carson out here, so he hoped he didn’t have to fight Ned, too. He watched the big man glance at the shovel, and then he ran into the trees.

Grant turned and gasped. It was true that the entry to the mound had been dug out, but it was blocked maybe six or eight feet in! Could Kate be trapped? He knew how desperately she’d wanted to see inside, yet he couldn’t believe she’d do this. How could Kate or Carson have located Ned? He’d believed Kate when she’d said she was done with Carson, yet...

No, he believed her. He loved her.

He ran for the shovel and attacked the soil blocking the entry. Through the thickening gloom, Brad appeared. “I called Jace. He’ll be here as soon as he locks up Keith.”

“Call the volunteer fire department. We can use these lights. I think Kate’s trapped inside, maybe with Cantrell!”

“Okay. Okay! I’ll be right back to help you dig.”

His head and heart pounding, Grant hacked at the huge plug of dirt—and then he hit a barrier of broken log beams.

* * *

Until the noise and shuddering of the mound stopped, Kate kept curled up with her hands over her head. She’d been certain her skull—like the two bodies here, like Paul’s—was going to be smashed. But the low-built bench with the corpses above her had protected her from the worst. She was sure Carson had been crushed. She called out his name but there was no response.

She had a pocket of sooty air to breathe but for how long? She edged blindly into the pitch-black space. Where was that ax head? If she could find it, she could dig with it, but she felt nothing like that nearby. She reached up onto the bench to see if she could find another sharp mica weapon or instrument. Her hand snagged only bones. She pulled back. Her own gasping for air echoed strangely as if the corpses above her were breathing.

Although she could see nothing, she had to find a tool to dig her way out. As she crawled carefully through the darkness, waving one hand ahead of her, her thoughts cleared. She had so much to live for. She loved Grant and prayed he’d want her. And she had to forgive her father, to tell him so. She’d get to know her little half brothers, spend more time with Tess and Char, get married and have babies of her own. Her career was important, but here—trapped within the burial mound—the most important goal was life. She had to get out.

However hopeless she felt, she started digging with her hands. She breathed in stale air laden with dust. Grant’s family motto of
Let the dead stay
dead
haunted her. She wanted to breathe fresh air again, see the sunlight. She wanted to hold Grant. But she swallowed a scream when she heard another rumble and more dust and dirt settled itself just ahead of her.

* * *

Grant and Brad dug like madmen before nine volunteer firefighters rushed in with picks and shovels.

“I think some beams inside must have collapsed. We think two people are trapped,” Grant told them. In the cooling evening breeze, he realized there were tears running down his face. As darkness descended, they brought in more klieg lights. The area around the mound turned bright as day.

He’d recognized all of the guys but one. Out of breath—praying that Kate had air—he stood back with Brad and watched them work.

The fire chief, Mike Thomas, who also owned the pharmacy uptown, came to talk to him. “You’ve been bleeding bad, Grant. Want me to clean that up or call the squad? Looks like you need stitches.”

“We need the squad to help Kate when we get her out. What about maybe going in from on top of the mound?”

“I sent a man up to look. He saw a depression there, but no hole, so we might only cause more cave-ins with weight up there. It all depends on where the victims are trapped.”

Where the victims are trapped.
The words echoed through Grant’s stunned mind. He tried to tell himself the fact they were in an ancient tomb didn’t mean they were dead. Kate had to be alive. It would be too much if she died where she’d most wanted to discover things. They’d only begun to know each other. He couldn’t bear it if she was buried with her Adena.

* * *

Kate continued to dig with her hands in the area where she thought Keith’s brother had opened the narrow passageway. For so long she’d wanted in, not out of here. Her arms were weak, her back ached—her regrets hurt the most. The stale air was dwindling, because she was breathing hard, too hard. Hard work, she’d never been afraid of that, helping Mom when Dad left, studying long hours, working jobs to put herself through college for what her scholarship and grants didn’t cover...reaching for goals. It was hard to breathe...exhausted...light-headed and faint...

But then someone was digging beside her. “Carson?” she muttered and slumped against the dirt wall. But no voice, no other sounds but her own rasping breath and someone else digging.

Someone was lifting her, laying her out on the wooden bench with the corpses. She was floating in air, surrounded by mica-covered faces and something bright in her eyes and over her face...like a mask...a Beastmaster mask...

Strange voices, not Grant...not Carson...not the one who helped her dig...

“Okay, got her. She was partway to us. Slide her out.”

“She breathing?”

“Oxygen mask in position on her face. Turn it on. Now!”

“Kate! Kate, it’s Grant. Take a deep breath. Breathe, sweetheart.”

“Grant, was she crushed?”

“Not this woman. No way!” Grant said, but his voice caught and he sucked in a sob.

She opened her eyes and tried to blink away the dirt and soot. She was not on that bench with the Adena. Living, moving men had her on a kind of gurney. The lights were so bright they hurt her eyes. Was it the next day? How long had she been inside? She looked around, dazed, confused, seeing face after face of Cold Creek men who had somehow dug her out—and hadn’t someone gotten in to help her dig? She kept sucking in big breaths of sweet air.

When Jace and Brad came up to stare at her, she pulled the oxygen mask off. “Jace, Carson Cantrell’s inside. Buried under beams and soil. He had a gun. He opened the mound and forced me in.”

Jace turned away, yelling to the others that there was another person inside.

“Grant,” she said weakly. “Is the mask okay?”

He smiled through his tears and took her soil-caked hand. His head was bandaged. He had blood all over his shirt, and she was filthy, but crazy joy surged through her. She was alive and Grant was, too.

“The mask is safe,” he said. “And I’m giving it to whatever woman agrees to live here and marry me—and dig this mound out the right way. Now, put that oxygen mask back on your face.”

“Okay, but no more lies or masks. I’m going to marry the man I love, even if he only owns an anthill and won’t let me near it.”

He squeezed her hand and kissed her gently before he put the mask back on her face.

* * *

Two days later at 9:00 p.m., Kate and Grant waited for Tess and Gabe to arrive at the Columbus airport. People who had deplaned streamed past them. They watched a happy reunion between a soldier dressed in desert fatigues and his family. Kate blinked back tears at their joy and her own. She’d called her father and talked to him for two hours. He’d said she and Grant should visit in autumn. As soon as the mound was cleared as a crime scene, she was going to lead a team to excavate it. On Monday, she had to testify in a hearing in Columbus about Carson’s death. They’d recovered his body—crushed under tons of wood and soil in the mound—and some stolen and black-market antiquities in his house. But right now, she felt nothing but relief.

When the story of Carson’s crimes had hit the local and national media, Char had called from out West, worried about Kate, asking if she should come back and take care of her. Char, the bleeding heart. Kate had thanked her but had assured her she had someone to take care of her now.

“Wow!” Char had exploded. “Maybe I’d better get my bod back to good old scenic Cold Creek. Seems to me like a hot spot for finding mates! No way I’m going to marry a man out here. Wish I could stop them from drinking and roughing up their wives and kids.”

Kate and Grant held hands, watching for the newlyweds, since the arrival board said their plane had landed. A cluster of people came at them, and then Tess and Gabe appeared, beaming.

“Hey, you two, thanks for being here,” Gabe cried as Kate and Tess hugged and the men shook hands. “And you two were holding hands and you have that look—right, Tess?”

“I’ll say they do,” Tess said, grinning and rolling her eyes. “I’d recognize it anywhere now. But wait till we tell you guys about our trip. It was so fabulous and romant— What?
What?
Did something besides you two getting closer happen while we were gone? Oh, Grant, you have stitches on the side of your head.”

“Are you okay?” Gabe asked. “What happened? Is everything all right in good old Cold Creek?”

Kate and Grant had decided not to spring the news of Paul’s death and Todd’s accident on the newlyweds first thing. But where to start? All she could think of now was, no matter what terrible things had happened, she and Grant had a great, new beginning.

* * * * *