Lauren had done what she most desperately had not wanted to do—tumbled into a hole. That’s what came of forging ahead while looking back over her shoulder. At least it wasn’t a terribly deep hole, as evidenced by the fact that she was still alive and relatively unhurt, except for scraped palms and knees, and assorted bumps and bruises.
No doubt her involuntary shriek had alerted her pursuer that she was in trouble. Not good. Not good at all. A shiver coursed up her spine. She sat very still in the dark, listening for him, but the rasp of her own breathing could easily be masking the telltale sounds of his approach.
Her cell had flown from her fingers, and its light abruptly extinguished. Did that mean it was broken or just that the app had triggered off? Not that the answer mattered if she couldn’t find it again. Yet she was obliged to try.
Still on her hands and knees, she began groping the area. No phone, but she did come across a decent-sized rock. She fisted her hand around it, liking the heft and its sharp edges. The story of David and Goliath moved front and center in her mind. She’d only get one throw, but that was all David had needed. A prayer whispered from her heart.
Was she imagining things, or had a faint glow begun growing from the direction she had come? She suppressed her breathing, but could do nothing about the thunder of her pulse in her ears. Yes, a light was growing brighter. Was she imagining grunted breathing and the slap of footfalls? No, she was not. Ignoring twinges of pain from her skinned knees and bruised muscles, Lauren drew herself up tall.
One throw. Make it good!
Then she saw him. In the light of a kerosene lamp he held in one hand, the brute was every bit as fearsome as she remembered. A tremor coursed through her. He stopped at the edge of the pit she’d fallen into. Lauren kept her focus on her adversary, but her peripheral vision noted that she hadn’t actually tumbled into a hole. More like she’d stepped over a drop-off, and another one—who knew how deep—loomed only a few yards to her right, while the passage continued to her left.
Lifting her rock into throwing position, Lauren backed slowly in the direction of the passage. The fur-covered mountain man halted at the edge of the drop-off, and his maimed lips drew back in a chilling grin. Lauren’s skin crawled.
“Stay back!” She’d intended to speak firmly, boldly, but the words emerged in a raspy whisper.
A deep rumble came from the hulk’s barrel chest. Laughter! He didn’t take her seriously. Her insides shriveled. How could she blame him? In this situation, she barely took herself seriously.
The mountain man stepped off the ledge and landed with solid grace on her level. He now stood scarcely ten feet from her, still grinning and holding his knife. His rank smell invaded Lauren’s nostrils, turning her stomach. Lifting the lamp high, he took a stride toward her.
Lauren threw, aiming for his head, just like David. The rock connected with the kerosene lamp. Glass shattered. Kerosene flew, much of it splashing her assailant. The flaming wick hit the man’s fur coat and ignited the accelerant. In an instant, the man was a human torch.
Backpedaling, Lauren threw one arm up, shielding her face from the heat, but she could not tear her eyes from the horrific sight. Shrieking and flapping his arms like a wounded vulture, he staggered first this way and then that.
“Drop and roll!” Lauren cried. “Drop and roll!”
Her life-saving words appeared not to register as the man seemed determined to extinguish the flames by slapping at them with his bare hands. It was a losing battle. The greasy, matted hair and beard and filthy furs were ready fuel for hungry fire. Still shrieking and slapping at himself, the mountain man reached the edge of the other drop-off and tumbled over. Long seconds passed, and a solid thump terminated the piercing screams.
Silence and darkness reigned. Lauren lost what little food remained in her stomach. How could she ever scrub this horrible memory from her mind? And yet, her faulty aim had worked its purpose. Her pursuer could not hurt her now. She should be thankful, and she was, but mostly she felt sick. Now, she was alone in the heart of the mountain with no light to guide her out.
Her back was to the rock wall. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, she slid down it into a hunched crouch and let the sobs come.
“Lauren.”
Her heart tripped over itself. Oh, great! Could things get any worse? Now she was hallucinating voices.
“Lauren!”
The urgency of the tone stabbed through her, and her eyes popped open. She was no longer in the dark, but the light was faint. Looking up, she found a panting Kent standing on the lip of the drop-off with his lit phone in one hand and a pickax in the other. He was disheveled, dirty and the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen. Wincing, he released the pickax, sat down on the ledge and let himself drop the rest of the way. She rose and ran to him. His arms closed around her, and she burrowed into him, babbling like a crazy woman about a rock, and Goliath, and fire, and falling.
Gradually, she managed to let him know exactly what happened. She lifted her head, expecting to see shock and horror on his face for her confession about setting a man on fire.
Instead, his gaze held tenderness, and he laid a finger across her lips. “Shhh,” he said. “I’m here now.”
Sniffling, she stepped back and examined him. How foolish for her to be bawling when he was the one who had been brutally attacked. Pain lines bracketed his mouth, and dried blood streaked one side of his face.
“You’re hurt,” she said. “We need to get you back to the mercantile.”
“I don’t think so. My phone is about to go dead, and I’m too exhausted to feel my way back down this passage.”
Lauren cast her gaze around, searching for her phone. She spotted it a few feet away and scooped it up. The screen was shattered, and it did not awaken to her touch. Her teeth ground together. What could go wrong next?
As if to answer her question, Kent’s phone went dark. She reached out, found Kent’s chest and fisted her fingers in his shirt.
“We have to get out of here.”
“I know.” He sighed. “Just let me rest a little while.”
He slumped to the ground, and she settled in beside him.
“I can’t let you fall asleep,” she said. “You probably have a concussion.”
“Seems to be an epidemic of that around here.” He chuckled, but the sound broke off into a soft whine.
“Your head hurts?”
“Like a sharp-beaked woodpecker is going to town inside my brain.”
Lauren nestled closer to him, and his arm went around her shoulder. Deep contentment soothed the turbulence of her pulse.
“You know,” she said. “I should still be terrified, trapped in a cave with no illumination and no supplies, but I’m not. You do that to me—make me feel safe. I’m not used to that sensation, especially with a guy.”
Kent tucked her head under his chin. “Glad I can be of service. Sorry I arrived too late to clobber the man mountain, but you handled yourself like a champ.”
“Man mountain?”
“You know how I attach nicknames. He was a mountain of a man.”
She stiffened. “What if he’s still alive down there...in pain...we—”
“—can’t help him, darlin’. It’s okay not to take responsibility for the wounds of the world. Besides, not only was he a very bad man who tried to hurt my very favorite good person in the world, I think he was in on this whole setup with whoever sabotaged the plane.”
Lauren sat up straight. Which order of business did she address first? Him calling her his favorite good person—words that sent warm fuzzies through her middle—or his statement that the Neanderthal who tried to attack her could possibly be linked to the person who caused their plane to crash-land?
“I discovered something pretty shocking back along the passage,” he said. “I think the saboteur intended to end up in Trouble Creek after jumping out of the plane, but the bomb exploded prematurely, sending the whole planeload of us into the valley, rather than just him.”
“And Mags,” Lauren said.
“Yeah, Mags, too, but I doubt the mastermind behind the sabotage intended to let her live beyond her usefulness to him.”
“What was it you found?”
“Do you remember passing through a room with some boxes and barrels in it?”
“Sure, but I didn’t stop to investigate.”
“I did. Briefly. The barrels likely held a whole bunch of gold coins like this one.” He pressed a circular, flat object into her hand.
“Wow! This is heavy.”
“No kidding. The cavern room also held a furnace and molds that could easily be used to melt the coins and form them into untraceable bars.”
She let out a soft hum as a memory tickled her brain. “A few years ago, wasn’t there a famous heist of newly minted gold buffalo-head coins? No one was ever arrested, and the coins disappeared without a trace.”
“We may have stumbled across them—quite literally.”
“We’re still left with the question of who among the passengers is in on this deal.”
“I know we’ve gone over this countless times, but do you remember anything—anything at all—from the time of the explosion that would give us a clue?”
Lauren sat very still and racked her brain for anything else she might have missed. “There is one thing.”
“Go on.”
“You said the cargo bay could be accessed from the bathroom. When the bomb went off, Dirk was in the bathroom. I remember looking back in that direction and seeing him lying half in and half out of the lavatory door.”
“Dirk! Our least favorite guy.”
“Circumstantial evidence, to borrow a legal phrase. Most recently, Cliff has been on the top of our suspect list.”
“Our?”
“My mother’s and mine. She came up with the hypothesis that Cliff drugged his own coffee to divert suspicion from himself, based on the understanding that Dirk would attempt to switch places with him in a half hour. Since I would be nearby to administer the antidote, he felt pretty confident of his survival, only it didn’t work out quite as well as he intended, and he almost died.”
“Devious deduction, but not out of the question.”
Lauren shrugged. “That’s my mother for you. Devious.”
Kent went silent and still, almost as if he’d stopped breathing. Then a soft whistle came out from between his teeth.
“You know she’s been her own worst enemy in her campaign to get me to fall in love with you.”
Lauren’s throat tightened. She already knew he didn’t have those kinds of feelings for her. But worse, she wished he did. “I’m so sorry about that. She means well. You don’t have to explain how off-putting it is though.”
“I do have to explain. Six months ago, my heart got ripped out and trampled into the dirt by the woman of my dreams—or the woman I thought was my dream. I know now that I was delusional from the start, seeing what was never there in Elspeth. She wanted a supposedly dashing former Special Forces pilot on her elbow.
“In my mind, our relationship was serious. In hers, I was a trophy. Sure, she’d wear my engagement ring for a while, but she never intended to let me get her up the aisle to say ‘I do.’ Not as long as her mother considered me unworthy of her precious daughter. It took me a long time—way too long for a normally intelligent man—to see reality. I swore I’d never allow myself to be taken in again by a woman under the thumb of a parent. When your mom started shoving us together, I assumed you fell into that category. I was wrong.”
Kent’s warm breath on her face told Lauren he was gazing straight at her. She could hardly trust herself to speak.
“In other words,” she began in a raspy whisper, “my mother’s machinations hindered matters, rather than helped.”
“Let’s just say, they created a smokescreen I’ve had a tough time seeing through.”
A spurt of laughter left Lauren’s lips. “I’m going to use that as ammo against her one of these days.”
“With my blessing.”
Lauren heard the grin in his tone.
“Now,” he said, “if you’d be agreeable, I’m open to exploring the possibility that she might be right about us.”
Happy tears spurted to the corners of Lauren’s eyes. “I’ll never tell her that.”
“Me either. She’ll have to see for herself.”
Kent’s mouth found hers—soft, warm, undemanding. Lauren allowed the kiss to linger, expecting that knee-jerk inner withdrawal that always came when a man tried to get close to her. Only peace remained, and that itself was just a little scary. She pulled away and leaned her head on his shoulder.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, so we still haven’t one hundred percent deduced the identity of the saboteur.”
Lauren was absurdly grateful for the change of subject. She had soul-searching to do in the area of lasting romance. This problem-solving was more comfortable right now.
She lifted her head. “I’m not sure how many more clues we can find until we somehow get back to the others.”
Kent let out a low hum. “I have an odd question that may or may not lead anywhere.”
“What is it?”
“Why would your stepfather tell your mother he knows me?”
“What do you mean?”
“When she was boarding the plane, she told me her husband vouched for me as a good guy. I assume that’s why she was interested in me as relationship material for you. I’ve never seen or spoken to Marlin Barrington. Since he’s got first dibs on the company jet, Peerless One only charters mine when other executives need to go a different direction than Barrington.”
Lauren hugged her knees to her chest. “That is strange. Wait a sec! Mom told me that Marlin arranged personally for our trip to California, but that we were going to fly charter because the Peerless One jet was grounded for maintenance. I wonder if the company jet was really in the shop, or if Marlin didn’t want to crash his own jet. Could he be a part of this?”
“You don’t trust your stepfather much, do you?”
“Mom confessed to me that she’s always had a weakness for bad boys. Even though Marlin appears solid gold on the outside, I’ve always sensed cheap brass on the inside. For my mom’s sake, I’ve been trying to mark the reaction down to my chronic suspicion of the entire male race.”
Kent let out a soft chuckle. “Maybe your instincts in this case are spot-on. But why kill you and his wife, and I still don’t understand why he would tell your mother he knew me.”
Lauren snorted. “That last part is easy. If Mom had the slightest inclination to forego the trip, a romantic prospect for me would seal the deal.”
They batted ideas back and forth for a while, but conversation soon ebbed. Kent’s nearness kept Lauren reasonably warm, but the utter blackness pressed in with a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. Her imagination saw more with her eyes closed than she could see with them open.
She yawned. “Don’t fall asleep,” she murmured to Kent.
“I won’t,” he murmured back.
Shivers drew Kent to consciousness. He was cold all over except his back where something warm pressed against him. Lauren! Kent gingerly sat up and confirmed that she was lying on her side with her back against his. Faint light bathed her feminine features and emphasized the darkness of her lashes against high cheekbones.
Light! Realization literally shook him, setting off a chain reaction of aches and pains from his head straight down to his toes. He ignored the discomfort. They were in the bowels of the mountain. There should be no illumination without a light source. This felt and looked like sunshine. Could they be near an opening to the outdoors?
Lauren let out a soft moan and opened her eyes. Her gaze focused on him, and she smiled. Kent’s heart did a backflip.
She gasped and sat up sharply. “We fell asleep! I’m so sorry! Are you all right?”
Her hands fluttered up and cupped his cheeks. Those jade eyes searched his face, sending a buoyant sensation through his insides.
He smiled. “I didn’t wake up dead if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh, you!” She huffed and drew her hands back. Her gaze narrowed then widened. “It can’t be! We can see each other!”
“Let there be light,” he said, forcing his cramped muscles to bring him to his feet. He held out his hand to help her up.
She took it and rose beside him. “We need to find out where this wonderful illumination is coming from.”
He gestured toward the passage they had yet to explore. “Seems to be beaming in from somewhere that way.”
They entered the passage and soon encountered a breeze with an outdoorsy tang. Lauren let out a laugh that seemed more than a little giddy. Kent squeezed her hand that he had retained in his possession.
Shortly, the passage began to rise and narrow. They could no longer walk side-by-side, and Kent went ahead. The breeze grew fresher and the light stronger. Abruptly, he stepped out the side of the mountain onto a knoll looking down on a forest clearing. He stopped so suddenly that Lauren ran into him.
“Unbelievable!” The word gasped out of him.
“What?” Lauren pushed at him.
He stepped out of her way. She came up beside him and clamped both hands over her mouth, blinking rapidly.
Kent laid a hand on her shoulder. “Wait here inside the cave entrance. I need to investigate. People don’t leave one of those things lying around unattended, and the attendant may not be friendly.”
She nodded, tears shimmering in her eyes. Hope and fear struggled in the wobbly smile she sent his way.
Kent squared his shoulders and marched down the hill. With no cover available, there was no point in trying a subtle approach toward the last object he expected to see on the backside of nowhere—a Bell helicopter.
The bird was painted blue and white, and lacked identification markers on the chopper’s body that would be present if it belonged to the US Forest Service, some other government agency or a business corporation. A private aircraft sitting here at the exit from the cave? Too convenient a coincidence to believe this mode of transportation wasn’t connected with the scheme that involved the sabotage of his plane.
The nearer he drew toward the chopper the slower he approached, gaze searching for threat. No one appeared to be sitting inside the cockpit, but that didn’t mean no one was there. A blue jay fluttered by a few feet from him, and he jumped, then shook himself and proceeded. The grass was thick and soft here, unlike the patchy growth in the scree around Trouble Creek. If anyone were snoozing inside the body of the aircraft, they wouldn’t hear him coming. And they wouldn’t see him either, because there were no passenger windows. This was a cargo chopper.
Kent reached the bird and peered through the cockpit window. No one in evidence.
Here goes nothing!
He grabbed the door handle, jerked it open and leaped into the pilot seat. No startled outcry greeted his plunging entrance, and he stuck his head into the cargo area. Empty, except for one telltale object—a long, narrow cart, ideal for hauling long, narrow, heavy crates through cave passages. The only serious obstacle would be the drop-off Lauren had fallen down, but the mastermind behind all this no doubt had a plan to deal with that minor hiccup. A wooden ramp would do it.
The mystery just became less mysterious. This was the escape vehicle for whoever had wrecked his plane, along with his loot of gold bars. No doubt Mags had been the intended pilot for this whirlybird, but now... Kent’s brow furrowed then smoothed. Now he was the only pilot left in the game. No wonder the man mountain hadn’t gutted him with the knife when he had the chance. Kent was still useful. Everyone else was throwaway baggage.
Kent turned to motion Lauren over, but she was already halfway across the clearing. She stopped beside the open pilot door and gazed up at him. He shared his deductions with her, and her lips flattened into a thin line as she nodded in agreement.
Her brow furrowed. “Can you summon help with this thing?”
“If we’re not still disrupted by iron ore deposits,” he said, plucking a battery-operated aviation radio unit from a slot in the center console between the front bucket seats. He switched on the radio and received a burst of static. The unit worked, but would it reach out to anyone?
Swallowing his stomach into place, Kent tuned to the emergency frequency then relayed the standard distress message once...twice...three times. No response except more white noise. His hopes fell as Lauren’s shoulders slumped.
Static suddenly burst from the radio. A muffled voice came through, but no intelligible words.
Kent’s heart leaped. He keyed the mic. “Say again?”
“Dyer Airport, Dyer, Nevada, US Bureau of Land Management, responding to distress call.” Static still ruled, but the words were relatively clear. How long that would last was anybody’s guess.
Kent spoke quickly but clearly, informing the technician about the crash landing of his airplane and the location in the abandoned mining town of Trouble Creek, Nevada, exact coordinates unavailable due to instrumentation failure prior to the crash. Garbled words responded briefly and then devolved into total static. Had the technician heard what he said?
A groan of wordless frustration came from Lauren. “Why are you using the battery-operated? Why not the built-in radio?”
Kent’s gaze met the desperation in Lauren’s. “We’ve got to get this bird in the air. It’s the only way we’ll send a clear message on either the battery or the built-in. There’s one big obstacle.” He frowned at the front instrument panel. “No key in the ignition.”