Twenty-one

Amber clenched the door handle as Michael drove into the museum parking lot. Finally, he slowed to a stop. The parking lot was empty.

“That’s strange. Why isn’t Brandon’s Jeep here?”

“You told him it was important, right?” Michael turned off the engine. “And even if you didn’t, I can’t imagine him not wanting to see you.” He flashed a grin and a wink.

“Thanks for dropping me off.” Before she opened the door, she gave Michael a side glance.

He gripped her arm. “I’m going with you.”

“You can’t. We’ve been over this. I don’t want you to put one foot in that museum.” Amber’s heart thumped louder.

“If Brandon’s car were here, sure, yeah, I could drop you off. But not like this. It isn’t safe.”

“I’ll be all right. You don’t have to do this.”

“What kind of brother would I be to let you go alone, knowing the situation. Besides, I’m innocent, and. . .it’s the right thing to do.” He slipped from the car.

Amber did the same, and together, she and Michael hurried to the front door, discovering it was locked. Because of her late hours while working on the exhibits, she’d been given keys.

Once inside, she walked through the dimly lit museum, Michael close behind. Amber spotted light at the end of the hallway.

She started that way, but Michael grabbed her arm. “Wait. This wasn’t a good idea.”

“Brandon is here. He said he would be here.”

Michael exhaled. “Just be careful.”

They hurried down the quiet hallway. Brandon’s office door stood open, but he wasn’t inside. “He’s got to be here somewhere. Let’s split up,” she said.

“Not a good idea. This could be dangerous if the wrong people are here. We’ll find him together.”

“Do you really think the thief is running around in the museum tonight?”

Michael’s look sent shudders over her. “I don’t want you to get hurt. For too long, I blamed myself for what happened to Mom and Emily. Even though God helped me to forgive myself, I’m not sure what I would do if you were to get hurt because of me.”

“Because of you? This has nothing to do with you.”

“We’re here right now, because of me, and we’re wasting time. Let’s look around.”

“I’ll call him on his cell.” The cell went straight to voice mail. “Brandon, we’re here at the museum. Call me back.” She texted him as well, but got no response.

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!