Chuck looked up at Sartore from the bottom step. “What was your mother’s name?”
The professor’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Sandy. That’s what everyone called her. Her full name, though she never used it, was Cassandra.”
Chuck blinked. The Cassandra Treasure.
“And your father?”
The professor’s voice filled with contempt. “My so-called father. He was the only one who ever called her by her given name, when he wanted to humiliate her—which was all the time.”
Chuck backed from the final step to the wooden floor of the common room. Sartore stood three steps above, his eyes clouded by the past. Beyond him, at the top of the stairs, the door to the second-floor corridor exploded outward. Flames burst from the upper hallway, enveloping the balcony and lighting the room.
Still backing away from the professor, Chuck angled between the tables toward the front door. Sartore descended the last of the stairs. Perspiration seeped through tendrils of hair plastered to his forehead. The flames consumed the balcony and licked across the ceiling above.
“My mother wanted to tell the park officials about her discovery,” the professor said, the gun still trained on Chuck’s chest. “She was convinced they would give her a share of the takings—and back then, they very well might have. But my father believed the park bosses would keep it all for themselves. My mother and father fought over the decision, ferociously. I was just a boy, hiding in the corner. My father made threats, waved a gun around, even threw my mother across the room. But she wouldn’t leave him. She loved him no matter what he did to her. Then, one day, just like that, my mother was gone.”
“He killed her?”
Sartore continued as if Chuck hadn’t spoken. “I would give anything to know she didn’t do what my father said. He told people she’d abandoned me and run off. He stayed in town for a while, started buying things for himself. Clothes, a new car. But people began to talk—until, one day, he didn’t come home either.
“He’d mined enough of the calaverite to set himself up for the rest of his life. It was easy to disappear in those days. My aunt and uncle took me in, and I was left to listen to all the whispers behind my back.”
“But you waited all these years,” Chuck said.
“I left town as soon as I was old enough. I wanted to get away, live my own life—which is exactly what I’ve done, and exactly what I would have continued to do if I hadn’t met Kirina’s mother.”
The horrible vision of Kirina being swallowed by the flames struck Chuck between the eyes. He forced the image to the back of his mind. “She really is—was—your daughter?” he asked again, playing for time.
He’d backed far enough between the tables by now to catch a glimpse of the fire advancing steadily down the first-floor corridor toward the common room. Overhead, flames from the second-floor hallway rolled far across the ceiling. Smoke gathered beneath the flames, twisting in wraith-like coils. Heat built in the room like an oven.
“Her mother left me when she became pregnant, though she never told me,” Sartore said. “I didn’t know I had a daughter until one day last year when Kirina called. She said she’d always known about me, that I was the reason she’d chosen to study anthropology. I agreed to meet her. When I saw her, I knew. She was my mother all over again. It brought back everything I’d lost. I understood then that I never should have turned my back on my mother’s discovery, her dream.”
“This whole summer was staged,” Chuck said in amazement.
“I knew more of the gold had to exist, but when I visited the mine last fall, I found the tunnel was solid granite. I needed to deepen the search, figure it out. I was too old, but not Kirina—especially with your help. I proposed the field school idea to the park, talked up the public-relations potential, got them to bite.”
“It was all a façade,” Chuck said, recalling the professor’s insistence that the students excavate the tunnel. “Except Kirina didn’t turn out to be who you thought she was.”
“In fact,” Sartore replied, his disdain obvious, “she turned out to be more like my mother than I ever could have imagined.”
“Lovesick, you mean.”
“She was captivated by Clarence. Consumed. Enthralled. I told her there would be plenty of time for him later, but she couldn’t help herself. I forced myself to believe everything would work out—until two days ago, when the police called with all their questions.”
The flames reached the end of the first-floor hallway, climbed up the back wall, and joined the blazing balcony above. The temperature soared. Smoke hung thick in the room. Chuck took another backward step, edging toward the front door.
The professor trailed Chuck, his back to the flames. “And now you have the same opportunity as Kirina. You can make things right, for both of us.”
Embers tumbled from the burning ceiling, blistering the varnished floor behind the professor. Chuck took small breaths to avoid searing his lungs. How far behind him was the front door? He dared not turn his head to find out. Instead, he looked Sartore in the eye. “Your mother,” he said. “I found her.”
The gun trembled in the professor’s hand. “My mother?”
Chuck pointed at his pack, resting against the wall at the side of the room. “In there.”
Sartore turned to the pack, his eyes growing round.
“It’s everything you’ve spent your life wanting to know,” Chuck said. “Everything.”
“What?” the professor sputtered. “How?”
Chuck tilted his head at the fire coating the back wall of the room. “There’s no time.” He pointed at his pack. “In there is—to you—my greatest discovery ever.”
Sartore looked past Chuck at the open front doorway. Chuck held his ground, the heat in the room so intense his shirt burned his skin where it touched his chest.
A tear ran down Sartore’s leathery cheek. He lowered the gun to his side, turned away from Chuck, and walked to the pack, his shoulders bowed.
Chuck backed to the front doorway. The cool night air poured past him into Raven House, feeding the flames.
Sartore set Hemphill’s gun on the floor, lifted the pack, and rummaged inside it until he pulled out the skull. He held it before him, staring at the bullet hole.
Chuck gripped the doorframe, his eyes locked on Sartore. The breeze flowing into the building stopped. A millisecond later, a violent jet of superheated air blasted Chuck out the door.