Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(69)

“Not a coincidence,” he insisted. “Awfully good timing, especially with all that’s happened lately. I didn’t see much previous rock litter down there, so rocks hadn’t fallen recently.”

Her heart was hammering so hard from his touch and her run up here and from her renewed fear that someone or something was still stalking them. They stood carefully on the mica ledge, peering down. “You know,” she said, “the forest—ravines, too—are usually the sites of lurking evil in primitive myths and more recent fairy tales.”

“Thank you, Professor Grimm. Would you quit talking like that? The dead Adena are not haunting you—or me—and we’ve got to find what living bastard is. Let’s go back to the house before it gets dark. But what just happened means you can’t excavate here or you might get hurt—or buried from above.”

Buried from above. The words snagged in her brain. Like the Adena dead nearby.

“Grant, please. I didn’t mean this should spook us—keep us away. I’ll ask Kaitlyn to bring another student or two, and we’ll set up a guard above us.”

He didn’t answer until they made their way back into the ravine. If she excavated only the mica seam here, would someone harass her? Considering what had happened to Paul and Todd, maybe this wasn’t even about her. That would mean Grant was the target.

*

Grant was shaken but also angry. The rockslide had missed them only because they’d jumped away, warned by the fine mica dust and chips before the larger rocks crashed down. Those could have broken bones—or caved in their skulls. All he needed was another nightmare that he was back in the death chamber, stealing from skeletons with crushed skulls. And, unlike Kate, who he thought was hearing things outside windows or even making that up, they had both heard someone scurry away above them, and it sure as heck wasn’t some Adena ghost or Beastmaster running amok in these woods.

But who would profit from his demise, or Kate’s? The same idiot who had shot at them up on Shadow Mountain? Surely not Brad or Lacey, though Brad was his heir in his will—and knew it. Grant couldn’t quite picture Carson Cantrell getting his hands dirty, though of course, like Kate, who had seemed fine with dirt and mica on her hands and under her fingernails this morning, Cantrell must excavate with the best of them. Or could Cantrell have seen him kissing Kate and her eager response? Who else hated his guts?

“I guess,” he told her as they trekked back toward the house, “you can check out the mica seam if you can get a couple of guards as well as Kaitlyn for company. Not Professor Cantrell, okay?”

“No, I’ll only use him to get permission for the others to come. He’s got a busy teaching and speaking schedule anyway and can’t get away much. I can’t thank you enough, Grant, really.”

“We were rudely interrupted back there,” he said, taking her hand in his as they neared the mound. He’d agreed she could research the mica only to keep her working on something Adena that wasn’t the mound itself. “Let’s remember the finder’s-fee payment continues daily if you’re so eager to dig.”

“It will keep me out of trouble during the day, right?”

“Except for getting in trouble with me at night, and—” He released her hand and ran toward the mound as they neared the house.

She saw what had upset him and chased after him. The hawthorn bushes guarding what she was certain was the opening to a horizontal entry shaft were not just sick and old, but very, very dead. He’d steered her away from the entrance on their way out to the mica seam, or they would have seen this earlier. It was almost dark, but he could see yellow leaves scattered under the brittle branches. Even the grass and moss at their base was brown and dead.

“I know those were old, but someone’s poured some kind of herbicide on the ground. You didn’t?” he muttered.

“No way! I wouldn’t. I swear it wasn’t me. When I get some help out here—just for the mica seam—I’ll have them take a sample of the moss or grass to the lab, see if we can find exactly what killed these bushes.”

He gripped her wrist as they stared at the entry area to the mound behind the skeletal hawthorns. She didn’t flinch, but, unspeaking, slid her hand up to entwine her fingers with his. He tried to stay strong, but he feared whoever had killed Paul and hurt Todd was now after him.





22

Kate was thrilled at how swiftly, for once, her Adena research plans came together. Finally, something was getting done! One call to Carson and the next afternoon she had Kaitlyn Blake and two other graduate students, both eager young men, released from their archaeology seminar to assist at the mica seam. It lifted her spirits. It was a step in the right direction.

As she’d promised Grant, she had the two guys take turns atop the ridge, keeping an eye out as the others worked below. Bill Bosley and Sean Armstrong were eager to help. Bill took the first watch above, while Sean and Kaitlyn, under her guidance, cleared the rest of the ivy away. Standing on ladders, they started at the top of the seam with the long-handled soft brushes Kate had hoped to use in the mound. They cleared any clinging soil, cobwebs or dead leaves so they could discern patterns and shapes better.

“It was neat to see how the Adena are honored in this part of Ohio,” Sean said as Kate supervised. “I mean, we passed the Adena Regional Medical Center on the way here, and then there’s the Adena Mansion, but I haven’t seen that yet.”