Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(71)

She clung to the ladder carefully as she went up. She was excited to see what Kaitlyn had pointed out, but devastated that Carson had not told her, despite all her work with the Celts, that he might be shifting his theory to the Toltec tribes. She had to talk to him face-to-face. And she had to get inside Mason Mound and find some link to the Celts.

Going up the ladder, she called down to the students. “I can’t recall if the Toltec-Aztecs have oversize artifacts in their tombs.”

“Yes, with weapon heads,” Kaitlyn said.

Sean would not be outdone. “Yeah, but those are sacrificial, ceremonial or mortuary ones,” he explained. “Cantrell said that just last week, at his lecture, Kaitlyn, remember?”

Kate kept climbing. Whom could she trust? Maybe not even these eager young students. What if Carson had sent them to urge her on, make her move faster, even do something rash? The article he’d sent about the thefts in tombs in Italy, now this. Was it all to force her hand, get her to go around Grant? She wanted to trust Grant, but could she? Sometimes she was sure Grant knew more about the mound than he was saying. And she admitted that going behind his back to talk to Jason about his big ax-head drawing meant Grant couldn’t completely trust her.

Kaitlyn interrupted her thoughts. “See? Over there to your right a little more.”

Kate directed her headlamp up, over. Suddenly, in stark relief, the silhouette of an ancient ax head stood out. She drew in a silent, hard breath. First a water source nearby, now this. The ancient Adena had been up here, had chipped an ax head out of this mica seam eons ago. And, perhaps, had killed their own sacrifices with it and left it to honor their gods or their dead in Mason Mound.

*

That evening, after her dig team had gone back to Columbus, Kate prepared supper and waited for Grant. He’d called to tell her he’d be late, and she’d filled him in on their finds in the mica seam. She’d also told him Kaitlyn had taken a sample of the poisoned grass and a limb of a hawthorn by the mound entry to have it tested. But he was still later than late, and she was worried. Had something happened at the mill? Had he and Brad argued again? Or something worse?

She took dinner out of the oven and put it in the microwave, where she could reheat it. Why didn’t he call? She hated to act like a nervous wife and call his cell if he was in a meeting or with Brad. She’d hoped to take him out to see their work—and the silhouette of the ax head—after they ate but soon it would be dark.

She saw a truck on the road but it didn’t turn in. She walked clear out to the road. The truck looked like the one Grant was driving while his was being repaired. It had pulled off at a spot down the road, along the fringe of the woods. Was he going to check on the mica seam on his own, so he could discuss it with her at dinner? She’d told him she’d left one ladder out there. Was he going to judge what they’d done and then tell her she couldn’t—or could—use a team to excavate Mason Mound?

She locked the house as she went out the back door. If Grant wasn’t headed in a roundabout way for the mica, maybe he wanted to check the mound entrance without letting her know.

Looking for him, she walked into the forest, past the mound, heading for the mica seam. Maybe he’d heard something about intruders out here again and thought the tree thieves might have returned for more timber.

He wasn’t near the mica, either, so she turned around to head back toward the house. But there, through the trees, she saw a blur of his light blue shirt. Grant was heading for the stone cairn where Brad had buried his dog.

She stopped where she was and crouched behind a tree. He was kneeling over that little mound of stones as if he’d come to pray there. He took out a piece of paper. Leaving Brad a note, telling him he’d found the grave?

He scribbled something on the paper and put it on the ground, then proceeded to remove the stones from the pyramid, placing them on the ground one by one. Surely, he wasn’t going to dig up a dead dog. Or did he think Brad had also hidden something else in that grave?

Hating herself for being the spy when she had worried someone was watching her from the forest, she saw Grant produce a trowel from his back pocket. He started to dig. Not far down he pulled up a small box, not a dog’s skeleton for sure. Maybe Brad had his pet cremated and only buried its ashes.

He fiddled with the box then finally opened it. Though she couldn’t see his facial expression, she knew he was upset. He bobbed his head once sharply, as if he’d cursed.

She watched him put the box back, push soil back on it, then, consulting his paper, pile the stones, evidently just the way they’d been before. He stuck his trowel in his back pocket, clapped soil off his hands and jogged back in the direction he’d come.

As soon as he was out of sight, Kate ran back toward the house. Brad had something hidden there, maybe on top of the dog’s skeleton. So now, not only was she going behind Grant’s back to talk to Jason about his ax-head drawing, but she was going to dig up that box under the stones.

*

That evening, Grant was obviously in a bad mood. He didn’t talk much at dinner, excused himself and went to his room, where he banged around and, Kate thought, made phone calls. He raised his voice a couple of times, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. She had the feeling he might be talking to Brad.

He eventually reappeared. He looked relieved when she told him that the grad students weren’t coming back until the weekend. He said nothing about digging up Brad’s box, and she certainly didn’t tell him she’d followed him. If Grant could keep secrets—though she knew this could just be a private matter between two brothers—she could, too. Tomorrow morning, as soon as Grant cleared that door, she was going to get answers. She wouldn’t give up until the pieces of a puzzle came together. But where would she even find the pieces? Not by asking Grant, for sure, as he was hardly talking and finally disappeared to go to bed. No kiss, nothing, after all that enticing talk and touching Monday night. She hoped he didn’t think she’d poisoned the hawthorns at the entrance to the mound, though she was grateful to whoever did.