Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(83)

Nadine gave a huge sigh, as if she were deflating. “Since poor Paul isn’t here and two of those things were found on Grant’s property, maybe you’d better ask him.”

“Oh, yes,” Kate said. “Believe me, I intend to do just that.”

*

In the old days, Kate would have called Carson for advice and support. But she drove directly to Grant’s and retrieved her Beastmaster mask from the basement. Even though Grant had protested about it at first, he’d never moved it off the Ping-Pong table.

She unwrapped and displayed the mask on the large, wooden coffee table in the living room. She took a tiny easel that displayed a photo of Grant’s parents, put the photo aside and leaned Paul’s drawing on it right next to the mask. And then she began to pace and plan.

This had to be done right, said right. She made herself eat something so she wouldn’t be at a disadvantage when she faced him down. Still, as exhausted as she’d felt this morning, energy and adrenaline surged through her.

She continued to pace in the living room, reciting aloud various approaches.

All the while, she kept glancing out at the mound through the big glass window.

*

It was just after five when Kate heard Grant’s loaner truck, which made a lot more noise than his own. She also heard the garage door go up and a truck door slam. Next came the sound of a key in the lock, then the garage door to the kitchen opened. She stood her ground by the coffee table, then moved in front of it so he wouldn’t see what was on it until he was fully into the room. She didn’t want him throwing a fit and retreating before they had it out once and for all.

“Kate, I was going to phone you, but we got really busy with new deliveries today, and I was on the phone to that Wisconsin mill and the highway patrol about my tree. The name they had for the seller was bogus, but they’re going to get the police there if some oak—Keith’s oaks, I bet—comes in. They promised to make an arrest, so there’s a chance, anyway.”

He tossed his keys on the end table and walked to her. He didn’t even take his cell phone out and put it down somewhere as he always did, as if to officially end his working day.

“What?” he said, stopping a few feet from her. “I can tell something else happened. What?”

Before he could hug her, she stepped aside. He frowned at her, then at the coffee table with her display.

He sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s the mask you made, right?”

“What other could it be?”

“The one you said Carson’s latest protégée made. Whatever one it is, I don’t want it here!”

“Did you think at first it might be the one Paul drew?” she said, lifting the sketch from the small easel and extending it to him.

His expression shifted from surprise to anger. “Nadine gave you this?”

“Yes. And I didn’t even ask her for it. She knew very little about it, but I figured you’d know a lot.”

He tossed the sketch on the coffee table and slumped on the soft couch. She couldn’t stand still. She started waving her arms in wild gestures.

“Talk to me, Grant! I’m finally onto your scheme to keep me ignorant of the Adena relics from this property, from the mound.”

“And?” he said, his voice a challenge.

“For starters, where is this eagle pendant in the drawing? And this detailed mask? I can believe an arrowhead—even a prehistoric one—and an ax head were uncovered outside the mound on your property, but you and your buddies hardly dug up this beautifully carved piece of an eagle necklace and a bone, horn and mica Beastmaster mask. I don’t think either of them would be this intact just buried in the ground. They had to be somehow protected from the elements and centuries of people. Either of these relics are what I’ve been looking for, the pot of gold, El Dorado, proof that the Celts, or an offshoot of them, became the Adena! Did your grandfather get these out of the mound in ’39, and you have them now, like family heirlooms, hidden away in secret because keeping them is illegal? You’ve lied to me, haven’t you?”

“I don’t have the arrowhead. Brad moved it and won’t say where it is. But there was no dog buried out there, any more than there are likely to be Adena corpses—skeletons—in the mound.”

“You’re not answering my questions—again. So Brad lied to me, too? Did your grandfather say there are no human remains in the mound?”

“I didn’t overhear if there are or not. I just know I promised my dad and grandpa that no one would enter the mound.”

She started to pace again. “Oh, right—let the dead stay dead. But the truth is, you can’t keep treasures—and the truth—buried,” she said before she remembered she was quoting Carson. “Your grandfather’s keeping it a secret didn’t help your poor grandmother, did it? Don’t you think if your grandfather had let someone responsible dig there, it could have helped her? Then she wouldn’t have imagined that Indians were coming out of there to chase her. Maybe she wouldn’t have died the way she did.”

“You should talk! Who supposedly saw the Beastmaster lurking outside Tess’s garage? Who heard it outside the window here?”

“Yes, that mound haunts me, too. And you said it has haunted you, so let’s—”

“It’s true Todd has the ax head, but he’s put it someplace besides the attic where Jason cut himself on it.”