Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(86)
“I— No, of course not. Please put that gun away, and we can still work things out.”
“Too late, dear Kate. You have completely disappointed me, but I have hopes for Kaitlyn now. So let’s get the mask out of the basement and get into the mound before darkness descends.”
She gasped. How did he know where the mask was? This was too much, too fast to reason out.
“You asked how I got in here,” he said. “Keith had a copy of the house key made quite a while ago from Grant’s office at the mill.”
Keith! If Keith was working for Carson, Grant was in terrible trouble.
*
Grant jumped out of his car and rushed into the mill. He scanned the catwalk above the now quiet, deserted cutting floor. There was no sign of anyone. At least Brad hadn’t done this in front of the staff.
“Keith? You here? Brad?”
Keith’s distant voice came from the big back sliding door where seasoned wood to be cut or treated was brought in by a forklift.
Grant ran around the big suspended cutting saws and conveyor belt toward the door. He scanned the area for Brad, praying he hadn’t jumped or fallen to this concrete floor. He saw in his mind’s eye the long-decayed, displayed corpses of the Adena, those honored in death, and the servants or slaves who had been sacrificed with them, laid out on low beds on the floor of the tomb with smashed skulls...a nightmare from the depths of time.
He stopped in front of the high, half-open door that led to the back lot with its pallets of tall stacked wood. Thank God Brad wasn’t on the floor, but where was Keith?
He was about to yell for Keith again, when he heard a noise and turned. Keith swung a two-by-four so fast Grant felt a breeze. Instinctively, he tried to duck before his head exploded. He fell to the floor.
*
“And, of course,” Carson lectured, “Keith’s own set of keys was how he got in here to plant the bugs.”
“Bugs? What bugs are in this house?” Kate demanded.
“Not those damned mosquitoes outside by the mound at dusk. Covert listening devices. Velma’s been so helpful monitoring what was said here in this room and keeping me totally informed. She’d never texted before, but, in exchange for a few nice things, she’s been a real trouper, too.”
Besides betraying Grant for money, Keith and Velma must be out to hurt Grant because that would hurt Gabe. Another brother had quit the mill, but Keith must have stayed for revenge, and Carson had made it workable and worthwhile.
He went on. “I told Keith I’d pull the bugs out of here, so that tinhorn sheriff’s deputy won’t find them.” She watched, stunned, as he pulled something from behind a framed photograph on the wall and something else from inside a leafy plant.
“Very handy, small and flat. Voice activated. These look just like a flash drive if anyone stumbles on them,” he said, pocketing them. “You know, I had to cancel an important conference call to drive down here today when Velma texted that you had started rehearsing aloud what you were going to say to Grant about the four Adena relics. I figure one of them is the eagle pendant I’m owed, but I want the others, especially that Beastmaster mask.”
“Keith’s willing to kill, too, isn’t he?” Kate asked, horrified. “Todd took Keith up climbing just before he fell. He must have made some cuts in Todd’s harness that frayed during the next climb. But why? To put pressure on Grant to let us dig? And poor Todd was so sure of himself aloft, he missed that.”
“Ah, pride goeth before a fall. Finally, you are showing a glimmer of intelligence in all this. As I said before, your rush of feelings for Grant blinded you. You should have done your homework. Didn’t I always stress that?” He shook his head and shrugged. “I thought Grant would buckle under pressure, starting with losing that big maple tree that guarded the mound. Here on the edge of Appalachia, families like the Simons clan are thick as thieves—timber thieves.”
“Keith is the timber thief? He’s the one who shot at us on Shadow Mountain?”
“The one thing he did on his own, and it was stupid. He figured if you and Grant were gone, I could deal with Brad Mason. But we didn’t need the law on our back, especially not your new brother-in-law, who would make it his life’s work to find who killed you and Grant. At least Keith finessed his own trees being cut.”
“He cut his own oaks so Grant wouldn’t suspect him? Was he up on the mountain the second time we went? He just mocked us with that old Treat Yourself To The Best sign.”
“By that time he’d gotten it through his thick skull not to eliminate you two and tick off the sheriff. But you and Grant couldn’t figure any of that out on your own, could you?”
“The amazing, the illustrious Carson Cantrell, always teaching me something new. Why start all this in motion by cutting down Grant’s amazing tree?”
“Keith thought it was to shake him up. The truth was it was to open up the area near the mound for what should have been your excavation camp. Now it will be mine. I’m paying Keith well, but he and his brother, who used to work for Grant, were already making good money from that little arboreal sideline. I’ll have to warn them not to use that Wisconsin lumber mill again.”
Keep him talking—and boasting, Kate thought. She had to outthink him, keep him here, keep him calm.
“So you say Paul contacted you, but how did you find Keith?” she asked.