Angel's Rest(18)

He switched on the flashlight and stepped down into the inky blackness. The air smelled musty and smoky. He stood still for a moment as he listened for puppy sounds. Nothing.

“Quiet as a tomb,” he muttered, playing the light across the floor from left to right. He saw burlap bags and wooden shelves, two wooden barrels, and … a caved-in section of a brick wall.

He muttered a curse.

“What is it?” Nic called, descending the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

The beam from Gabe’s flashlight held steady on the skull revealed by the crumbling brick.

Behind him, Nic gasped. “Gabe? Tell me that’s fake. It’s a Halloween prop, isn’t it?”

Nope. Sure wasn’t. “Go back outside, Nicole.”

“It was in the wall? Bricked up?” Instead of exiting the root cellar, Nic Sullivan moved forward. “This is so Edgar Allan Poe.”

“Careful,” Gabe warned as she approached the crumbled wall, pulling a flashlight of her own from her medical bag. She reached out and dragged another row of loose bricks away, then another. Realizing she wasn’t about to quit, Gabe stepped up to help her.

They tore the wall halfway to the floor and stepped back. Nic let out a long, shaky sigh. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, Gabe.”

The skeleton lay stretched out on a wooden table, what appeared to be the tattered remains of a wedding dress draped atop it.

Gabe peered behind the remnants of the wall and added, “Interesting, too. There are stacks of silver bars at her feet.”





FOUR





The tantalizing aroma of frying bacon coaxed Nic from her dreams. So unusual was the occurrence that she took a moment to solve the puzzle before bothering to open her eyes. Was she dreaming still? Why would … oh. The fire. Celeste. Celeste had come home with her last night. Celeste had cooked her breakfast.

The events of the previous night flooded into her mind. Bob the philandering jerk, dinner with the mystery man of Murphy Mountain, the Cartwright boys’ near miss with disaster. Was there a more foolish human on earth than a teenage boy?

And then the disturbing find in the root cellar: a skeleton in a wedding dress and thirty silver bars. Thirty pieces of silver, Sarah had said. Blood money. Nic shivered at the memory even before she threw off the toasty-warm bedclothes and stepped into the chilly morning air.

While she showered and dressed, Nic took a quick mental inventory of the day ahead of her. Today was Wednesday. She had no overnight patients at the clinic, no boarders. Her first appointment wasn’t until after lunch. She’d been scheduled to go out to the Double R Ranch this morning, but the foreman called yesterday and moved the visit to next week. She served as backup vet for most of the ranches in the area, and that would continue until Dr. Walsh over in Creede retired in two more years. The Double R was the only ranch around that called her first, but that was because the Double R’s owner, Henry Moreland, had had a falling-out with Dr. Walsh.

She probably should check on Dale Parker. The burn he’d sustained on his forearm needed a doctor’s attention, and even though he’d promised to make the drive into Gunnison today, she didn’t trust him not to weasel out. Other than that, she was free to help Celeste.

Last night Gabe Callahan had quietly relayed news of their root cellar discovery to Sheriff Zach Turner, who had made the decision to wait until daylight to attempt any further investigation. He’d stretched yellow crime-scene tape around the perimeter of the house—cellar included—and used his bullhorn to warn folks to stay away from the damaged building, whose “walls could tumble down at any second.” Then Celeste had appropriated the bullhorn, thanked her fellow citizens for their help, and promised invitations to everyone to the party she would throw once repairs to her home had been completed.

Nic donned jeans and a sweatshirt and made her way to the kitchen to find the dirty dishes from the previous night gone and a breakfast of bacon, pancakes, and juice ready and waiting. “Celeste! You shouldn’t have cleaned up my mess.”

“Why not?” Standing at the stove, Celeste glanced over her shoulder. “You plan to help me with mine, don’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Excellent. I knew I could count on you. Now, sit down and eat, Nicole, because as soon as we’re finished here, we need to drive up to Eagle’s Way.”

A glass of orange juice halfway to her mouth, Nic froze. “Eagle’s Way? Why?”