Forbidden Ground (26 page)

27

“K
ate? What is it? Are you okay?” Nadine’s voice cut through Kate’s shock as she stared at the sketches Paul had made years ago.

“I— Yes. Maybe more than okay.” She felt she might collapse on the floor in hysteria—or else hit the ceiling in exultation.

“Nadine, this mask,” she said, pointing at it. “I realize Paul drew this two decades ago, but do you know where he saw it? Or the other things here?”

“Oh, it’s a mask? Wow, someone like a witch doctor wore that? You’ve seen that somewhere?”

“Not an original.”

“Maybe it’s something he saw in a book. With all the mythical things he carved, maybe he researched the Adena. See, it says
Adena
down by the date.”

“But these other items here, this ax head and arrowhead, are Adena and were found in this area, on Grant’s property to be exact. And this eagle pendant is similar to ones that are Celtic—the ancient European people I study. Where could Paul have seen that?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t even know him well then, and he was always looking for new ideas here and there.” Nadine sank into the single chair. Confusion and exhaustion shadowed her face. Kate regretted quizzing her like this, but if two of these artifacts existed, why not the other two? The pendant would be enough to support her theory, and the mask would prove it, no matter what Carson insisted about artifacts not being facts.

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.”

“So you’re saying you don’t know where it is, either?”

“Look, the four of us made a boyhood pact, a blood oath on our friendship, that we would hide what we’d found—”

“What we’d found,” she interrupted. “If you
found
that pendant and mask Paul drew, you were in the mound!”

“But we vowed never to tell anyone, never to sell them, no matter what. And sit down. You’re driving me crazy.”

She sank onto the edge of the coffee table so she was facing him but was out of his reach. Had she gotten too close to this man? Was she the one who was crazy to think she loved him when he stood in the way of everything she wanted—or thought she did? The crazy thing was she wanted to throw herself into his arms right now.

“But you’re men, not boys,” she argued, trying to keep calm. “Times are different. Can’t you, Brad and Todd decide to hand the artifacts over, even let the mound be carefully, respectfully excavated? Were there two or four relics your grandfather brought out? When you found them as a boy, maybe hidden in your attic, Todd got the ax head, Brad the arrowhead, but you and Paul... Grant, do you have the mask, since Nadine seems to know nothing about this?”

“You have it all figured out, Professor, so you tell me. You might as well make things up as you go.”

“I can’t believe you’re so stubborn.”

“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”

“All right, here’s another theory, since you refuse to deal in facts. I think you were probably the alpha male of the buddy group. Older than Brad, and it was on your property, with your peer group, so you got first pick of the relics.”

“Love the language. Alpha male, buddy group. Very social worker-ish. Isn’t that your sister Char’s bailiwick?”

“Stop always trying to change the subject. Worse, you’re starting to snipe at me like Carson, and I’m done with him.”

“I like the sound of that at least.”

Ignoring that, she plunged on. “So, of the small eagle pendant and the large, scary-looking mask, you took the mask, right?”

He heaved a huge sigh. “Right,” he said.

She finally took a deep breath. She realized it was a good thing she was sitting down when he blurted out the truth for once, a chink in the barriers he’d built against her. They stared hard into each other’s eyes.

“You want to see it, follow me,” he said.

He got up and strode out of the room so fast, she was shocked again. She scooped up the mask she’d made for comparison, just in case he tried to pass off a fake on her.

She could hardly keep up. He headed for the basement door, turned the light on and thudded down the stairs. She hesitated one moment at the top. Why had he finally given in, even a little bit? She could trust him, couldn’t she, if she went down there with him? He did care for her—that was a fact, wasn’t it?

She hurried downstairs behind him. He had gone into the game room, where her own mask had been on the Ping-Pong table until today. Though he clicked on the overhead light there, he also produced a flashlight. He went back out to the furnace and was on his knees, feeling under it, until he produced a small, metal box from which he took a key. She hovered in the doorway then went over to put her mask back in its box on the Ping-Pong table before joining him again.

In the game room, he slid away a hutch with boyhood sports trophies on its shelves. She expected to see a safe in the wall, but it was only more oak paneling. He pulled out five loose planks to reveal masonry brick beneath. He picked up a huge hook that looked like a weapon. She backed up another step though she wanted to watch his every move.

A terrible possibility hit her. Could Grant and Paul have argued over keeping their relics hidden? Paul needed money, but then, Brad, maybe Todd, did, too, so did they threaten to sell their artifacts, and Grant had to stop them? No, she was thinking crazy things. But was anything crazy if Grant Mason actually produced an authentic Beastmaster mask from his basement, when she’d been sleeping so near the object of her desires—other than him—these past ten nights?

She moved closer as he slid the big, old hook into a slight split in the masonry. A long crack there outlined three blocks that he slid out. From that space, he pulled a three-foot-square black metal box. It didn’t look dusty or dented; he must have had it out recently. And with it, slid out one of her business cards.

“What’s that doing there—my card?”

“Call me crazy—or in love. I thought if anything happened to me, someone would know to call you—to let you deal with this.”

As furious as she was with him, that hit her hard. She blinked back tears and couldn’t speak as he unlocked the box and lifted the large lid. She came close—too close that she blocked out the ceiling light. She took his flashlight off the floor and trained the light on the box as she knelt beside him, and he pulled out crushed tissue paper. Her hand was trembling; the beam of light bounced.

“Is this what you want from me?” he asked. “This and the mound? I was hoping it was something else, more fool me.”

He slid the big box at her, and she lifted the last layer of paper. She gasped.

Staring up at her, it was so big and horrible and so beautiful! In her poor rendition of it, she had the size all wrong, but if it had been intended for the tomb and an afterlife, of course it would be large.

“Oh, Grant,” she whispered and burst into tears.

Shaking hard, she tried to get hold of herself. He couldn’t take it back now, could he, hide it again, throw her out, off the property? The answer to all her work, all her dreams! She could have kissed that fierce face, centuries old, despite its grotesque, glazed leather skin studded with delicate mica chips, some missing now, and its broken teeth of some beast killed long ago by arrowhead spears. And, amazingly, the human-skull base—it had been a large person, tall like the Adena—was intact, and the tips of the stag horns were still barely tinted, probably by blood. Blinking back tears, she studied the eyeholes where a real shaman had peered through—one descended from the Celts, not the Toltecs or any others!

To prove it was real, she touched it once, on the leather snout protruding from the flat-nosed human skull. It needed to be carefully preserved—at least as kids they hadn’t played games with it.

“Grant, in this good shape, it’s a find to match the Danish Beastmaster cauldron! It had to be preserved in the mound, not just buried.”

“Yes,” he said, as if this had cast a spell on him, too. She saw she was not the only one blinking back tears.

She jumped when his phone rang. He let it ring twice and squinted at the screen to see who was calling. “Keith,” he said.

He took the call while she stared raptly at the mask. He’d finally admitted it was from the mound! But every time Keith called, something was wrong. Had the timber thieves struck again, or did that Wisconsin mill have a lead on a delivery of his oak trees? Nothing but this stupendous find—her missing link—mattered right now.

“He what? Damn! He’s been doing so well. You think Lacey left him? Maybe she was better for him than I thought if he’s off the deep end now. Yes, I’ll be right there.”

“What?” she asked, coming out of her trance. “Is Brad okay?”

“He must have had booze stashed at the mill somewhere, because he’s drunk and lecturing Keith from the high catwalk above the saw line, saying he should have half say in the Mason Mill because Todd won’t ever be back to work. Kate, I’ve got to go, talk him down. Let’s put the mask back in safe storage for now, since you know where it is. We’ll figure out how to handle all this when I get back.”