Forbidden Ground (27 page)

“Can’t I keep it out?”

“Will you just compromise here?” he demanded, putting the lid on the box and locking it. “What if Brad’s suicidal? He could fall or jump. I need to go!” He pushed it back into its little tomb, and she shoved her business card in after it.

Picturing the horror of Todd’s free fall from the tree, she helped him shove the three masonry blocks back in place. Brad mattered; living people mattered, yes, even more than buried treasure.

Grant pocketed the key.

They stood, bumping shoulders. “We’ll work together on this,” he told her. “I thought Brad was safe from himself—and I want you to stay safe.”

He hugged her hard and ran upstairs, leaving her to put the oak panels if not the hutch back in place. She sat on the floor with her back to the blocks, as the guardian of the precious mask that lay within, just behind her. She wasn’t angry with Grant for the crime he’d committed and the lies he’d told her. After all, he’d shown her the mask and he’d hugged her goodbye. Surely, everything would be all right now. They would work together on this.

She just sat there, waiting for Grant to call, still stunned by all that had happened and amazed she had no desire to phone Carson, despite the magnitude of this find. She loved being so close to the proof her years of work and research had been right. After sitting for maybe fifteen minutes or so, she heard footsteps upstairs. Oh, no! Had Keith called Grant with bad news? Or could it be that Brad had come down from the catwalk at the mill and come here, missing Grant? Who else but the cleaning woman had a key to this house?

She hurried up the steps. “Grant?” she called as she rushed into the living room.

Standing with a pistol pointed stiff-armed at her was Carson Cantrell.

28

A
t first, Kate’s mind wouldn’t register that Carson was actually here, in Grant’s living room, so close to the mound. And with a gun pointed at her.
Too many shocks today, too much to handle...

“Carson, did you come here to force Grant to let us dig? How did you get in?”

“Let’s just say I’m here, darling, and your Grant’s not.”

He picked up the sketch of the four artifacts from the coffee table. “Paul Kettering was quite a good artist. It was a tragedy he died. He contacted me about selling his eagle pendant and hinted that he might have access to a deerlike antlered mask.”

“Which you failed to mention to me, knowing it would make my case.”

“And
your
name, instead of mine. He said he needed an expert opinion, then changed his mind, even though I’d offered him an outrageous amount of money. He threatened to expose me for wanting those items for my private collection if I wouldn’t keep his secret. There was no going back.”

“You—you killed Paul?”

“It was ruled an accident and rightly so, since we struggled. But then, wouldn’t you know, I couldn’t find where the man had hidden the pendant. I couldn’t rely on you, either, two-timing me, choosing Grant over me after all I’d done for you. Do you think you would have moved up in the department or the academic world so fast without my mentoring and collaboration?”

“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.

“I know you’re stalling, but I have to admit I’m proud of how this all came together despite how devious and disloyal you’ve been to me. When I first learned about Mason Mound from archival information, which I now have—”

“I should have known someone stole that from the university archives!”

“Don’t interrupt. Anyway, about that time, the
Chillicothe Gazette
and the
Columbus Dispatch
were full of articles about the kidnappings here, including your sister’s. I was hoping there would be someone mentioned in the paper I could contact who could turn the screws on Sheriff McCord to force him to make Grant let me excavate Mason Mound. Keith turned up. He was mentioned as the
sole survivor
of the Simons family in distress, because of the sheriff’s arrests. And here Keith worked for Grant Mason, mound owner, who was Sheriff McCord’s best friend. So rather than Keith quitting the mill like his other brother did, I hired him to work for me to find a way to get to Grant.”

“Grant felt Keith was almost like another brother,” Kate said.

“That’s why you should have stuck with someone with brains, darling. Namely me. Now you’ve made yourself my enemy.”

It hit her hard that Grant had made a mistake with Keith, but she’d made one far worse trusting Carson all these years. He was a master manipulator and idea thief but also a murderer. She could see that Carson must be demented. He reveled in being the big man here, knowing the answers, smug and proud to lord it over her, just as he’d always done with his students in class.

“Carson, I know this sounds like an old movie line, but you can’t get away with it. Gabe—someone—will find out, and you’ll get your own small tomb of a prison cell for the rest of your life—if not the death penalty, especially if you set up Grant and hurt me.”

“Bright girl that you are, you didn’t suspect me, did you? Not Carson sitting in his distant, tenured, academic ivory tower, because I had Keith and Velma do all the dirty work around here.”

“Including Keith wearing my Beastmaster mask to terrify me when I was trapped in Tess’s garage?”

“I was tempted to try to do that myself, but he knew the territory. But as the ignoramuses of the world say, that’s past history now, when history is always past. The Beastmaster
vision
was only one of my attempts to urge you to get in the mound, but you utterly failed. Let’s get the mask out of the basement so we can head out there now.”

“To the mound? It’s still sealed,” she insisted, not budging.

“My darling, I had the mound entry dug out this morning while you were out and about. Keith’s brother is nearly finished reopening a narrow path through the entry shaft that was dug out decades ago.”

“So you poisoned the old trees there to clear the way.”

“Keith did,” he said, waving the gun at her. She realized she’d been so shocked and angry she’d almost forgotten about what he must mean to do with that gun. That terrified her but it infuriated her, too.

“You’ll say you found nothing inside, but you’ll keep or sell whatever’s there, won’t you? Or keep things for your very private collection?”

“Kate, the basement. Get the mask now, or you won’t be around long enough to enter the mound with me.”

She had to keep him here, not allow him to rob the mound. Keith must have called Grant into a trap, a deadly one. But too much time had passed to warn him, and her cell phone was in her purse in the bedroom. She’d give up ever getting a glimpse into that mound if it meant she could keep Grant safe.

* * *

Grant swam up from the darkness. He was being dragged by his feet, the back of his head on concrete. Had he fallen from a tree? He was outside. There was a breeze. He felt too sick to even open his eyes. Was it time to get up and get to work? His head hurt. Bad.

Someone dropped his legs. Maybe Kate had called the medics. They would come in a chopper, and she would flag them down. She had a child in her arms. She loved kids, which surprised him. And they loved her.... He loved her, too, wanted children with her.

As he lay there, dazed, he heard a loud noise. He smelled sawdust. Someone was taking his tree! He had to stop them, but he didn’t want Kate to get hurt. He’d make her stay in the car. He wanted her, even at the cost of the mask, the mound...

He opened one eye. Keith. Keith was hard at work, driving the forklift with a huge pile of wood, coming closer. Maybe they’d gotten his maple back, the tree house, too.

No, hadn’t Keith hit him with a board? Or had he dreamed that?

Keith was driving the forklift toward him. It stopped. Keith was shouting. “This is for my family, but I swear, your sheriff friend’s gonna join you in hell soon!” The metal arms rose higher and tilted to drop the whole pallet of wood on him.

* * *

Carson was waving the gun again, then pointing toward the basement with it. “I appreciate your finding this hard to believe as it all finally comes together. You had your chance, Kate, and you blew it. Could have had me, too, but it’s too late. Lead the way down into the basement and get me the mask.”

Her mind raced. If the listening devices were only in the living room, he didn’t know where the mask was in the basement. “Grant took the key.”

“At least show me where it’s hidden so I can get someone in here to free it. Is it in a safe?”

“Why didn’t you bug the basement, too? Maybe my bedroom and his?”

“Would that have been X-rated? Or would poor Velma have heard sweet nothings whispered? Actually, I thought about it. Now, move. Do it, Kate. You are expendable now if you don’t do exactly as I say. I think you’d like a glimpse into the mound despite the fact I have only myself to thank for that.”

She saw things clearly—too clearly now. He had planned for Grant, like Paul and Todd, to meet with an accident. He’d failed with Todd, but he’d still removed him from supporting Grant. And when Brad inherited the Mason property, Carson probably figured he could deal with him easily. And the pistol Carson pointed at her was not just to make her obey him. No, he’d told her too much and knew she wasn’t going to be useful to him now. He meant to kill her, too.

* * *

Grant rolled away as the heavy boards crashed down near him. Dust rose. He half crawled, half clawed his way behind the nearest stacked pallet of wood. So dizzy. Hurt all over. Head pounding. Feeling so defeated but furious. Almost buried alive. His bones could have been broken—his head crushed like those in the death chamber with smashed skulls.

Grant figured it would take Keith some time to realize he wasn’t under the pile of wood. He heard the forklift motor shut off. From one wood pallet away, Grant watched Keith get down, bend over the big mound of wood, then haul a few pieces off the top.

When Grant touched his head, his hand came away covered with blood. He wiped it off on his shirt and edged away, around another huge pile of uncut planks. The dust was clearing, and Keith was madly pulling boards away, trying to find him, see if he was dead.

Grant felt so woozy but knew it would be suicide to stay and fight. He moved diagonally so Keith couldn’t look down the alley of woodpiles and spot him. He had to call for help. But his phone wasn’t in his pocket. No doubt it had fallen out or was smashed as he could have been.

Grant felt to see if his car keys were still in his jeans pocket. Yes. So all he had to do was get to his car, get out of here, get help.