Taken (42 page)

Kayla worried that even if they found Evan they wouldn’t be able to take him down on their own, but Nick would hear none of her protests.

“We’ll just check it out,” he said, as they parked their car near the church and got out.

“Fine, but if we see anything suspicious, we wait for J.T.”

“Everything looks ordinary to me,” he replied.

She had to agree. It was just after ten o’clock in the morning, and the school must have had some event, because children were pouring out of the church into the adjacent playground. The kids were laughing, playing,
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skipping. None of the adults looked concerned. If Evan had beaten them here, he hadn’t done anything to upset anyone.

Kayla and Nick slipped inside the church amidst the chaos, pausing for a moment in the vestibule while they figured out where to go.

“I doubt it will be anyplace public,” Kayla said. “It has to be tucked away somewhere.”

“Like where?”

“I’m not sure.” Seeing a priest coming down the aisle, Kayla grabbed Nick’s hand and pulled him toward a nearby staircase. She didn’t want to get caught by anyone before they had a chance to look around. The priest stopped to speak to one of the teachers in the vestibule, so they kept walking down the stairs.

At the first landing they found themselves by an audi-torium. The stairs continued downward, and Kayla was curious to see where they led, so she kept going. They ended up in a small hallway facing two closed doors. Actually, one of the doors was ajar. Kayla pushed it open. As she entered into the room, she was shocked to find they were standing in what looked to be a small crypt.

“Nick, what is this?” she asked in hushed tones. There were vaults in the walls, some of them empty, some with open doors, some still closed and locked up tight. The room was dusty, the air thick. It didn’t appear as if anyone had been down here in a while. Yet the door had been open. A shiver ran down her spine. She had a feeling they were close to something.

“Looks like a mausoleum,” Nick said. “These graves must have been here for a long time.”

“The church was built in the eighteen hundreds,”

Kayla said, moving over to take a look at one of the
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vaults. “I know burials in San Francisco were outlawed around the time of the 1906 earthquake. A friend of mine is a genealogy buff, and she’s done a lot of research on the city.”

“Which explains the empty vaults,” Nick replied.

“They must have moved some of the bodies and reburied them elsewhere.”

“Some but not all?” She walked over to one of the vaults and read the name. “ ‘Mary Ellen Parish, beloved daughter, 1878 to 1898.’ She was only twenty years old,”

she murmured. “I wonder why her grave stayed here.”

Nick cleared his throat. “Maybe it didn’t. Maybe the vault is just closed.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt as if he couldn’t breathe.

“You don’t like it down here,” she said.

“I’ve never been big on cemeteries,” he said tersely.

“This is a waste of time. We don’t know what we’re looking for.”

“We’re looking for the perfect place to hide something, and I think it’s here.”

She saw the discomfort in his eyes give way to the realization that she was right.

“Damn,” he muttered.

She moved around the room, looking at the vaults, reading the various inscriptions. Finally she found the one she wanted. It was the second one from the bottom, just about waist high. “Nick,” she breathed. “Look. ‘All the Riches of Heaven Await.’ It’s the same phrase.”

Nick read the name on the vault. “Zacharia Blandino.”

He glanced at her. “A relative of Johnny’s, I’m guessing.”

“Maybe my great-great-grandfather,” she said with amazement. “I bet they used the phrase to pinpoint the location of the vault.”

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“What about the other two phrases?”

“ ‘Until the Day’ could have symbolized some specific day they’d meet to split their spoils.”

“All Saints’ Day,” Nick said. “ ‘Until the Day the Saints Pray.’ Only they were captured before they could come back.” His gaze met hers. “We have to open that vault.”

She couldn’t stop the sudden fear his words unleashed.

“It’s a grave, Nick. Do we have the right?”

“A very old grave that belongs to one of your relatives.

No one is tending this place. We don’t even know if the vault is empty or if this guy was moved a long time ago.

I say we take the chance.”

He made sense, but it still felt creepy. “I think we should call J.T. and ask him what we should do.”

Nick ran his hands along the front of the vault. “I have a feeling we’re not the first ones here.”

Kayla looked closer. The side was scratched and bent, as if someone had already tried to pry it open. There was an iron crowbar a few feet away. Coincidence? Had someone been here before them? Maybe they were too late. “Call, J.T,” she said again, watching as Nick pulled out his cell phone.

“Right. I can’t get a signal down here,” he said. “We’ll have to go upstairs.”

“I don’t think so,” a voice said from behind them.

Kayla whirled around, stunned to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun. It took a moment to register that the gun was not in Evan’s hands. The man holding the weapon was the same man she’d seen in Reno, stocky, dark hair, dark eyes, and sweating profusely. There was a wild expression on his face. Kayla instinctively moved closer to Nick.

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“Don’t move,” the man warned.

“Who are you?” Nick demanded.

“That’s not important.”

“What do you want from us?” Kayla asked.

“You have the watches,” he replied, a gleam in his eyes. “My father made those watches. They belonged to him. And now they will be mine.”

“Father?” Kayla echoed. “You’re Dominic’s son?”

“That’s right, the son of the friend they betrayed.”

Kayla shot Nick a quick look, then gazed back at the man holding the gun. “I don’t have the watch anymore,”

she said. “I don’t have any of them. They were stolen.

You should know that. You’ve been following us around.”

“You’re lying. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have the watches. But you will never have the coins. The treasure belongs to me. My father died because of those coins. His best friends killed him. He didn’t get what was his, but I will. I knew you would lead me to it. I heard you when you came into the store. I told Delores we would finally have justice. But she didn’t believe me. She didn’t want to tell me who you were.”

“You hurt your own sister?” Kayla asked in shock, putting the pieces together in her head.

“It was an accident,” he said, waving the gun at her. “I had to get your name, your address. She was arguing with me. She always argues. I don’t like it when people don’t do what I say. Now, you,” he added, looking at Nick.

“Pick up the crowbar and open the crypt. You can finish what I started.”

Nick hesitated, obviously weighing the situation.

“Do it!” the man shouted. “Or I’ll kill her. Don’t think I won’t.”

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“You’d better do as he says,” Kayla said. It was clear that this man was out of his mind. He’d hurt his own sister. He wouldn’t think twice about hurting them.

“Okay, all right.” Nick said, putting up a calming hand. “I’ll do it.”

He picked up the crowbar and moved over to the vault.

He worked quietly and purposefully for a few minutes.

Finally he wedged the bar into the opening and yanked.

The door sprang open. Inside was a coffin on a stone slab.

Nick slowly pulled it out.

“There could be a body in there,” Kayla whispered. “I think this is wrong. We have no right to disturb the dead.”

“Open it,” the man ordered again. “Do it now.”

Nick lifted the lid on the coffin, which was between them. Kayla put a hand to her mouth and then gasped as she saw bones, a skull, a skeleton. Her stomach turned over. She felt nauseous. Who was this man? Her great-great-grandfather? Was this Zacharia Blandino? There were remnants of clothes on the body and a note still pinned to the shirt.

“ ‘You lie — you die,’ ” Nick read. “I don’t think this body belongs to Zacharia. I think it’s —” He stopped abruptly, glancing from Kayla to the man with the gun.

“No!” the man screamed, rushing toward the coffin.

He stared down at the bones. “Papa!” he cried. “Papa.

They killed you. I knew they killed you. I saw it. I tried to tell the cops. They wouldn’t believe me. And they put you here. Damn them to hell.”

Kayla was so caught up in the man’s raging pain that she was shocked when Nick swung the crowbar at him.

The man stumbled but didn’t fall. He turned, the gun aiming straight at Nick’s heart. Nick lunged forward. The gun went off, the sound muffled between the two men.

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Kayla couldn’t breathe, stunned by the violence, terrified to see who would go down first. She prayed it would not be Nick. But he started to fall. “No!” she cried, as he sank toward the floor.

The other man began to move. She knew she had no time. She grabbed the crowbar that Nick had dropped to the ground and hit the man in the face. He went over backward this time, his feet slipping out from under him, his head cracking against the stone floor.

She knelt beside Nick. He was bleeding all over the front of his shirt. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from, his shoulder, or — God forbid — his heart. She cradled his head with her hands. “Nick, Nick,” she said urgently. “Please be all right. You have to be all right.”

He blinked his eyes open. “What?”

“You were shot. Are you okay?”

“I . . . I don’t know. Hurts,” he muttered. “What happened to him?”

“He’s unconscious. I’ve got to get help.” She gently slipped her hands out from under his head. Then she took off her jacket and placed it over him. I’m going to go upstairs and call someone. Don’t move. And don’t . . . don’t die on me, Nick. Promise me.”

“I’m okay. It’s my shoulder, I think.”

She put a hand on his arm as he struggled to sit up.

“Just stay put, Nick. I’ll be right back.”

She got to her feet, only to find her way blocked by another man — tall, blond, and handsome: the man from her dreams, the man from her nightmares.

Evan. She let out a gasp of disbelief.

He smiled as he picked the gun up off the floor and twirled it around in his fingers. “Hey, babe, how’s it going?”

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“Get out of my way.”

“I don’t think so,” Evan said, pointing the gun at her chest.

“Get away from her,” Nick said weakly, struggling to sit up.

“You don’t look so good, buddy,” Evan drawled.

“Now, now, don’t move. You might pass out. I see you took care of Lorenzo for me. That dude is crazy. He knocked that poor blackjack dealer down the stairs for no reason.”

“I thought
you
did that,” Kayla said.

“I didn’t need to. I already had the watch. Thanks for the tip, though. Old Nate had way too many relatives for me to track down.” He paused. “Now, Kayla, I think it’s time we opened the box.”

She’d almost forgotten the reason they were here.

She’d been so disgusted by the sight of rotting bones that she’d barely computed the fact that there was an iron strongbox in the coffin.

“Take it out; set it on the floor,” Evan commanded.

She debated for a second and then did as he ordered.

Evan pulled out a key ring holding three small keys.

“I think we’ll need your key, babe. I know you must have it.”

“Not a chance,” she said.

“Okay, I guess we can let Nick bleed to death. Doesn’t bother me,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve got time.”

Kayla hesitated, not sure what to do. She didn’t want to help Evan, but she didn’t want to make this take any longer than necessary. She needed to get Nick to the hospital.

“Or I could just put Nick out of his misery now,” Evan offered. “He’s already half-dead anyway.”

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“I’ll see you dead first,” Nick declared, grimacing with pain and obviously unable to stand in spite of his proud boast.

“I’ll do it. Give me the keys,” Kayla said impatiently.

Evan tossed her the key ring, and she reached inside her purse and took out the key her grandmother had given her. There was a lock at each corner of the box. She knelt down and attacked them one by one. She had to try several times to get the right keys into the right locks. Finally she was finished. She slowly lifted the lid.

Inside were three canvas sacks about twelve inches long, each one tied with a drawstring. Several gold coins were loose in the box. The treasure. They’d found it, the money missing for fifty years. She looked at Evan and saw an expression of pure satisfaction on his face. She itched to wipe that smile off, to find a way to stop him from getting what he wanted.

“Very good, Kayla,” Evan said. “Now push the box over here. And don’t try anything stupid.”

She gave the box a shove, then slowly got to her feet as Evan quickly put the canvas bags inside a backpack he hung over his shoulder. She glanced at Nick. He seemed to be trying to tell her something with his eyes, but she didn’t know what. Evan still had the gun on them. What was she supposed to do? Rush him? What if it didn’t work? What if the gun went off again and hit Nick, the way it had before?

She turned back to Evan, surprised to see him take an envelope from the bottom of the strongbox and slip it into his pocket. She wondered what was inside.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Nick warned him.

“Oh, I think I am. You never appreciated my talents,
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Nick. You always tried to blackball me, especially with Jenny. You’re the one who turned her against me. Told her I wasn’t good enough for her. But I’m better than you, Nick. I’m better than anyone. And Jenny will soon realize that.”