Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) (2 page)

A mix of fear, tears, bravado and
gut-wrenching frustration came upon me all at once, as if every
possible emotional reaction to this situation coalesced into a
tight lump in my gut.

The emotion swelled, and with it a
determination settled over me. It was sharp, it was sudden, and I
went with it.

“
Go to hell,” I spat, “Get your own damn
artifacts.”

Before the lead guy could shoot me for being
a bolshie hostage, I realized where I was standing.

Quick as I could I rammed myself backwards
into the wall, and right into the light switch.

The hallway lights went out with a
click.

I was still holding my spanner. I swung it
before me in an arc as I pushed off the wall and ran to the side,
heading straight for the darkened room before me.

It was one of the large drawing rooms, and
from memory there was a giant mound of dog-eared magazines by the
door. I ducked to the side, legs scraping along the edge of the
papers, but not enough to trip me up.

I knew the men were right behind me; I could
hear their quiet racing steps.

I twisted left and headed for the far end of
the room, narrowly edging by the giant oak table scattered with old
photos and torn newspaper clippings.

I heard a thud from the door as one of the
mercenaries collected the pile of magazines. There was another thud
as one of them ran right into the table.

Perhaps they weren't used to navigating
cluttered terrain; your average bad-guy-for-hire probably only had
to put up with alleyways and abandoned warehouses.

Or perhaps it had only been luck, because
seconds later I felt a hand snake out from the darkness and collect
around my arm, pulling me backward with a snapped force.

I gave a strangled, puffed scream before the
same hand managed to clamp around my mouth.

Terror engulfed me. It started in the back
of my head, and like a powerful blizzard, burst forth and froze
every inch of me.

This was it, I realized. This was it.

The light flickered on.

The three mercenaries were on the other side
of the room; one picking himself up from the toppled mound of
papers, another nursing his leg near the edge of the massive table,
and the last one – the leader – by the light switch.

If all three were before me... that
meant....

The mercenaries raised their guns, and my
captor raised his.

“
This is our find,” the mercenary leader
said, voice toneless.

This was my house, I wanted to shout back.
Well, technically my dead great-uncle's house, but whatever.

The guy with his hand over my mouth didn't
reply. He kept the heavy-looking gun in his other hand steady and
pointed it at the mercenaries.

“
Who sent you?” the mercenary leader asked.
“Shaw? Romeo? The Americans? The Brits?”

I didn't follow a word. Why would the
Americans and British – or this Shaw and Romeo, for that matter –
send bad guys to my house? For these mysterious artifacts? Or did
this select group (including entire freaking countries, apparently)
have it in for me?

The guy who held me didn't respond – just
kept his grip and his gun steady.

The mercenary leader shook his head. “Kill
them; we can find it ourselves.”

Ah....

My captor shot first.

With movements quicker than I could follow,
he shot both pile-o-magazine-tripping mercenary and table-knocking
mercenary right in their firing shoulders. He hauled me to the
side, shot out the light above us, and narrowly missed a volley
from the mercenary leader.

Just like that. It all happened in the blink
of an eye, I swear.

I had a second to process it all before I
tumbled head-first into a pile of soft magazines.

I heard another shot ring out.

There was a thud.

Then there was another thud as I slipped off
the magazines and ended up as a puddle of worn-out fear and dusty
bathrobe on the floor.

I waited there, lying face-first on the
musty carpet. I was spent.

There was quick footfall beside me. I
flinched, not knowing what to expect.

I wasn't wrenched to my feet, choked, and
told to “Go and get the collector's items.”

Instead the man offered two short words:
“Stay here.”

He moved off into the dark room to check the
rival bad guys were down.

Stay here. The words echoed in my mind with
an eerie hollowness.

It took me a moment – in which I heard my
captor shove the prone bodies of the mercenaries – then I decided
'staying here' wasn’t something I wanted to do. Here was too full
of bad guys, guns, and dust to be healthy.

I scrambled to my feet. Though I still felt
the fear, the realization I had to get out of this place pumped
through my body along with every last drop of adrenaline I had
left.

Despite the shock, my eyes were adjusting to
the darkness. Plus, over the weeks I'd memorized all the box-filled
death traps in this house.

Still on my hands and knees, I crawled under
the table. From there I could crawl to the opposite side of the
room and through a different door that led back to the hallway.
Once there I'd run like crazy and get the hell out of here.

A plan.

Now for action. I scampered with a fiendish
frenzy. Though the room was still dark, my eyes were adjusting and
there was a silvery light filtering through the moth holes in the
curtains. It had a dappling effect on the darkened room, offering
the barest illumination to guess where I was headed and nothing
more.

I crawled, the pound of my heart beating
violently in my throat. Though my nerves were still fraught, I was
glad of the action.

I made it under the table as I heard a soft
grunt from the other side of the room. Through a streak of light I
made out the rough, scuffed surface of a boot. It belonged to my
most recent captor; the man whose hands smelt of fine coffee and
expensive French cologne. That, or it belonged to yet another
new-comer intent on illegally and violently extracting the location
of the 'historical products' or 'items of interest' out of me.

I continued to crawl underneath the table. I
headed to the far right corner.

When I'd first come into this room, this
giant oak table had sat roughly in the middle with a most excellent
view of the windows beyond. This also made it a most excellent
tripping hazard considering the boxes that lined every wall and the
magazines strewn across every centimeter of the floor.

I'd pushed the table to the side, right
against the wall. Right on that wall was a second door to the room.
At the time I’d figured it hadn't mattered whether I partially
blocked off one door; now it could save me. If I’d left enough room
to open the door and squeeze through the gap, I'd be out of this
room (hopefully) before Mr Coffee-and-Cologne-Hands noticed. I
would run like the wind in any direction (probably the nearby road,
on the off chance that some passing car wasn't filled with hoons
and goons on their way to threaten and rob me).

I made it to the space between the door and
the table, and managed to stand up in the gap. I lightly turned the
door handle.

There was the softest of squeaks as the aged
mechanism rolled in my hand. I agonized over the sound with a
throbbing, chest-aching fear. It didn't stop me from squeezing
through the gap and out into the cold corridor beyond.

The moment my bare feet hit the once-plush
Persian runner, a shot of sharp, bitter fear rushed over me. It
pushed me forward.

I reached the front door and wrenched it
open.

“
Don't,” a deep, resounding voice rumbled
from behind.

It lit the final powder leading to my keg of
panic, and I bolted. My feet hit the uneven cobblestones outside
the door with a frantic slap, slap, slap.

My naked feet reached the rough stones of
the turning circle. I didn’t care about the sharp, jagged edges
lacerating my tender flesh. I ran. I ran; I was being chased.

I could hear him behind me, hear the
measured pant of his breath, hear the measured beat of his
footfall.

The panic rose to a level I’d never ever
experienced. Opening the door to a leather-clad burglar was one
thing; having an evil SWAT team burst out of my library was
another; and having a hand scented with coffee and cologne clamp
around my mouth in a darkened drawing room was something again. Yet
being chased so silently and efficiently from behind was so much
more.

I screamed as he caught up to me. That old
mammalian part of me that didn't want to die gave one last,
gut-wrenching, lung-punching cry before it was all over.

“
Jesus Christ, calm down,” came the
barely-puffed voice of the man. He was right behind me.

Calm down? Why? It was easier to steal
antiques from people who were stoic and silent?

I put on another burst of speed and managed
to peel away from the guy.

I promptly fell into a hole.

I fell heavily. Maybe I sprained something,
maybe I even broke something.

It didn’t matter.

The scent of damp grass filled my nostrils
and the sound of someone leaning right next to me rang through my
ears.

“
Listen to me,” he said, voice quick but
clear, “I'm not here to hurt you. I saved you.”

Like hell he did; he broke into my drawing
room and shot out my light.

“
If you don't believe me, then here, take
this.”

Something metal was pressed into my upturned
left palm.

It felt like the butt of a gun. It was heavy
and had a weight that offered unbelievable reassurance.

Had the guy handed me a gun?

I let my grip stiffen around it, and I
pushed off the ground. There was a dull pain in my right ankle, but
I managed to look past it. Instead I looked right at the guy
standing a respectable almost non-threatening distance from me.

He had his hands up and his fingers spread
in classic I'm-not-armed fashion.

Through the pale moonlight I could see his
expression. It wasn’t leering; I couldn't see the glint of his
teeth as his lips puckered to reveal a criminal sneer. It looked
calm and aware.

I sat on the grass, gun held awkwardly but
nevertheless tensely in one hand. I stared at him. I stared at the
dark shadows that obscured most of his face and the even darker
shadow his tall, broad form cast against the grass.

The guy had handed me his gun. Mr
Coffee-and-Cologne-Hands had armed me.

Was it a gesture of trust or some bad-guy
game? Would he wait for me to say something brave, then giggle,
pull out his own bigger gun, shoot me, and shout “Puuuuuuunked” in
a drawn out, nasal tone?

He didn't move his hands. He kept them up,
still, and where I could see them.

“
Are we going to do this all night?” he
asked. “It's just I can't guarantee no one else is
coming.”

“
What do you mean? There are more? Who were
they? Who are you? What's going on here? Why did you give me your
gun?”

As I asked my questions, the man brought one
finger down for each. Though in an ordinary, non-bad-guy-filled
scenario such a move would have seemed innocent, the moving fingers
reminded me of a countdown.

“
Don't do that. What are you doing?” I
asked, tension pulsing through my voice as my hands trembled around
the gun.

“
Keeping track of your questions,” he
answered easily. “Now what do I mean? I mean that you aren't safe
here. I can't guarantee there aren't more guys out there. Indeed,
it’s a safe bet there are. What was the next question? Who are
they? That depends: some of them are petty criminals hired on a
whim by people who either can't afford or are too stingy and stupid
to hire real mercenaries. The rest range from ex-servicemen with
debts to pay to bankrolled killers.”

The term bankrolled killers sent such a
shiver down my spine I almost dropped the gun.

It didn't help that a wind was picking up,
shaking the branches of the nearby oak trees and pressing through
my sodden pant legs making the flesh underneath prickle and
quiver.

“
What was next?” the guy continued in a
quick tone, keen to finish all the questions as soon as he could.
“Oh yeah – who am I? We've met before. Sebastian Shaw.”

A tremble of recognition passed through me.
I recognized the voice and that subtle mix of coffee and cologne.
It was the man from the auction house; that persistent, dogged,
hunkasaurus who seemed unusually interested in my spotting
globe.

Now he was here, standing on my lawn,
handing me guns, and shoving me to the side as he shot so-called
bankrolled killers.

“
You remember me?” he asked carefully,
possibly realizing that a single name to a frazzled woman might not
get him far. “We met at the—”

“
Auction house,” I supplied in a quiet
monotone.

“
Yeah,” he said, and forgive me if it
sounded almost caring. “Two more questions, right?” he continued.
“I'll start with the last one first.” He still had his hands in the
air, and he still wasn't moving a muscle in my direction. “I gave
you my gun so you could trust me; it's one thing asking a panicked
woman to trust you when you're holding the gun, but it's something
else if you give the gun to her, right?”

He seemed to want my confirmation, but I
was stuck on the term panicked woman. Despite the fact I clearly
fit that category it rallied my pride. “Hurry up and get to the bit
where you tell me what's going on.”

“
I'm afraid we don't have time for a full
version,” he said, cautiously looking over his shoulder at the long
driveway that circled down to the road below.