Eli follows my cue, gulping in deep breaths before his jaw firms.
“There was a guy at the cabin,” he says. “I was out walking, taking some photos in the woods after I grabbed that pop, and when I came back...this guy was digging around with the firewood. I got some pictures, though, but when he saw me with the camera he took off.” He bites his lip. “He had a big truck. It was really loud, Dad. It kept making this popping noise like the muffler was going bad or something.”
Fuck.
The wood pile.
The gold.
Were we followed after all?
I’m stuck wondering what Felicity’s tangled up with, so I’m not expecting it when Eli drags his digital camera out—he’s always too nervous about banging it up when he’s hiking—and starts flicking through the screen.
“See? That’s him,” he says shyly.
A familiar face pops up on his screen and my teeth pinch together.
Gavin goddamned Coakley.
I haven’t seen him since the mining days in Alaska. Figured he’d be pissed enough at me to stay there, too. Not so furious he’d follow me all the way here.
And apparently start spying on me—the only logical conclusion if he knew where to start digging for that tarp full of gold.
Sonofa.
I keep my inner swearing to myself in front of Eli while he watches me worriedly. “Do you know that guy, Dad?”
“Might,” I clip. I don’t want to get him too worried, so I ruffle his hair and force a smile. “Hey. Can you head on up to the big house and ask Haley and Warren and Ms. Wilma if they mind you eating dinner there tonight? I bet you can sneak Mozart a few scraps.”
All it takes is one mention of that cat and he lights up like nothing ever happened.
“Yeah!”
He’s practically skipping. I stand guard and watch as he dashes toward the big plantation-style house at the heart of the Charming Inn. He’s moving so fast, his shirt flies behind him.
I don’t rest easy till I see the back door open, Ms. Wilma greeting him warmly and ushering him inside.
For a second, she pauses, glancing in my direction.
It’s hard to tell if she’s looking directly at me at this distance with her old eyes, but it feels significant.
Or maybe that’s just the weight of this new discovery pressing down on me.
Once she goes back inside, I haul ass around the side of the cabin and drag away the top layer of logs. They’re hastily stacked, thrown back on.
Not the careful arrangement I made to ensure the entire blue tarp was invisible on first, second, or even third glance. The fold-over sack I left looks open, the top flap flipped up.
Fuck.
No jumping to conclusions, though.
I push wood away from the whole mess.
Count it all, glancing over my shoulder at every hint of headlights passing by on the highway.
And come up two short.
Mother. Fucker.
Gavin stole them.
It’s not the two bars I’m worried about, even if losing them to a thieving rat does make me blinding pissed.
If he does something reckless, if word about the gold gets out—I have a sneaking suspicion it could get Felicity into a whole world of trouble.
Poor Fliss. Guess she’s not the only one whose past is catching up with her and chewing through the wiring of her life.
I need to figure out where Gavin’s gone.
It’s my turn to catch up to him.
He doesn’t just owe me two bars of gold anymore.
He owes me some big fat chewy answers, and I want them now.
I’m still racking my brain for how I’ll find Gavin when that truck of his does the work for me.
I thought about asking around the diner, maybe the gas station, and see if anyone meeting his description stopped in to top up his belly or his tank.
Now, I don’t have to.
Before I even round the corner to the town’s only gas station, I hear that piece of shit.
The distinct gunfire-like bang and pop of a truck backfiring. The same kind of junkers he survived on back in Alaska—and it looks like some things never change.
Thank God I’ve got a kid who thinks fast with his camera.
I swerve around the corner, hoping to catch him before he takes off.
Instead, I catch him tossing two gold bars into the trash can next to the pump with an angry shake of his head. Casual and plain as day, like he’s throwing out some leftover packaging from burgers and fries.
What the fuck?
Who goes to the trouble of stealing what’s probably five figures worth of gold, and then literally throws it away?
I gun the engine, slewing my Jeep into the parking lot just as he’s firing up his truck with another rattling thunder-pop from hell.
I deliberately stab my vehicle in front of him, blocking off his path, then cut my engine and get out.
Casting a wide stance, I wait, folding my arms over my chest like a hall monitor who’s just caught an insanely boneheaded teenager.
Coakley freezes, his lip curled in a sneering curse, only to go silent as his washed-out grey eyes lock on me through the windshield, the color of muddy rainwater beneath his thatch of unruly reddish-brown hair.
Oh, yeah.
He recognizes me.
He also knows that I know damned well what he did.
Balling one hand into a fist, I flick one finger up and crook it, beckoning like I’m talking to an unruly kid. “Out. Right the fuck now.”
He spits out something I can’t hear from the corner of his mouth, then grudgingly pushes his truck’s door open and steps out, dropping down and slamming it shut behind him.
“You got a problem, Charter?” he snarls without preamble.
“Depends. Seems like you’ve got a problem with me, Gavin,” I answer. I’m not taking his bait. “Having a little tourist hop through town? What a coincidence, you washing up my way.”
“I’m just passing through.” Sullen, sulking, he’s avoiding my eyes. “Small fucking world. If I’d known you were here, I’d have risked running out of gas between here and Missoula.”
“Nice to see you too, asshole. So much for hoping you didn’t have any hard feelings about the mine.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me about hard feelings or that stupid mine!” he snaps, narrowing his eyes. “You weren’t the one left holding the bag with nothing, practically living on the street like a bum.”
“You don’t know what my life was like. So don’t think you know what I sacrificed to survive after things went bust.” I stare at him coolly. “And don’t lie to me, man. It’s interesting that you didn’t know I was in town, but you knew enough to go stealing from behind my woodpile. What are the odds? One in I-think-you’re-full-of-shit-tillion?”
His shoulders jerk.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy.”
“So you didn’t just toss two gold bars into the fucking trash?”
“...don’t make me laugh. Gold? That’s some spray-painted rocks.” He starts toward me with his teeth bared, his fists balling up. “That how you’re scamming people now? Tungsten-plated bricks and you bilk ’em out of even more fucking money? You’re a sick dude, Paxton.”
He can’t be serious.
Right?