“You need to make a list—anyone who was at the reading, or might know about your grandfather’s bequest.”
She glanced around and nodded dully. “Okay.”
“In the meantime, I’m bringing in reinforcements. We need to get this place cleaned up.” Taking out his cell, Gage phoned Maggie. Half an hour later, a cleaning crew arrived, and Abby put them to work alongside her.
Gage pitched in, and they made fairly quick progress. There were items that needed replacing. After an explanatory phone call to her friend and a lengthy apology, Abby left a check for repairs on the counter.
Though the afternoon was shot to hell, Gage couldn’t help feeling relieved that he had insisted on coming with her. Or that Abby would be staying at his place tonight.
Whoever was after the map wasn’t giving up. Gage needed to look at Abby’s suspect list. He wanted to find this guy before they set off on what was already certain to be a dangerous journey.
By late afternoon, the work was finally completed, the cleaning crew gone, the apartment restored as much as possible. Abby had packed several suitcases, casual clothes as well as gear suitable for the trip into the desert. Anything else could be purchased once they got to Arizona.
“You ready?” Gage asked. The suitcases were loaded. The digital cards had been stolen from her cameras, but fortunately she had extras, and the cameras hadn’t been destroyed.
“I’m ready.” She looked tired for the first time since he’d met her, her expression glum. She put her hand on his arm, as if to steady herself.
Gage caught her shoulders. “Everything’s going to be all right. We still have what we need to find the Devil’s Gold, okay?”
Abby slowly nodded. “You’re right. I just . . . I didn’t expect anything like this to happen.”
“It’s been a long day. Let’s go home.”
Abby looked up at him. “I don’t really have a home anymore, so I guess your place will do.”
She looked so forlorn, Gage leaned down and kissed her forehead. It was a very un-Gage-like thing to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ABBY STUMBLED AS SHE MADE HER WAY BACK TO GAGE’S LAND Rover. She felt numb all over and tired to the bone. Realizing the lengths someone was willing to go to get the map told her the sort of danger she was facing.
And the journey had not yet begun.
As they reached the Rover and Gage pulled open her door, Abby’s head shot up. “Oh, my God—the storage locker. I put King’s personal possessions in a storage facility. Maybe it’s been vandalized, too!”
“Get in.” He half-hoisted her into the car seat and slammed the door, then rounded the hood and got in behind the wheel.
“What’s the address?”
Abby gave him directions to Rod’s Self-Storage, a compact cluster of units not far from Tammy’s apartment. As they pulled up to the gate, she punched in her personal code, and a portion of the high chain-link fence slid open.
“Second row over. Unit 25.”
Gage drove up in front of a long stucco building, and they got out of the car. Abby opened the combination padlock, her heart pounding as Gage rolled up the corrugated steel door.
A sigh of relief escaped as she saw the interior of the 5- by 10-foot unit neatly stacked with cardboard boxes.
“Looks like they haven’t been here,” Gage said.
“Not yet. The security’s good. It’s not that easy to get in and out.”
“What’s in the boxes?”
“I gave his clothes to the Salvation Army. These are mostly his notes. His journals are in there. I didn’t have room to store the stuff at Tammy’s, but I didn’t want to throw the notes away. I examined the journals very carefully, and there wasn’t anything about the Devil’s Gold. The information we need is in the notes he left me with the map. Anything else he must have taken with him on his last expedition.”
“Let’s load these up, and we’ll store them at the office. They’ll be safe there, and we can take another look, see if there’s something you might have missed.”
“Sounds good.”
They cleaned out the storage locker, loading the boxes into the back of the Rover. Though the journals and King’s more personal possessions had been left undisturbed, Abby felt even more exhausted than before.
She closed her eyes as the vehicle rolled along. She was nodding off, almost asleep when the passenger door shot open. Abby jerked awake, disoriented, her hand automatically tightening into a fist.
Gage’s big palm wrapped around her fingers. “It’s okay, Abby. We’re home. You’re safe.”
“Sorry.” She slid out of the car, swaying a little as she started walking. Gage’s arm went around her, drew her against his side.
“Just take a minute. It’s been a long day.”
She took a deep breath, trying to ignore how good it felt to be pressed against his big hard body.
Abby forced herself to move away. “I’m okay. Just a little tired is all.”
“I hate to say it, but it’s only going to get worse.”
She straightened. Gage was right. The trip ahead of them would be grueling. “I’m fine. Thanks.” She glanced at the brick walls around them. “Where are we?”
“In my garage. We’ll come back and get this stuff later. Come on, I’ll show you your temporary home.”
* * *
Gage hadn’t told Abby his apartment was on the second floor of his office building. It was convenient, with a private rear entrance and a two-car garage. High, flat ceilings gave it the feel of a loft, and huge paned windows kept the space open and airy; it was almost like living out of doors.
In the downstairs atrium, several leafy trees grew up through circular holes in the brick floor, filling the entry with fresh clean air.
“This is where you live?” Abby’s gaze missed nothing as she crossed the floor beneath the branches of the trees.
“It’s handy. The market was down when the building came up for sale. There’s another apartment next to mine, so I’m a landlord as well as a tenant. I’ll show you around, then come back and retrieve your suitcases. The stuff in the boxes will be safe where they are till morning.”
Instead of using the elevator, he led her up a flight of metal stairs, crossed to his front door, and punched in the code to turn off the alarm.
“The building is extremely secure, my apartment even more so. When you’re in the treasure business, people can get strange ideas.”
She made a sound in her throat. “A lesson I just learned.”
Gage thought of the break-in, didn’t want to imagine what might have happened if Abby had been home. “You’ll be safe here.” Top-of-the-line security wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
He led her into an expansive living room with gleaming hardwood floors, Persian carpets, and comfortable overstuffed furniture splashed with exotic, patterned, bright-colored pillows. Around them, his own personal treasures, souvenirs from his travels, sat on bookcases, tables, and chests, or hung on the walls.
“Your apartment is wonderful,” Abby said, admiring the partially broken head of an ancient Greek statue, moving on to a big African pot with red and black designs that sat in the middle of his dining table. “It’s like taking a trip around the world.”