His groin stirred at her choice of words, a mental image forming of the two of them in bed. Probably not smart to mention it.
Gage took the pen and signed the paper. Abby opened the box and took out the map. It was made of cowhide or deerskin, old and stained. She set it on the coffee table in front of him, and Gage bent forward to get a closer look.
Disappointment filtered through him, along with a sweep of relief. He had seen a map like hers before.
Gage sat back on the sofa. “I really thought you’d have something interesting to show me but this—”
“I know what you’re going to say. There are a number of maps like this one.”
“Yes. The treasure you’re looking for is infamous. The Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition Mountains? Every amateur treasure hunter in the country has searched for it.”
“You’re right. Over the last hundred and seventy years, roughly two hundred and fifty people have died trying to find it. Some were killed by exposure to the harsh desert conditions; others suffered tragic accidents; some were murdered, including several who had their heads severed from their bodies.”
Every serious treasure hunter had heard the stories, many of which were extremely gruesome.
“The Apaches believe the mountains are cursed,” Gage said. “Who knows, maybe they are. The truth is there’s no limit to what people are willing to do to find a fortune in gold—if it actually exists. I assumed the treasure King was hunting was something very different.”
She leaned toward the map, and Gage caught the faint fragrance of jasmine. Another rush of blood headed south. He took a sip of scotch, hoping to relax his body’s reaction to a woman he found extremely attractive.
Abby picked up the map. “You said you’d seen a map like this before.”
“I know they sell copies of it in the Lost Dutchman Museum at the base of the mountains. I’ve even seen them online.”
“Take another look.” She pointed to a spot where the map had been altered. “At one point the trail has been redrawn, veering off from the east toward the south. That’s my grandfather’s handwriting. He was there.” She pointed to an X drawn in black ink on the map. Next to it were the initials KF.
“Let me take a closer look,” Gage said. “Do you mind?”
“Be my guest.” She handed him the thin, stiff piece of rawhide, and he held it up to the light. The black marks had neatly been added. He wished he had one of the reproduction maps to compare it to.
“If King was there and that’s where the gold is, why didn’t he find it?”
“I don’t know. If it was easy, he would have discovered it years ago. I think that’s where he may have been when he died, but no one seems to know. His attorney received a phone call from King a month before he passed away. Apparently, King told him that unless he received another call, at the end of thirty days, he should assume King was dead and implement the will he’d made the last time he was in Denver.”
“King must have known he only had a short time to live.”
Abby glanced away, but Gage caught a glimpse of pain. “I think that’s what happened.”
“What else do you know?”
“Over the years, he told me dozens of stories. Sometimes we talked about clues he’d discovered during a trip he’d made in search of the gold.”
Gage swallowed the last of his scotch, set the glass and the map down on the coffee table, and rose from the sofa. No treasure hunter worth his salt would mount an expedition with evidence like this. He didn’t have to worry. Abby would be safe.
“I’m sorry, Abby, I truly am. But I’m going to have to pass on this one.” He stuck out a hand Abby ignored.
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Turning back to the antique box on the table, she lifted the lid, reached inside, and brought out a chunk of gold. It glittered in the lamplight, sending his pulse up a notch.
Gage sat back down. “Where did you get that?”
“It came with the map.” She handed him what looked like a chunk broken off a solid gold ingot. Beveled sides, flat on the top and bottom, a little over an inch and three quarters long and an inch and a half wide, it appeared to have been part of a longer bar, with a rough edge where it had broken off. There was a stamp in the gold, the letter P, worn but legible.
Gage studied the gold, turning it over and over in his hand. “Have you had it assayed?”
Abby nodded. “Twenty-four karat. Ninety-nine percent pure gold.”
He rubbed his thumb over the stamp mark. “I recognize this style of writing. It’s Spanish, very old. It’s called Italica. I ran across documents written in this style when I was digging around in some archives in Seville.”
“You’re right. Italica was used by the Spanish from 1550 to 1800. In this case, the P stands for Peralta. That was in the letter my grandfather left with the map.”
A letter he most surely wanted to read. “According to the legend,” Gage said, “it was the Peralta family who found gold in the Superstitions and started the mine in the 1700s. They worked it for years, brought out gold worth millions today. As the story goes, they were using mules to transport a number of gold bars to Mexico in 1847 when the family was attacked by a group of hostile Apaches.”
Abby nodded. “Legend says the family was completely wiped out. Along with any notion of where the mine was located, a secret they’d guarded for generations. That’s the basic premise, or at least one of them. I figured you’d know something about it.”
“I know a little about all the most valuable lost treasures in the world. Not much about that one.”
“So what do you think? Are you interested now?”
He looked down at the map, thought of King Farrell and the man’s absolute conviction the treasure existed. The X on the map wouldn’t be easy to find, but it might be possible. And Abby was going—with or without him.
“I have his notes,” she added, those amber eyes sparkling like the gold he held in his hand.
“I’ll just bet you do,” he said, fighting not to smile.
“There’s an overlying map King drew that has longitude and latitude points along the route.”
“That’s a definite plus.” He set the gold down next to the map on the table, rose, and once more extended his hand. “Looks like you’ve got a deal—partner.”
Abby grinned and shook his hand.
CHAPTER FIVE
EXCITED, BUT NOT REALLY SURPRISED THAT GAGE HAD SWALLOWED the tempting lure she had cast, Abby returned the gold and the map to the box.
Gage frowned. “You haven’t been keeping that here? That much gold is worth a lot of money. You’ve already had a break-in that could have gotten you killed.”
“It was in a safe deposit box at the bank until I picked it up this afternoon. I wanted another look at my grandfather’s notes, and I figured I’d be needing the gold for our meeting in the morning.”
“Which leaves us with a problem tonight.”
“You’re worried about the guy at the museum.”
He nodded. “There’s no way to know if it was the same man who attacked you. If it was, he must have followed you. If he followed you, he knows where you live.”