I turn and walk away, leaving the media circus and the prying eyes of the Jacobs family behind me. The least I can do is tell the evil stepmother that they’re calling off the search before she finds out from the news—or worse, from Stone.
I grip my hiking bag straps and take off down the trail toward the truck. The Superstitions might be behind me right now, but I’ll be back. When everyone else returns to their normal lives, I’ll be up on the trails.
I have two things to search for now. The treasure and my dad. Neither one is going to stay lost forever.
1
Two Months Later…
Finding shit in my father’s house is like looking for gold in the Superstition Mountains. No wonder my family has never been able to accomplish either task.
“Paperwork, paperwork,” I mumble to myself as I sift through the disarray of books and journals in his study. To think this is only a miniscule portion of his stash. The War Room is something else altogether. I glance at the ticking, old-time clock on the wall. “Shit.”
Being late is nothing new for me because if it wasn’t about the family business, it wasn’t important. However, since Pops went missing, acclimating into the real world has been a priority, even if I have failed at it so damn epically.
I turn and run right into an open drawer. A slew of curses spit from my mouth as I rub away the pain in my hip. With more force than necessary, I slam the drawer closed, listening to the contents inside get thrown backward into the wood. If my father were still around, he’d be asking me what in the Sam hell I’m doing in here. Sam hell was one of his favorite phrases. To this day, I still don’t know what it means. Anyway, he’s not here, so I quickly shake that thought away. Dwelling on things was never a Wilder forte.
Apparently, finding receipts and work orders for my father’s ancient truck isn’t either. They’re about as elusive as searching for treasure. I make my way out of the study, pausing in the hallway. My father’s old room is to my left. The raw wood walls that make up the house quickly dig the roots of a bygone life into me, tangling around my ankles and making me just stop and think. Just for a moment.
A moment is too much.
I take a deep breath and start forward. I don’t have time to search for the paperwork, not if I want to make it to my first class on time. Somehow, though, I get sucked out into the garage. Beside the camping gear and the prospecting pans, shelves of rusty tools on decaying work benches decorate the century-old building. I scan the area, all the while my head telling me I need to leave or I’ll be subjected to everyone turning and looking as I make my way into my first class at Saint Clary’s this semester, History 201. It’s okay. The professor wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. I lost all respect for him when he thought he was going to talk about the history of Clary back in 101. Please. The guy is a dumbass. I know more about Clary in my pinky finger than he does in his whole body.
My gaze gets hung up on the corners of white papers sticking out of a copper-colored toolbox. You’d think my father was a hoarder, but that’s not the whole truth. He’s just really passionate about a few areas of his life. Cleaning and filing important papers are not among them.
My “Shit, you’re going to be really late,” internal alarm goes off. Without even looking at what the papers are, I pull them out of the box, shake them off, and avoid the cloud of dust that poofs up as I run back into the house to shut and lock the front door.
My shoes kick up the dirt of the front walkway. By the time I get to my bike, it’s covered in a thin layer of sand. I’ve lived on the outskirts of Clary, Arizona my whole life. I know about dust and heat and desert. Trust me. I shove the paperwork into my book bag, throw it over my shoulder, and then pull my bike upright from where I left it in a heap a few feet away from the front door of my childhood home. I give the rustic exterior a quick glance before I ride back into town.
The familiar sorrow hits me, but at the same time, I know I made the right decision. I can live out in the desert as a hermit like my father—or even worse than my father because at least he had me—or I can live in the dorms at Saint Clary’s and actually try to have a life other than weekend excursions into the Superstitions searching for my father and our family’s legacy.
I chose the latter because...well, I’m not sure it needs any explanation. One is a life, the other isn’t. Every day my father remains missing is cracking my resolve a little further. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m ever going to find him at all.
The barren roadway into town is littered with a few prickly cacti, lots and lots of brown, and the occasional rambling shed that masquerades as a home. Ahead of me, the town of Clary opens up, backdropped by the jagged, burnt copper tint of breccia that makes up the Superstitions. It’s the same kind of mountain faces that are famous in the Visit Arizona brochures, but this isn’t a tourist destination for me. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve lived and breathed the dry air. I know the ranges like the back of my hand, like my family before me. The only thing I don’t know
