Over the next couple of months, Terry had done his best to cajole Harold Powell into selling. He’d met the man for coffee in Gatesville and had even taken him to lunch a couple of times. The old man had been irascible, no doubt about it, but he hadn’t been rude or bullying.
Devlin had told him during that first phone call that there was a family connection between the Powells and the Gowans that went back to the late 1800s, and that was why he wanted to buy the place. Now, as Terry’s gut churned with the abusive tone of his father’s voice, remembered from his childhood, he knew there had to be another reason his father wanted to buy that particular property.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re so damn fixated on buying this damn house? It’s nothing special as far as I can see.”
“Maybe you’re just too fucking stupid on top of everything else!”
For one moment, Terry felt a chill, and so many memories from the past crashed in on him, threatening…what? This pattern was so fucking familiar. The disapproval, the insults, they’d always been followed by the old man’s fist or his belt. Hell, he’d throw anything at Terry that was close at hand, too. Other times he’d kicked him.
But Terry was no longer the cowering child who’d cried with relief when his father had left him and his mom. He was a man fully grown.
I was determined to do my duty toward the man who’d sired me, but there’s a limit. “And maybe I’ve just had enough of this shit. You can either come clean with me and tell me what this is all about, or you can damn well leave.”
“Leave?”
Terry blinked, and he wondered if the bullying bastard who’d been here for the last couple of weeks hadn’t actually been a figment of his memory. Because, in his place right now, was a weak, trembling old man. “Where the hell do you think I’m going to go? I got nobody else.”
Terry whipped around and took a step closer to his dad. “Out on the street for all I care!” He turned away, walked across the room, and sat in his favorite chair. “Give me one good reason, old man, that I don’t do that. You want the Powell house? Then you fucking tell me why.”
Devlin Gowan fell into another coughing fit. Terry got up and got him his bottle of water, which he must have dropped during his tirade earlier.
Devlin recovered slowly. Finally, he nodded. “You should know. It’s your legacy, too.” He paused, and Terry sensed he was struggling with more than just his memory. “Granddad showed me a letter from his own grandfather. It had been written while the first Devlin Gowan had been in prison in St. Louis—penned just before he died.”
Terry remembered, then, that his great-great-grandfather, also named Devlin, had lived a life of crime, too. Fucking great gene pool I’ve got.
“The letter said that he—Devlin—and two partners, Robert O’Grady and Ezra Powell, had pulled off a train robbery for which they’d never been charged—or even suspected. The plan had been to bury the loot and come back for it in a year. But they’d committed other robberies in the past, and it was a couple of them, in Missouri, that had finally caught up to him and his partners. O’Grady was killed during their arrest, but Powell had been sent to prison, too. Powell died before Devlin, and when he heard of it, he wrote to his son. That man passed the letter down to granddad. He said they never recovered the spoils of that heist, that they hadn’t been able to find the place. He also said that no one else ever did, either.” Devlin struggled for breath again. “The letter said they secretly buried the loot under a tree on the farm owned by Ezra Powell’s brother, Jonas.”
“What kind of loot was it? Any bank notes buried for that long underground would likely be nothing more, at this point, than moldy mulch.”
“Fool.” His father seemed to think better of the scathing tone. He shook his head then began again. “It wasn’t money as you and I know it. This was the 1880s. Twenty-dollar gold pieces,” Devlin answered. “Thousands of dollars in great-great-granddad’s day. But now? That loot’s worth millions. Millions! And we’re the only people on the face of this earth who know that it’s there.”
Millions in gold coins? That sounded like some kind of fantasy. It couldn’t be true.
But what if it were?
Terry let the silence play. He had noticed one thing about his father. The man tired easily. After a couple of minutes, he looked over at Devlin, who’d dozed off in his wheelchair.
Terry had some thinking to do. First, he’d investigate whether or not there had been a train heist in Texas about the time Devlin had mentioned. Then he’d look into the current value of twenty-dollar gold pieces from the nineteenth century.
After that, he’d decide what, if anything, he would do about this information.
Chapter Four
Michaela worked the early shift on Saturday, and that was a good thing. Well, maybe not so good in that she’d returned home after the party the night before well past midnight and had to set her alarm to get up early.
But good in that she’d done something that, in the light of day, felt just a little bit scary. She’d accepted a date with Lewis and Randy—they’d made it clear it was both of them—and that date was for tonight.
Michaela decided
