The guy from the golf cart struggled to his feet.
“Give me the damned gun.”
I was with Em. “No. You threatened us with this gun. We’re leaving, but with the pistol. Right, Em?”
She nodded.
“I sincerely hope we don’t meet again.” The good doctor glared daggers at us. “I don’t think it would be good for either of us.”
“Doctor, we’re never setting foot on your property again.” I hoped we wouldn’t have to.
I turned to find James, but he was already walking toward the street, moving very fast.
Em turned, lowering her weapon, and I followed her out of the parking lot. There’s something sexy about a woman with a gun.
Maria walked to her bike and pushed the big machine behind us.
“Thank God you showed up.” I stepped up beside Em.
“Damn, Skip. I couldn’t be everywhere at once. I was on the far side and I heard the commotion. I got to you as fast as I could.”
“Hey, you just said it. You couldn’t cover three sides at once.”
She squeezed my hand. “Skip, we’ve been through some things together, but tonight, realizing you guys could have been killed, I was really scared.”
“Scared?” I couldn’t believe it. “I never saw you so calm, so in control. And, Em, you made some impressive time getting over here once it turned into a free-for-all. You may have saved our lives.”
“Skip, I saw the damage you two did. Very impressive. I never pictured you as a pugilist. I kind of like it.”
It had surprised the heck out of me, too.
Maria caught up with us on the street.
“What the hell? That was scary.”
I’d been thinking about it for the last two or three minutes. Turning to her, I asked, “Did you tell them we were digging tonight?”
“Them?”
“Dr. O’Neill and the other guy. Did you tell them about us?”
Her eyes got wide.
“Absolutely not.” There was bitter acid dripping from her tongue. “What do you think I am?”
“Maria, I’m sorry,” I said. “There were four of us who knew where we’d be tonight, and I can account for three of us.”
“Oh, you son of a bitch.” Her fists were clenched. “Just because they happened to be there you think that I called them and told them about you?”
The thought had definitely crossed my mind. It made sense.
I may have been wrong. “Look, I’m sorry. I thought that-”
“You didn’t think.” She glowered at me. “I helped you do research, I offered my services to help you find this ghostly wrecker’s camp and you accuse me of setting you up? You are a first-class son of a bitch, Skip Moore.”
She straddled the seat of her Harley-Davidson, turned the key, and blew out onto the street.
Em and I watched her disappear.
“It seems we’ve upset several people tonight.” Em let go of my hand.
“How else would they have been waiting for us at three in the morning? That’s not the time of night two grown men walk the beach.” I thought about that statement. “Unless-”
Em shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“The good news is that we found a metal box.”
“Really? The information you were looking for?”
“I think.”
“Skip, that’s fabulous.”
“The bad news is that I don’t think it made it over the fence. James didn’t have it back there.”
I had no idea where the metal box could be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Dude, she peeled out of here. What happened?”
“Skip simply asked her if she’d turned us in to Doctor O’Neill and company. A fair question.”
He stepped back. “Never saw that coming.”
“My God, James, she was the only other person to know what we were planning. I mean, I think they were going to kill us.”
“Pretty serious accusation, amigo.”
“And what did you think?”
He smiled. “Same thing. She knew about our plans. And, it was strange that she showed up at the exact time we were getting grilled by the doctor and his friend.”
“We handled them though, didn’t we?” I thought about how I’d hit O’Neill in the nose. One of the prouder moments of my life.
“Gave ’em the old one-two.” James smiled.
“James, all of that hassle. And you never got the box, did you? Is it still on the vacant lot?”
He smiled. “As soon as I saw both guys were distracted, I picked it up where I’d dropped it. Right by the fence.” He reached into the truck and pulled out the old, dirty metal container.
I grinned. We were well on our way to finding the gold.
“I think I’ll go to sleep and dream about piles of gold, gettin’ bigger and bigger and bigger.” James was smiling.
“
“Let’s drive over and pick up the shovels,” James said.
“Then I think we go back to the Cove and pry open the box.”
“It’s three thirty in the morning. Do we wake up Mrs. T.?”
“It depends,” my best friend said, “on what’s in the box.”
We drove back, Em never saying a word, the gun in her lap. Ma Barker, Bonnie Parker, “Squeaky” Fromme- the woman who pointed a gun at President Ford. I had fantasies of Emily as a gunslinging moll.
In my room, we worked on the lid, prying with a metal nail file from Em’s purse and a corkscrew that came with the room. James took the nail file and worked it up under one side. Then under the other. He slid it up between the box and lid on the front, and pulled back.
The file snapped, and half of the blade jammed between the lid and the box.
“Sucker is locked.”
“Rusted shut,” said Em.
“Both,” I added. “If we had a blow torch-”
“A hacksaw,” James suggested.
“A hammer.” Em slammed her fist on the top of the box.
It popped open, the lid springing up and the rest of the nail file dropping to the floor.
“Whoa.” James moved back.
“Oh, my God.” I gazed into the container. A folded piece of paper lay in the open box, yellow and curled on the edges.
“Take it out,” Em said.
“It hasn’t seen the light of day for seventy-five years.”
“If we want to know what’s on it, we’ve got to take it out.”
“Maybe we should wait.” James wasn’t sure we were making the right move.
I reached in and pulled it out with just the tips of my thumb and index finger. Careful not to do any
