Skeletons Among Us: Legends of Treasure Book 2 Read online

  “Why did they disown her?” Rod was milking her for everything he could get.

  “Sofia was kind of crazy—she claimed she saw dead people and stuff all the time. I even saw her talk to them a couple of times. Her parents thought she was possessed. They said she’d gotten the curse from the Peralta side of the family.”

  Dakota was calming down. Her tears had stopped and she spoke freely, as if she’d been waiting to get this off her chest for a very long time. “Anyhow, Sofia had gotten a map. She swore she’d gone to the Superstitions and seen something. A light coming from a cave. It was her usual stupid, crazy talk. I told her I was in the middle of a ‘project,’ and I couldn’t help her out right then. I told her she had to leave town before she blew my cover. I was worried she might let it slip that she and I knew Brian from high school. That at one point we’d be an item.”

  “You and Brian?” More colored drained from Rod’s face.

  “Yeah. We’d been on and off again for years. Anyhow, Sofia refused to leave. I told her I would go to the mountains with her once to prove she was crazy and there was no treasure. I helped her buy some of the supplies she wanted, and we headed out.

  “I was sure we wouldn’t be gone for more than a few hours. She took me to the place where you found her skeleton. She kept asking me if I could ‘see it,’ which I couldn’t. As far as I could tell, there was nothing there. She was running toward a solid cliff when something … happened.”

  Dakota paused. Everyone waited for her to continue.

  “This darkness came over me and I couldn’t see anything even though it was the middle of the day. It was like I was in the middle of an eclipse or something.”

  Maria knew exactly what she was talking about. She’d experienced it herself earlier that afternoon. Whatever it was that Maria had—Ranger Ferlund had called it the Sight—Sofia must have had it to.

  Dakota continued her story. “Even though I couldn’t see anything, I could hear her. My cousin was screaming. Over and over again. She was so scared. So afraid. Something was hurting her. Or someone, I should say, but I couldn’t see or hear anyone else around. It was the most horrible thing. I thought God was punishing me for what I was doing to you, Rod. For the evil person I’d become.”

  Grant snickered. Melissa glared at him.

  “I wanted to run away,” Dakota said. “I wanted to leave Sofia’s screams behind me. But I couldn’t move. And then finally it was quiet. The darkness lifted, and I saw her body, or at least what was left of it. Bloody. Mangled. Headless.”

  The work of Ranger Ferlund. Maria could see it all happening in her head. Thankfully her own experience that afternoon had gone better than Sofia’s.

  “I … I was so scared.” Dakota shivered. “I thought I was next. Whoever had done this to Sofia would do it next to me. I ran. Hours later I found myself at my car. I got in and drove all the way to Mexico without stopping. I went into hiding. I didn’t know what else to do. I worried someone might blame me for my cousin’s death. So I stayed away. But I missed you, Rod. I really did miss you.”

  Rod grunted but let Dakota continue.

  “Life in Mexico was not good. I had no family. No money. No job. Nothing. But I was scared to come back. Scared I might be killed too. So I kept making do. But it was so hard not to think about everything I’d left behind in America. I reached out to Brian. He got me back into the country. We found Sofia’s remains. Brian started making new plans, a new way to …”

  Embarrassed, Dakota looked down.

  “… to get my money.” Rod finished the sentence for her.

  Dakota nodded. “Your will was still intact. Brian had never brought it up with you, and you’d never tried to change it. Even though you divorced me three years ago, the money still comes to me if you die or are deemed unfit of mind.”

  Everyone in the room listened without moving, reeling in shock from what Rod’s friend Brian had done.

  “The easiest thing would have been to kill you. Brian was very adamant about that. But I told him I wouldn’t help him if that was the plan. So Brian said we could make you go temporarily insane, long enough for me to return and get access to your funds.” Dakota burst out again in wails. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Melissa was at her side. She pulled up a chair for Dakota to sit on. Got her a glass of water. Anything to keep her talking.

  A minute later, Dakota regained enough composure to continue.

  “Brian and I … we planted the evidence near the skeleton—the journal, the license, my ring.” Another sob escaped Dakota’s throat. “He then casually brought up the idea of having a reunion to Rep. Lankin, making him think it was his own idea, not Brian’s.”

  “Easy to do with most politicians,” Grant grumbled from the corner where he and Beth sat and listened.

  Dakota continued telling her story to Rod. “Basically, Brian convinced you to come back to Arizona to frame you for my murder. On some trip he took, he heard about a bacteria that made people go temporarily insane. He managed to get some, and he said everyone would think you were going crazy from guilt for killing me.”

  Rod’s brother Grant fidgeted in his chair. His face showed disgust—so did Beth’s. Maria was pretty sure her expression matched theirs.

  Dakota coughed and blew her nose. With a shaky voice she continued, “Once you were declared insane, I would turn up. You’d be set free, of course. If I’m alive there’s no case against you. But since you’d be deemed “unfit,” I would have access to your funds. I’d explain I’d been in the Superstition Mountains with my cousin and that it was her body, not mine. Her family would confirm she was obsessed with the Superstitions. The story didn’t have to hold forever—just long enough for me to get the money and run.”

  It took all the restraint Maria had to not say something curt. What had Dakota been thinking? Had she really thought the police would have let her out of their sight once she’d showed up alive, expecting to get Rod’s money. Brian had played Dakota for a fool, which clearly hadn’t been hard to do. She was a breathtakingly gorgeous idiot.

  “Brian said we’d leave Arizona together. Live on an island somewhere. He’s in debt. Totally broke. I think he lives off of Amy’s bank account. You have to believe me, Rod. I was going to leave you some money. I wasn’t going to take it all.”

  Could the woman hear herself? Did she really think that made everything else okay? A sham of a marriage. A plot to render him insane? Maria was stunned by Dakota’s ability to justify everything.

  “Brian said after it was all done and we were gone, he would get you the medicine so the hallucinations and delusions would stop. It’d be like it never happened.”

  Talk about delusions. Dakota was living in one. Maria pressed her arms to her side so she didn’t reach over and slap the girl.

  “I guess that didn’t work out as planned, did it?” Rod didn’t hide his sarcasm. And with Dakota’s confession out in the open, he didn’t need to keep it in any longer.

  “No, it didn’t.” Dakota hiccupped. “When I saw you outside the Mexican restaurant, I realized I didn’t want to go through with the plan. I had wanted to see you once again before you went … crazy. When I saw you that night you seemed so happy. It made me have second thoughts.”

  “So it was you I saw outside the restaurant?” Rod asked.

  “Yes.” Dakota sniffled. “After that night I told Brian I was out. But he wouldn’t change the plan. He told me he’d expose me. Send me back to Mexico unless I went through with it. So I stuck to the plan until I heard you were really sick and might die. Brian lied to me. When I confronted him, he told me the bacteria he used had no guarantees.” Dakota blew her nose again. “Rod, I never would have done it if I’d known it might kill you. Please, please believe me.”

  Everyone in the room waited for Rod’s response, but he said nothing.

  “Rod, I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” Dakota pled. “Please forgive me. I was so scared. My cousin—I found her mur
dered. I had to leave. I had to. And then it was awful in Mexico. I ate worse than our dog Clyde did. You wouldn’t have wanted to see me live like that. I had to do something.”

  “That’s when you should have contacted me.” Rod sat up in bed. “You should have told me what happened. Told me the marriage was a fake. Explained about your cousin. I would have helped.” Rod gathered strength as he spoke. “But you don’t frame me for murder, make me go crazy, and nearly kill me.” He shuddered. “Do you know what the infection did to me? I was out of my mind, literally more freaked out than I’ve ever been in my life. I wanted to die. I was begging for it at the end. And I remember it all. Every single crazy paranoid thought.”

  “I’m sorry.” Dakota looked away.

  “There are some things you never forget. Like when a spouse leaves you after a few months of marriage.”

  Dakota hung her head. “I didn’t think things would go so wrong.”

  Grant stood up, red faced and indignant. “That is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard. Are you serious? You didn’t think of the risks? You are—”

  “Grant,” said Beth, pulling on his arm. “Let’s go for a walk.” She pushed him toward the door.

  “Hey,” Rod said to Grant as Beth was coaxing him out of the room, “can you find me the name of a good probate lawyer? I’m going to need one. And soon.”

  “You and me both, brother. I’m on it.”

  Grant and Beth left the room as Dakota continued to cry, sopping up tears with tissues that Melissa kept handing her. Maria didn’t know what to do except stay and watch. The amount of deceit it took to do what Dakota and Brian had done was sickening. Dakota could act as innocent as she wanted to, but deep down the woman was a selfish narcissist.

  At last, the prosecuting lawyer took Dakota by the arm and told her she needed to come with him. He escorted her out with the police officers following closely behind.

  Melissa made a quick phone call. “Tom, I need you to track down Brian.” A pause. “Yes, our Brian. It’s big. You can’t lose him no matter what.”

  Melissa hung up the phone and walked to Rod’s bedside. She put a hand on his shoulder and patted it. “We’ll get him, Rod. I promise.” She then turned, offered a quick smile to Maria, and left.

  It was the two of them now—what Maria had been waiting for all day. Yet she wished she could be anywhere but there. Rod Thorton had not been in the CIA. He had not been captured by terrorists. He had not been put in solitary confinement.

  But Rod Thorton had lived through his own version of Tehran.

  Maria understood too well what that did to a person. His soul was broken. He would need time and patience.

  Was she strong enough to give it to him? Because only then would the healing come.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Over the years, a lot of people have argued about the probable cause of these hapless, headless victims. Were they murdered, all in the same way? Or were they simply victims of a terribly cruel environment? Had they been shot and beheaded, or had they died of dehydration and had their bones picked clean by scavengers? One explanation seems just as plausible as the other.

  —“Mysteries & Miracles of Arizona” by Jack Kutz. Rhombus Publishing Company, 1992, page 34.

  MARIA HELD A STYROFOAM cup full of herbal tea. She sat on a picnic bench in the hot living room of The Keeper’s lodge. Sierra, the Materfamilias, rocked in her La-Z-Boy recliner with her own Styrofoam cup in hand. The envelope full of photographs Maria had taken from the lodge was at Sierra’s side.

  “Thank you for bringing these back,” the old woman said to Maria. “We have an important work here, and these photos are part of it.”

  The woman had been more than gracious to let Maria in and had even offered to make her something to drink.

  “You’re welcome.” Maria had hoped for a frank conversation with the old woman. Something more intimate than she would have gotten if Beth or Derrick had come with her. “You know, I’m not the type to spout off fake apologies. I could tell you I’m sorry for taking the photos, but I’m not. I’m glad I did. Question is, why did you let me take them? You were there that night. In the igloo with me?” Maria took a sip of the tea and about gagged at the heat in the already sweltering room.

  “Yes, that was me in the igloo.”

  Maria forced herself to keep a calm face even though the woman had admitted to being a dog—at least some of the time. “So why did you let me take them?”

  Sierra rocked a moment in silence. “I don’t always know why I do the things I do. I’m like you, Maria. Sometimes I ‘feel’ it. That night I knew you needed the photos. At first I didn’t, so I’d called the boys. But in the igloo I changed my mind.”

  “Why don’t you feel threatened by people like me and Sofia?” asked Maria. “It seemed like Ranger Ferlund did.”

  “Unlike Chalipan, I mean Ranger Ferlund, I appreciate others who are not of our kind who possess the Sight.” Sierra adjusted one of the slippers on her feet.

  “What is it? The Sight?” Maria stopped herself from taking another sip of tea. She wasn’t thirsty, but it was a habit to drink whatever she was holding.

  “My people all have it. We are born with. It allows us see what others can’t. But there are very few of us left. One less now that Ranger Ferlund has … ah … passed on.”

  Maria winced. So Sierra and the ranger were related.

  “Don’t regret what you did,” said the old woman. “It needed to be done. He’d gone astray. His methods were not what the ancients would have done. I too protect the mountain, but I have found a better way. A more peaceful way.”

  “So that is what you do? Protect the mountain?” asked Maria. “I thought you were in it for the Dutchman’s goldmine.”

  “And that is why I’m so successful.” The smile lines in old woman’s face deepened as she spoke. “There are many kinds of treasure. I have many helpers because they think we seek a treasure of gold. I do not correct them, and I throw them a bone every so often. A few nuggets here. Some gold dust there. It’s mutually beneficially.”

  “So you don’t kill people? And then cut their heads off?”

  “Gracious no. I don’t kill people. I do all I can to protect them—even from my own kind. Like the dear, misguided ranger. But I wasn’t always successful, as was the case with Sofia. She had a strong sense of the Sight, that one.”

  “Dakota’s cousin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was her Sight so strong?”

  “I believe it was in her blood. One of my ancestors must have mixed among her kind. That’s usually that way it goes, skipping many generations and then showing up all of a sudden.”

  “And how about me?” Maria asked. “Is my sense of Sight strong?”

  “No. Quite the opposite. It’s very weak. Sporadic. I am quite sure you weren’t born with it. I think it developed. On occasion that happens. Sometimes the soul is exposed to things so hard that the Beyond can no longer be hidden from the person.”

  Maria caught her breath. It was true that all of her ghosts—both the hallucinations and the real ones—began with her time in Tehran.

  Sierra continued speaking. “In your case, my dear, the Sight comes and goes. Be grateful. Having it all the time is no treat. Trust me.”

  The swamp cooler rattled away, doing little to reduce the sweltering heat. It felt like the world had collapsed into this tiny living room space. All the answers were in front of Maria in the form of a wrinkly woman wearing fuzzy slippers and sipping tea in one hundred degree weather.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” said Maria, tentatively, “but who are you? Who was Ranger Ferlund? And how do you … you know … do the whole changing thing?”

  “If I told you,” said Sierra, eyes glinting, “I’d have to kill you. And we’ve already established that’s something I try to avoid.”

  “And what about the mountain’s treasure. Is there really any gold in the Superstitions?” Maria didn’t know why
she cared. She’d already swore to herself that she was never going back into the wretched place.

  “Remember the gold dust and nuggets I throw my boys?” asked Sierra. “They come from somewhere. Believe me, the benefits from Medicare are not that good.” She laughed. “But that is all I can say. For now, I think it’s time for you to go. There’s someone who needs you. Someone who is hurting. Be kind to him. And patient.”

  Rod.

  “I’m going to go see him right after I leave here. He gets released from the hospital tomorrow and we’re headed home. Rest and relaxation are the doctor’s orders.”

  The old woman laughed, knowingly. “You’ll have to tell me how that goes. If you’ve noticed, serenity doesn’t seem to be your friend.”

  Maria had to agree. “Thanks again for the tea. Is it okay if I take it with me?”

  “That’s why I use Styrofoam. So my guests can leave sooner.” The old woman snorted.

  Maria laughed. “I’ll let myself out.” She stood and turned toward the door.

  The old woman called out. “Oh, and if you ever run into old Joe again, please tell him ‘hi’ for me.”

  Maria swung back around. “Joe?”

  “Yes, Joe. I believe he helped you a while back. Some sort of a toe sacrifice? He mentioned it to me not long after it happened.”

  “Oh.” Maria looked down at her manicured pinky toe, still there. A reminder of her time in the middle of the night in the Moquith Mountains with Joe and his knife. “I will. I’ll tell him ‘hi’ from you.”

  The Materfamilias waved. “Excellent. Goodbye. And good luck.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  This is the Lost Dutchman story … An old German prospector name Jacob Waltz died in his modest Phoenix-area ranch house with a large pile of gold ore near, having told at least one person that the ore came from a gold-rich mine hidden in or near the Superstition Mountains. The variations on that theme are the real heart of the legend, though. There is a seemingly unending list of added details—nearly a printed encyclopedia’s worth of stories accompanied by enough crudely rendered maps to fill an atlas. They range widely. Some [stories] lack hard-boiled science; others are rooted in plausible but improvable second-hand information; other bits revolved around curses enforced by mystical guardians.