Raylene sat so close to Gabe she was practically in his lap. The fact that she’d had to identify Ferret and Tiny in a lineup was beyond ridiculous. Stringy at least had been caught in the act of trying to kill her, so no lineup for him. By the time the police got to the scene, Gabe had had Stringy down on the ground and trussed with his own belt like a runaway hog on fair day. The other two had tried to flee in their Impala, but had only gotten as far as Highway 70 before the police nabbed them.
“Just routine,” Rhys said. “Rufus Hawkins is wanted in the home invasion homicide and is being extradited to Utah. The two yahoos you identified today will remain in county until their bail hearing and arraignment. My guess is they’ll plead out and you’ll never have to testify.”
Raylene hoped so. Seeing them today had given her the willies. Gabe reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. He’d stood by her side throughout both lineups. And though Tiny and Ferret were behind glass and under guard, just having Gabe there made her feel safe and confident. Sunday, he’d held her through the night, watching over her like her own personal guardian angel. Because of him she’d actually slept, burrowing into his side, feeling cocooned in his warmth and strength. At one point, she awoke, her head fuzzy from the painkillers, and thought to herself that this was love. Someone who was there for you through thick and thin.
He’d stood by her while she’d stared down a hostile town, had held her hand through awkward social events when the desire for a drink was sometimes stronger than her need to breathe, and had faced down a deranged gunman to save her life. He’d found a home for her horse and had spent hours digging for her gold when he hadn’t even believed it existed.
“Did they tell you how they knew about the gold?” Raylene asked. Bits and pieces of her captivity had floated back to her throughout the night.
“Ray apparently bragged about it in prison,” Rhys said. “Rufus’ brother, Shane Hawkins, shared a cell with your dad the first year of his incarceration. He told Shane that he’d dug up the gold not long after he killed Gus Clamper, knowing that mounting a defense would be costly, and stashed the gold in his safe. Apparently he didn’t take it out before selling the ranch to Gia Treadwell.”
Raylene was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Ray had dug up the gold and not told anyone but his cellmate. “They kept asking me for numbers. I had no idea what they were talking about.”
Rhys nodded. “Rufus and company planned to break in to Gia and Flynn’s house, but they needed the combination to the safe.”
“The only safe I know about was Daddy’s gun safe.” By now, Gia and Flynn had to have cleaned out the safe and stored their own valuables. Raylene turned to Gabe. “I think that scrawl at the bottom of the map was the combination. But it doesn’t make sense, because we all knew Daddy’s gun safe combo, even Mom.”
“I talked to Flynn this morning, and it wasn’t the gun safe,” Rhys said. “Gia was given the combination during the sale of the ranch. The safe was empty. Your dad had already cleaned it out.”
“If he cleaned out his gun safe, then he certainly removed the gold before the house got sold,” Gabe said, and Raylene had to agree.
The whole story was bizarre. After all these years, Ray digs up the gold, hides it in a safe, and forgets to cash in before he goes to prison. Raylene wasn’t buying it.
“You have the map with you?” Rhys asked.
“It’s in my SUV,” Gabe said. “Why, you want to see it?”
“No, but Flynn does.” Rhys turned to Raylene. “As your late father’s estate attorney, he says it’s his fiduciary duty to make sure you, Logan, and your mother get the gold…if it exists.”
“You don’t believe it does?” And if it was in Gia and Flynn’s house, weren’t they entitled to it? Finders keepers…
Rhys shrugged. “Inmates are known to tell tall tales in prison. Maybe Ray thought the story would buy him friends. In prison, safety comes in the company you keep.”
“That would mean it’s still in the ground,” she said, and Gabe rolled his eyes.
“Before you start digging, I think you should pay a visit to Flynn over at the ranch. He wants to go through the house with you…look for any kind of hidden safe. You grew up there; if anyone would know where to search, it would be you.”
“And Cecilia,” Raylene said. Cecilia knew every nook and cranny from cleaning the ranch house all those years.
Rhys leaned back in his chair. “Good idea. I’ll ask Jake to call her and see if she’d be willing to meet you over there. I’d like to put an end to this ridiculous Levi’s Gold legend for once and for all.”
Not as much as Raylene would. She’d almost died for that gold; the universe could at least allow her to reap its riches.
* * * *
A few hours later, a small crowd assembled at Flynn and Gia’s house. It was weird for Raylene to think of the big, rustic ranch house as belonging to anyone else. For so long it had been her home, and before that the home of her ancestors. Everywhere she looked there were small changes. Her father’s hunting trophies had been removed from the wall, as well as his prized Winchester rifle. Some of the heavy wooden furniture had been replaced with sleeker, more modern pieces. And a lot of abstract artwork filled the walls next to Ray’s Western landscapes and cowboy paintings. It was Manhattan meets the Sierra Nevada, and while it wasn’t Raylene’s taste, she could understand how the juxtaposition of the old West with canvases covered in bold shapes and colors might appeal to someone with a more sophisticated sensibility.
In any event, it was gracious of Flynn and Gia to open their doors, allowing her to comb the house, hunting for Levi’s Gold.
Someone had tipped off Harlee Roberts, who showed up with her camera and a laptop, presumably pumped to post a story on the Nugget Tribune’s website as soon as they found the gold. Raylene suspected Rhys was her source, hoping an article would end the intrigue and keep any treasure hunters away from Nugget.
Cecilia had also come. If anyone knew where Ray hid his valuables, it would be Cecilia. Raylene had always suspected that big bad Ray had been afraid of Cecilia. As their housekeeper, she knew where all the skeletons were buried. But because of her financial restraints—a single mother, raising a son—she’d been forced to keep her mouth shut to keep her job.
“You have any ideas?” Raylene asked her. “It’s not the gun safe.”
“There are only two other safes that I’m aware of. One was in Ray’s closet.”
That seemed too obvious to Raylene. Wasn’t the closet the first place robbers looked? But it was certainly worth a try.
“Is this the combination?” Gabe stepped forward with the map and showed Cecilia the tiny numbers scrawled at the bottom.
“I never knew the combination, mijo. But let’s try.”
“I hope it is,” Flynn said. “Gia and I have been wanting to get into that safe since I moved in.” He led Raylene and the rest of the crew into the master suite.
Her parents’ former bedroom was different now. The heavy draperies had been replaced with blinds, the cowhides with modern area rugs, and the big rough-hewn log four-poster with a metal and wood platform bed. Any trace of Raylene’s father had been stripped from the room. She could breathe in here for the first time in her life.
Flynn opened the closet, cleared a row of suits, and tossed them on the bed. “You want to do the honors?” he asked Raylene.
“Let Gabe do it.” Her hands were shaking.
Gabe stepped forward and turned the dial on the safe the same way he did everything else—deftly, and with utter confidence and calm. When he got to the third number he winked at Raylene, and it felt like a hundred butterflies fluttered their wings in the pit of her stomach. She was supposed to be focusing on Levi’s Gold, not on Gabe Moretti.
“Ready?”
“Do it,” she said.
The safe door opened with ease and she held her breath. “Is it there? I can’t look.”
It felt like a thousand eyes were peering over her shoulder. Harlee began snapping pictures and Rhys pulled her back. “Anything, Gabe?”
“Let me see what we’ve got.” He pulled a stack of paperwork from the safe.
“What is it?” Raylene moved closer.
“Deed to the house, insurance documents.” Gabe continued to sort through the pile. “Some pictures.” He stopped to focus on a photo of Logan graduating from BUD/S. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Let me see.” Raylene took the picture to examine it. A tear leaked from her eye; a jumble of confused emotions swirled in her gut. “You think my dad was there?”
“Don’t know. Someone had to have taken the picture. I doubt Maisy would’ve sent it to Ray. Maybe Nick, just to shove it in your old man’s face. But it obviously meant something to Ray, because he kept it.”
“I want to give it to Logan,” Raylene said. “You think that’s okay?”
“I don’t see why not.” Gabe gazed at the photo. “He was a handsome devil back then. Lord knows what Annie sees in him now.”
Gabe went back to the paperwork. “No gold, Ray. Just stuff you don’t want to lose in a fire.”
“But the combination on the map matched. This has to be it.” Raylene moved deeper into the closet to check the safe for any hidden compartments.
“I think your dad snowed everyone on this,” Rhys said, ready to be done with the search.
“Where’s the other safe?” Raylene asked Cecilia. It was probably futile—the combination matched this safe—but she wanted to explore every option before throwing in the towel.
“It’s downstairs. Follow me, mija.”
The entire entourage trailed Cecilia to the bottom floor. Like the rest of the house, there’d been a great deal of changes. Ray’s man cave had been stripped of his hunting trophies, and the dark paneled wood had been painted a dove gray. The bar had been cleared of Ray’s clutter, but remained mostly the same.
Cecilia lifted the bar gate, ducked under, and headed straight to the back bar. She ran her hand over the mirrored wall, found the spot she was looking for, and gave it a strong tap with her fist. And just like that, a hidden door popped open and a safe, similar to the one upstairs, appeared.
“I had no idea that was there.” Flynn moved in to get a closer look. “Should we try the same combination?”
Raylene thought it was unlikely that her father would use the same number code twice. He’d been more careful about security matters than that. The fact that he had three freaking safes in his house, one so deeply concealed that even Flynn, a former FBI agent, hadn’t found it, showed just how anal Ray had been.
“I say we give it a try,” Gabe said. “If it doesn’t work we’ll figure out something else.”
Raylene nodded and Gabe turned the dial. This time, she didn’t hear the click at the end of the sequence and her heart dropped in disappointment.
Gabe studied the numbers on the map. “Raylene, what’s your birthdate?”
She rattled off the month, day, and year and heard Gabe chuckle. “What?”
“This is your birthday backwards.” He turned the map so she could see it. “He started with the year you were born, the day, then the month. Not particularly clever.”
Yet she wouldn’t have thought of it on her own. “Should we try it?” At this point, she was starting to think the whole thing was Ray’s idea of a joke. Wasn’t it just like him to yank everyone’s chain? He was probably laughing in his grave.
“Do you want to do it, or do you want me to try?”
“You,” Raylene said.
He turned the dial first to the right, then to the left, then back to the right. Snick. The small crowd burst into applause, seemingly more excited that Gabe had untangled Ray’s lame number code than the prospect of finding gold. Apparently, Raylene was the only dreamer in the bunch. Or maybe just the most desperate for cash.
Gabe opened the door and reached his hand in. “There’s something here.”
Raylene craned her neck to see over Gabe’s shoulder. He pulled out a black velvet pouch and there was a collective gasp.
“What is it?” she asked, afraid to look.
“You want to open the bag?” Gabe started to hand it to her, but she pushed it away.
“You do it.”
Harlee pointed her camera lens past Raylene’s face and Rhys reeled her in. “Hang on there, Lois Lane. Let’s see what we’ve got first.”
Gabe fumbled with the drawstring on the bag, which had been tied in so many knots Raylene wondered why he didn’t just cut it with his pocketknife instead of making a big production out of untangling the strings. This was it. If it wasn’t Levi’s Gold, the gold didn’t exist. She and Gabe had dug up every inch of soil depicted on the useless map. And Tiny and company had come right behind them, searching for the map. If the total of them hadn’t found anything, there was nothing to be found.
“Hurry,” she urged Gabe. Just rip the damn Band-Aid off.
Gabe finally got the bag untied. “Ready for the moment of truth?” The crowd moved closer.
“Open it, mijo.”
Gabe reached his hand into the pouch and Raylene closed her eyes.
“Feels like gold!”
There was another collective gasp and Raylene opened her eyes.
Gabe emptied the purse onto the bar top and Harlee started snapping pictures in rapid succession. Raylene reached out to touch one of the nuggets to determine if it was real.
“I can’t believe it,” someone—maybe Gia—murmured. “It really exists.”
“There’s more, right?” Raylene stared down at the small mound of nuggets.
Gabe turned the pouch inside out, producing nothing more than dust. He reached into the safe to check for more, but his hand came back empty. “That’s it.”
What was on the counter didn’t look like much, maybe enough to make a few wedding bands and a small medallion, but it had to be worth a fortune. Right? Raylene wasn’t too sure. She turned to Gia, the money expert. “How much do you think it’s worth?”
“It depends on the day.” Gia grabbed her phone, and Raylene could see her googling something. “Right now, a little more than forty-two dollars a gram.”
Raylene’s stomach tanked. There couldn’t be more than twelve grams in the pile.
“But natural nuggets like these are worth more,” Gia said, and Raylene’s hopes lifted. “Maybe as much as twenty or thirty dollars more a gram, depending on purity and color.”
Raylene did a few quick calculations in her head. Best case scenario, they were sitting on roughly eight hundred and sixty-four dollars’ worth of gold. Not exactly a windfall. Hell, it wasn’t even enough to cover her Nordstrom bill, let alone her new niece or nephew’s college tuition.
Gabe took her hand and pulled her into his side. She suspected he intuitively knew she needed someone to lean on. Didn’t he always?
“You solved the legend, Ray. You were right all along.”
Yeah, yay her. “I don’t know about my mom or Logan, but I’ll donate my share to the Railroad Museum.” She was trying not to act petulant, but it was hard not to be disappointed, especially while her face still throbbed from Stringy’s beating. At least kids might get a kick out of the legend, and getting to see real nuggets from the Gold Rush.
“Let’s not be rash,” Gabe whispered in her ear. “You need the cash.”
Flynn gathered up the gold and stuffed it back in the pouch. “This time it’s going to the bank, where I’ll make sure it’s divided three ways.”
“Come on.” Gabe slung his arm around her shoulder. “Let’s get you home.”
On the drive to the farmhouse Gabe squeezed her knee. “I apologize for doubting you, dissing Levi, and mocking the legend. You were right all along.”
She snorted. “Give me a break. There wasn’t even enough gold to pay for the metal detector.”
“Nah, I’d say we’re at least fifty bucks ahead of the game.” He laughed. “Ah, Ray, where’s that 49er spirit that’s in your blood? It was fun.”
“This,” she motioned to her face, “was not fun.”
He went from playful to dark in under a second. “I should’ve beat that son of a bitch within an inch of his life while I had the chance. I’m sorry, baby. I wish there would’ve been more gold, a million dollars’ worth. But you’ve still got the money from your property.”
Except she had yet to sign the papers. Dana had done a good job of keeping Moto Entertainment at bay while Raylene had been stymied by indecision. Why couldn’t Lucky drop his foolish pride and buy the damned property from her? Two hundred thousand dollars wouldn’t leave her any money to live on, but she’d manage. She didn’t know how, but she would, even if she had to move into Lucy’s House herself. Her horse farm would have to wait. And Gunner…it was too much to contemplate with a migraine that felt like a stampede through her head.
Gabe parked in front of the garage and pulled Raylene in for a hug. “What are you thinking?”
“That I need to make a phone call.”
Gabe gazed out the window at Logan’s truck. They were home. “Better do it quick, or else you’ll miss my funeral.”