Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek) Read online

  “Ah, the old homestead,” Brad muttered, looking around. “But looking ever new with the lord of the manor’s stamp on it big-time. I’m hoping you’ll give me a good job—just tempor’ry—in Dad and Grandpa’s old mill, for which you’re caretaker now.”

  “Which I own,” Grant said, closing the door behind him. “Own because I bought you out and stayed here to keep it going while you skipped town.”

  “Yeah, well, I still know the ropes. A job there’ll do for now, foreman or somethin’.”

  “You know Todd’s the mill foreman. His life is trees, living and dead.”

  “Yeah, good ole Todd, the modern-day Tarzan, climbing trees when he’s not buzzing them into boards for fancy furniture.” Brad got only as far as the arm of the leather couch before he sat down, nearly tipping over onto the cushions. He tried to give the Tarzan yell, which came out garbled and made him start to cough.

  Grant’s heart went out to him, however frustrating he was.

  “Hey, you’re having a party—with a bar! I see my timing’s good. I’ll go up to my old room and clean up a bit. Clothes in the car, but I’ll jus’ borrow somethin’ of yours, like in the old days. So, what’s the occasion?”

  “A pre-wedding party for Gabe McCord, Tess Lockwood and guests.”

  “Todd coming, then?”

  “And Paul, as a matter of fact.”

  In addition to Gabe McCord, Todd McCollum and Paul Kettering had been the Mason boys’ best friends growing up. Gabe had been away that fateful summer when the rest of them had taken a blood oath, swearing never to tell anyone else about what Grant always thought of as “the death chamber.”

  “Gabe’s deputy, Jace Miller, and his wife are coming, too,” Grant went on, trying to keep calm. “And a veteran detective he’s close to from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. If any of them knew you’d driven in here drunk—even a couple of miles—it wouldn’t be pretty. Gabe’s mother, who lives in Florida, will be here, too, and one of Tess’s sisters...”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. Steer clear. Don’t embarrass the lord of the manor. Bet you don’t even want me to stay here for a while, right, bro?” His voice rose, and he stood unsteadily. “Look, I won’t beg, but I’m telling you I need a tide-me-over job or maybe an investment for a new path—and if I don’t get some help somewhere...”

  “You’re welcome to stay here for a while, but I can’t free any capital right now, not the kind you’d need to start another business or bail out the paper mill. The digital age would have taken the lumber mill under if I hadn’t diversified into things like mulch and log-cabin kits and concentrated on sales to hardwood-furniture stores and some other side projects.”

  “I don’t need that lecture again. I’ll go on upstairs,” Brad said, holding up both palms as if to fend him off. He suddenly seemed sober, steadier, and his voice turned hard and cold. “Look, Grant. I only have one real big financial asset left, and I’m getting desperate enough to sell it—rare, precious and mysterious as it is. Wonder how much it’s worth? Prob’ly priceless.”

  Grant’s head snapped around. “The four of us swore never to do that or even tell others. I wish we could put all that back, erase what we did and saw.”

  “It’s just I need some help right now. So how much you think that big arrowhead would go for on the black market, huh?”

  “Keep your voice down. I’ve got caterers here. Brad, there are laws now that would put you in prison and mean huge fines if you got caught.”

  “Yeah, and then what if I blabbed about where I got it, right? But I said ‘black market.’ What did Dad used to say? ‘Let the dead stay dead’? Well, my paper mill’s dead, but I’ve gotta find a way to survive and thrive.”

  “We can discuss it later. I’m sure there will be a place for you at the mill until you get on your feet.”

  “Cleaning up the back lot? Driving a forklift? Hey, did Gabe catch those timber thieves around here yet? Stealing good hardwood offa people’s lots, but for sure, not selling it underhanded to you for the mill, right?”

  “That’s right, and I don’t want you implying anything else, whether you’re drunk or sober. I just heard a car door slam outside. I’ll be sure you get some food and nonalcoholic refreshment upstairs after you get a shower, and we’ll talk in the morning, but I’ve got to greet my guests. You need help on the stairs?” he asked, taking Brad’s upper arm to move him along.

  Brad shook loose. “The only help I need’s a job from our fam’ly business till I can find a buyer for the industrial rollers, dryers and big, dead building I still own. Go greet your guests, man. Don’t look at me that way, like I’m a zombie from the mound out back.” He snorted a half laugh. “’Member that old movie with Boris Karloff as a walking, murdering mummy from some old tomb? But listen, I can still think and plan. I’m not an idiot. I may have my life smashed in right now but not my skull!”

  Grant’s stomach tightened at that final comment and at the nightmare memory that would always haunt him, but he buried it as he hurried to answer the front door.

  2

  Kate was really impressed with Grant Mason’s house and its setting. The contour of the landscaped front lawn, the curved driveway and the surrounding forest embraced the sprawling wood, stone and glass building. Their car had startled a doe and her fawn, which darted away. Like the deer, the house seemed to have emerged from the woods as if it could disappear back into it at will.

  She hoped she’d be able to see the Adena mound from inside the house, but dusk was falling. And she’d dressed up even in her one pair of really high heels; though if Grant would show her the site, she’d go barefoot through the woods for a mere glimpse of it. As with other Adena mounds in the area, the foliage probably obscured it, just as the people themselves were so mysteriously hidden by the centuries. She was getting obsessed again, caught up in the mysticism of the Celts and the Adena, but studying them and their amazing cults of death demanded passion as well as reason.

  “I said, what do you think of the place, Kate?” Tess’s voice pierced her thoughts. Tess twisted around in the front seat as if to see if Kate was still there. Gabe came around to open their doors for them.

  “Really handsome.”

  “Like I said, wait till you see its owner.”

  “Now, Tess,” Gabe scolded. “No matchmaking. Kate, I’m sorry your Ohio State professor friend couldn’t be here for all this, because he would have been welcome.”

  “Carson’s had it on his calendar to speak at the Smithsonian for over a year,” she explained as she got out of the backseat. “Very prestigious. It’s his topic, for sure—Early Indigenous Civilizations of the Americas—but I hope to get him here soon. He knows a lot about the mounds in this area. Maybe we can visit you two once you get back from the secret honeymoon site and get settled.”

  Gabe had sold his house. Tess’s place, their old family home Mom had left to Tess in her will, was next door to his old one on Valley View Road. It was still on the market. The soon-to-be McCord family had bought a place on the old-town edge of Cold Creek and were renovating it as well as adding a three-room addition for the day-care center Tess would open in September. Since the old Lockwood house had not sold yet, Kate was staying there with Tess. Gabe was overseeing the work at their new place, when he wasn’t busy trying to bust marijuana growers and, lately, a gang of timber thieves in the area. But he’d said that was like being on vacation after the search for a kidnapper and killer.

  Gabe rang the doorbell, and a tall man opened the door. Tess was sure right about Grant Mason, Kate thought. He looked dynamic and just plain solid. He smiled at her in a flash of white teeth against his tanned face as he extended his hand after Gabe’s introduction. And for once, it was great to see a clean-shaven man. She’d never liked the scruffy style of half beards so popular these days. Maybe Gabe was shaved close because of his job,
but Grant had obviously done so by choice. She should not have been expecting a Paul Bunyan woodsman look just because Grant owned a lumber mill.

  His hand was big and warm—just like this house. He lightly touched the small of her back as they stepped in. She felt suddenly nervous but over the moon, as the Brits would say. Trying to get this man to let her explore the Adena mound on his property just went from business to pleasure.

  * * *

  Grant realized he’d been a moron to picture Tess’s older professor sister as some frowsy, mousy academic, pale with glasses perched on her nose, plain with no makeup. Kathryn Lockwood was very good-looking. He should have known she’d be pretty since Tess was. But while Tess was quite slender, Kate Lockwood bloomed in all the right places. Her shoulder-length, curly brown hair seemed dusted with auburn like when the sun set through the forest. Her eyes were hazel-hued, alight with amber flecks and fringed with thick lashes. Her mouth was lush, red and pouted right now as she surveyed him. She wore a royal-blue dress that wrapped around her curves. Suddenly, this wedding offered more than just the happiness of his best friend and his bride.

  “You have a lovely home,” Kate said, her voice warm and mellow. He thanked her but had to pull himself away to welcome others at the front door. He wondered who was keeping an eye on the area since Gabe’s only deputy, Jace Miller, and his wife were here. Victor Reingold, from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who had helped solve the town’s child-abduction cases, came in and shook his hand.

  Todd McCollum and his wife, Amber, soon showed up, too. Grant kidded him about how well he cleaned up. Todd was always overseeing the cutting floor of the mill, and his idea of downtime was uptime—climbing trees. In spite of the fact that Brad had seemed willing to take Todd’s job, it was tempting to get him down here to see everyone, but not in the state he was in.

  Their other childhood buddy, Paul Kettering, surprised everyone by showing up with one of his fantastically carved tree trunks as a wedding gift. Paul rolled the oak carving into the front tiled foyer area on a dolly, while everyone came to take a look, and Tess clapped her hands in excitement like a young child. Paul’s wife, Nadine, beamed as if she’d carved the three-foot-high, in-the-round piece herself.

  “Couldn’t see hauling it out to the waterfall or lodge for your wedding,” Paul told Gabe and Tess. “I’ll be sure it gets to your new house when you get back from the honeymoon. I did fairies since I thought it might be nice for your new nursery school, Tess.”

  Tess was teary-eyed at the array of winged beings that looked like pretty little girls in party dresses, emerging from behind leaves and fronds. “It’s wonderful. As you can see,” she said, turning to Kate, “Paul is a talented artist. When Grant’s group cuts trees, Paul has his choice of trunks and turns them into wonderful creatures like gnomes, leprechauns, fairies or other mythical beings. It’s a wonderful, special gift!”

  “It really is,” Kate agreed. “Do you do assignment carvings, Paul?”

  “As long as it fits the Kettering style,” he said.

  His plump wife, Nadine, spoke up. “These tough financial times around here make living on art a real calling and sometimes a sacrifice, so please tell anyone you know about Paul’s work. I have a business card I can give you. Some city folks don’t want to drive out into the wilds to find a unique artist, and it’s hard to take tree trunks on the road to art shows. A website helps, of course, but I think Paul always underprices his work.”

  Grant was relieved when everyone arrived and seemed to be mingling well. Despite the high ceiling of the large room, the noise level rose. He had Gabe and Tess go first at the buffet table, and others followed. After they ate, he noticed Kate kept looking out his back window, which, as darkness descended, had turned into a huge, black mirror reflecting all of them.

  After much group talk, dessert and a champagne toast, Grant finally managed to talk to Kate alone. She was still glancing out the window. “I’d love to see Mason Mound during daylight,” she told him when he approached.

  “Gabe mentioned that, huh? It’s pretty overgrown. Bushes on top, brush below and surrounded by several huge, prime maples, one with my boyhood tree house in it.”

  “How wonderful. I love hearing about people’s pasts. The mound’s never been excavated, right?”

  He hesitated, took a swig of his champagne. Either it was starting to get to him or she was. How much to tell this beautiful, interesting and interested woman? “My grandfather and my father both believed in letting the dead stay dead—undisturbed.”

  “Most mounds in this area are tombs.”

  “It’s only about twenty-four feet high, conical like most of the others, so it’s not a big or grand one.”

  “Which is probably why it’s been ignored. I found it on an old map I came across. Actually, the smaller mounds are often more productive and intriguing.”

  Was it his imagination that the word intriguing hung between them for a moment? Of course it was. He just didn’t need her questions getting too close for comfort, although that warred with his desire to get closer to her.

  “Productive and intriguing?” he repeated as across the room a burst of laughter broke out.

  When she raised her voice slightly to be heard, he realized they’d been whispering. “Because,” she explained, “if bodies or grave goods are interred there, they would be easier to excavate. In the big, well-known mounds, there may be burials stacked on top of each other in wood-lined tiers but everything’s caved in and smashed. Did Tess or Gabe mention I’m fascinated by the Adena and need proof to link them to my major area of study, the Celtic people of northern Europe?”

  “Tess told me. Anyway, I look at the mound as a monument—on private land—not to be tampered with or desecrated. But sure, I’d be happy to show it to you. Maybe after all the wedding hoopla. I hear your other sister is coming in tomorrow, so I know you’ll be busy. Drop by the mill if you’d like a tour of our facilities there.”

  She cocked her head, which made her hair brush her bare shoulder. She seemed to study him again. Did she sense he was putting her off about the mound? It actually had been entered in 1939 by his grandfather and then much later—by Grant, Brad, Todd and Paul—but he’d never tell her any of that. Though he had to admit, she was the kind of woman who could probably pry anything out of him if she put her mind to it, which made her damned dangerous as well as a temptation. All he needed was her wanting to take a really close look at the mound, including inside it.

  * * *

  As Kate sat between Gabe’s mother and Tess during the bridesmaids’ luncheon—at another surprising new-town venue called Miss Marple’s Tea Room—Kate could not believe how fast time flew toward the wedding. She knew it would be wonderful, except for having to be nice to Dad and his new family. How many nights had she cried herself to sleep because he’d left them? Before Mom got them an apartment and found a job in Jackson, Michigan, Kate used to be afraid they’d all starve to death, despite the money Dad sent every month. And when she’d later learned Jack Lockwood had cheated on his wife with the sheriff’s wife—Gabe’s mother, since Gabe’s dad was sheriff before Gabe—her pain had turned to stony hate.

  Of course, as an adult, she saw there were two sides to every love story, every breakup and divorce. Sheriff Rod McCord had seldom been home, so his wife must have been lonely. Obviously, the affair and divorce had been her fault, too. Mom had always seemed to be raising the three of them alone while Dad traveled for his job. Kate had always blamed him for leaving them at a time when it was crucial for them to bond as a family—right after Tess was abducted and then came back. And now, Kate knew, she’d have to be civil to him as she’d promised Tess. At least she couldn’t blame his new wife and their kids for the man he was or, at least, had been.

  Char burst out laughing at something Tess had said. Kate was so glad Char had arrived safely, though her s
kin was deeply tanned. She’d have to urge her to keep a hat on and her arms covered out there in Navajo land. Char had always been as bubbly as Kate was serious, and she was really enjoying herself now, sitting on Tess’s other side, giggling. Well, the two of them had always been close, while Kate had sometimes felt like their second mother.

  Char leaned over Tess to speak to Kate. “Isn’t it something we have two half brothers? I know it’s the sperm that decides the sex of the child, but since we had three girls and now, with another woman, Dad has two boys, you have to wonder if the female doesn’t make the difference.”

  “Char, can we please save this discussion until our real hen party later tonight?” Tess said. “I’d like both a boy and a girl, and I heard, depending on when you have sex, there are ways to hedge your bets on that.”

  Kate smiled while everyone laughed again. The chatter went on, but it was really hard to wrap her brain around the fact she had two young half brothers. She could only hope and pray they would live better lives than their father had.

  * * *

  Back at the old family house, where the three of them would be staying until the wedding, Sarah McCord, Gabe’s mom, was the first topic of conversation while the three of them sat around the kitchen table with glasses of Chardonnay.

  “She’s still an attractive woman,” Char said. “I think she’s pretty protective of Gabe, so maybe it’s good she lives in Florida. You don’t need your mother-in-law over at your house all the time.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a bit if she lived closer to us,” Tess insisted. “I’m planning on needing some babysitting help in the future.”

  “You do have babies on the brain,” Kate said. “Don’t you want to get your preschool going well before you have munchkins of your own? By the way, I’ve noticed how Vic Reingold’s been paying close attention to Gabe’s mother. I overheard he’s picking her up at Gabe’s for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, then taking her to the airport after you and Gabe leave for your honeymoon—your mystery spot you still haven’t told us about.”