Dangerous Treasure Read online

  Dangerous Treasure

  Published by Olivia West

  Copyright © 2016 by Olivia West

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without the permission in writing from its publisher, Olivia West.

  www.OliviaWestBooks.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About Olivia West

  Chapter 1

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  “Jana, this is Hank Daltry. I need you in Santa Ysabel, California, right away,” a familiar voice said on the other end of the line. Jana had worked on multiple sites funded by the wealthy collector over the course of her career.

  “The Native American reservation?” she replied.

  “No. A tract of private land just outside of it,” he replied.

  “What are we after?” she replied, assuming it was some artifact of the nearby Diegueño Mission band of Native Americans he had been commissioned to recover. Hank was well known in the archaeological community as a collector who wasn’t afraid to go after what he wanted to acquire by digging it up himself. She had worked with him on many of his digs, some successful and some not so much.

  “Buried treasure,” he replied with a little laugh.

  “Seriously, Hank? I’m an archaeologist, not a pirate,” she replied.

  “Aarrrrgh,” he replied playfully. “Come on, Jana. I need you there. There is a lot at stake and you are the only one I trust something like this to.”

  “Okay. Tell me about it,” she said in a resigned tone. She and Hank had been working together on digs all over the world for a very long time. She listened intently as he gave her the details on what it was he was looking for, already shaking her head in disbelief. She was quite speechless by the time he had finished.

  “It is what I’ve been looking for most of my career. I believe that this is finally it, Jana. This is the real deal. All the pieces fit,” he added.

  “It still sounds like a long shot to me, but you know I won’t let you down. I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, Hank. I’ll be on the next flight out,” she told him.

  “Thank you, Jana. I’ve already got the site secured by guards and a team in place to prepare the site for the dig. All I need is your expert hands to make sure anything that comes out of the ground there remains as pristine as it was when it went in,” he replied.

  “I’ll call you when I have a time for my flight. You can suck up some more when you pick me up at the airport,” she laughed.

  “Done,” he told her. “I will talk to you soon.”

  An hour later she had booked a flight and sent him her itinerary. She had barely unpacked her bags from the last dig. So, it was just a matter of tossing the freshly laundered clothes from the previous trip back in her bags. A good hotel room in San Diego would have been nice, but the site was a long way from the city, so she would have to settle for whatever temporary housing was being set up by the dig team as she so often did on these trips. She was used to that, but the heat in southern California would be brutal this time of year during the day. It was a stark contrast to the much cooler evenings that were common in that area at the base of the nearby mountains. Hank would have to cough up for a large fan if she was in a site tent.

  ***

  “Good to see you,” Hank said as she made her way to his waiting car after her plane landed hours later. “Everything is ready for you to get started at first light. You’ll be happy to know that there is a heated and air-conditioned cabin available for your stay,” he said.

  “You read my mind,” she replied.

  “Hey, I have to take care of you or you’ll cut me off and then where would I be?” he asked.

  “I’m sure you would manage,” she laughed, climbing into the back of the car with him. They made their way along the winding roads of San Diego County, away from the city and into the arid valleys between the nearby mountains that loomed beyond the city lights. On the way, he told her more about his arrangement with the landowner. He was positively giddy about what he might find on the property.

  “If the body found on his property is indeed that of Melton Howard, then it stands to reason that this is where he buried the statues,” he elaborated.

  “It just seems too easy for him to have found identification on the body like you told me on the phone, Hank. It seems a little too convenient,” she replied.

  “Stranger things have happened and I checked it out for myself. The identification is solid and the bones are currently being DNA tested,” he told her.

  “Why not wait and be certain?” she asked, but she already knew the answer to that.

  “You know that if word of this gets out, that place will be swarmed with every amateur treasure hunter in the world. Those statues are worth millions just in the gold value alone. I would rather waste a bit of money and find out I’m digging for nothing than chance someone beating me to the find,” he said.

  “Well, I guess we will hope for the best,” she replied, leaning back in her seat as they drove toward their destination with Hank continuing his excited banter.

  ***

  Jana was surprised by the large layout that had been set up at the dig. It was a great deal more detailed than the sites she usually supervised. Each section had been precisely defined with string and markers and it was lit up like a small metropolis.

  “Old Dan has really outdone himself this time,” she told Hank, referring to his usual site engineer, Dan Towse.

  “Afraid Old Dan never did this kind of work, especially in recent years after his health began to decline. I had to let him go after a dig in Africa a few months ago. His work was shoddy and reminiscent of a poorly constructed maze,” Hank laughed.

  “I can’t say that I hate to see him gone. The last dig I was on with him proved to be quite the mess. Anyway, whoever did this is a vast improvement. It should make both the work and cataloging content much quicker. That is, assuming there is actual content to be found,” she said with a smile.

  “Don’t break my heart with your doubts, Jana,” Hank replied.

  “I’m glad you approve of my system,” a voice chimed in from behind them.

  Turning around, Jana found herself face-to-face with a man she had never seen before. She stood looking at him, speechless for a moment. Well over six foot, he loomed over her petite five-foot-two frame. He was well built, with broad shoulders and a small waist. She could envision a set of chiseled abs hidden beneath his work khakis and green polo. All of her senses were instantly heightened as she took in the musky woodland scent of his aftershave.

  “Pete Abernathy,” he said, extending his hand toward her. She shook herself free of her thoughts and offered her own, not missing how his hand encompassed her much smaller mitt completely as he shook it in greeting. His brown eyes were somehow inviting as he smiled down at her, still not letting go of her hand. There was an obvious spark that she hadn’t felt in years and based on the way he was looking at her, it was very mutual.

  “This is Jana Sebastian. She is one of the leading archaeolo
gists in the world. She will be handling the dig here,” Hank interjected, letting them know that he was still standing awkwardly nearby.

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Sebastian,” Abernathy replied as he finally let go of her hand, looking a little sheepish. “I look forward to working with you.”

  “Please, call me Jana. I look forward to working with you as well, Mr. Abernathy,” she replied.

  “Everyone calls me Pete. You can too,” he told her, reaching up to brush a strand of his curly black hair away from his face.

  “Very well, Pete. I will see you in the morning,” she replied, turning her attention back to Hank in an effort to shake the tingling sensation she felt singing throughout her body. It had been a very long time since a man had affected her so completely at first sight. She could already see that working with Pete could easily become a distraction if she let it. That was certainly not something she was used to encountering during digs. Most of the men that worked there were older, weathered gentlemen who held no interest for her whatsoever.

  “Let’s get you settled into your cabin then,” Hank replied, leading her down a nearby path that ended in front of something that she would have described more as a shack than a cabin.

  “You can’t be serious,” she told him, stopping to look at him disparagingly.

  “It is a lot nicer on the inside than the outside,” he told her.

  “That really doesn’t say much considering the outside appearance,” she replied, pushing open the door and turning on a light switch.

  Jana was pleasantly surprised to find that he was right. It was small, but cozy. She dropped her bags on the floor and told him she would see him in the morning. Leaning against the closed door, she once again thought of the way Pete Abernathy had drawn her in and hoped that she could focus on the job at hand without being too tempted by his presence. Hopefully, this would be very short work. It wasn’t like they were mapping an ancient city or recovering multiple counts of human remains. In fact, it remained to be seen if they would recover anything at all beyond what had already been found.

  After a bit of light housekeeping to the dusty cabin and a cup of hot green tea, she settled in for the night to get some sleep. Though the bed was small, it was quite comfortable and she was still exhausted from having just gotten home from a much longer trip. It had involved a large underground vault in a desert area that made the dry valleys of southern California look like the rainforest. At least the nights here would be cooler and she would have a comfortable place to rest when not working.

  It seemed right now that the biggest issue at this site would be resisting flirtations with the extremely attractive Pete Abernathy. Nothing good ever came from relationships with people with whom you conducted business. That was what she would have to continue to remind herself of, if she felt the urge to disregard it even for a moment. Her life was busy and the last thing she needed was to get involved with a man who probably jaunted all over the world just as much as she did. Days, weeks or sometimes months were hard on a relationship. That was a lesson she had learned all too well already.

  Her thoughts trailed off as she drifted into a peaceful sleep, letting thoughts of Pete Abernathy fall to the wayside. Dreams filled her night as darkness continued to fall and the hours passed until morning. Sometime shortly before dawn, she was awakened by a loud crashing noise. At first it had seemed like the start of another dream, but the loud shouts of men outside her door quickly brought her to full alert. Scurrying from her bed, she grabbed her robe and threw it on over her pajamas, opening the front door to see what was going on. For a moment, it didn’t make sense, but then it came into full focus. She raced toward the open terrain beside the dig site.

  Chapter 2

  Across the way, in a row of cabins separated from the only slightly larger one Jana was in, Pete Abernathy sat upright in his bed, unsure of what had awakened him. The loud voices outside let him know that he wasn’t the only one that had heard it, so he threw on some clothes and ran out the door to see what was going on. His eyes fell across the row of tents set up to one side of the dig site. They should have been upright. Instead, they looked like cloth dominoes that had collapsed against one another. Workers were busy pulling others from beneath the broad blankets of white in which they were entangled.

  “What happened?” he shouted to one of them as he quickly made his way across the ground toward them, noting a dark stain spreading across the tent on the far end. He began running toward it, now noticing the metal pole that was lying atop the crumpled figure beneath the cloth. Jana Sebastian had obviously seen it too and was immediately by Pete’s side, pulling away the tent material as he barked at a nearby worker to help him lift the pole. The young man that had been in the tent was unconscious and bleeding profusely from his forehead.

  “Get the medic,” Jana shouted back toward Hank, who stood wide-eyed behind her. He darted off toward the medical tent set up on the far end of camp, returning with a frail-looking gentleman in T-shirt, shorts and house slippers. The earbuds to whatever device he had tucked into his shorts were visible hanging over his shirt and bouncing against the leather bag in one hand. They explained why he hadn’t heard the loud crash of the falling tents and crash of the nearby support pole that fell across them.

  “Don’t move him. Give me some room,” he yelled, kneeling down by the young man and checking the extent of his injuries.

  With the last of the men in adjacent collapsed tents accounted for, everyone stood around waiting anxiously to see if the young man was okay. An incident like this on the first day could quickly set the tone for talk of cursed sites among workers that was hard to overcome. It was a legitimate concern with the high concentration of Native American workers on staff. If they deemed this sacred land or possible burial grounds, it could become a problem, despite being privately owned land. As soon as the dust settled, that would have to be nipped in the bud quickly if Hank saw that it was an issue.

  Applause broke out as the man was helped to his feet and walked, with the assistance of the doctor, toward the medical tent. The patch of gauze pressed to his forehead was already saturated with blood as the doctor called out to those nearby to make way for them to pass, ignoring questions as he went.

  “He’s going to be fine, Hank,” the doctor said as he passed him. “It looks a lot worse than it is. Probably just a mild concussion and a superficial cut.”

  “Superficial? With all that blood?” Hank replied.

  “Like I said, looks worse than it is. Head is just a heavy bleeding area,” the doctor replied as he pushed his way past the gathered crowd and toward the medical tent with his patient.

  “What happened here?” Pete barked in the direction of a group of the men who had retreated from the fallen tents. Several of them mumbled or looked at the ground, unwilling to implicate themselves or perhaps another in the mishap. “Where is Saul?”

  “I’m right here,” an older man replied, stepping forward from the crowd.

  “Can you explain to me why that pole was not properly secured?” he asked angrily.

  “I thought it was. I checked it myself,” Saul replied.

  “You are the foreman on this project. It was your job to make sure everything was done properly,” Pete replied tersely.

  “I just told you that I did. I don’t know what happened. I feel just as bad about it as you do, but there is no need to be so uptight about it. He’s fine,” Saul replied in a curt tone of voice.

  “Uptight? A man was injured because you didn’t pay attention to detail. That is not how I run a project and I have no patience for anyone that feels this is no big deal,” Pete told him, angry that Saul appeared so flippant when a worker had been injured.

  “I am sorry. I told you I feel bad. I’m not sure what else you want from me,” Saul replied insolently as those nearby tried to pretend they weren’t listening to the exchange.

  “What I want is your work badge and any work gear in your possession. You’re fired,” Pete told
him.

  “Are you kidding me? It was just an accident!” he protested.

  “Yes, it was. It was an accident that shouldn’t have happened and if you had showed even the slightest bit of concern about it, I might have been tempted to let you off with a reprimand, but you obviously don’t care. Get your things and get off the dig site. I’ll make sure you are paid for your time here,” Pete told him.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Saul said angrily as he stormed away.

  “Manny, watch him to make sure he leaves. You just got promoted to foreman,” Pete said to one of his other employees standing nearby. “Everyone else, let’s get this pole up and the tents back in place so you guys can salvage what sleep you can manage before daylight.”