CHAPTER EIGHT

      TORIE’S heart began to hammer and her breath seemed to be stuck in her throat. She glanced around the room, zeroing in on the closet, the only place where she might hide in. But if she got caught in there, it would be ten times worse than just hanging out as though she was waiting for him.

      Quickly, she sat down on the bed and stared at the door. If he came in, she would have a story ready. “Where’s that map?” she would say. “I thought it might be here so I could work on it.”

      He wouldn’t believe her, but at least she’d have a cover story.

      The footsteps paused, as though someone was about to knock. She bit her lip and held her breath. A shriek of laughter came from downstairs and someone called. She couldn’t tell who it was or what they were saying, but it seemed to get to her visitor. He—or she—seemed to turn, and the steps went back toward the stairs. She let her breath out slowly, listening intently.

      She then slipped out again and into her own room, where she threw herself down on the bed and tried to regulate her breathing and calm her pulse. That had not been a fun few minutes she’d just gone through. She didn’t want that to happen again. That probably wasn’t Carl who’d stopped at the door and then left. Whoever it was would likely be back though.

      She pulled the article she’d stolen out from under her shirt and looked at it. She had to show this to Marc.

      But she needed to get cleaned up first. Rising from the bed, she pulled off her rumpled clothes and put on a fresh pair of designer jeans and a soft blue sweater. Then she stopped to take a closer look at the article.

      It was dated nine years before and seemed to have been printed in a county newspaper. Gold Doubloons Show Up along the Central Coast. The article claimed that a stash of the ancient coins must have been found lately, since coin dealers were reporting that people from the area were selling them in numbers that hadn’t been seen for years.

      “Nine years ago?” she muttered, frowning. How could that have any impact on today? She should have taken more of the articles. Too late now. She wasn’t going back there.

      Folding the article, she stuck it into a pocket of her jeans, then turned to look at where she’d stowed her suitcase under the bed. Reaching down, she pulled it out, found her key and unlocked it. With her hand, she felt along the lining. It was still there—the little bag of Spanish gold.

      Her heart started pounding again. Could it really be a part of the treasure? What else could it be? And why had she found it among her mother’s possessions just a few weeks before?

      She shook her head. “Daddy, Daddy, what did you do?” she whispered to herself. Then she closed the suitcase and put it back under the bed, pushing it far enough back so that no one would notice where it was unless they were down on their hands and knees, looking for it. She couldn’t really think of more she could do.

      With a heartfelt sigh, she started downstairs. Detouring into the kitchen, she snagged a sandwich on her way out. Suddenly, she was ravenous.

      At the doorway, she looked down on the little party on the terrace. Marge and the Texan were having a loud argument. Phoebe and Frank seemed to be taking sides—against each other. Lyla was pouting and playing up to Jimmy. Somehow she had to get past this nightmare bunch and find Marc again.

      “Hey, you,” came a half whisper from across the hall.

      She whirled, and there he was, just coming out of the library.

      “This way,” he said with a jerk of his head. She followed him to a small French door at the end of the sitting room. A moment later they were slinking down a garden path and into the eucalyptus trees.

      “You read my mind,” she told him. “I was not looking forward to joining that group.”

      “You’re wise beyond your years,” he said, glancing back toward the house. Then he looked back at her, his blue eyes sparkling. “Have you ever been to the car barn?”

      She had not, though she remembered hearing about it years before. The car barn had been Ricky’s domain and Ricky’s hobby was race-car driving.

      “Never,” she said.

      “Until now,” he told her. “Let’s go.”

      It was a long walk and they weren’t in any hurry. Stone benches had been set out here and there many years ago. They spent the next fifteen minutes remembering other times they’d been this way.

      “The trees weren’t quite so thick then,” she recalled, looking up at the tall redwoods around their path. “You could see the ocean from here.”

      He nodded. “I remember when you could see the whole coastline from here, all the way down to the caves and up to the village.”

      “I wonder if Carl is back from the caves,” Torie mused. Then memories of the newspaper article popped into her head. “Oh! I’ve got something to show you.”

      She pulled out the clipping. “What do you think of this?”

      They stopped and sat on a nearby bench. He read the whole thing before he said a word.

      “So where did this come from?”

      She couldn’t avoid the guilty look her face took on. “I took it from Carl’s room. He had a stack of them, and some old insurance papers in a folder.”

      “And this is all you got?”

      She nodded. “I just snatched it up and ran like a rat.”

      He gazed at her for a long moment, then shrugged.

      “I remember this,” he said. “I wasn’t here, but a friend sent me this article when it first came out.” He shook his head as though dismissing the importance of the clipping. “I thought at the time that either someone had a fertile imagination or a new stash of doubloons had been found.”

      He looked into her eyes and she frowned. Somehow his show of earnest common sense was ringing false with her. Was he trying to con her for some reason?

      “Shangri-La isn’t the only large estate along the coast you know,” he said somewhat defensively. “There are plenty of cave networks too, along with hidden canyons. Back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Spanish were all up and down this coast. I’m sure there were many places that were used for hiding various treasures, and I’m sure most people who find them keep it pretty quiet.”

      “But they have to let others know when they go to coin brokers to try to cash in,” she noted.

      He nodded. “Sure. And that doesn’t happen very often. Mostly, people would rather keep the treasure for themselves. To people like my father, the historical value is more important than the cash you could get for it.”

      Was that understandable? Maybe. “Where did the Don Carlos Treasure originally come from?”

      “My grandfather, William Canford Huntington. He found it in the thirties. He was trying to map the caves and ended up breaking down a ledge to be able to reach further in. Behind that ledge he found a pile of gold doubloons and other coins, along with some jewels. The bag they had been in had been eaten away, but the coins were bright and shiny as they’d ever been.” He smiled, remembering the stories he’d heard. “But you must have seen it. My father had it in the display case in the library for years.”

      She shook her head. “I don’t think I ever saw it.”

      “It was right in the house all the time I was growing up.”

      “That must have been quite an exotic display. But I never went into your house. I wasn’t a guest, you know.”