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While Lionel is giving what sounds like a well-practiced speech, the hair on my neck stands. My dad always told me to listen to my intuition.Intuition has helped us Wilders more times than we’d like to admitis one of his favorite sayings.
The feeling continues as I roam my gaze over the crowd, searching for the source. It takes me three passes, but eventually, my stare collides with Stone Jacobs.
My stomach bottoms out as his blue-gray eyes sear into mine. As usual, his face is impassive, unreadable, and he’s flanked by his friends who might as well be his brothers. Wyatt and Lucas are so far up the Jacobs’s ass, it’s not funny. I was surprised when they showed up to help search. The Wilder and Jacobs families haven’t gotten along in a century. Not since the Jacobs started searching for the Wilder treasure. Our mutual hatred has been ingrained ever since, and stoked like a fire every chance our two families get.
I narrow my gaze at their tiny group. No doubt those three assholes are gloating right now. The Wilders just lost their patriarch—literally—and while searching for the treasure no less. In their minds, that puts them a step above us.
Not on my fucking watch.
Two years ago, Lance, Stone’s father, threatened to kill Dad for stealing his wife. No joke. Death threats, fights, and underhanded dealings are all a part of our families’ mutual past. Dad couldn’t help it if Marilyn preferred a Wilder, though, right? I mean, who wouldn’t?
Sarcasm aside, I wish Dad wouldn’t have made Stone my stepbrother. That’s some disgusting shit right there. Sure, steal her away, but don’t marry her. Fuck. Even now, I hate that I’m connected to him. Hate that there’s more than just family feuds tying us together.
However it happened, though, Dad got the girl. Whether I hate the bitch or not, it felt damn good to have taken something from someone who has stolen so much from us. A smirk parts my lips as a memory of Lance showing up at our door comes to mind. I’d never seen someone so irate. So out of his mind with jealousy and anger. We can’t compete with the Jacobs’ money, but I guess money isn’t everything, is it?
Stone and I still haven’t looked away from each other, so I stand witness to his brows pulling in at my sudden smile. That boy doesn’t miss a thing. Always watching and calculating to the point of being creepy. He sets my teeth on edge, skin prickling under his scrutiny.
Well, he’ll just have to wonder what’s going on inside my head. Lord knows I’m never sure. But one thing I do know with certainty, whether Dad’s here or not, things won’t change on this front. The Wilders and the Jacobs are destined to be enemies, and that means I’m on my own.
I turn and walk away, leaving the media circus and the prying eyes of the Jacobs family behind me. The least I can do is tell the evil stepmother that they’re calling off the search before she finds out from the news—or worse, from Stone.
I grip my hiking bag straps and take off down the trail toward the truck. The Superstitions might be behind me right now, but I’ll be back. When everyone else returns to their normal lives, I’ll be up on the trails.
I have two things to search for now. The treasureandmy dad. Neither one is going to stay lost forever.
1
Two Months Later…
Finding shit in my father’s house is like looking for gold in the Superstition Mountains. No wonder my family has never been able to accomplish either task.
“Paperwork, paperwork,” I mumble to myself as I sift through the disarray of books and journals in his study. To think this is only a miniscule portion of his stash. The War Room is something else altogether. I glance at the ticking, old-time clock on the wall. “Shit.”
Being late is nothing new for me because if it wasn’t about the family business, it wasn’t important. However, since Pops went missing, acclimating into the real world has been a priority, even if I have failed at it so damn epically.
I turn and run right into an open drawer. A slew of curses spit from my mouth as I rub away the pain in my hip. With more force than necessary, I slam the drawer closed, listening to the contents inside get thrown backward into the wood. If my father were still around, he’d be asking me what in theSam hellI’m doing in here. Sam hell was one of his favorite phrases. To this day, I still don’t know what it means. Anyway, he’s not here, so I quickly shake that thought away. Dwelling on things was never a Wilder forte.
Apparently, finding receipts and work orders for my father’s ancient truck isn’t either. They’re about as elusive as searching for treasure. I make my way out of the study, pausing in the hallway. My father’s old room is to my left. The raw wood walls that make up the house quickly dig the roots of a bygone life into me, tangling around my ankles and making me just stop and think. Just for a moment.
A moment is too much.
I take a deep breath and start forward. I don’t have time to search for the paperwork, not if I want to make it to my first class on time. Somehow, though, I get sucked out into the garage. Beside the camping gear and the prospecting pans, shelves of rusty tools on decaying work benches decorate the century-old building. I scan the area, all the while my head telling me I need to leave or I’ll be subjected to everyone turning and looking as I make my way into my first class at Saint Clary’s this semester, History 201. It’s okay. The professor wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. I lost all respect for him when he thought he was going to talk about the history of Clary back in 101. Please. The guy is a dumbass. I know more about Clary in my pinky finger than he does in his whole body.
My gaze gets hung up on the corners of white papers sticking out of a copper-colored toolbox. You’d think my father was a hoarder, but that’s not the whole truth. He’s just really passionate about a few areas of his life. Cleaning and filing important papers are not among them.
My “Shit, you’re going to be really late,” internal alarm goes off. Without even looking at what the papers are, I pull them out of the box, shake them off, and avoid the cloud of dust that poofs up as I run back into the house to shut and lock the front door.
My shoes kick up the dirt of the front walkway. By the time I get to my bike, it’s covered in a thin layer of sand. I’ve lived on the outskirts of Clary, Arizona my whole life. I know about dust and heat and desert. Trust me. I shove the paperwork into my book bag, throw it over my shoulder, and then pull my bike upright from where I left it in a heap a few feet away from the front door of my childhood home. I give the rustic exterior a quick glance before I ride back into town.
The familiar sorrow hits me, but at the same time, I know I made the right decision. I can live out in the desert as a hermit like my father—or even worse than my father because at least he had me—or I can live in the dorms at Saint Clary’s and actually try to have a life other than weekend excursions into the Superstitions searching for my father and our family’s legacy.
I chose the latter because...well, I’m not sure it needs any explanation. One is a life, the other isn’t. Every day my father remains missing is cracking my resolve a little further. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m ever going to find him at all.
The barren roadway into town is littered with a few prickly cacti, lots and lots of brown, and the occasional rambling shed that masquerades as a home. Ahead of me, the town of Clary opens up, backdropped by the jagged, burnt copper tint of breccia that makes up the Superstitions. It’s the same kind of mountain faces that are famous in theVisit Arizonabrochures, but this isn’t a tourist destination for me. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve lived and breathed the dry air. I know the ranges like the back of my hand, like my family before me. The only thing I don’t know also happens to be my family’s greatest shame.
The wind picks up. A storm cloud rolls in from the west because of-fucking-course it would choose to rain on the first day of school when I’m late and don’t have the family truck. We don’t get much rain here, and because of that, whenever we do, it’s never good timing.
I pedal faster. I swear I can almost see the ornate ironwork of Saint Clary’s front gate as I come around the bend in the road that goes from no signs of life to life. It’s like some pimpled teenager decided to put a village here in a game of Minecraft, except it isn’t that at all. As with other towns near the mountains, Clary originated because of the gold rush. They needed a home base to venture out from, and soon, once the mining veins were found, they started bringing back the gold that built Clary to what it is today. Don’t be fooled. It’s not some thriving metropolis. In fact, it’s only slightly more populated than a ghost town, but it’s claim to fame is my family treasure.