Page 30

CHAPTER 30

“W hy don’t you just tell me what I don’t know, Dmitri?” I asked him after Rose shut the door behind us, leaving us together in the cold on the sidewalk in front of Oddities. My burgeoning awareness of interpersonal interactions told me that meant that Rose was getting really tired of Dmitri. “We showed you the maps, it’s time for you to tell us what we need to know.”

“You need to know many things.” He smiled. “We get treasure, then we can talk.”

“And if someone dies here while we’re wandering around looking for gold that doesn’t exist?” I asked.

Dmitri waved that off. “The people of Rocky Start are the wrong ones for anyone to go after, are they not? Many hard cases here.”

“Even idiots get lucky once in a while,” I said. “And somebody came after Coral. You really think that’s the end of it?”

“The treasure?” Dmitri said.

Marley came out of Ecstasy, a cup of coffee to go in his hand. He stopped when he saw us. He looked at Dmitri, then me, then back at Dmitri.

I sighed. “You free now?” I asked Marley.

Marley shrugged. “I’m off until Monday. But I promised I’d help Luke.”

Dmitri was watching this with growing impatience. “Are we going?”

Marley looked at me. “You’re treasure hunting?”

“Apparently,” I said. “I’ll clear it with Luke.”

“I’ll get the maps.” Marley headed into Oddities and upstairs.

“A bright young man,” Dmitri said. “Possibly the next Max Reddy.”

“I’m still here, Dmitri,” I said and he shrugged, and we stood there in silence for a minute or two until Marley came back out with the maps.

Dmitri and Marley went to get the truck with the trailer and the snowcat, and I went into Nice Funerals and told Luke I was taking Marley since I needed someone who was familiar with the forest roads. He didn’t complain. It left him alone with Jackie Quill, who was looking around the place while saying, “I’m really not staying,” so Rose must have suggested she look the place over while Luke was working there. And to give her a chance to look Luke over. He seemed good with it, she seemed good with it, so I moved on and met Dmitri and Marley in the alley.

We spent some time grabbing gear we might need out of the back of Luke’s shop. Ropes, tackle, shovels; the usual treasure-hunting stuff. Marley seemed enthused, Dmitri was focused, and I was less than thrilled. Despite the maps, I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t likely that Ozzie had left ancient treasure piled by the side of the road. I’d looked at the topographic maps and it was going to be very difficult just to get close to the spot Marley had marked.

Once we were loaded, Dmitri was in the driver’s seat of the pickup truck, the snowcat on the trailer. I sat in the back, letting Marley take the front passenger seat as he was the navigator. “Where is Tanke?” I asked. We could use some muscles and Tanke seemed to have them in abundance.

“Tending to my gift for Betty,” Dmitri said.

“I thought you were giving it to her this morning.”

“All things happen in their own time,” Dmitri said.

Which meant he might like Betty, but treasure was more important.

As we pulled out of town, I suddenly realized that I had bypassed Pike and gone straight to Luke without conscious thought. I knew Pike was focused on Coral, but he was the law in town.

Had been the law in town, I realized. Now that was Luke and me. “Fuck,” I muttered. I’d also not cleared taking Marley with Pike, although at this point, I doubted I could stop Marley. He was twenty. Of course he wanted to look for treasure.

All I wanted to look for was Rose and butterkuchen . I felt really old.

“What is wrong, my walking friend?” Dmitri asked.

“Nothing.”

Dmitri didn’t pursue it. He pulled onto the two-lane highway that went past Rocky Start. It had been plowed, but snow covered the surrounding countryside. At this altitude it wasn’t very deep, perhaps four inches. Unfortunately, we were going higher, which meant deeper snow and colder temperatures.

A mantra from my time in the Army had been “Don’t volunteer for nothing.” Ever since Pike had tossed me that cheap badge on State Street, I’d been fighting living up to it. I’d even left town to finish the Trail. Both attempts had been futile. I’d been drawn in and I tried to remember when exactly that had happened.

And then I decided I wasn’t ready to give it up and hand it over to Marley. He was just a kid. He’d need experience. Mentoring.

Fuck.

We passed the sign marking the boundary of Rocky Start and drove into the woods, checking out the roads there, going slow because of the snow. We’d only gone a few miles when my cellphone buzzed. I pulled it out and saw it was Poppy texting, which immediately set my nerves jangling.

I read her message and quickly typed a reply:

ON OUR WAY

I reached forward and grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder. “Turn around. Now!”