Hunting Eve (33 page)

Kendra shook her head. “Pretty sparse. Even if they once did make coins here, the equipment hasn’t been here for a long time.”

They moved down to the end of Main Street, where the town ended in a picnic area, several food vendors, and a tiny souvenir shop.

A white-bearded man in his late sixties was working behind the counter of the souvenir shop. He looked up and smiled at Kendra and Margaret as they stepped inside. “Welcome. I’m Bill Johnson. Looking for T-shirts?”

Kendra shook her head.

“Shot glasses? Mugs? Bumper stickers? I just got some beer can cozies you might like.”

“Nice color.” Margaret took a yellow T-shirt from the table and slid it on over her own. She modeled the shirt, which read:
STRIKE IT RICH AT DRAKEBURY SPRINGS
. “I’ll take this one.”

The man smiled. “Looks good on you. That will be twenty dollars.”

“Fifteen.” Margaret smiled at him. “Or I’ll pay twenty, and you can throw in that mug on the shelf over there.”

He frowned. “That’s nerve, little lady.”

“You obviously have an overstock. I’m taking it off your hands.”

He suddenly chuckled. “I do have an overstock. Twenty.” He reached up and took down a mug and gave it to her. “No credit cards.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t use the credit card I have for this.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill.

Because it was Jane MacGuire’s credit card, Kendra thought. She remembered Margaret had told her she wouldn’t use it for anything that wasn’t important.

He turned to Kendra. “What about you, young lady? You look like you could use a Drakebury Springs sun visor.”

“Actually, we’ve just come here for information.”

He glanced at Margaret and made a face. “And to steal from a poor tradesman who’s only trying to earn a living.”

“And had a big overstock,” Margaret murmured.

He chuckled again.

It was clear Johnson liked Margaret and would have continued to banter with her. Kendra tried to get them back on track. “Information.”

Johnson nodded. “You’ve come to the right person. My daughter wrote the book on this town. Literally.” He motioned toward a paperback book displayed on the countertop. It was a thin book, obviously self-published, with the title
DRAKEBURY SPRINGS: HISTORY AND LEGEND
. The author’s name was Susan Johnson, with a young woman’s picture rather immodestly placed on the front cover. “She was always crazy about gold mines and ghost towns from the time she was a kid. Always writing and drawing pictures. She’s a great artist, but when she was in college, she wrote this book.” He held it up and smiled proudly. “You can send it to her and have her sign it for you if you’d like.”

“How much?”

“One for twenty, two for thirty.”

Margaret opened her mouth to protest, and Johnson glared at her.

She changed her mind and gave him a sunny smile. “That’s very inexpensive for a book that gives us a look at history. She must have worked very hard on it. By all means, let’s buy it, Kendra.”

“I was about to do that. I’ll take one.” Kendra paid him and picked up the book. “So are any of these buildings original?”

“Afraid not. The town is only a mock-up of a gold-rush town that went bust up in the mountains. Some of the stockholders of our company had ancestors who had businesses in that town and decided to capitalize on the Old West tourist craze. They built it as close to authentic to the family records as they could make it. But if you look at the photos in the book, you’ll see it’s a pretty good re-creation.”

She glanced casually at the photos, then stopped. “What’s this photo?”

“Oh, that’s the original town. It’s only a ghost town now. Pretty dismal, isn’t it? And sad. It was in a valley surrounded by mountains that were supposed to be full of gold. The town was thriving, and everyone thought it would go on forever. But that area was mined out pretty quickly, so the town was abandoned. Too bad it all went bust because those mountain mines were in a beautiful spot. My daughter and some of her artist friends painted a mural showing the view from up there. You can see it on the side of this building, facing the picnic tables.”

“Oh, we’ll have to take a look at it on the way out. Would you know anything about old coin factories around here?”

“Well, there was a coinery somewhere up in the mountains near the original town, but by the time the miners moved on, they were taking their gold to Jeffreysboro.”

“Jeffreysboro. Is the coin factory still there?”

He thought for a moment. “No, it was dismantled after the Civil War.”

“Then where might we go to find an original coin press?”

“Well, I know there’s one on display at the Denver Mint, but aside from that, I really can’t say. Kind of out of my area of expertise, you know?”

Kendra nodded. “Sure. Have a good day.”

“You come back now.” He was looking at Margaret. “I can always use a little challenge to spark my day.”

She grinned and waved her mug at him as she left the store with Kendra.

“Not much help there,” Kendra said. “Waste of time. We’d better either look up some antique dealers who specialize in coin presses or move on to the next town.”

“Yeah, kind of interesting though.” Margaret looked down at her mug. “And not quite a waste, I got a nice mug out of it. Pretty scenery with the trees and those—” She broke off, her eyes widening. “Holy smoke.”

Kendra’s gaze flew to her face. “What?”

“My very pretty mug.” She was staring at the mug with fascination. “It’s only a little slice of a picture … but what does this look like to you?”

“I could tell you if you’d give it to me.”

“Sorry. It just shocked me.” She handed Kendra the mug. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Kendra was staring at the picture on the mug—mountains, trees … “Oh, my God.”

“I’m not wrong?”

Kendra tried to tamp down the excitement and be objective about it. She didn’t want to be objective. “Similar. But the picture on the mug is so small it’s hard to…” Kendra was pulling her phone from her pocket. The next moment, she was accessing the sketch Jane had sent her. “It’s damn close.”

“I think we’re there,” Margaret said softly. “Bless Bill Johnson and his souvenir mugs.” She took back the mug and compared it to Jane’s sketch. “You’re right, it’s very small. We need bigger.” She smiled. “And I’d bet we’ve got bigger. This mug must have been taken from some artist’s rendering. What did Johnson say about that mural?” She was already half running toward the picnic area to get a better view of the mural on the side of the souvenir shop. She stopped short, gazing at the huge mural. “Oh, yes.”

Kendra had caught up with her. “Incredible. It’s the same, or so close it doesn’t matter. The stream, the boulders, the mountainside, the cliff.” She held up the phone to compare it to Jane’s drawing. “Unreal.”

“The angle is even the same.” Margaret shook her head. “Are we sure Jane’s never been there? Are we positive she didn’t just subconsciously remember this?”

“I don’t think so.” Kendra took several photos of the mural, then punched in Jane’s phone number and turned on the speaker. “How the hell do I know? But there’s a way we can try to find out.”

“Kendra. Anything happening?” Jane said when she answered. “Our interview with the forestry guru was a bust. We’ve left Denver, and we’re heading your way. If I knew exactly where that was. You said you’d be moving around.”

“And we have,” Kendra said. “And right now we’re in a tourist town called Drakebury Springs. We found something interesting.” Hell, mind-blowing, but she was trying to keep her excitement on simmer. “I’m going to send you a photo. Okay?”

“Of course, but what—” Jane inhaled sharply. “Dear God, Kendra.” She was silent a moment, and her voice was shaky when she spoke again. “There have been times in the last couple days when I thought trying to find this place was crazy. Maybe it is crazy, but it exists. It
exists.
It’s everything that I—every detail.” She cleared her throat. “It’s obviously a painting. Can you track down the artist? Find out the exact location?”

“Are you sure this isn’t a latent memory? That you haven’t been there before? It’s so close, Jane.”

“If it’s in Colorado, I’ve never been in the state before I landed in Denver. I know that I said I thought I might be a little crazy concerning my sketch, but I have to run with it. Now find me that artist.”

“No problem. The artists painted this mural on the side of a souvenir shop, and I’ll get in touch with them. I’ve already found the approximate location.” She briefly filled Jane in on the history Bill Johnson had given them. “So that landscape is somewhere in the mountains in the vicinity of that ghost town. And there was a coin factory in that general area, too. Not in the town itself but somewhere up in the mountains close to the mines. Johnson was very vague about the exact location.”

“We’ll find out,” Jane said. “You and Margaret have got us this far, we’ll work on it from here. I’ll call Venable and we’ll—” She stopped, then said, “We have a chance. We can
find
her. I want to zoom up to those mountains and—” She drew a shaky breath. “But I know we can’t do that. That’s a good way to get Eve killed. We have to be careful. Doane can’t know that we may be close to finding them.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” Kendra said gently. “We have to have an exact location and know what our best chance is to get her away from him before we move. No blundering around and showing our hand before we have a firm plan.”

“Just listen to us,” Jane said. “We haven’t even found her yet. I’m hanging up and getting to work. You do the same.” She paused. “Thank you, Kendra. Tell Margaret that there are no words to tell you both how much I appreciate what you’ve done.”

“She hears you. You’re on speaker. There’s no way I’d shut her out.” She chuckled. “There’s no way she’d let me shut her out. We’ll get back to you.” She hung up.

“She was happy,” Margaret said. “That’s good.” She grinned. “And I’m glad you realize that I’m far too valuable not to be in the center of any important dealings and decisions that are taking place.” Her smile suddenly vanished as she turned to look up at the mountains. “Is that where Eve is?”

“I think so. We won’t know until we check maps.”

“You were very serious when you were talking to Jane about moving too fast. It’s happened before to you?”

She nodded. “An FBI kidnapping case. We tried to do everything right, but we still lost two children. You never know what a murderer will do when he’s cornered. They panic and they kill.”

“That can’t happen to Eve. We can’t let it.” Her gaze never left the mountains. “It looks forbidding from here, doesn’t it? The picture on my mug is so pretty but there’s a kind of darkness…”

Kendra could see what she meant. Psychological? Perhaps. But she wouldn’t deny the chill she was experiencing. “Then we need to get up there and chase all those shadows away.” She turned back to the souvenir store. “And we can start by talking to your friend Bill Johnson and getting him to set up a meeting with his daughter and her artist friends.”

CHAPTER

15

“TEARS?” TREVOR GLANCED
at Jane from the driver’s seat. “But, from what I caught of the conversation, not bad tears.”

“I’m not crying.” She touched her cheek. “Or maybe I am. But definitely not bad tears.” She handed him her phone. “Kendra and Margaret struck it rich in the best possible way at that gold camp.”

Trevor gazed at the photo and gave a low whistle. “If that mural weren’t so crude, I’d think that you painted it from your sketch.”

“May I?” Caleb reached over from the backseat and took the phone. He studied it for a moment, then returned the phone to Jane. “Okay, how do we follow up?”

“Kendra and Margaret are going to find out as much as possible about the area where the mural was painted. But they do know that a coin factory is located somewhere near the played-out mines in those mountains.”

“Any recognizable point of reference?” Caleb asked.

“An abandoned ghost town. The original Drakebury Springs. It’s in a valley that can be difficult to reach, and the coinery was some distance away in the mountains. But we may be able to locate it on the map and check roads going out of it into the mountains. The miners would have had a direct route from the mines and the coinery to the town.”

Caleb opened his computer. “I’ll start on that.”

Jane nodded. “And I’ll call Joe and Venable and tell them that we may be getting close to an answer.” She closed her eyes for an instant. “God, that sounds wonderful. Now that we can give Venable a general direction, he’s got to zero in on that coin factory.”

“Anything I can do?” Trevor asked. “Or am I just a chauffeur? I admit I’m a little impatient with the role. I’m finding it less demanding than I’d like.”

“It’s a very important job. Just get us to Mineral County. Get us to those mountains.”

Trevor glanced at her face, then slowly nodded. “Okay, I’ll play any game you want me to play. It doesn’t matter what I want to do. There’s no way I’d let ego get in the way when there’s a chance of getting this close to Eve.” He added quietly, “Let me know if I can do anything else.”

She smiled. “I will.”

Caleb made a sound somewhere between a groan and a chuckle.

Trevor’s brows rose. “You said something, Caleb?”

“No, just expressing my appreciation. You’re really exceptional, Trevor.”

“I wasn’t trying to be. You just don’t recognize sincerity.”

“I recognize it. That’s what’s so difficult. Many times you do mean exactly what you say even when it sounds all noble and self-sacrificing.”

Trevor grimaced. “Good God, I’m not noble. Are you being sarcastic?”

“I don’t think I am. You irritate the hell out of me, but I’m beginning to understand you. That doesn’t mean I won’t try to undermine you if I get a chance. I don’t have the same sterling qualities you seem to possess.”

“And I understand you, Caleb. Much to my dismay,” Jane said as she started dialing the phone. “Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d get to work.”