Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“I don’t know.” His tone hardened. “The alarm at your grandmother’s shop was still set.”
“That’s weird, right?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes. That’s weird. How much do you think those boxes are worth?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “They were made of real silver, and they’re big enough to hold decent-sized nuggets. There’s still a little gold dust in them.” I rubbed my palms against my jeans. “They latch together to make this really pretty design, and there’s a painting on the bottom.”
“Yeah, but that’s just family lore,” he said. “There’s no buried treasure.”
Wouldn’t that be fun, though? “That’s true.” I stifled a yawn. “But hypothetically, I assume at one point those boxes held nuggets.”
Aiden gave me a sidelong glance. “Your great-something great-grandmother painted a map on the bottom of them?”
“Right. Supposedly, she did it so someone could find the nuggets someday. The story was that they hid them around Shanty’s Peak near Storm Mountain during the old mining days. Made sense, back then.”
He frowned. “So the nuggets would’ve been how large?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Around a pound each—about fourteen and a half troy ounces.” I’d grown up in a mining town and was fully confident with the mining lingo.
He gave a low whistle. “That’d be worth about thirty grand. A nugget.”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling faintly. “Family rumor is that only the seven nicest nuggets were kept in the boxes and that there were a whole bunch more hidden somewhere.” I looked over at him. “It’s not true, Aiden. It’s just something fun. We used to go treasure hunting all the time as kids.”
“I don’t blame you.”
I studied his face in the dim light, amusement tugging at me. “Please tell me you don’t want to go on a treasure hunt.”
Aiden grinned, teeth flashing white in the dark. “Every kid wants to go on a treasure hunt. I bet you guys had a lot of fun.”
I sobered a little. “We really did.”
Aiden had grown up in Ireland. He’d lost his mom young, and his dad was, by all accounts, not a great guy. Aiden had moved over to Silverville to live with his grandparents when he was a teenager. He’d been in high school when I was in junior high, and I remembered how tough, and somehow lonely, he’d looked. His grandparents had both passed on, and now he didn’t have any family. Well, except mine.
“You don’t talk about your childhood much,” I murmured.
He glanced at me, then back to the road. “There’s not a lot to talk about. My mom died young. My dad was a prick.”
“You never said what happened to him.”
“He just took off. I think he probably died, though.” Aiden’s voice stayed even, almost too much so. “I never heard from him again, and that’s when I came over to live with my grams and gramps.”
I reached across the console and slid my hand into his, my smaller one fitting easily against his calloused palm. “I’m sorry.”
“I loved them,” he said quietly. “They gave me a good childhood—or what was left of it.”
He didn’t look at me, just kept his eyes on the rain-slick highway. His thumb brushed over my fingers once before he let go to shift gears. Typical Aiden. Steady, controlled, always driving, both literally and metaphorically. And I had to admit, I liked that about him. Maybe too much. There was something safe about the way he handled a truck the same way he handled chaos: calm, precise, and with a little bit of bossiness.
He’d gotten in trouble after high school and had to leave town before joining the service, before eventually landing with the ATF. He’d saved my life when I’d been briefly kidnapped as a kid, and I’d had a crush on him ever since. It was hard to believe we were grown now, sitting here like this, the past woven between us like a quiet thread. Sometimes I wondered if he’d stay—if he’d ever stop thinking five steps ahead and just let himself belong.
“Stop thinking so hard,” he murmured.
I blinked at him. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”
He smiled slightly but didn’t answer.
I cleared my throat. “So, the bomb squad out of Spokane had to blow up the dynamite?”
“Yeah.” He kept his tone even. “I sifted through what was left, and any evidence was collected and bagged.”
I yawned, my mind lagging. “So who has jurisdiction? You or the bomb squad out of Spokane?”
“I do now.” His gaze stayed on the road. “The EDU set off the dynamite and rendered it safe. Now the ATF investigates.”
“Oh.” I woke up a little. “I’m surprised you didn’t talk to Nana.”
He sighed. “I didn’t get done until late and didn’t want to wake her. The sheriff already spoke with her and filled me in. I’ll interview her again tomorrow. The local techs will send the remains of the dynamite off to our lab.”