Buried Secrets

To Laura, who enjoys adventures as I do

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

ONE

“Move and you’re dead.” Maggie Somers lifted the .22 higher, trying desperately to keep her hands from shaking. “I have a gun pointed at you.”

The large man straightened, his back to her, rigid. “I had nothing to do with this.” A piece of paper in his hand fluttered to the floor.

As her gaze swept the living room of her grandfather’s ranch house, alarm snaked down her spine. Everything’s destroyed. Tears stung her eyes, but she quickly blinked them back. There was no way this man was going to see any kind of weakness.

The intruder started to turn toward her.

“Don’t move an inch.” Her anger pushed aside her fear as she gripped the rifle tighter and placed her finger on the trigger.

“May I turn around and explain why I’m here?”

A steel thread weaved through his words, striking against her raw nerves. “Save your breath for the sheriff.”

“Look, lady, this is ridiculous.” Exasperation now edged his deep, husky voice.

Maggie stepped over the broken pieces of the Indian pottery that had sat on a table near the door, and moved farther into the room. The crunch beneath her shoes told her that more than the one priceless vessel from her grandfather’s collection was shattered. Like alcohol in a festering wound, the sound toughened her resolve.

If only her cell worked out here on the ranch, she would have already called the sheriff and he’d be halfway here by now. She glanced at the phone across the room, then at the burglar—dressed in a black turtleneck and black jeans—and knew she had to do something with him before making the 9-1-1 call. If she let down her guard for a second, the man could easily overpower her.

“Pick up the extension cord near your feet. Slowly.” She roughened her voice as much as possible, but to her own ears she sounded shaky.

The intruder remained still.

Her arm ached from holding the rifle to her shoulder. “Let me tell you something about myself. I’m an expert shot, and two of the things I hate in this world are liars and thieves. You’re batting a hundred.”

“Where do you want me?” His movements as he bent over and snatched up the cord conveyed his anger more than his words.

Anywhere but here. She searched her memory, trying to determine how this was done in the movies. “Sit in that rocking chair and tie your feet together.”

He walked to it and stopped. “May I turn around now, or do you want me to sit in it backward?” Sarcasm sliced through his question.

“Slowly. Any sudden moves and I might get trigger-happy.” She was sure she’d heard that in some cop movie.

“Will that make your day?”

He slowly faced her. His gaze locked with hers. The penetrating intensity in his stare unnerved her. As his slate-gray eyes—as cold as a tombstone—assessed her, she had the horrible thought that if he wanted, he could probably disarm her before she got a shot off. This man exuded danger. Why had she decided to come inside? Her heartbeat caught for a second, then battered against her chest. Why hadn’t she run when she’d had the chance?

Because she had been so furious that someone had dared to defile her grandfather’s memory on the day she had buried him that she hadn’t been thinking straight.

She motioned with the rifle. “Sit.”

The wooden rocking chair creaked as the intruder lowered himself into it. When he dropped his gaze from hers, she released a long sigh while he tied his ankles together with the cord Maggie had kicked to him.

Rugged features set in harsh lines greeted her perusal. Dark brown hair with touches of fire brushed his nape. His full lips and high cheekbones added to his commanding presence. Over six feet tall, lean and muscular, his frame reinforced that impression of lethal force.

“Does this meet with your approval?”

His insolent question drew her gaze back to his face. His voice held a steely quality that matched his look, as though he had stared down the barrel of a rifle before, and survived.

Fear tingled up her spine. She refused to answer him, but instead found another length of cord and walked a wide circle around the chair to stand behind it. Once he was tied up, she would be all right. “Give me your hands.”

He complied. She quickly cradled the rifle between her legs, then looped the cord from the blinds around his wrists. The feel of his flesh against her fingers jolted her. For a long second she fumbled with the rope, almost dropping it. Sucking in a deep, fortifying breath, she hastened to finish the job, blocking from her mind the warmth of his skin against hers. Relief trembled through her as she grasped the .22 and backed away.

With her eyes cast downward, she knelt in front of him and checked the cord about his ankles. She felt the drill of his stare and fought the urge to quail. As she rose, her gaze finally trekked upward. The rage she saw in his expression took her breath away. This man wasn’t accustomed to being subdued by anyone. She hurriedly moved toward the phone and picked it up.

“Do you seriously think I look like a thief? Would a thief drive a sports car like the one out front?” he asked after she made the call to the sheriff.

“You probably stole that, too.”

“C’mon, lady. I did not have anything to do with this. I came here—”

“Oh,” she said, cutting him off, “then you just make a habit of stopping by houses that have been ransacked to have a look around? Were you looking for some garage sale and made a wrong turn? Or perhaps you’re an insurance adjuster getting a jump on the job?”

“No, I came to talk to you,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Before or after you robbed me?” Her anger held her firmly now that he was tied up. She sat on the coffee table and laid the rifle across her lap. She settled one hand on her knee, the other on the .22, so she’d be prepared if the intruder tried anything.

“I came in after the fact. I did not rob you.” Each word was spoken slowly, distinctly, as though he were talking to a child who didn’t understand.

“That’s what all the criminals say. I think you need to work on your delivery if you’re going to get a jury to believe you.” She raked her gaze down him, hoping to convey her contempt. “It lacks conviction.”

He didn’t say another word. His eyes said it all, boring into her with a ferocity that warned her never to be alone with this man.

As she waited for the sheriff, she drummed her fingers on her knee and tried to avoid looking at his eyes, and at the chaos about her. Which was very hard to do, especially the pottery that Gramps had found, each piece smashed beyond repair. She wasn’t ready to deal with the mess. One crisis at a time. As a doctor, that was how she handled a medical emergency. That was how she would handle this, too.

Minutes stretched into fifteen, the tension-laden silence gnawing away at her fragile composure. The occasional times she caught the intruder’s glare she felt as though she were a specimen under a microscope—pinned to the paper, unable to move, laid bare for examination. The feeling left her extremely uneasy.

“You’re pretty isolated out here. It’ll take the sheriff a while to ride to your rescue.” His sarcasm broke the stillness.

“Is that why you picked this place? Its isolation?”

“I picked it because it’s Jake Somers’s ranch.”

“You scum!” She shot to her feet, the .22 clutched in her hands. “You read about his funeral today and came here to rob the place while everyone was gone.” She brought the weapon to her shoulder, chambering a bullet. She wanted this man to squirm for what he had done to her grandfather’s memory, to his prized possessions, which he’d lovingly collected over the years.

Several heartbeats passed; Maggie stared into the man’s cold eyes.

“It’s true. I did read this morning about Jake’s death and the funeral, but—”

“Shut up! Not another word.”

Icy silence pervaded the room, heightening the strain even more.

Finally the sound of car doors slamming closed pulled her attention from the stranger. She lowered the rifle. The sheriff and one of his deputies entered the house and scanned the damage.

“Hello, Maggie. I see you’ve had some trouble.” The sheriff pushed his hat up on his forehead.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Tom. I caught this man going through my grandfather’s things.”

Tom’s regard swung to the man in the rocking chair. “You did, did you? Is the whole house like this?” The sheriff gestured at the wreckage.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to check.”

“Why don’t you and Rob do a walk-through? Then he can take your statement while I take care of this stranger. We’ll have him out of your hair in no time.”

Glad to be out of the intruder’s line of vision, Maggie led the way, with the deputy following. After checking the two bedrooms and finding everything in disarray, she headed for the kitchen, her grandfather’s favorite room. When she saw the extent of the wreckage, she shuddered. Every drawer was dumped, each cabinet emptied, many dishes smashed. Food was scattered about, as boxes and containers had been ripped apart.

“Dr. Somers, can you tell if anything is missing?” While the deputy began inspecting the area, he withdrew his pad and pen from the front left pocket of his tan shirt.

Maggie pivoted, her gaze taking in the chaos about her, but her mind refusing to register the robbery’s total impact. “I don’t know. I probably won’t know that for days, at the very least. Gramps didn’t have a lot of valuable things, except for some Indian artifacts he’d collected. They were destroyed.” She waved her hand toward the living room, remembering the shattered pottery underfoot. “This land was about it.”

“Tell me what happened when you came to the ranch.”

“When I pulled up, I saw the door wide-open and that sports car out front. I knew something was wrong. I know I shouldn’t have come inside. But I was so angry. I got Gramps’s .22 from his pickup and decided to see what was going on. All I wanted to do was catch the thief.”

“You could have been hurt.”

“I’d just buried my grandfather and someone was trying to steal his things. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Besides, Gramps taught me how to shoot, to take care of myself.”

“You said you found that man going through your grandfather’s belongings. Is that right?”

Remembering back to the first few seconds when she had seen the intruder in the living room made her breath come up short. She took several deep inhalations to fill her oxygen-deprived lungs. “When I came into the house, he was standing by a table, looking at the contents of a drawer piled on top of it. He held a piece of paper, which he dropped when he heard me.”

“We’ll take him to the station and sort through this mess. I’ll give you a few days to see what’s missing. You’ll need to file it with us for insurance purposes, but I suspect there’s nothing missing, since you interrupted the man.”

“Probably not, but the damage has been done.” She waved her arm at the disarray.

Maggie trailed after the deputy into the living room. The sheriff had the intruder handcuffed and was reading him his rights. She took great pleasure in watching the scene. She hoped they threw the book at the thief for trying to rob a dead man.

When Tom asked the stranger if he understood his rights, the man looked straight at her. “Yes, I understand perfectly.”

“Where are your keys?” the sheriff asked the man.

“In my front right pocket.”

“My deputy will follow us to the station in your car,” Tom said, retrieving the keys from the trespasser, “and we’ll check out your story.”

The intruder’s stare knifed through Maggie like an Arctic gale. Shivering, she spun away as the officers led the thief outside.

When the cars left, Maggie picked up the rifle and walked outside. She placed the .22 on the gun rack in her grandfather’s black truck, near the barn where she had parked her Mustang so that whoever was in the house wouldn’t hear her arrival. Yes, she’d known how to shoot since she was a young girl, but as a doctor she’d seen what people could do with a gun and she hadn’t picked one up in years.

After slamming the truck door shut and locking it, she stood and let the silence enfold her in its comforting embrace. For days people had surrounded her, giving her no time to think, to feel.

Now she was finally alone.

She leaned against the pickup and stared at a mesa in the distance. Stark, sharp lines jutted upward toward the sky. Sunlight glittered off the red-and-white surfaces of the rock. In this land of harsh beauty, the mesa stood alone, like her. Suddenly, with all that had happened in the past hour, she couldn’t handle the solitude she had sought so desperately after the funeral. The quiet screamed at her, declaring to the world just how defenseless she was, miles from Santa Fe, alone, with only the wind’s whisper and the occasional rustle of an animal scurrying across the yard.

She peered at the dirt road leading to the highway, at the remains of the dust kicked up by the cars settling back into place, as if nothing had happened. Alone, until someone intruded, she thought. Why? What did Gramps have that the creep would want?

Most likely nothing was gone. Anything the intruder had taken would have been on his person or in his car, and the sheriff would recover that. Unless someone else had been with him and had already left. The scope of the destruction was vast, almost too much for one man. She would never know if something was missing unless she went inside and started the laborious task of straightening up.

Shoving away from the truck, she scanned the ranch. Mine now. The feelings she’d held at bay for three days inundated her all at once. Anger, bereavement and a bone-weary tiredness flooded her and made her steps leaden as she trudged toward the house.

On the porch she paused, not wanting to go back to the chaotic mess in the house that had once been so neat and orderly. She whirled around and stared off into the distance, at the top of the mesa near the highway. She watched a lone hawk circle, looking for its prey. Then suddenly the bird swooped down for the kill. Maggie closed her eyes. She couldn’t take seeing the hawk rise triumphantly with its catch in its talons. That man today had made her feel like helpless prey, vulnerable, afraid and not in control. She’d struggled never to feel those emotions again.

“What am I going to do, Gramps?” she whispered, needing to hear the sound of her own voice. With his death, she had no family left. She was as alone as that bird’s quarry. As alone as that time…No, she wouldn’t think about the past.

A dull throb began to pound behind her eyes. She massaged her temples, putting off for a few more seconds what she knew must be done.

When she went inside, the raw impact of the destruction hit her all over again. Everything she loved and cared about was strewn and ripped apart before her. Drawers were emptied, their contents flung all around. The cushions on the chairs and couch were sliced open to reveal the stuffing. Cherished photos were tossed on the floor, the glass from the frames shattered.

In the midst of the disarray, pages of the old family Bible, torn and crumpled, lay scattered about the room. She might be angry with the Lord for taking yet another loved one, but the sight ripped through what composure she had left. What kind of monster could do that to the Bible?

A picture of the intruder invaded her thoughts and iced her blood. Tears pooled in her eyes and streaked down her cheeks. Her grandfather’s possessions were her last link to him. All destroyed! Bewildered, she took a few more steps into the middle of the living room. Slowly she turned in a full circle, feeling as though she were in a dream, none of this real.

But it was very real.

She bent down and found the Bible partially hidden beneath the couch. She sank down onto the coffee table and fingered the black leather of the book, which was missing most of its pages. Her grandfather had treasured this above all, and it was beyond repair. It had been in her family for almost a hundred years. Through the sheen of tears she tried to gather the crushed pages into a pile. Her vision blurred, she blinked several times. The tears flowed even more. She gave up and allowed them to fall.

Finally, when she had no tears left to shed, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and started once again to pick up the pages of Gramps’s beloved Bible. Once she had collected all of them, she moved to the contents of the drawer covering part of the coffee table and tried to bring some kind of order to it. Then she went to another disheveled pile and did the same.

Evening shadows crept into the room, forcing Maggie to switch on a light. Still she labored, determined to make the living room look like it had when she had left for the funeral that morning. No one was going to come into her life and totally disrupt it as that man had earlier. She’d had too much of that in the past. She wasn’t going to allow it. She’d finally managed to have some control over her life, and she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.

After hours of working nonstop, Maggie rose and stretched her cramped, aching muscles. The pounding in her head had subsided to a dull throb, but her eyes felt heavy, gritty. She glanced at the mess still about her. It wasn’t going anywhere, and she needed coffee.

In the kitchen, she waited at the sink for the brew to percolate, staring out the window at the darkness. The feeling of total isolation swamped her again, suddenly making her quake in the warm night air. The lock on the front door was flimsy, obviously not a good deterrent. She should leave and return some other day with several friends to help her, to keep her company, she thought to herself.

She would only stay a little longer.

The scent of coffee infused the night, temporarily reviving her spent body. Reviving her soul was a lost cause.

She poured herself a cup, took a few sips and started for the living room. She would finish the cabinet and then call it quits. As she reentered, the phone’s jarring ring startled her, and she nearly dropped her mug.

Hurrying to answer the call, she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Maggie, this is Tom. Just wanted to tell you we let the man go.”

Her grip tightened. “Why?”

“Because his story checked out. He’s a respected professor at Albuquerque City College. He had an alibi for most of the day, except the time it would have taken him to drive to the ranch. There’s no way he could have been there long enough to do the kind of damage I saw.”

“Who is he?”

“Dr. Zach Collier.”

The man’s name renewed her seething emotions. “I want him arrested for trespassing, then.”

“Now, Maggie, I know you’re upset about what happened, but the man only came inside because he thought you were there and in danger.”

“A Collier would never feel that way about a Somers. He’s lying.” Ever since she could remember, she had heard that from her grandfather, and after what Red Collier had done to Gramps, she believed him.

“Sleep on it. If you still feel that way tomorrow, come see me. Go home, Maggie.”

After hanging up, she lifted her mug to her lips and drank. The brew flowed down her throat, warming her cold insides. The sheriff might believe Zach Collier didn’t have anything to do with this destruction, but she didn’t. Somehow he was behind it. First thing tomorrow morning, she would be at the sheriff station, demanding Tom file trespassing charges against the man.

The sound of a car approaching the house diverted her attention toward the front door. For a second she thought of calling the sheriff back, but it would take twenty minutes for him to get to the ranch. Besides, it could be any number of Gramps’s friends.

Maggie hurried across the room. Flipping on an outside light, she stepped out onto the porch and saw a red sports car come to a stop. She flew back inside and rushed to the mantel, where Gramps kept his shotgun. With no time to call the sheriff, she grabbed it as she heard a car door slam closed.

Back out on the porch, she lifted the shotgun and said, “Come any closer and I’ll shoot you.”

TWO

Zach unfolded his long body from his Corvette and stood, wondering why in the world he was back out at Jake Somers’s ranch. Fool. He’d called himself that several times as he’d driven to the scene of his earlier humiliation. And now, seeing Maggie Somers pointing a shotgun at him, he berated himself for not listening to that little voice inside him.

But she was in danger, and he couldn’t walk away and live with himself. Father, protect me and help me make her see the truth.

“Put the gun down. We need to talk.” He schooled his voice in a calm cadence, hoping to soothe her. He had to believe that a doctor wouldn’t take his life, even if there was a long-running feud between their families.

“I have nothing to say to a Collier. Get off my land.”

“You’re in danger.”

“You think?” She moved to the top of the steps, the shotgun still leveled at his chest.

“And I’m not the cause of it. I came here to warn you.”

She laughed, a humorless sound that filled the quiet. “Do I have stupid written on my forehead? Why do you think I would believe you?”

“Because your grandfather was murdered.”

“Murdered?” Maggie stiffened, the shotgun wavering, dropping slightly from her shoulder. “My grandfather died in a riding accident. The sheriff didn’t find any foul play.”

“I believe it was murder because my grandfather died under similar circumstances recently.”

She again secured the weapon firmly at her shoulder. “I’ve listened. Consider me warned. You’ve done your good deed for the day. Now, leave.”

Father, give me the right words to say to this woman. “I’m not my grandfather. The feud was between them, not us.”

“You’re a Collier. That’s all I need to know.”

“Three weeks ago my grandfather died in a rehabilitation center. His death didn’t raise any questions because he had a stroke. But his room at the center was searched. At first I didn’t think too much about it, thinking an employee had been rummaging through his things. Then, while I was at the funeral, someone ransacked his house, too, and stole something of great value to my grandfather. Now I’m not so sure he died from natural causes, but he was cremated, so an autopsy can’t be performed. I don’t like coincidences. This is too similar to what happened at my granddad’s house.”

The throbbing in Maggie’s head returned with an intensity that left her reeling. She needed twenty-four hours of sleep. She needed to be alone, safe. She needed to be in control. “There’s no connection between your grandfather and mine. Yours took care of that almost sixty years ago.” Exhaustion clung to her like a second skin. Arms aching, she lowered the shotgun but kept a tight grip on it.

“The diary is the connection.”

His words brought her up straight. “Father Santiago’s diary? But my grandfather could never find anything. He had decided it was a legend after all.”

“He only had half the information.”

Fury chased away her weariness. “Only because your grandfather stole the map from him. Do you know why my grandfather kept the diary instead of donating it to a museum? It reminded him of a man’s potential for evil—one particular man’s potential.”