“They’re the good guys. It’s complicated.” She waved a hand. “They froze the money and started decrypting the files. I kept a copy, however, and did my own sleuthing. The files seemed likenothing. Then yesterday I cracked one of them. Unfortunately, I think that’s how they pinged my location. It was just a couple hours before the break-in.”
He stared at her, his jaw tight. “You let me keep thinking it was the teenagers.”
Heat crept up her neck. “I wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem possible they could track me that fast. But with those photos they showed me…”
Liam’s hands were forming fists now. “They contacted you?”
Right.Thatdetail.
“Just before you showed up yesterday, Teresa called.” The four-million-dollar demand sat on her chest like a lead weight, but she swallowed it down. It wasn’t just big…It was impossible. “Said she wanted her files back.”
“What was in them?”
“Has to be more than I found. The one I opened was fake—Roomba specs in Russian. Total decoy.”
He seemed to be searching her eyes, as if he could peel back her thoughts layer by layer. See every secret she was hoarding. The money demand. The threats against him. All the pieces she kept locked away, telling herself it was for his protection.
“Is that everything?” The question came out quiet.
“Isn’t that enough?”
He just looked at her.
She looked away. The money was her problem. Her burden. And telling him about Teresa’s threat would only make him do something stupidly heroic. He was already risking everything just being here.
Liam’s exhale stirred the air between them. His hand scraped through damp hair. “All right. Get into dry clothes. I’ll keep watch.” He turned his back to her.
She faced the cave wall, deep crevices in the face, a crack as big as her thigh. She set the pack down, then rifled through it,found dry clothes. She whipped off her wet shirt, pulled on a dry one. She then pulled off her damp jeans, rolling them into a ball and setting them on the cave floor. Started pulling on clean cargo pants?—
Something glinted in the darkness of the largest crevice. She knelt and put her hand into the opening.
Her fingers hit something cold. Metallic.
What in the world?
She traced the edges.
A chest.
And it was heavy.
Her pulse kicked into overdrive as she dragged it into the thin shaft of light.
Too clean, too modern to be some forgotten relic from the canyon’s past. Steel dulled by years of cave air gleamed faintly in the wan light, its corners still sharp despite a patina of dust and mineral deposits. The latches had developed a thin film of corrosion, but the craftsmanship underneath spoke of quality—military-grade construction meant to last decades. Scratches scored the surface where rocks had shifted against it over time, and a thin layer of calcified dripstone crusted one corner.
She glanced over her shoulder—Liam was still staring out at the canyon, playing sentry.
The latch gave with a soft click.
Her breath stopped.
Gold bars, shiny. Maybe twenty. Twenty-five. Each one the size of her phone, stamped with1 kiloin neat lettering.
Her mind scrambled through calculations—more than three thousand an ounce, roughly thirty-five ounces per kilo…
This was a fortune. Two million. Maybe three, depending on how many bars there were.
Her hands shook as she lifted one bar, the weight solid in her palms. Between this and everything she could liquidate from her inheritance…