Rainbow Fire Page 25

  At first Kelsey wasn't sure what she was looking at. She stooped and trained the wavering beam of the flashlight on it. The connecting metal seams were so finely abutted that she had to narrow her eyes and move closer. She tried to shove the toolbox farther, but it was fastened tightly into the floor. She opened the top and emptied the box, then rummaged through the tools scattered on the floor to select a wrench to make quick work of the two large bolts holding it in place.

  This time when she pushed it, it skidded to the side of the truck. There was a small, beautifully designed compartment where the toolbox had rested. It was hinged in two places. Kelsey fingered the hinges, then paused.

  She had no right to look in this compartment. Its contents belonged to her father. He had obviously designed it for total secrecy. This was the man who had taught Dillon to wire explosives to locks. He would be a man who didn't trust banks, who didn't trust anything but his own wits. He would be a man who would feel sullied by another person breaching his privacy.

  But she was no ordinary person. She was his flesh and blood, and somehow she knew she had to see what was there.

  Carefully she lifted the top with the aid of a screwdriver. It creaked with the same grinding of metal as the tailgate, then swung to rest against the floor. She trained the flashlight into the hole, a hole that seemed much larger than the perimeters of the door. Her eyes took seconds to focus, then riveted on a small, metal box. She reached down to claim it, bringing it slowly through the door.

  There was no lock. It opened easily to reveal a collection of old, yellowing letters. On the very top was a well-worn photograph of a child.

  The child was her, the photograph a copy of the one she treasured.

  Kelsey touched it with trembling fingers, then moved it to one side. She picked up the first letter and recognized her mother's script.

  She couldn't read the letter, nor could she read the dozens of others, preserved for over two decades by the man who had forgotten her. Except that he never had. He had tucked her away, tucked her mother away, in this safe, private place that no one knew about. She wondered how often he had moved the toolbox, how often he had fingered the photograph, read the letters.

  She wondered how often he had thought of her, and she knew the answer.

  Often enough to make her heart ache for him.

  The tears she had forced back streamed down her face again. They were healing tears. She closed the box and held it against her chest for a moment. Then, with something close to reverence, she bent to replace it. Jake would never know she had seen it. He would never know the gift he had given her. But she knew somehow that the gift would change her.

  She was just slipping the box back into place when her hand brushed against a piece of canvas. At first she paid no attention, too wrapped up in her thoughts of her father. Then she realized that the box wasn't the only object in the hole. There was something else, something that extended far back into the corner of the hollow space. Something enclosed in canvas and padded heavily.

  Kelsey removed the box once more, cautiously setting it against the toolbox. Then she lay flat and reached both hands as far as she could underneath the floor, carefully moving the canvas toward her. The parcel wasn't heavy, but it was bulky, and she had to maneuver carefully to find the right position to lift it through the trapdoor.

  When the parcel finally lay across her knees, Kelsey examined it. She had no idea what it contained, but it was about three and a half feet long and a foot in width, although she suspected much of the width was padding. It was tied with coarse brown string, and there was nothing about the size, shape or wrapping to suggest what might be inside.

  Kelsey hesitated only a moment. With the flashlight propped to provide the light she needed, she picked at the knot until it was untied. Then she unwound the string, taking care not to tangle it, until it was a soft, round ball beside the parcel. Slowly, carefully, she unfolded the thickness of canvas, then the padding, which seemed to be something similar to quilt batting. When she finished, she could do nothing but stare.

  A perfect skeleton lay on her lap. An opal skeleton of a giant lizard with nothing missing except a skull. Even its flippers were webbed with precious opal that flashed fire in the weak beam of the light.

  She heard a click then, a click that had sounded once before as she had stood in the center of an outback dust storm and hoped for rescue.

  But the sound had portended something far more deadly.

  Kelsey's head swung up, and she spun to look behind her. Silver hair shone in the moonlight, and moonlight reflected off the barrel of an old-fashioned rifle.

  "So you found it before I did."

  "Gary?"

  He moved a little closer. "Were you expecting someone else, Kelsey?"

  She shook her head slowly, but it wouldn't clear. She was caught in a slide show, and it was moving too fast for her to catch any image and hold on to it. "Why do you have a gun pointed at me?''

  "Because you have something I want."

  The slides flew at top speed, then began to make sense. Light-colored hair caught between the teeth of a comb. Not blond hair, as Dillon had thought, but silver. Hand-cast bullets that would come only from the gun of a collector, a chillingly beautiful antique like the one pointed at her now. A jeweler with the nimble-fingered skills and the tools to pick any lock; a man who was so obsessed with the things he collected that he had lost all traces of human warmth and caring and replaced them with deadly charm.

  She wondered why she hadn't seen it before. She wondered why Dillon hadn't. But then, the key to the puzzle was lying in her lap.

  "What is it?" she asked, making sure there was no fear in her voice.

  "A plesiosaurus. You're holding one of the finest specimens I've ever seen," Gary said, motioning to her lap with the muzzle of the gun. "It would be priceless even if it weren't opalized. Now it's more than priceless." The corners of his mouth turned up. "It's mine."

  "I don't think so. I believe it belongs to my father."

  "Brave words."

  "Oh, more than words." She lifted the skeleton until it was a shield in front of her. "Try to take it from me, Gary. Or, better yet, shoot me and see if your bullet can miss every one of these precious, fragile bones. But then, maybe it wouldn't bother you to shatter it."

  "I've killed before, Kelsey," he said, his voice an obscene caress.

  She thought of the two men Dillon had told her about. "What did they have that you wanted?" she asked, buying time as her mind raced for a way out.

  He seemed to relish talking about it, like a museum curator discussing his collections. "One had a picture stone. Do you know what that is?"

  "No."

  "The man who found it was an old prospector. He found it in an open cut mine, just a large field that a bulldozer had cut through looking for opal. The mine owner and his spotters had overlooked the stone, but the old man didn't."

  Kelsey knew he was talking about Fizzle Fred. "Why did you want it?"

  "It's a small stone, but the colors make a picture of a bird. I like to think it's an emu. Bit of a shame I won't be able to show it to you."

  Her stomach twisted into knots. Gary was enjoying himself. "And the other?"

  "Just a rock. A piece of blue ground with strands of opal running all through it. It wasn't worth anything much, but I liked it."

  She shuddered. He had liked it, and that had been enough reason to take it, even if he had to kill. He was insane. "Why did you kill them? You have money. Couldn't you have made a deal?"

  "They wanted to keep their little prizes. They wouldn't give me what I wanted, Kelsey."

  Kelsey knew that even if she gave Gary what he wanted he would surely kill her now. She knew too much to go free. She clutched the skeleton tighter and tried to buy time for herself. "And my father?"

  "Now there's a story." He lowered the rifle a little, but he kept it ready. He looked like a man reminiscing about the good old days. "Jake came to me with the skeleton. He go
t it out of the Rainbow Fire, but he didn't want Dillon to know about it. He was afraid Dillon would want to donate it to a museum, and Jake wanted cash. The skeleton was his ticket out of Coober Pedy. He was whining about getting old and having nothing to show for it. He'd had his heart set on making a big profit on some stones he'd sent to Sydney, but he'd found out that they'd sold for a lot less than he'd hoped. Jake knew I would be interested in the skeleton, and he didn't have the money to take it anywhere else."

  "And then you pushed him down the mine shaft?"

  "Not quite like that. I made Jake an offer, a good offer. He wanted some time to think about it. I was very generous and agreed, although I'll have to admit I lost patience with him once and took a few shots at him." He shrugged. "Funny thing, it turned out to be Dillon. He was driving Jake's ute."

  Kelsey was beyond the point of being shocked by anything he could say. "You shot at Dillon, thinking it was my father?"

  "I was going to sympathize with Jake, point out that maybe somebody else had found out about the skeleton, somebody he'd told when he was plonked. It was an ace in the hole for me, a way to force him to sell it quicker.''

  "Too bad your eyesight was so poor, huh?"

  He shrugged again, almost as if he believed she was serious. "When Jake came back the afternoon of his accident, he didn't have the skeleton with him. I knew then that he was going to refuse. He told me that he had changed his mind, that his conscience had gotten the better of him." Gary said the word "conscience" as if he were discussing the plague. "He had decided to tell Dillon and let him decide what to do with the skeleton."

  "Dillon would have turned you down flat."

  Gary nodded. "Jake's a crafty old bloke, but not crafty enough. I told him that if he didn't take my offer, I'd tell Dillon about the skeleton before he could. I'd tell Dillon that I'd found out Jake was trying to cheat him, and I just couldn't stand by and watch it happen. They'd been fighting recently. Dillon was getting tired of your father's drinking, his endless yarns. Dillon was pulling the whole load of the Rainbow Fire for them both. Dillon would have believed my story, and Jake knew it."

  Kelsey clutched the skeleton tighter. She tried to gauge how long it would take to jump the side of the ute and dodge behind it. But there weren't even hills to hide behind here. The area was flat, desolate. The only thing on the horizon was Gary's car, parked so far down the road that he had been able to stalk her, lights off, without being seen.

  She continued to buy time. "And so he agreed to sell it to you?"

  "As I said, he was a crafty old bloke. He told me the skeleton was safely tucked away in a shaft that had duffered out. I told him he wouldn't get any money unless I was holding the skeleton in my hands. He said he'd go back and get it, but I knew he was lying. He was going to find Dillon and talk to him before I could tell him my story. So I told Jake I'd take him to the mine myself to get it."

  "And that's when you pushed him down the shaft?"

  "He lied to me. He lied about where the skeleton was hidden. I didn't realize it. I thought I could have the skeleton and the money I would have paid for it, too. So I pushed him down an old shaft when his back was turned."

  Fury overcame fear. "Brave man. But he didn't die, did he?"

  "There was no ladder in the shaft, so I couldn't check. And I had no time, because I knew Dillon was going to be at the Showcase at five-thirty. So I left him there. I hadn't counted on Dillon looking for him. But it didn't matter much when he was found. I knew that even if he lived, Jake would be too ashamed to tell anyone about the skeleton. And I was right."

  "You're a real bastard."

  He smiled. "Despite all that, old Jake almost had the last laugh, didn't he? The skeleton wasn't where he said it would be. I'll wager he told me that because he was going to go down into the mine to get it and just not come back up. He knew if I came down to find him, he could elude me, maybe knock me out long enough to get back to town and talk to Dillon before I could. Underground, he'd be the boss, because he knew the mine. Once I was able to, I went down to look for the skeleton, but it wasn't there."

  "And you've been looking for it ever since?"

  "Looking and looking and looking." He smiled his vacant, deadly smile again and raised the rifle to his shoulder. "But I don't have to look any further, do I, Kelsey?"

  * * *

  DILLON STEPPED OUT of the shower and toweled his hair dry. He had scrubbed until his skin was raw, but he could still smell Kelsey on his skin, still feel her body moving under his. And the pounding of the water hadn't drowned out her final words to him, either. "I'll dream about the day I don't care anymore," she had shouted at him.

  What had he done? In the minutes since she had run from him, her words had rung in his head until they were all he could hear. He had fallen in love with her, but he hadn't trusted her to make her own decision about their future. He had made it for her. He had decided that he had nothing to offer, that his life, his town, had nothing to offer. And so he had offered nothing except his love alone.

  It had been a cheap gift.

  He had given her no choices. He had made choices for both of them. Now he faced the reason why. He was afraid she wouldn't choose him. Bloody hell, why should she? Look at him, at his prospects, his life. Why would she want him? Was she a fool? Or was she a woman in love?

  He knew it was the last that he had to find out. And the only way was to ask her to stay with him, ask her to marry him. He had to give her that choice.

  He had to, because there was a one-in-a-million chance she would say yes. And wasn't he a gambler?

  He was almost dressed to begin looking for her when the telephone rang. He almost wrenched it off the wall, hoping it was Kelsey.

  "Dillon, Melly here."

  Dillon knew she was crying. He had no time for another woman's tears, but he couldn't hang up on her. "What is it, Melly? I'm in a bit of a hurry."

  "Is Kelsey there?"

  "No." He decided it would be pointless to lie. The truth would be quicker. "We had a fight. I'm going to look for her."

  He heard an unmistakable gasp before Melly spoke. "You've got to find her fast."

  He grunted. "I can find her faster if I get off the telephone."

  Her next words were choked out between sobs. "She's in danger. Oh, Dillon, Gary's after her. She's got something he wants, or at least he thinks so. You've got to find her before he does."

  Her words made no sense. "Gary?"

  "He killed old Fizzle Fred, Dillon. I was there when Fizzle Fred showed Gary an opal he'd found. A picture stone." She was sobbing so hard the words were slow to come out. "I found the opal tonight, locked in a case I'd never looked in before. I stole Gary's keys because I suspected. . . I suspected—" She broke down into more sobs.

  "Suspected what?" he demanded.

  "Suspected he was behind Jake's fall."

  Dillon slammed his fist against the wall. "Why didn't you tell somebody this before?"

  "I didn't want to believe it. I didn't have any proof, nothing except little pieces of conversation, things I could have misunderstood. And I loved Gary. I couldn't believe—"

  "What changed your mind?"

  "I found out this afternoon that Gary hired Serge to harass you and Kelsey. Serge called the shop from Perth, demanding money to keep quiet. I picked up the other phone by accident and overheard the whole thing. Then, tonight, I found the picture stone." She sobbed again. "You've got to find Kelsey. I don't know what else Gary's after, but he's after her."

  The receiver swung side to side where Dillon had dropped it. Melanie's final words echoed into an empty room.

  Chapter 18

  THE TRUNK OF Gary's car was stifling. Kelsey could hardly draw a breath. She had explored every inch of the surface for a way to pop the lock from the inside, but there was no way. She was moving somewhere toward what would surely be her death. The only reason she wasn't dead yet was because she still held the plesiosaurus in her arms. Gary had forced her to his car with the
rifle, but she had refused to relinquish the skeleton, knowing that holding it was her last hope. Gary did not want to take the chance of damaging it by shooting her. In his mania, he wanted it to be perfect, so that when it was finally his, he could lock it away in his collection of one-of-a-kind perfect things.

  She knew he wouldn't let her suffocate in the trunk, because she had warned him that if she started to lose consciousness, she would crush the bones to dust in her bare hands first. She knew he believed her. He knew she could do it.

  She wanted to crush his bones to dust. He was insane, but she felt no sympathy, not when he held her life in his hands. He had stalked her, and stalked Dillon. He had threatened their lives, hoping to keep them so busy that they wouldn't find the skeleton before he did. Then, when his own search had turned futile, he had kept them under surveillance, hoping one of them would find it for him.

  And she had.

  She didn't know where Serge fit in, except that she suspected he must have been working with Gary. He'd been the perfect accomplice. He had wanted revenge against her, and it had certainly been to his advantage to keep Dillon busy elsewhere while he blasted away the Rainbow Fire opal. Serge and Gary had fit together like two halves of a whole. Two halves of a wretched, stinking, rotten hole.

  Her head began to swim. She was weakening from the heat and the fetid air. Each breath was painful. Just as she began to contemplate the destruction of the skeleton, she felt the car slow, then stop.

  Warm night air rushed into the sweltering cavity as Gary threw the trunk open. Kelsey's first sight was the muzzle of his gun. "How are you feeling, Kelsey? Are you up to taking a walk?"

  She imagined that he would like that. She would walk ahead of him, and he would shoot her in the back. If he were lucky she wouldn't even damage the skeleton when she fell. She gauged her chances of kicking the gun out of his hands as she climbed out. They were abysmal. She would make a last stand, but it wouldn't be here. She bought more time. "I'm not enough of a fool to walk in front of you. I'll walk beside you, just like I did to get to the car."