Chapter 9

Three Men's Treasures

Ben took a deep breath and then nodded as Jacob talked. "What time is it?" he asked.

"After one," Riley said.

"Everyone get some sleep," Ben continued. "We're leaving as soon as we can. We need to be on the road before Major and Roscoe realize that Jacob's made off with mom."

"Agreed," Patrick said.

Riley and Jacob took the chair and sofa in the common area of the cabin, giving the second bedroom to Patrick and Emily. Ben slipped into the bedroom he was sharing with Abigail and was under the covers and settling in when Abigail returned. Without a word she crept into the bed huddled against Ben, telling him without words that she needed to be held. As soon as he wrapped his arms around her, a shudder shook her body and she started to cry. Ben murmured soothing words and held her until she finally succumbed to sleep and drifted off. Shortly after that, Ben was asleep, too.

Emily was already asleep when Patrick tiptoed into the room and shut the door behind him. She looked so small all curled up in a ball on her side, only her hair and her eyes peeking out from under the covers. It was as if she feared that this Roscoe would come back for her. Patrick sat down on the edge of the bed on Emily's side of the bed lightly sweeping a curl out of her face. She stirred at this, opening her eyes to find him there. She managed a weak smile for him and he moved his hand to rub warm, circles on Emily's back. She purred softly at this, as if he had pinpointed the very site where all the stress of the past few days was lingering. He continued this until she gasped and flinched under his hand. He jerked the offending hand away and she rolled over a little to face him, gently telling him that there was a bruise there from when Roscoe had thrown her on the floor and kicked her. Patrick nodded and Emily slowly worked her way to a sitting position, snuggling in against Patrick's chest as he turned to face her more properly. Her hands were on his chest, tucked beneath her torso as she leaned forward to rest her head on his shoulder. Patrick wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him and closed his eyes for a moment. There was virtual silence for almost a minute before Emily finally spoke.

"Please say something," she whispered.

"I missed you so much!" he replied in kind. "I love you, honey. A million times I love you."

"Oh, Patrick," she whimpered softly.

"I want you to tell me everything I don't already know. I want to know what he did to you—every bruise he left on your body," Patrick said, still clutching Emily to his chest and cradling her. Quiet tears slipped down her face as she remained in that position—protected, safe, warm, loved—and began to recall the terrible event, leaving nothing out though she wanted badly to omit several details that made her nauseous to repeat.

When Emily finished telling her harrowing tale, Patrick cupped her face in his hand and kissed her. It was warm, tender, unhurried and undemanding and Emily responded to it in kind. When Patrick leaned back he got up from the bed, making his way around to the other side and slipping off his shoes before sliding into the bed. Emily inched backward into Patrick's waiting arms and he took a deep breath in her hair before kissing her neck and giving her a gentle squeeze. He smiled when he noticed that she smiled in return and both were easily asleep.

Ben woke Abigail, Riley and Jacob at 6am and spoke quietly with them in the living room to avoid waking Patrick and Emily before he really had to.

"I'm actually debating having you take them back to Maryland," he told Abigail. "You can be there with them and help dad take care of mom."

"You don't really think they'll let you leave them behind on a treasure hunt, do you?" Abigail replied.

"I just don't want them hurt any more than they already have been," Ben explained. "I trust you, Abigail. I trust you to take care of my mom and dad."

"But do you trust your mom and dad to take care of themselves?" said a voice.

"…and each other?" said another. Ben, Abigail, Riley, and Jacob all turned in sync to see Patrick and Emily standing behind them, wide awake, dressed and ready to leave for California, whether Ben liked it or not.

The group packed the SUV they had been travelling in, needing to unfold the hidden third row seats to accommodate two more people. Once they were on the road, spirits just a little higher, they stopped for breakfast in the next town and then settled in to complete the journey to Shasta.

***

When Major rose at seven and discovered that both Jacob and Emily had fled during the night, he thoroughly berated Roscoe for not catching them and then ordered him to find them. Roscoe pulled a laptop from his backpack and clicked and typed while Major watched. He opened software similar to what Riley had on his computer to track GPS positions. He input the information for Jacob's phone and tapped enter. The green dot that appeared on the map was traveling east.

"Where the hell is he going?" Roscoe said.

"Did you dispose of her cell phone?" Major asked.

"I didn't find it here in the house," Roscoe said, replacing the information for Jacob's phone with that of Emily's. It appeared to be going the same direction at the same time.

"Looks like Jacob is trying to atone for his sins," Major said. "Jacob's relationship with his sister must be weak indeed if he chose to rescue Dr. Appleton rather than remain here and save his sister."

"You want me to make some calls?" Roscoe offered.

"Leave them be," said Major. "If Jacob wants to call my bluff, he's going to find out that I never lose."

"You got it," Roscoe said. "I'm ready when you are."

"Good. Jacob and his new friends are in for a very rude awakening," Major said, storming out the door of the cabin.

***

Riley stretched in his place in the second row of the seats. With only Jacob to share the space with, no one was cramped and Riley had his backpack on the center seat and his laptop, well, in his lap. A grin spread across his handsome features and he chuckled in his secret success. Ben smiled and asked Riley what was so funny.

"Oh, I did us a little favor when we were in Laramie getting breakfast," Riley gloated, lacing his fingers behind his head and indulging in a wide grin.

"What have you been up to now?" teased Abigail.

"One of the families in the restaurant mentioned that they were taking their kids to Washington DC," said Riley. "I cloned the devices onto my computer, removed the GPS chips, and tossed the handsets. The windows of the family minivan were open just a crack so I slipped the GPS units in. By now, Major and Roscoe should be thinking that Jacob and Emily are on their way home to Maryland. With any luck, I've bought us enough of a distraction to give us a sizable lead time on them." Emily reached forward from the back seat and squeezed Riley's shoulder as she smiled at him and Ben and Abigail admitted that they'd forgotten all about disposing of the cell phones.

"Emily's was pretty banged up, but I was able to hard boot the device and managed to save the information from it. Where did you get the cloning software? That stuff's near impossible to find outside of the FBI ," Jacob asked. Riley looked at Jacob as if he had just seen the man for the first time.

"What else don't I know about you?" Riley teased, leaning forward to talk to Jacob more quietly—Emily and Patrick were nodding off in the back seat, Emily against Patrick's shoulder and hand in hand. Abigail sneaked a look at them and smiled. Ben raised his gaze to the rearview mirror and smiled, too.

***

The SUV was just crossing into California when Jacqui jolted herself awake. She wasn't sure how long she had been asleep, bound in the most uncomfortable position imaginable, but she slowly tried to work her wrists as she looked around the cavern. Where had the man gone? Sensing that she was alone for the time being, she wiggled backward until she could rub the tape that bound her ankles against a sharp rock behind her, tearing and loosening the tape enough for her to break her legs free. Without the use of her hands, she worked her way up and ran farther into the cavern. When she felt she was far enough out of sight, she located another sharp rock and freed her hands and then ripped the tape from her mouth without so much as a hesitation. Finally unencumbered by the tape, Jacqui jogged farther into the cavern, coming to a wide clearing in which a room had been carved. Delicate, hundreds of years old paintings lined the walls and Jacqui couldn't help pausing to look at them. They seemed to be telling a story of the native peoples of the area revering the mountain and entrusting to its care a treasure that they regarded as their most prized possession. Jacqui continued along into the yet another tunnel, using a pen and a paper napkin that had been left in her pockets to draw a map and then realized that there was still another object in her pocket: her phone. She was almost certain that she wouldn't get a signal so far underground, but she dialed Riley's number with shaking hands and then waited through the static as the phone actually connected and went through. When Riley answered it on the second ring, he was frantic.

"Jacqui! Jacqui, where are you?" Riley demanded, his hands flying across his keyboard as he began tracking Jacqui's cell signal.

"Riley, help me!" she whimpered.

"We're coming, Jacqui, you just hang in there, sweetheart," Riley replied as Jacqui cried.

"I'm so sorry, Riley," she wept, "I just keep causing more trouble for you, don't I?"

"This is *not* your fault, Jacqui," Riley insisted, pointing to the computer screen where he had triangulated Jacqui's location. Jacob leaned forward and started giving the directions to Abigail and she wrote them down as fast as she could write. Jacqui listened for a moment and then asked, "Riley, who else is there with you?"

"Ben and Abigail are here, Ben's mom and dad are here—" Riley began, abruptly cut off when Jacqui interrupted him.

"Ben's mom? Dr. Appleton?" Jacqui cried. "Is she okay? I'll never forgive myself if something awful has happened to her!"

"She's going to be fine, don't you worry," Riley said, glancing back at Patrick and Emily, now awake and paying attention to everything that was happening. Emily met eyes with Riley and nodded with a determined smile.

"Gimme the phone," Jacob said softly.

"Why?" Riley asked, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't the only one who cared so much about Jacqui. Jacob took the phone anyway and immediately assured his twin that he had saved Dr. Appleton and gotten in contact with Ben and that he was on the road with them to come for her.

"What about Major?" Jacqui asked, rising from her place in the stone walled room and continued walking.

"Seven heads are better than one, sis. We've got a plan and we're going to be there soon. Stay out of sight and Riley's going to talk you through getting the GPS chip out of your phone so that they can't track you," Jacob said. When the conversation was over, the energy level in the car was noticeably higher. They had switched drivers and several switched seats so that Ben and Emily could work together on the map and skins.

All of them could easily imagine the look on the face of the man who had been holding Jacqui prisoner and came back to find her vanished.

"She's a smart one, that girl," Emily said, pointing her gaze at Riley. He nodded, took a steadying breath and smiled.

"We'll have to make sure she knows you said so," Jacob said. "She looks up to you, you know."

"I'm glad to hear it," Emily said. "I plan on telling her personally when I see her."

End