Ghost Canyon (The John Decker Supernatural Thriller Series Book 7) Anthony Strong (popular romance novels .TXT) 📖

Barnes gave Decker his Bureau address.

“Thanks.” Decker tapped away at the screen. “All done. They’ll be in your inbox.”

“What about the mine?” Robyn asked. “Is it secure if they come back?”

“I closed the gates and put the chain back on,” Decker replied. “They won’t be getting in.”

“Good. Honestly, we’ve never had a problem with trespassers before.”

“Maybe it’s all connected,” Barnes said.

“Sounds reasonable.” Decker nodded. “Feels like too much of a coincidence that we’d run across those two up there right now, after all that’s happened, and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Neither do I.” Barnes glanced toward Decker. “You going to be around for a while?”

“Yup.”

“Great. I’m going to find out who owns that truck. I’ll let you know as soon as I have the results.” Barnes headed toward the stairs.

When he was gone, Robyn turned to Decker. “And what are you planning to do next?”

“Actually, I was hoping to have a chat with you,” Decker replied. “I was wondering if you can tell me a little more about the town and its history.”

“Sure,” Robyn agreed. “Do you think there might be a connection to the attacks?”

“I have a hunch that whatever is in that mine, has been around a lot longer than the last few days.” Decker glanced toward the saloon bar. “Why don’t we talk in there, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble.” Robyn moved toward the door. “It will be good practice, actually. When this place officially opens to the public, we’re going to need a tour guide, and since we don’t have much money, you can guess who that’s going to be.”

“You?”

“Yes indeed. So, you’re actually helping me out too.”

“I always like to be of help,” Decker said, and followed Robyn into the saloon.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When he reached the penthouse suite atop the Prospectors Paradise Hotel, Harlan went straight to the desk in his office, upon which his ancestor’s journal lay. He sat down, then reached out and touched it. The leather binding was coarse beneath his fingers. He couldn’t help feeling a sense of awe. This little book had survived so much to end up with Harlan. His great-great-grandfather had started the Journal when he left New York City to find his fortune out West. He made regular entries, detailing the hardships of a prospector’s life in 1800s America. It was a fascinating historical document in its own right, but more than that, the unassuming leather-bound volume provided a roadmap through Harlan’s current predicament. If the final entries in the Journal were correct, and not merely the fevered rantings of an insane man, then a fortune in gold waited for Harlan inside the Ghost Canyon Mine.

The irony was not lost on him. While he struggled to make ends meet and keep the casino afloat, eventually resorting to a deal with the devil, this journal had sat upon his office shelf, just waiting to be taken seriously. And maybe Harlan would have given it a second glance, if it weren’t for his preconceived notions hardened through childhood that it was nothing more than the frantic scribblings of a lunatic. After all, who in their right mind would think that monsters were real, or that a vast geological treasure lay undiscovered to this day beneath the mountains south of Las Vegas. His belief that the Journal’s contents were mostly nonsense had come from his old man, who had inherited the same sentiment from his own father. Harlan had never forgotten the stories contained within the Journal, because they made such an impression on him as a kid. Which was why his thoughts turned to those journal entries when he saw the news report detailing the deaths in the mine.

Harlan opened the Journal and thumbed through the pages until he came to the relevant section. The book had deteriorated over the years, with heavy foxing. The glue binding the spine had become brittle, and some pages had detached and were now loose. The writing was hard to read. Once black, it had turned a rusty brown thanks to the iron gall ink so prevalent at the time.

But Harlan wasn’t interested in the pages of untidy, scrawled handwriting. What he wanted lay folded between the pages. A larger sheet of loose-leaf paper, itself showing signs of age. He removed it carefully and laid it out on the desk, careful not to damage the fragile document.

Unfolded, it was many times the size of the journal within which it had been stored. Harlan hunched over it. It was one of several maps of the Ghost Canyon Mine contained within the Journal, and by far the most complete. Harlan suspected it was also the final one drawn by his ancestor, Travis Biggs, before the man went missing. It showed a labyrinth of tunnels that ran for miles. Some connected with each other, while others were dead ends. A cross-sectional view drawn beneath the main map showed the mine laid out on three distinct levels.

The map didn’t explicitly indicate where the alleged untapped gold deposit was within the mine system—Travis Biggs was not that stupid—but Harlan thought he’d figured it out already from the scribbled entries in the journal itself. What he was looking for right now was another entrance close enough to the gold to snag samples, while being far enough from Haley and those FBI agents to do so undetected. He already knew that the untapped lode, if his hunch was correct, was a good distance from the entrance they had visited earlier, so it stood to reason there would be another adit, or even a ventilation shaft. And when he worked his way back from the presumed location of the gold, he came across it. Just as he thought, there was a shaft running at a low incline from the surface on the other side of the canyon. It would be a bumpy ride to get there, even in Wagner’s truck, but worth it. Now all he needed to do was make