Haunting Danielle 27 The Ghost and the Mountain Man Bobbi Holmes (best pdf ebook reader for android .TXT) 📖

was over, and the lunch rush wouldn’t be starting for another hour. Most of the tables were empty but needed cleaning, something the busboy and one server were currently doing.

The server looked up from an empty table, her hands filled with dirty dishes. She greeted Brian and told him to sit wherever he wanted. Since he didn’t want to sit at a table with dirty dishes, he headed to the first clean table he saw, table five.

He glanced at his watch as he sat down. Walt was to meet him here in about five minutes. Brian picked up the menu and glanced over it, yet he didn’t know why he bothered. He knew the menu by heart. The server brought him a cup of coffee without him asking and offered to take his order. After explaining he was waiting for someone, she filled two glasses with water, left his table, and returned to cleaning other tables in the diner.

Brian was halfway through the cup of coffee when Walt arrived.

“So Danielle didn’t want to come with you?” Brian asked.

“No. She’s baking this morning. Double fudge chocolate cake. I didn’t want to disturb her.” Walt sat down and picked up a menu.

Brian chuckled. “You and your chocolate cake.”

“You go a hundred years without cake, and see how you do,” Walt said.

Brian chuckled again and asked, “I understand you want to go back up to the mountains.”

“Yes, about Uncle Bud,” Walt said.

“Heather told me all about it. I still can’t believe Heather’s mountain man is this Uncle Bud.”

“I assumed I could find the place again, but this morning I tried retracing in my mind how to get there, and now I’m not sure I can find it. Do you remember where it was?”

“I’m pretty sure I do,” Brian said.

“Heather said she could probably find it again. I was hoping if you and Heather go with us, we could find it together. There will be some digging, but I can do that,” Walt said.

“At least you won’t break a sweat or get your hands dirty,” Brian teased.

“So you’ll go with me?” Walt asked.

“When do you want to go?” Brian asked.

“Are you working tomorrow?” Walt asked.

“Yes. But I have Sunday off.”

“Can we do it on Sunday? Heather has the weekend off. We can all drive up together. Find my treasure and put this behind us.”

“Treasure? So there is one?” Brian remembered Heather mentioning Caitlin’s talk of a treasure.

Walt shrugged. “I’m more interested in learning what happened. And like William Penn once said, ‘Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man.’”

Carla sat under the table, a paper cup in one hand and a putty knife in the other. She stopped prying gum from off the bottom of the table. Instead, she listened to Brian and Walt’s odd conversation. She had recognized their voices immediately. Not wanting the men to find her eavesdropping, she remained still and didn’t resume her cleaning detail until the pair left the restaurant. After that, she hurriedly scraped off the gum. When she crawled out from under the table, she moaned and stretched, telling herself she would never make a bet like that one again.

After showing Earl the filled cup to prove she’d honored her side of the bet, she tossed the gloves and cup in the trash and returned the trash bag to where she had found it. She went to the bathroom to wash her hands.

When she stepped out of the women’s restroom, she spied Bill Jones sitting at a nearby table with his nephew, Cory. Bill waved her over to his table.

“We’re ready to order, Carla,” Bill told her when she walked up to the table.

Carla sat down at one of the empty chairs at his table. “Sorry, Bill, you’ll have to find another server. I’m off for the rest of the day. I had the early shift.”

The next moment another server came to the table to take Bill’s order.

“Bring me a burger,” Carla told the server. “I’m hungry, might as well grab something to eat before I go home.”

“Should I put it on Bill’s check?” the server joked, eliciting a frown from Bill as he handed her the menu he had been holding.

Carla laughed. “No. Tell Earl it’s for me.”

The server laughed and gave Bill a playful jab with the menu in her hand as Carla said, “Scared you for a moment, didn’t we?”

“You always scare me, Carla.” Bill snorted.

Bill and his nephew gave the server their order, and she left the table.

“I heard the most interesting conversation between Brian Henderson and Walt Marlow,” Carla whispered.

“When did you see them?” Bill asked.

“They were in here a little while ago for lunch,” she said.

“They seem like an unlikely pair,” Bill said.

“You forget what they went through last week. They spent a few days with Heather Donovan lost in the forest,” Carla reminded him.

“Yeah, I read about that. Crazy,” Bill said.

“What did you hear?” Cory asked.

Carla flashed Cory a smile and told Bill, “See, someone is interested in what I heard.”

“Go on, tell us,” Bill said.

“I’d say more happened to them than what was in the paper,” Carla said in a whisper.

“What do you mean?” Bill frowned.

“I think they found a treasure up there,” Carla said. “And they’re going back to dig it up on Sunday.”

“Treasure?” Cory asked.

“I’d believe that if it was Boatman going back up there. She’s the one who always finds treasures,” Bill grumbled. “It’s like she’s some treasure savant.”

“What’s a treasure savant?” Cory asked.

“A phrase your uncle just made up,” Carla said.

“Maybe I did, but it fits. Or perhaps treasure magnet?” Bill asked.

“She’s probably going with them. And it hasn’t been Boatman for ages. She’s Danielle Marlow. And it’s her husband who found this treasure. From what they said, it belonged to someone they called Uncle Bud,” Carla said.

The glass of water Cory held slipped from his hand. It landed on the table and rolled off, hitting the floor and shattering into pieces after splashing water around the table.

“Cory, watch what you’re doing,” Bill