The Secret of the Stones Ernest Dempsey (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📖

“Looks like Vessel Number One to me.”

“Weeden Island stuff?”

“Yeah. But I didn’t realize they had anything like that in this museum.” Joe frowned while examining the piece.

“There’s no information about where it came from or who found it either.”

“Guys,” Allyson cut in, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but there is a dead boy in the room, so if you don’t mind hurrying up your discussion a little...”

Ignoring her for a second, Sean went on, “I wonder if this vase is the next clue.”

“Would make sense,” Joe agreed. “It’s the only thing in the room that doesn’t fit with any of the other artifacts. Sure is curious. I’ll say that.”

Even after a few closer looks, though, Sean was unsure what clue the vase could hold. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a lot of time to analyze the artifact. “I wish there was some kind of information about this thing.”

Sean looked at Joe and shook his head, turning his attention back to the phone. They wondered if the dead man had called for help before his demise. Surely not. If such a call had been placed, the authorities would already be on the scene.

He pressed a button that illuminated the small screen. Instead of pulling up a menu, though, what appeared to be an unsent text message flashed onto the display. An odd message, Sean thought. The message read, Beacon.

Joe came closer to see what had grabbed his friend’s attention. “Beacon?” he wondered out loud. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Allyson was baffled. “Why would the ranger leave a message like that on his phone if he was dying? Seems like he would have called 911.”

“Not sure, but we can’t stick around here to figure it out,” he answered with growing concern then motioned toward the door and placed the phone back in the curled hand of the park ranger.

The three made their way out of the exhibit room and into the main lobby, heading to the front entrance. Sean reached the inner door to the building first and started to open it when he froze in his tracks. Outside, in the parking lot, two county police cars had pulled into a few empty spaces thirty or so feet away from their own vehicle.

“What?” Allyson asked.

“Police are here,” he responded pseudo-calmly.

“But how did they…?” Joe started to ask, but Sean cut him off by motioning for the group to move back into the building. Fortunately, the glass doors to the Information Center were tinted, so seeing people inside from the parking lot was nearly impossible. Sean looked from right to left, trying to find an alternate exit. There was a set of stairs to the right of the information desk, an option he didn’t like because it immediately cornered them in whatever was on the second floor.

To the left was a door underneath the word Theater. Thinking that most theaters had exits, Sean quickly said, “In there.”

The door to the movie room closed behind them a split second before the two police reached the top of the porch outside.

It hardly seemed like much of a theater. There were four rows of auditorium style seats with a medium-sized screen on the wall in front. Sean stood near the doors for a moment, listening closely. When he heard the inner of the two front doors to the building open, he quietly ushered the other two toward the front row. As he’d suspected, there was an exit near the front of the room.

Moving quickly, the three companions made their way beyond the seats over to the single door with the red Exit letters hanging over top of it. Upon reaching the door, Sean hesitated a moment. Some doors had automatic alarms on them so that in case of an emergency, a warning would sound throughout the rest of the building. As his hand pressed down on the handle, he hoped that this wasn’t one of those.

The device clicked and opened easily into the early afternoon daylight. No alarm sounded as they slipped out of the building undetected and back around the front of the building to the truck.

47

Southeastern Tennessee

Finding the Beacon Tabernacle proved to be easy enough thanks to the Hummer’s navigational system. Fifteen minutes after leaving the state park, Big Guard whipped the SUV into the parking lot of the church. There must have been a thousand words to describe what the men in the car were thinking as they stared at the monstrous building. But silent awe was all that was projected.

The Beacon Tabernacle was situated in a valley of rolling hills right on the crest of a slight rise. From the parking area, the view of the surrounding mountains and hillsides was serenely beautiful. Patches of orange, red, and yellow forest dotted the landscape, the trees’ leaves on fire for the season. In between the dense cropping of woods, a few small farms dotted the land.

Tommy looked around at the scenery. “They sure picked a nice spot,” he whispered to himself. No words had been spoken since they had left the museum. He was still in disbelief at the brutal manner in which Ulrich had killed the innocent park worker.

Still, something about the Indian seemed as if he had been prepared, almost looking forward to the whole thing, like it was part of a bigger plan.

Ulrich and the two guards exited the SUV and also took a brief glance around. Their reason for looking was more to make sure no one had followed rather than to appreciate the stunning visuals.

A solitary gray pickup truck sat quietly outside the entrance. He assumed the vehicle belonged to the church’s sexton. Most churches didn’t require a person to work during the week, due mostly to the small