Dana Mentink - Final Resort

Towers wished her a good afternoon and promised to contact her soon before he left. Ava bit her lip. Uncle Paul’s sins were catching up with him. Or was he already dead? Buried under a ton of snow and ice until the spring would release his body?

Through blurry eyes she saw Luca approach the bed. He was no longer the rambunctious teen she’d known. His shoulders were now impossibly broad, face filled out and the shadow of a beard showing on his unshaven face. How could he look so strong, so healthy in that all-American way as if he hadn’t nearly drowned along with her? Someone had supplied him with dry jeans that clung to his long legs and a T-shirt that was too tight for his biceps. She swiped at her eyes with the sheet.

Luca stared at her, eyes wandering over her bruised face. “How are you feeling?”

“How am I feeling? How would you be feeling if it was your uncle?” She clamped her lips together, mortified. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she wanted to say, but she could not summon up the strength to make herself say it.

His cheeks colored slightly, the only reaction. “Right. Dumb question. Sorry. Let’s stick to business, then. I’ve done some checking around. Your uncle didn’t make many friends here. He was looking for something, following the trail of a wealthy man who used to live up the mountain.”

She looked Luca over more closely, noting a bruise that darkened his cheekbone. He had no business walking out on that frozen lake to get her. She should be gracious, express her thanks. Instead, she wished with all her heart that he would go away and take his calm “I’m in charge” attitude with him. Now, above all things, she did not need him around, this wealthy successful man who made her stomach jump for some strange reason.

He continued to regard her with a contemplative look. “You said your uncle thought he found a treasure. What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“He didn’t give you any idea? Coins? Old stock certificates? Did he mention anything like that?”

“I said I don’t know.”

He thought for a moment. “We have to find out. It will lead us to whoever did this.”

She gritted her teeth. “Look, I know you hunt for treasure professionally now, but...”

He suddenly flashed her a mischievous grin. “My exploits have reached even this humble hamlet?”

Her cheeks burned at the slip. So she’d kept tabs on his career. Who wouldn’t? It was just an occasional internet search on an old high school friend. No, an acquaintance. She knew about the Gage siblings and their treasure hunting business that had recovered numerous rich prizes for private clients. But she had no intention of allowing him to become involved in her current mess. “You’ve done enough.” She swallowed hard. “Thank you for getting me out of the water.” She kept her eyes riveted to the faded Smokey the Bear on the front of his shirt. “I’ll find out what happened to him on my own.”

“How?”

“I’ll hire someone. A detective.”

Luca cocked his head. “It just so happens that Treasure Seekers is setting up a temporary satellite office right here in town until Uncle Paul’s situation is resolved. Stephanie and Tate are already hard at work. Victor promises to join us when he can.”

“No.” She shook her head, sending a pain shooting up her neck. “You have a business to run.” No doubt a girlfriend waiting in San Francisco. “I don’t want you involved.”

His smile was gentle. “I already am.”

“You’re not. You should leave.”

He folded his arms, brows drawn together. “I almost didn’t make it out of that lake, either. That’s something I take personally. Whatever your uncle found, someone was willing to kill you to get their hands on it. Maybe it’s not a treasure, but then again, maybe it is.”

She closed her eyes. “No, Luca. I don’t want your help.” When she opened them again, he was staring at her.

He sighed. “All right. Cards on the table. I have another reason for staying. I got a call from your father.”

She stiffened. “Is he...”

“He’s fine. The police called him to notify him about your accident. Because he couldn’t talk to you, he called my father.”

She should have known. Bruce had been friends with Wyatt Gage since their days serving together in Vietnam.

“He said to tell you he’ll come as soon as he’s fit to travel.”

Ava groaned. She did not want her father on a plane so soon after a surgery to relieve pressure on his lower back. She’d just returned from visiting him. “I’ll call him. Tell him I’m okay.”

Luca nodded. “The doctors filled him in. He asked me to look into the situation, to find out what happened to your uncle and what he was after because he thinks it might endanger you.”

She felt like screaming. “He can’t stand Uncle Paul. He just wants him out of my life.”

Luca appeared unsure how to respond.

“My uncle was looking for something, some sort of treasure. All I know is he was planning to buy an unclaimed storage unit. He told me a while back that he thought it might have belonged to a rich family, I think the name was Danson, but I don’t know anything else, okay?”

“Okay. That’s a place to start.”

She drew herself up as high as she could against the pillows. “I don’t want help. I can take care of myself.”

He grinned. “That much I already know. I remember how you could make it down the mountain no matter how rough the snow or how bad the weather. You beat me every time we raced, and that bugged me like nobody’s business.”

She felt a small thrill that he remembered their time together as vividly as she did. “Proves my point,” she said.

He bent slightly so he could look her full in the face and her stomach fluttered just like it had in high school when she drew near the popular, easygoing Luca Gage.

“Your father and my father go way back,” Luca was saying. “He’s asked me to look into this matter. I’m going to find a treasure if there is one and figure out what happened to your uncle Paul, because that’s what I do.”

“So it doesn’t matter what I want?” she demanded, sitting up higher against the pillows.

“No,” he said, turning to the door and giving her a cheerful smile. “It doesn’t.”

* * *

Luca found his sister waiting in the lobby, drumming manicured fingers against the dark denim of her jeans.

He shrugged. “She’s okay. No permanent damage.”

Stephanie’s lips curved. “And I’m guessing from the look on your face, she wants you to leave her alone?”

He didn’t answer.

“And I’m also guessing you’re not going to cooperate?”

He paced to the window. “This isn’t about Ava. I gave my word to her father. We’re going to find out if there really is a treasure. It’s the only way to find the person who abducted Paul and sent us to the bottom of the lake.”

She watched him pace the beige tiled floor. “Typically, that’s the police’s job, crime solving and all that.”

“This time they’re going to have help. What do you know about John Danson? Paul might have bought his unclaimed storage unit.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Danson? I remember we came across that name in one of our cases way back. He was a bit of an eccentric, the sole survivor of a wealthy family, but mentally unstable. I read in the paper he died six months ago, leaving no heirs and not much of an inheritance because he donated the family fortune to charity over the years.”

“Not all of it. I remember reading that there was one item in the Danson treasure trove, a particularly valuable one, that never turned up.”

She stretched her slender arms over her head and yawned. “And you happen to think Paul found that particular item?”