GOLD RIVER (Book 1)

Chapter 16

Tom convinced Kate to hold off until morning before she tried her luck in the hole. The angle appeared steep enough to make going down a challenge, but the space inside, tight enough to apply plenty of pressure against the walls to keep from sliding. Or so it seemed. The truth was... he needed time to think. Kate's descent into darkness would be the same, whether by day or night.

Tom swallowed a pill—an antibiotic—and chased it with water from his flask and then walked away from the campsite.

As he gathered dead branches for a fire, denial set in. Could the kid really be his? For all he knew, she could have shacked up with some lame dude who was too lazy and chicken-crap to save his own daughter. Or, she could have been using the story of her little girl, if she even had a kid, to get him to help find the gold for her own payday. But that didn't fly with the Kate he knew. She had been very convincing earlier, and the whole timeline of their breakup and the age of the girl fit perfectly.

Tom sat down beside her with their backs against a fallen tree, their arms on their knees, flames lighting their faces. He saw the embers, the fire flickering, but he was somewhere else, imagining what Savannah looked like.

"I don't know who they are," Kate said. "I mean, I know their names, but I'd never met them until the day that Benson character showed up on the front steps of my flat. The two men broke in and kidnapped us. Crow, the bloody psychopath, killed Savannah's nanny. He just slit her throat... and... killed her. Her blood, it pooled on my tile floor." She hesitated and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "They told me I had to convince you to help me find the tomb of Atahualpa."

"And his famed room of gold." Tom's face flushed warmly, thinking about the luster of it all. "I'm familiar with the story. I was tempted a time or two to look for the find myself. He supposedly planned on giving the mother lode to the Spaniards who were holding him as a prisoner, but they killed him anyway. Atahualpa's people hid the treasure, possibly in his tomb, after they recovered his body. It'd be quite the find. But as much as I'd love to stumble across it, I'm pretty sure it's just a legend."

"Are you certain about that?"

He looked at Kate. "Why do they need me? Why can't they just find it themselves?"

"Because you have a knack for these things. You're practically famous, Tom. They didn't say who, but the person they work for knows you."

That took him by surprise. "This entire set-up gets stranger by the minute."

"I can attest to that."

"I have to ask. What's she like? Savannah?"

Kate smiled tenderly. "She has my eyes, but she's one hundred percent your flesh and blood. And she has a stubborn streak just like you."

He couldn't explain it, but he believed her. Although, the thought of another Tom Logan, even in girl form, was a tad scary.

"Then we'll find this tomb, and this gold," he said with more conviction than she probably believed him capable of. "We'll get her back or die trying."