“We shouldn’t disturb a gravesite,” he protested.
“If you don’t believe in spirits, why do you care? And it’s a memorial, not a grave. We can rebuild it when we’re done.”
“You’re entirely too familiar with the dead.” Abandoning his unthinking hypocrisy, Jax removed the rocks in an orderly fashion, lining them up by size.
“Duh. I may have a passing acquaintance.” Evie messed up his arrangement by haphazardly dropping the stones she removed behind her. “Why would anyone go to the trouble of stacking all these rocks, then hide them under timbers?”
“Private memorial, maybe. If I didn’t want curiosity seekers poking around, I’d make certain it was covered in spiders and snakes. And if the timbers are the remains of a mine that collapsed, it would also be part of the memorial. Hold up a sec.” Straining muscled shoulders under a thin T-shirt, Jax carefully dislodged one of the boulders on the edge.
At sight of the piece of plastic beneath, Evie offered a little prayer to any spirit watching over them. She didn’t sense any ghosts, saw no auras, but unlike Jax, she respected those who had gone ahead. She helped him remove the stones in the area he’d chosen.
“A circuit board?” Jax wiggled the plastic out.
“Would it contain data?” Evie studied the plastic bag and its contents in disappointment.
“Unlikely. Heat and dust destroy electronics. I can have Reuben take a look but don’t expect much. If this memorial is related to my father, he left California before I was born. The board is likely to be older than I am. Finding a machine to evenreadit might be problematic.” Jax set the small board aside and dug around in the dirt the plastic had covered.
As part of Jax’s team of renegade hackers, Dr. Reuben Thompson was a computer engineer, among other things. Reuben had known exactly how to return her great aunt’s ancient Apple computer to operation, not that it was of much use. But if anyone could examine a thirty-year-old circuit board, Reuben could.
“There’s writing on the back of this.” She showed him what looked like Sharpie markings with a number and initials.
“We’d need a code breaker.” He returned to digging. “There’s metal under here.”
Excited, Evie stood and hunted around for something that would make a better digger than her fingers. A rusty iron spike stuck out from the discarded timber. Checking for creepies, she pulled it out. It might hold up.
Jax had his army knife out, digging into the dirt they’d exposed. She scraped with her spike.
“Looks like an old iron pipe.” Jax sat back in disappointment.
“And some old fencing?” Seeing the corroded chain link, Evie began pulling aside more rocks. “Aunt Felicia has a metal detector. She says people who really want to hide gold in the ground have to hide it under iron pipes and chain-link fences and stuff that will confuse the radar.”
“Huh. Looks like old junk someone buried to me.” Jax heaved rocks, then dug some more.
If it was just old junk, she’d raised his expectations for nothing. He’d send her home and sulk out here for the rest of his life.
And she damned well needed Jax to come home and help with Loretta. He’d saddled her with the kid—well, Loretta had found her first. Evie might be Loretta’s cousin, but she knew she wasn’t in the least bit maternal. She’d sent Loretta withRoark, the crazy Cajun, for heaven’s sake! Because she’d wanted Jax’s respect. Damn, she needed to straighten out her priorities one of these days.
Jax yanked out a rusty old pipe and flung it aside. “There’s another baggie. Plastic really doesn’t ever rot, does it?”
“That’s the argument anyway.” Evie scraped at the dirt around the second sealed plastic bag until Jax could tug it free. “Not gold.”
“But a treasure trove to me.” Jax carefully opened the seal and produced a disintegrating photograph from a newspaper. “I haven’t had time to search ancient newspaper microfiche.”
Beneath the crumbling paper was what appeared to be a big brass key similar to the one Evie had been given when she’d set up Loretta’s bank deposit box. But it was the photograph that held their attention. The caption read, “Aaron Ives (right) and Franklin Jackson receiving an award for their achievement in bringing jobs to San Bernardino County. The Ives Silica Mine will provide components for the new electronic voting machines manufactured by Sovereign Machinery.”
Jax pointed at the taller, broader of the two men. “That’s my dad.”
The man labeledAaron Ives.
Four
Despite his birth certificate,he wasn’t Damon IvesJacksonbut DamonIves.
Aaron Ives had not died in a mining accident. He’d stolen his partner’s identity. Jax and Ariel might actually have family they knew nothing about.
The orange-haired genie was tenaciously refusing to leave him alone after that earth-shattering revelation.
She sat now, cross-legged on the bed in Marge’s B&B, revealing tanned legs beneath tiny shorts. “Did you set alarms on the car so Marge can’t snoop?”