Summer Days (Fool's Gold #7)

The female reporter stepped past him. “Is it true?” she asked. “You made another find?”


“I did,” Heidi told her with a pleasant smile. “I was looking for more room for my cheese. I make goat cheese and age it in the caves. I thought I’d do a little exploring and I got lost. I ended up deeper in the caves than I’ve ever been, and that’s where I saw them.”

Rafe felt as if he’d stepped into the middle of a movie with no idea of where the story was heading. “Saw what?”

Heidi glanced at him. “Cave paintings. They’re amazing. I thought maybe they were from the Máa-zib tribe.” She turned back to the reporter, her eyes wide. “They’re Mayan women who migrated here and lived for hundreds of years. There was that gold discovery last year. I have a friend who has studied the Máa-zib women, and she thinks the cave might have been used in sacred rituals. That would make this an important find.”

The reporter nodded. “I was on the story last year. The viewers loved it, especially the women. Can I see the cave paintings?” She glanced back at her truck. “I want to bring one of the guys with me. He’ll be able to tell what we need to set up for filming. Light’s the main thing. Can we do that? Set up our lights without hurting the paintings?”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Heidi told her.

“Great.”

The reporter hurried back to her van. The second reporter was on his phone, but Rafe was confident he, too, would want to hear the whole story. The amazing story. The unbelievable story.

He looked at Heidi. “Cave paintings? You and I went to that cave together, and there were no paintings on the wall.”

She kept her hands in her front pockets and shrugged. “I guess we didn’t go in deep enough. There are several wonderful paintings and some artifacts. This could be a very important find for the tribe. Annabelle thinks this is sacred ground.”

“I heard that. Who the hell is Annabelle?”

“A friend of mine. She’s a librarian.”

He was quickly going from disbelieving to annoyed. “Well, if she’s a librarian, she must be an expert.”

Heidi raised her chin. “As it happens, she has a minor in Máa-zib studies, so she is a kind of expert.”

“And when did you make this miraculous find?” he asked.

“Yesterday.”

“While you were still recovering from the flu?”

“I wanted to check on my cheese. I guess I got disoriented.”

“I’ll bet. And you didn’t want to mention anything to me?”

“You were gone. On a date.”

Guilt muted his anger, but he refused to be distracted by facts. “I’m not sure when Annabelle had the chance to come look at the caves, let alone make an expert assessment of them.”

“She’s very quick.”

“Or the cave paintings are a recent addition to the ranch.”

Heidi stared directly into his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right.” He drew in a breath. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I guess we’ll have to have some archaeologists come look over the site. They’ll need to find out if there are more cave paintings, and study the artifacts. If this really was sacred ground, then that kind of changes things.”

“Sacred, my ass,” he muttered. This was nothing more than a trick. What he couldn’t understand was why Heidi was doing this. Why now? She shouldn’t feel any more threatened today than she had a month ago. Nothing was different.

Unless she had found out about his plans.

Not possible, he told himself. No one knew except Dante. He hadn’t even sent an email on the subject. So she couldn’t possibly know about the houses. Which left him with the questions, why this and why now?

“We’re ready,” the female reporter called.

The reporter on the phone looked up. “Hey, I’m coming with you.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Fine. Just stay out of my way. I got here first.”

“By about one minute.”

Heidi stepped around Rafe. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to see to the reporters.”

He watched her walk away. When he was alone, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and scrolled until he found Dante’s number.

“You won’t believe what’s happening,” he said, when his friend had answered. “We have cave paintings.”

He explained about the reporters and the potential issue of “sacred” ground. When he was finished, Dante began to laugh.

“You have to admire her originality,” Dante told him.

“The hell I do. We have a problem and it has to be fixed.”

* * *

MORE MEDIA TRUCKS ARRIVED. Over the next couple of days, reporters swarmed, their cameras and lights littering the yard. Heidi set up a small stand to sell her cheese, while May charged two dollars for bottles of water and soda.