Searching For Treasure

chapter 12

Dana was surprised at how calmly she turned around to look at Austin leaning against the door jam of her room. He appeared smugly arrogant as usual. "You!" Last night's humiliation washed over her like a wave. She felt her fingers clench. "I should have known." Dana opened her mouth to yell.

In an instant, Austin was across the small room and pressing the tip of a knife lightly against her cheek. "Don't." His eyes glittered hotly. "Do you know how easy it would be for me to cut you right now? Right here?" He touched the tip to the corner of her mouth. "Or here?" He traced the corner of her nose. Oddly, Dana felt no fear of him or the knife he held. She was too royally pissed.

His eyes met hers and he grinned. He lowered his knife and leaned into her. "Hey, doll,”he whispered. He gave a laughing hiss like she had heard behind her last night. Her fingers clenched harder. Then he mockingly licked her across the cheek. "Remember me?"

It took every ounce of will power Dana had ever possessed not to strike him. But the knife still held casually in his hand dissuaded her. She stared at him coldly until she began to shake with repressed rage. Thinking her tremors were from fear, Austin laughed. "So, who's laughing now?"

"Is that what this is about? Because I laughed at your stupid voodoo trick?"

When Rose and Grace had spoken about the voodoo museum in New Orleans, it had birthed the idea within him. He had read about voodoo poltergeists years ago. Using materials he and Brett had in the car, he had spent the better part of the afternoon crafting the chicken, taking pains to make it as realistic as possible. The electronic equipment they had brought with them completed the illusion. He'd almost thought it was real himself.

The sound of her laughter had haunted him from that night. Her taunting cackles of amusement rang in his ears and her rejection at his advances had all had led up to him wanting to punish her for humiliating him.

Austin's eyes hardened and the hand holding the knife rose slightly. But with some effort he relaxed. "Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart. Although,”he leaned in so close she could feel his breath, "we could have had a lot of fun, you and me."

Backing up slightly, he indicated the hole behind her. "No, it is all about that, Roan Davis's hiding place,”he continued.“I know Oscar told you all about him, the school teacher bandit. I was listening outside the door yesterday. That was when you so helpfully gave me the idea for the spider web in the music room. You were so fun to watch last night."

"Where were you?"

He looked her up and down insolently. "There's a storage closet towards the back of the room. I ducked in there just before your idiot boyfriend charged in to the rescue. I stayed there until everyone went back to bed. Just as I did the night before." Austin's eyes narrowed slightly and he added silkily, "The night you laughed at me.”

There was a madness lurking in those black eyes, she decided. He seemed obsessed by the fact that she had laughed at him. For the first time a slight frisson of fear began to share space with her anger. A punk with a knife was one thing. A crazy punk with a knife gave her pause.

He leaned in closer again and began sniffing her neck like a dog sniffing a bone. His smell of cheap cologne sickened Dana even more, if that were at all possible. "I don't know which I enjoyed more, listening to you shrieking like some deranged bat or listening to you panting like a bitch in heat in your room a little while later. I have to hand it to Jack," his eyes flashed maliciously, "I didn't think he had it in him."

Dana almost lost it then, knife or no knife. She wanted to sink her fingers into his eyes up to her elbows. She felt her fingers hook into claws and heard a roaring in her ears. But it wasn't the promise of death she saw looking out at her through Austin's eyes that stopped her. He wanted to kill her. She realized that now. And he wanted her to give him a reason to.

No, what stopped her was the memory of the hurt look on Jack's face when he'd left her room and the fact that their last conversation had been an argument. She didn't want to die and have the last words they ever shared be angry ones. She didn’t want to leave Noah alone. She would do anything to survive for them.

With supreme effort she ignored his remark. "Oscar said Roan Davis's treasure was a myth."

"I found a letter that says otherwise."

"The letter that the convict claimed existed?"

But Austin wasn't interested in her questions. He was sniffing her neck again. He touched the hollow of her throat with the point of his tongue. She felt her skin crawl with loathing. He glanced up at her. "Maybe we can still have some fun together, hmmm?"

"There are people downstairs,”she choked out.

"Don't worry. Henry was in the middle of one of his boring my-grandson- the-great-football-player stories. I'm sure he'll be at that for a while."

"They'll wonder why I haven't come down."

"Jack went down without you. That only happens when you fight. And every time the two of you have a fight, you hide out in your room. You're quite the little coward, aren't you? They won't think anything is different this time. Neither will he." Austin sounded supremely confident. "Besides, you don't really want anyone to come up here, do you? I might have to hurt someone."

Now she was afraid. Where before her anger had outweighed fear for herself, the very thought that Austin could turn his knife against Jack or Noah or anyone else terrified her. Austin was obviously hoping that she would choose to play up to him, to willingly give herself to him in an attempt to save her own skin. That happened in the movies all the time.

But this wasn't a movie and she wasn't that good of an actress even if she had been tempted to try. More than likely she would just throw up all over his shoes in repugnance, both with him and with herself. Her only hope was to keep him talking until an opportunity or even a miracle presented itself. Yeah, right, she mocked herself in contempt. It always works in the movies.

"So where's Brett?"

Austin looked bored. "He's in the car."

Okay, so he wasn't as chatty as the crazed villains in the movies. Dana tried again. "That was you in the stairwell."

"Sure." Austin smiled sardonically, as if aware of what she was trying to do. But his over-bloated ego couldn't resist bragging. "It worked out pretty well. I just miscalculated about the railing letting go all at once. The two of you were supposed to fall."

"Why?"

"Well, there's nothing like broken bodies that will just kill a weekend. Whether the fall killed you or just maimed you, nobody would have been inclined to stay here and I would have been free to take my time searching for the treasure."

"That's why the door was open at the top. You had been out there loosening bolts. That's why you chased us. So we could have an accident."

"It wasn't personal." He whispered in her ear, "At least not then." He leaned back and regarded her evilly. "You and the kid just happened to be the ones upstairs at the time. I unsealed the door and left it open. I was right in thinking it would be something you couldn't resist."

"But you were outside with the rest of them."

"I was by the time you fell. Once you began running up the stairs I knew you wouldn't stop until you reached the outside. So I ran out to be with the others, to watch as you plummeted to your deaths. Oh, the horror! Well, maybe not death, but at least serious injury. Imagine my chagrin when you actually held on long enough that I had to help in your rescue." He whispered in her ear again. "What do you think, doll, does that make me your hero? Does that turn you on?"

Dana wanted to gag at the very notion. "Then that night you tried a different tactic. You tried to scare everyone into thinking the castle was truly haunted. How did you get Grace and Rose to come out of their rooms?"

"It is ridiculously easy to get someone to come out of their room. You'd think the movies would teach us better than that. Just a scratch on the door, a muffled noise, a little flashlight waving at the end of the hall works perfectly. Simple."

"And then you faked the poltergeist. How?"

But this was a sore point with Austin. His voice hardened. "It was a projection."

"Is that how you faked Just Cedric?"

He snorted. "That fairy tale? Don't make me laugh. That's just some local idiot Oscar has paid to run around the castle at night to give the place some atmosphere." Dana didn't bother to dispute him.

"But you left yesterday afternoon. How did you get back in the castle to do the spider web without being seen?"

"I have my ways,”he sneered.

"Jack felt that stunt was directed at me."

"Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart," he said again. "Oh, you did give me the idea, something creative to add to the 'ghostly music in the music room' story Oscar tried to feed us. And I admit," he added leaning in so close their noses were practically touching, "I wanted it to be you." The hate in his eyes was plain. "But anyone would do. Set the scene correctly, let imaginations take hold and any one of you would have been screaming the shingles off once they walked into that web."

He scowled hatefully. "Even Jack." Dana's jaw tightened at the subtle insult. Austin laughed. "You just seem to have a habit of being in the right place at the wrong time. No wonder you're paranoid."

"And the lights just now?"

Austin scowled again. "What lights?"

"The lights-" Dana broke off. She stared at him, realizing that he truly did not know what she was talking about. "How long had you been standing at the door? And for that matter, why were you standing at my door? We're all about to go home. Why reveal yourself now?"

Ignoring her second question, he answered, "Long enough to wonder if you had gone catatonic. You just kept staring at the fireplace. Then you reached out and opened the hidden safe. How did you know how? How did you know where?"

She had been the only one to see the lights. Austin should have seen them too if he had been standing there that long. But he hadn't. Briefly she wondered why. "Intuition."

Austin's face-hardened with anger. She just wasn't acting properly cowed. "I hadn't intended to reveal myself as you put it, but once you found Davis's safe, I didn't have much choice now did I? So I guess you can say you brought this on yourself. I admit to a slight impatience, though. I thought everyone would be downstairs at breakfast."

Dana was never sure later what devil made her say, "Stopped by to steal my knickers?"

The ugly flushed that stained his face told her the remark had hit its mark. The grip on her arm tightened painfully. Then he looked at the black hole behind her and smiled slowly, wickedly. "I want you to reach inside and see what's in there."

"Me?"

"Sure, I'm a generous man. You found it, you get the privilege of seeing what's inside." He dropped the smile. "Do it." Dana turned and took a step towards the opening. "Just be careful of spiders." Then he laughed viciously when Dana's hand froze.

Bastard. Dana seethed. For the first time Dana knew what it felt like to hate, to really hate another human being. Dana was easily capable of outrage about injustice and horror over atrocities. But real hate, the kind that was as powerful as love, was an alien emotion for her. The closest she had ever come to feeling it was when she watched her favorite character get killed in her favorite movie as a child. But that was a fictional character. It was safe to hate then because no one was hurt by it. Not you and not the object of your hate.

Jack had once told her he thought she was incapable of hating anyone. Jack had been wrong.

"What's the matter, Dana? Scared?"

Dana squared her shoulders. Gritting her teeth, she reached into the blackness. It felt empty as her fingers fumbled around years of accumulated grit. Her hand brushed what felt like paper. Reaching for it, her hand went right through a cobweb anchoring it down. Her body clenched reflexively and she shook. Austin had his hand over her mouth before she could cry out. "Don't make a sound,” he hissed. He pushed her away and reached in himself, drawing out an envelope. His eyes blazed in anger. "This is it?"

The envelope was obviously very old, brittle and stained with age. Something was inside. Austin opened the envelope carelessly. A key dropped into his hand and he pulled out what appeared to be a note. The ink had faded to almost nothing, but it could still be read. "Find the lock for this key and the laugh is on me."

Crumpling the paper with a growl, Austin went back to the opening and shoved his whole arm in searching. "This can't be it. Son-of-a-bitch!"

Dana couldn't resist. "Looks like Roan Davis was something of a practical joker."

"Shut-up!" Austin was in her face with a hand around her throat. "You don't get it, sweetheart. If Davis's treasure had been in there, I might have been willing to let you live. Take the money and run. But now I have to look for the lock this key fits and I can't be having you tell anyone about our little chat. I had hoped we might have some playtime."

Austin stuck his tongue in her ear and Dana shuddered in revulsion. "But I will get just as much pleasure out of breaking your pretty neck." He grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the door. "Come on."

"Where?"

"If I cut you, they'll be looking for who did it. So it has to look like an accident."

Dana dug in her heels. "If you are going to kill me either way, why should I make it easy for you?"

Austin pulled her against him. "Because if you don't, then maybe just out of spite, I'll be waiting in Noah's room next."

Dana believed he was bluffing, but she couldn't take the chance. She allowed herself to be dragged to the door. Austin paused to look out. Seeing no one, Austin turned back to Dana. He smiled, wrapped his arms around her like a lover and pulled her out into the hall.

"Let's see, I could throw you out that window,”as he looked further down the hall at the window next to the music room. "Of course, that might raise some questions as to why you were even at that window. I wonder if Jack would believe you were so devastated about hurting his little feelings that you committed suicide out of remorse. No, best to keep it simple.

I'll throw you over the balustrade and make it look like you fell. Of course I'll break your neck first, so there won't be any chance you'd actually survive this time. They'll have no reason to think you didn't break it in the fall."

There was a rushing of footsteps behind him. Before either of them could react, a proverbial irresistible force flattened them. Dana felt her breath whoosh from her lungs as her back hit the floor. Austin kept going and flipped over her. She heard the knife clatter down the hall. Someone stepped on her hair, bringing tears to her eyes. She had just learned first hand what it felt like to be tackled by a defensive lineman.

Dana rolled painfully over onto her side. Mark had Austin pinned to the floor, his forearm across his throat, laying his not inconsiderable weight against him. Mark glanced up briefly. "Run, Miss Dana, run!"

But despite Mark's bulk, he was still just a boy and Austin had twenty years of experience on him. With a heave, he had Mark flipped over on his back and threw a vicious punch at the boy's face. He was cocking his fist for another blow when a one hundred and twenty pound body landed square on his back.

Dana heard Austin grunt in pain as her flying leap straddled him. Her fingers dug into the flesh of his cheeks and she hauled backward with all the strength and fury inside of her. Then she sunk her teeth into his ear.

Austin screamed in rage and pain. Mark tried to throw a weak forearm at his throat, but barely grazed him because Austin had bolted up off of the floor, Dana clinging to his back like a monkey. He heaved backwards, slamming her back into the wall. With a groan, Dana let go of her tenacious hold on the ear. Then Austin flung her off his back. Dana landed hard and slid down the wood floor towards the music room. On all fours she scrambled inside.

In disbelief, Austin put a hand up to his ear, pulling it away to see his fingers covered with blood. "You bitch!" Mark forgotten for the moment, he headed into the music room after her.

However, before he could cross the threshold, the point end of a poker pressed against his throat and stopped him rudely. His eyes wide, Austin back-pedalled quickly, but Dana kept pace with him, never losing contact with his flesh. They crossed the hall together that way until Austin's back touched the wall, effectively pinned there by the poker in her hand.

With a deadly calm she told him, "If you move a muscle, I will beat the holy living crap out of you with this thing, I swear to God I will."

Austin believed her. The look on her face left him with no doubts.

Hearing the screaming and shouting from the dining room, Jack had raced for upstairs, Noah close behind him. Oscar and Henry followed as rapidly as their age would permit. A bizarre tableau awaited them.

Mark was on the floor, leaning against the wall, looking battered yet triumphant. Austin was pressed against the wall in terror looking bloody and defeated. But the most impressive of all was Dana. Her hair was wild, and her eyes were fierce. It was like watching an avenging Valkyrie standing guard over a vanquished foe. The air fairly crackled around her.

" I could have told you," Noah said to Austin in awe, taking in the scene, "You don't want to piss her off."