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Jolene agreed. “Besides we don’t even know if anyone does own the land.”
    “Exactly,” Luke said. “I say we go out and start detecting and then see what happens. Are you guys in?”
    “I am,” Jolene said, feeling her heartbeat speed up with the promise of excitement. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

Chapter Four

    Jolene’s boots dug into the sand as she swung the heavy metal detector back and forth. Her arm ached and she switched to her other hand, regretting her insistence that she be able to use one of the detectors along with Luke and Jake. The darn thing was heavy and the work was boring.  
    Ten feet in front of her, Luke and Jake had their heads bent toward the ground, their detectors swinging in rhythmic arcs over the area Luke had marked in the sand. Her sisters were standing at the ready with small devices called probes, which would probe in the sand and pinpoint the location of any small metal items found by the detectors.  
    Jolene glanced enviously at Celeste, Morgan, and Fiona who chatted happily while waiting for someone to find something, and then bent her head to continue her monotonous quest. She was wondering if she’d be able to use her arm at all tomorrow when her headphones erupted in a series of chirps that indicated the detector had found something metal in the ground.  
    Fiona, Celeste and Morgan must have heard the chirps because they hurried over, holding their probes at the ready while they waited for Jolene to pinpoint the area. Jolene moved the detector over the spot in a cross pattern, until she had the source of the beeping triangulated, then made a mark in the sand so they would know where to start digging.
      Fiona pulled a small spade out of her back pocket and dug out some sand tossing it aside. Morgan tilted her probe—a long round tube about one inch thick with a metal sensing component on the end that would hum and vibrate when it came close to metal—and poked it around in the pile Fiona had dug.  
    “It’s not in the pile,” she said.  
    Jolene ran the detector over the spot again to make sure she hadn’t gotten a false reading. It beeped when she passed it over the right edge of the hole.
    “It says something is under here … but I’m not sure if it’s anything large.” Jolene squinted at the display on the detector trying to remember the instructions Luke had given barely an hour before. They were looking for the cache Shorty had buried, so it would be something big, she just couldn’t remember what type of reading Luke said she should look for.
    Fiona pushed the spade into the side of the hole and flipped out more sand. The girls had discovered that digging in the sand was nearly impossible as the hole instantly filled with sand from the side. Morgan probed the pile and shook her head. Fiona stuck her probe into the hole, moving it around.  
    “I’ve got something!” Fiona said.
      Jolene, Celeste and Morgan squatted around the hole while Fiona dug, probed and dug some more. She reached her hand into the sand, her face puckering, then lighting up as she pulled out a round object.  
    Jolene’s breath caught in her throat as Fiona’s hand emerged from the sand with the ring. It was small—dainty—with a filigree setting and a pink stone that glowed brightly in Fiona’s hand.
    Jolene was so engrossed in the find that she didn’t hear the footsteps slowly sneaking up behind them until the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked froze her blood.
    “Stop right there. Stand up and turn around slowly.” The voice was as harsh and scratchy as the desert sand beneath her.
    Jolene saw surprise in her sisters’ faces as they looked up. Just before she whirled around, she saw Fiona slip the ring into the pocket of her jeans.
    Jolene’s heart leapt into her throat as she came face to face with the double barrels of a shotgun. Peering around them, she could see an old woman with keen, clear sapphire eyes set in a face of wrinkled