A Finder's Fee Read Online Free PDF Page B

swore she’d given her heart to a sea captain named Thomas Graham, she liked to flirt. That had brought a whole other realm of trouble to her with the wives of Duck.
    “Well, for now, let’s keep it quiet. I don’t want anyone else to guess what’s happening.”
    “I can do that,” she said. “It will be simple to sit back and look at your amazing life.”
    I went back to bed and must have fallen asleep right after because I was dreaming again of all the things I’d seen in the past with Maggie.
    I hadn’t expected their clothes to be so coarse and plain. Most of the dresses, trousers and shirts were shades of brown, barely held together with rough twine. The people were dirty and thin—some almost skeletal. It hurt to look at their frail, white-faced children.
    Somehow I’d imagined my Duck Banker ancestors being a hale and hearty group, able to spit in the eye of hurricanes and keep on sailing.
    Instead, they were a dour, unfriendly bunch—wary of strangers, fearful of anything or anyone who didn’t look or sound as they did. Their dwellings were crude, barely able to withstand wind and rain.
    How had anyone survived that time to get us to this one?
    Then Ann was shaking me, telling me it was time to go. Kevin was already set up at the town hall site.
    It was dark outside. Gramps was home. He wore his worried frown as I went downstairs in clean clothes and dry boots.
    I still felt like a zombie, barely able to shake off the memories of my dreams. Maybe I looked like one too.
    He hugged me tight for several long minutes while Ann tapped her foot impatiently near the door. “What’s going on, Dae? Your note didn’t say much and all of your friends were worried. Are you all right? Where have you been?”
    There wasn’t time to explain. Every moment of darkness we lost would make it that much harder to reach the remnants of the old house by morning. “I promise I’ll explain when I come back. You have to trust me.”
    His broad face was an angry thundercloud. “I know we try not to step on each other’s toes. We’re both adults. But you’re not going anywhere without me until I know what you’ve been doing. You look like death warmed over, as your grandmother used to say.”
    “Gramps—”
    “I’m not kidding, honey.” He put on his heavy jacket. “I’m going too.”
    Ann shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”
    We took Gramps’s golf cart down the silent streets of Duck toward the new town hall site.
    Kevin had managed to find one of the big yellow tents that were being used by the contractor working on the geothermal site. He also had lights. The tent glowed like a beacon in the darkness. I hadn’t counted on that problem.
    I wasn’t sure anymore that it was possible to do this and not get caught. I hoped I could keep everyone else out of trouble.
    Even inside the tent, it was still cold. The ice fog hung on everything with its frozen breath. Shayla and her grandmother had come too, wanting to be there when we located Maggie’s bones. Flourine had added even more beads and feathers. Shayla had opted for her usual classic black with no additions.
    Everyone huddled in their heavy coats and jackets as Kevin started the small digging machine. Until that moment when I’d wanted everything to be quiet and secret, I hadn’t realized how loud it was.
    “This doesn’t make any sense, Dae,” Gramps said again—the second time since I’d basically explained what we were planning to do. “You can’t be out here digging this close to Duck Road, in a restricted construction area, and not get caught. You could lose the election if you tell anyone what you’re doing. You’re playing with fire.”
    About that time, I wished I
were
playing with fire so I could get warm. “I’m sorry, Gramps. I have to do this. You don’t have to stay.”
    He shook his head and muttered something about needing a permit but he didn’t leave.
    Kevin’s excavator made my puny efforts at moving dirt and