Page 48 of Pay Dirt

Chapter 22

Nathan dropped to his knees beside me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to push myself to sit up and ignoring the pain radiating down my arm. “Your friends suck.”

Nathan rested his forehead against mine. “They aren’t my friends.”

He turned his back to me and used his zip-tied hands to help me stand. A scream wretched free as I put pressure on my foot. “I think I sprained my ankle.”

Nathan reached for her foot in the darkness and ran his fingers gingerly down to my ankle. “I think you did more than that. Come on let’s get you a seat on the stairs so you can take the pressure off your foot.”

Nathan started to move around the room, and he’d moved out of my peripheral vision.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for something sharp to get out of these bindings.”

I lifted my butt and slid my wrists beneath, moving my legs through the path until my hands were in front of me. I rose, limping on my foot, and slammed my fists against my legs, tugging each hand in the opposite direction until the plastic snapped free.

Nathan hurried to my side as I wobbled and sat back down. “How did you know to do that?”

“YouTubevideo.” I grinned and ran my gaze down his body. “Something tells me you won’t be as flexible, so wait here.”

I pushed the wall to ease myself up and hopped around the room until I found exactly what I needed. A long thin piece of metal. I returned and slid it through the connection tines, breaking the connection where they could just slide free. Within seconds, he was out.

Nathan kissed me. “You surprise me at every turn.”

“I’m kind of unpredictable like that.” I sighed. “Okay, I got us free. How are you going to get us out?”

I heard the click sound seconds before light surrounded us. Nathan stood in the middle of the room. He’d pulled the light string hanging from the ceiling. I’d been in worse places than this, but still, knowing what lurked nearby was better than not knowing.

The room had knickknacks of all types lying around. Tools, Christmas decorations, everything you’d think to find stored in a garage back home.

Nathan jogged up the stairs and pushed against the wooden door. It didn’t budge.

“Don’t suppose you found an ax lying around? Or a key?”

“No,” Nathan said, jogging back down the stairs. He opened boxes, looking for a weapon.

Sweat poured down my face as the crystal vibrated against my chest. I slowly rose from my spot and hobbled around the room, almost tripping on a hammer. I picked it up and moved it out of the way. With each step, the vibration would strengthen until I was standing before a locked gun cabinet pressed at the other end of the room.

“Uh, Nathan,” I said, clasping my crystal in my hand. “I think I know where your cash is stashed.”

I yanked hard on the lock. Breaking locks wasn’t a skill that Gwen had taught me yet.

Nathan disappeared before returning to my side with a screwdriver in hand. He pressed the pointy part beneath the hinge bolt holding the door in place, and he pried it up, not stopping until both bolts were removed and the door lay hanging askew by just the lock.

“We work well together,” I teased.

He set the door aside and rummaged through the contents. Finding no guns stashed inside was disappointing. Stuff from a kitchen sat on the shelves. Breadboxes, crockpots, steamer pots, everything big and bulky you’d find around a kitchen, including containers for sugar and flour.

He grabbed the cookie jar and opened it, showing that there were stacks of hundreds inside. I tilted the flour canister and lifted the lid and found the same thing. We looked through everything, and in each of those kitchen storage items, they had stacks of clean hundred-dollar bills with no red dye, until we got to the breadbox.

Nathan pulled it out and had a hard time opening it. He tilted it and pulled out stained cash. “Looks like more than one teller got their dye packs inside.”

I picked up another pot, and when I did, it sounded full of loose change. I peeked beneath the lid, and my heart clenched. I showed Nathan. Sitting inside were a few of the gold coins that my client had found. These men really had killed Herbert.

Nathan pulled out a fistful of the ruined money in his grasp. “I’m sure Dan had an idea of which bags full of cash would get ruined.”

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