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  Chapter Thirteen: The Hunt for Gold

  Sue read several more pages from Marcia’s diary detailing Inger’s confession, and then Marcia described something unexpected: in mid-August, Theodore Gold suffered a massive heart attack. Marcia wrote about her last day with her father as he lay dying:

  August 17, 1881

  My father revealed to me that he has known the truth about my mother’s identity. He said it took him many years to face it. He said that when he returned from the war, he thought he’d lost his mind, and whenever he questioned Inger, she had an answer ready for him. He said that when my mother fell ill, Inger must have feared she would lose his financial support. To prevent him from taking another wife should my mother have died, she switched places. It didn’t occur to him that my aunt might have done something even more devious, and I wondered if he should know the truth. I asked him if he had ever confronted my aunt, and he shook his head. I suppose it was easier to continue with the charade than to face the terrible truth. He told me that when my mother finally died, the enormity of what Inger had done finally hit him. Even though my aunt had given him two sons, he never looked at her with tenderness again.

  I decided not to tell him about the rat poison. He was too frail and full of agony. I didn’t wish to add to his misery on his final day.

  “And there’s something else,” he said between ragged breaths. “I never told her where I buried my gold. If something were to happen to me, I didn’t want her to have it.”

  Tears streamed down my face. I had no words. I sobbed as he struggled to breathe.

  “I want to tell you where it is, Marcia,” he rasped. “I want you to have the gold, in case you should ever befall hard times and should need it to survive.”

  “Oh my God!” Ellen cried. “Does he say where it is?”

  “Well, don’t interrupt, and we’ll find out,” Sue said.

  Tanya and Ellen leaned in and listened anxiously as Sue read on:

  My father told me I should never tell a soul the information he was about to convey to me. He said he brought the gold from Germany as an insurance policy in case his business did not do well in America. Fortunately, his business prospered, and when the country broke out in civil war, he buried the gold to prevent enemies from confiscating it.

  Since his business continued to prosper even after the war, he left the gold where it was. Then two years later, when Inger begged him to redecorate the main rooms downstairs, he recorded the location of the gold in permanent ink in several places beneath the wallpaper.

  “Beneath the wallpaper?” Tanya said. “That wasn’t very smart. The drywall sometimes peels right off with the paper.”

  “I’ve already removed the wallpaper in the master bedroom,” Ellen said. “I didn’t see a map or anything.”

  “If it wasn’t so late, I’d suggest we go look tonight,” Sue said. “But I suppose we should wait until tomorrow. Right?”

  Ellen was as eager as Sue, but she agreed that going tonight would not be a good idea. There was still no electricity.

  “We’ll search every inch of every wall tomorrow,” Tanya said. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ellen and Sue said simultaneously.

  “Now finish the diary,” Tanya said. “Are there many pages left?”

  “Two more,” Sue said before she continued.

  August 24, 1881

  Now that my dear, sweet father has passed from this world onto the next, Inger is fast on his heels. I fear she has but a few days. As I reread what I have written, I realize that even though I hated my aunt and father for so many years, a part of me also loved them. From the time I was five until the age of fifteen, my aunt did care for me. For my entire childhood, she cooked for me, and when my mother became incoherent and bedridden, my aunt never abused and bullied me but treated me as though I was her own daughter. She did that in spite of my every effort to sabotage her. And even though it pained her beyond belief to lose her sons when I was a girl of twelve, she continued to care for me.

  I also realize that I have always loved this house, even though I resented being forced back to it at the beginning of the summer. This has been the only real home I have ever known, and soon it will be mine to take care of. Although I am twisted inside and full of sadness over my mother’s treatment, I must try to put those feelings behind me and think of the future. Maybe I should reach out to my beloved Joseph. Maybe his feelings for me are strong enough to help him accept my family’s shameful history.

  “Thank goodness!” Ellen said. “Her aunt may not have deserved Marcia’s forgiveness, but at least she made her peace.”

  “I wonder if she and Joseph ever got together,” Tanya said.

  “Well, she must not have married him, or she would have taken his last name,” Sue pointed out. “There’s one more page. Ready?”

  “We’re really at the end?” Tanya asked. “I guess we aren’t going to get all our answers in one page.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Ellen said.

  Sue took a sip of wine and read Marcia’s final entry.

  August 31, 1881

  The summer has come to an end, and so must this diary. I must return to my teaching position at St. Mary’s Boarding School on Monday. At the beginning of the summer, I could not wait to return to my dear school, but as I board up this old house and cover the furnishings, I do so with tears. My attorney says I should rent the house, but he does not know what I know. If renters were to redecorate, they may inadvertently erase the hidden location of my father’s gold, or, worse, discover it and take it for themselves. No, my hope is that I shall make this year of teaching my last and, hopefully, in one year’s time, if all goes as planned, I shall return to this sweet house as Mrs. Joseph Clark.

  “Clark?” Tanya repeated. “Do you think he’s related to Mitchell Clark?”

  “It seems too strange to be a coincidence,” Sue said. “But I suppose it is a common name.”

  “Are you sure that’s the final entry?” Ellen asked.

  Sue gave her the diary. Ellen fingered through the pages. Yes, there were no more.

  “I wonder why Marcia and Joseph never married,” Tanya said.

  “I guess we’ll never know,” Ellen said sadly.

  Ellen couldn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned, thinking about the gold and all the possibilities that could come with finding it. Maybe Marcia had dug it up, and it wasn’t even buried anymore. But if she had, she wouldn’t have turned over her mortgage to Dr. Piers in exchange for treatment, would she have? Had she forgotten the gold? Given it away? Squandered it?

  The best explanation was that Marcia had never found it. Maybe Ellen, Sue, and Tanya would.

  What would Ellen do with her share? She would definitely help her children. She and Paul felt fortunate that they could pay for their children’s college tuition, but, with the gold, she could buy them each a house of their own, and then maybe she could also pay for her grandchildren’s college tuition. She could set up trust funds for them. She would also want to share some with her brother Jody and his family, even though they already lived fairly well in Kentucky. And if there was anything left over, maybe she and Paul could buy a vacation home on the coast somewhere. They would both retire, and he could golf and fish, and she could read on the beach. Sue and Tanya could buy vacation homes in the same area, and they could all go together.

  As she finally began to drift off, she suddenly remembered that tomorrow was Halloween, and she still hadn’t bought any candy for the trick-or-treaters.

  Saturday morning, Ellen picked up Sue and met Tanya at the Gold House. The crew was working on the roof and soon it would be time to choose the exterior paint colors. Ed, their contractor, was already there with an assistant refinishing the antique kitchen furniture Sue had found at a shop in a nearby small town. Sue’s research had revealed that the original home didn’t have built-in cabinets, so, although they would never be able to replicate the original kitchen, they hoped to have something similar created
. Tanya had found a cupboard at a flea market, and Ellen had found a solid wooden table that made an excellent island. Ed had recommended adding overhead shelving and one section of a modern stone countertop, which he had already installed with a deep white porcelain sink.

  Ellen and her friends said hello to the workers inside and explained that they were going to get to work removing more of the wallpaper.

  “Her, too?” Ed jerked a thumb toward Sue.

  “Now don’t act so surprised,” Sue said. “I’ve been known to get my hands dirty on occasion.”

  With trowels, rags, and spray bottles of water, the three made their way to the full bathroom. Before getting started on the wallpaper in there, Ellen showed them the work she had already done in the master bedroom.

  “No map in here.” She waved her arm toward the bare walls.

  “But what’s that writing?” Tanya pointed to some numbers in one corner.

  “I assumed they were measurements,” Ellen said. “I saw writing like that on the walls in my house when I redecorated ten years ago.”

  Sue crossed the room to study the numbers. “Well, darn. This looks like algebra, not a map.”

  They got to work stripping the paper from the bathroom wall, anxiously tearing, scraping, shredding. Ellen was sure that at any moment a map would be revealed. They were soon disappointed to find nothing on the walls there, either. After Sue snapped a few photos, they moved to the second bedroom.

  “Maybe this time we’ll get lucky,” Ellen said as she sprayed the wall with water.

  “I hope so.” Sue followed her. “I haven’t worked this hard in years. I really hope it pays off.”

  “At least we’re getting the work done.” Tanya carried the step ladder. “It’s going a lot faster today.”

  “I’m not leaving until every bit of wallpaper is down,” Sue said.

  “Even the upstairs?” Ellen asked.

  “Even the upstairs,” Sue said.

  “But Marcia wrote that the map was written on the downstairs walls,” Tanya said. “It would take all night to finish the upstairs, too.”

  “And it’s Halloween,” Ellen said. “We have to feed the trick-or-treaters.”

  “Yeah, I’d hate to starve the poor children in our neighborhood,” Sue said. “So malnourished.”

  “And candy is so good for them,” Tanya added.

  “Fine,” Ellen said, scraping near the baseboards. “I’ll tell Paul he’s on his own tonight. I’ll stay as late as you want.”

  “There’s really no use staying after dark,” Sue said. “When did Ed say the electrical work would be done?”

  “He didn’t,” Ellen said. “But we can ask him.”

  “Plus, I’m not sure this is the place I want to be on Halloween,” Tanya admitted as she climbed up the step ladder.

  “We could always have another séance.” Sue sprayed the wall around the window. “Our last encounter with our ghost wasn’t very satisfying. I wouldn’t mind getting some answers.”

  “No more séances for me,” Tanya said.

  Ellen ripped a huge piece of wallpaper from the wall, where she found more numbers written in black ink. “More algebra.” They looked like the same numbers as those on the wall in the master. “Wait a minute.”

  She climbed to her feet and returned to study the other wall in the adjacent room. The numbers were identical.

  “What are you thinking?” Sue asked.

  “The numbers are an exact match,” Ellen said. “If these were dimensions for the room, the numbers would be different from those in the master, right?”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of code,” Tanya said. “We just have to figure it out.”

  Sue took out her camera and snapped a photo. “I wonder if we tried to Google the numbers, if that would turn up anything.”

  “Good idea,” Ellen said.

  Sue punched in the numbers as Ellen and Tanya held their breath.

  “Well, I’m not getting anything that makes a lick of sense,” Sue said.

  “This has got to be it,” Tanya insisted. “Don’t you think? We haven’t found anything else remotely resembling a map or directions. This must be code.”

  “Let’s keep stripping the paper away,” Sue said. “Maybe something else will turn up.”

  They hadn’t gotten very far when they heard someone in the hallway outside of the room.

  “Ed? Is that you?” Ellen called.

  The man who appeared in the doorway was not Ed, but Bud Forrester.

  “Sorry to barge in on you ladies,” Bud said with his hands in his blue jean pockets. He wore a sweater from the eighties and a sheepish look on his face.

  “Hello, Bud,” Sue said. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. I can see you’re working hard in here. Making a lot of progress.”

  “We’re getting there,” Ellen said. “So what’s up? Is there something we can do for you?”

  Bud traced the toe of his boot along a floor board. “No, ma’am. I just wanted to warn you ladies about something.”

  Ellen glanced at each of her friends. “Warn us?”

  “Every year on Halloween, this place gets trashed,” he said. “Usually a bunch of kids getting their kicks. I’ve tried to scare them off, but, short of shooting off my rifle, it never does any good.”

  “Maybe we should hire a security guard,” Tanya said. “I wouldn’t want to lose our investment.”

  “You don’t think they’d break inside, do you?” Sue asked Bud.

  “They have before. They’ve come in, egged and toilet papered the place. One year, they poured ketchup on the floor.”

  “Shoot. What should we do?” Ellen wondered out loud.

  “They might not come this year, but I just thought you should know.”

  “Thank you,” Ellen said, her opinion of him much improved.

  “I’ll do my best to keep an eye on the place,” he added.

  “That’s awfully kind of you,” Sue said.

  Bud shuffled the toe of his boot along the floor again. “As a matter of fact, there was something else I wanted to tell you…”

  “I’ve got an idea.” Sue snapped her fingers. “I think it might just do the trick.”

  “What is it?” Tanya asked.

  “Let’s decorate the front porch,” she said. “And we’ll dress up as witches. I’ll bring that big cauldron I use each year to hand out candy.”

  “You think we’ll get trick-or-treaters?” Ellen asked.

  “We do get a few, but not many,” Bud said.

  “I could fill it with dry ice instead of candy,” Sue said.

  “I have a strand of jack-o-lantern lights I could string up across the roof of the portico,” Ellen said.

  “You two are serious about spending Halloween here?” Tanya asked.

  “I just think that as long as we’re here, no one will vandalize the property,” Sue said.

  “But we can’t stand guard all night,” Tanya said.

  “Why not?” Sue said. “Ellen and I are night owls. We could stay until four or five, couldn’t we? I’ve seen her on Facebook later than that.”

  Ellen nodded. Her insomnia often kept her up at night. She knew she could stay awake, but did she want to stay here, at this house?

  “I bet Millie would enjoy coming over and joining you for a while,” Bud said. “We could bring over some hot chocolate and her homemade pumpkin pie.”

  Sue’s face lit up. Pumpkin pie was her favorite. “That sounds delicious.”

  “I don’t know,” Tanya said, looking reluctant. “What if the ghost appears to us? What will we do?”

  “Talk to her,” Sue said. “I still have a lot of questions.”

  “She’s been hanging around our place ever since you ladies started the renovations,” Bud said. “We’ve seen a lot more of her lately.”

  “Has she spoken to you?” Sue asked.

  Bud scratched his head. “As a matter of fact, I was hoping...”

  At that mom
ent, they heard a loud crash coming from the kitchen. Bud rushed toward the sound, and Ellen and her friends followed.

  As they entered the kitchen, Ed was helping his assistant from the floor. The six-foot wooden ladder lay on its side. Its fall had been the loud crash they’d heard from the other room.

  “Everything okay?” Bud asked.

  “We saw the ghost.” Ed pointed to the wall in the adjacent laundry room.

  Painted on the brand new white cabinets in brown mud were the words, “Get out!”

  Chapter Fourteen: Halloween Night

  When Ellen arrived home that afternoon, she found Paul out on the back deck, grilling.

  She opened the back door. “Hey. I thought you had a golf tournament today?”

  “I did. It ended an hour ago. I felt like grilling.”

  “By any chance, did you buy candy?”

  “I almost did, but then you always buy so much.” He closed the lid on the grill and followed her inside.

  Darn. That meant she still had to run by the store. “How did you play?”

  “Good. I won the tournament.” He gave her a grin.

  “Really? That’s great. Congratulations.” She pecked his cheek. She was unused to seeing him so happy. He hadn’t been in this good of a mood in months.

  “You got a letter in the mail today,” he said as he headed toward the kitchen to wash his hands. “I put it on the kitchen bar. Did you have some kind of lab work done?”

  “What? No.” Then she realized it must be the online lab, where she had sent the samples from the Gold House. “Oh my gosh!”

  She rushed over to the kitchen bar and opened the envelope.

  “What is it?” Paul asked.

  “I collected a few things from the attic at the Gold House and sent them to an online lab.”