Page 73 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

Abby closed her jaw, blindly grabbed one of the oil lamps off the ground, and started walking. Virgil held onto her upper arm so tight her fingers were beginning to tingle.

Now what the hell was she going to do? She carried a lamp with one hand and the other was in Virgil’s control. He held her and a knife. He didn’t have any other light source that she could see. Which meant if they split up, one of them was going to be left in the dark.

No,wait. She still had her cellphone in her pocket! If she could get away from him, she could make a run for the man-made tunnel.

More rocks fell somewhere farther ahead in the cave.

If she didn’t get her brains knocked out by falling debris, that is.

They walked in silence for several minutes until she spied the rock fall that had the bodies inside it.

“What’s this?” Virgil asked, pointing his knife at the pickaxe and other mining paraphernalia strewn across the stone floor. When she didn’t answer right away, he shook her again. “Answer me.”

“A cave-in, I think. It killed at least three people.” She took another step toward it and pointed at the body she’d found.

Virgil sneered at the mummified body. “I don’t give a shit about them, I want the gold.”

She lifted the lamp so the light reflected off the thick vein of yellow metal encased in the stone wall above her head.

Virgil sucked in a breath. “Finally.” He let go of her arm so he could move closer and stroke the gold with long boney fingers. In the dim, yellow light of the oil lamp they looked desiccated and mummified, as if he were one of the dead miners come back to life.

The day she’d received her medical degree, she’d vowed to do no harm, vowed to save every person within her power to save. But not everyone could be saved.

She’d done everything she could, but Virgil’s choices had put him beyond her, beyond rational thought, beyond hope.

She put the two gold nuggets into her pocket rather than drop them to the ground and draw Virgil’s attention.

He was stroking the vein of gold as if it were a prized pet.

Abby took a step careful backward, and another.

Virgil whipped around and with the speed of a rattler, grabbed her arm again, hard enough to make her cry out.

“Where are you goin’?” he asked, the shadows of the cave turning his face into a demonic mask. He would kill her, the rot that had started in his heart years ago was now visible to her on the outside of his skin.

To get away alive she was going to have to give him something he valued more than his plans for her.

“There’s more,” she said in a whisper.

He froze. “What?”

“More,” she said, staring into the black depths of his gaze.

“Show me, and no funny stuff or I’ll break your scrawny neck right now.”

There it was, the threat that had been on his face since she’d confronted him outside her house.

She thrust her chin farther down the wall and he stepped aside so she could walk toward the massive sheet of gold that lay just around the slight outcropping of rock. On her way around, she set the lamp on the floor, so its light lit both the slimmer vein and the gold sheet.

Virgil glanced at the wall and his jaw dropped.

“Do you think it’s the largest piece of gold ever found?” She asked, softly, so very softly.

“Yes,” Virgil said, awe smoothing out his tone. “Yes.” He sniffed.

Good God, was he crying?

“Abby!” Her name echoed around the cave, with a desperate edge that told her Smitty had thrown caution into the dark.

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