Page 96 of Tempting Fate
Gabe went back to the paperwork. “No gold, Ray. Just stuff you don’t want to lose in a fire.”
“But the combination on the map matched. This has to be it.” Raylene moved deeper into the closet to check the safe for any hidden compartments.
“I think your dad snowed everyone on this,” Rhys said, ready to be done with the search.
“Where’s the other safe?” Raylene asked Cecilia. It was probably futile—the combination matched this safe—but she wanted to explore every option before throwing in the towel.
“It’s downstairs. Follow me,mija.”
The entire entourage trailed Cecilia to the bottom floor. Like the rest of the house, there’d been a great deal of changes. Ray’s man cave had been stripped of his hunting trophies, and the dark paneled wood had been painted a dove gray. The bar had been cleared of Ray’s clutter, but remained mostly the same.
Cecilia lifted the bar gate, ducked under, and headed straight to the back bar. She ran her hand over the mirrored wall, found the spot she was looking for, and gave it a strong tap with her fist. And just like that, a hidden door popped open and a safe, similar to the one upstairs, appeared.
“I had no idea that was there.” Flynn moved in to get a closer look. “Should we try the same combination?”
Raylene thought it was unlikely that her father would use the same number code twice. He’d been more careful about security matters than that. The fact that he had three freaking safes in his house, one so deeply concealed that even Flynn, a former FBI agent, hadn’t found it, showed just how anal Ray had been.
“I say we give it a try,” Gabe said. “If it doesn’t work we’ll figure out something else.”
Raylene nodded and Gabe turned the dial. This time, she didn’t hear the click at the end of the sequence and her heart dropped in disappointment.
Gabe studied the numbers on the map. “Raylene, what’s your birthdate?”
She rattled off the month, day, and year and heard Gabe chuckle. “What?”
“This is your birthday backwards.” He turned the map so she could see it. “He started with the year you were born, the day, then the month. Not particularly clever.”
Yet she wouldn’t have thought of it on her own. “Should we try it?” At this point, she was starting to think the whole thing was Ray’s idea of a joke. Wasn’t it just like him to yank everyone’s chain? He was probably laughing in his grave.
“Do you want to do it, or do you want me to try?”
“You,” Raylene said.
He turned the dial first to the right, then to the left, then back to the right.Snick. The small crowd burst into applause, seemingly more excited that Gabe had untangled Ray’s lame number code than the prospect of finding gold. Apparently, Raylene was the only dreamer in the bunch. Or maybe just the most desperate for cash.
Gabe opened the door and reached his hand in. “There’s something here.”
Raylene craned her neck to see over Gabe’s shoulder. He pulled out a black velvet pouch and there was a collective gasp.
“What is it?” she asked, afraid to look.
“You want to open the bag?” Gabe started to hand it to her, but she pushed it away.
“You do it.”
Harlee pointed her camera lens past Raylene’s face and Rhys reeled her in. “Hang on there, Lois Lane. Let’s see what we’ve got first.”
Gabe fumbled with the drawstring on the bag, which had been tied in so many knots Raylene wondered why he didn’t just cut it with his pocketknife instead of making a big production out of untangling the strings. This was it. If it wasn’t Levi’s Gold, the gold didn’t exist. She and Gabe had dug up every inch of soil depicted on the useless map. And Tiny and company had come right behind them, searching for the map. If the total of them hadn’t found anything, there was nothing to be found.
“Hurry,” she urged Gabe. Just rip the damn Band-Aid off.
Gabe finally got the bag untied. “Ready for the moment of truth?” The crowd moved closer.
“Open it,mijo.”
Gabe reached his hand into the pouch and Raylene closed her eyes.
“Feels like gold!”
