Page 87 of The Stone Family Warrior

Chapter 30

If someone had told Liberty six days ago that she would be flying on a helicopter to Portsmouth Island in search of a treasure with Trent Stone and his whole family, she would have laughed her head off. Yet here she was, holding Trent’s hand and laughing as the helicopter descended onto the island.

The group disembarked the helicopters, and Brooks made a gesture for them to circle up. “There is no one living on the island, and as you know, it has been declared a national historic site. There were no boats coming out here, so I had to get special permission to land. Thus, we have to be fast.” Brooks nodded to Trent. “You have been the one leading out on this, so why don’t you lead the way?”

Trent straightened and walked quickly toward some structures. “Let’s go.”

Liberty found herself jogging to keep up with the group. She marveled that there were Navy SEALs, FBI agents, and a Night Stalker helicopter pilot among them. And the rest were no slouches either. Good thing she was a runner.

The boys had packs that were equipped with little shovels and who knew what else. They hiked past a little church and some houses.

“Why is this island abandoned now?” she asked.

Trent answered her. “In 1976, the last inhabitant who owned property here passed away. There had been a succession of hurricanes, and the descendants of those families did not want to live here.” He slapped a bug on his arm. “The mosquitoes are terrible, there’s no fresh water, and all these structures are maintained by the government. My mother used to insist we come here at least once a summer and go to the land where her ancestors settled.” Trent motioned the group to the east. “It’s been a couple years, I think, since any of us have been out here, but we all know where the Anderson house used to be. Unfortunately, it’s just a pile of rubble now.”

Liberty smacked a mosquito that landed on her neck. She was taken aback at the pile of rubble. There were no official streets, and the only sign that there had been a structure was the bricks that were half mixed with cement.

Trent took the lead and stopped in the middle of the rubble. “I don’t know where Mom and Dad would have put whatever they put here, so I guess we just have to start digging.” He took off his pack and handed Liberty a shovel. “Here you go.” He pulled out a couple more and handed them out to others who hadn’t brought packs.

Liberty hadn’t expected to be digging—for some reason, she’d thought the military guys would do all the hard work—but she didn’t shy away from it.

Trey pointed to half the group. “You guys take that side. The rest of us will take this side.”

Brooks stood, staring at his mother’s journal. “It seems like Mom would have given us more to work with. It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to just dig all of this.”

Marshall shoved past him and grunted. “You afraid of hard work, bro?” He and Serenity began digging where Trey had told them to.

Ava and Kensi, who were holding Trey Junior and Zoey, put their babies down and began removing rocks. The kids seemed to enjoy it.

Liberty focused on helping Trent remove rocks from the area they had been assigned to by Marshall. She was slightly amused that Brooks had told Trent to take over, and then Trey had taken over, and now Brooks was just doing whatever he was doing. As her grandmother would have said, there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

After digging for a long time, Brooks called out, “Wait, I think there is a method to this madness. Trent, come here.”

Trent wandered over. When he saw what Brooks was talking about, he whooped. “I think you’re right. Let’s try it.”

Marshall quit digging and forced out a loud sigh. “Would you two smarty-pants let the rest of us in on what’s so funny?”

Brooks made a circling motion with his arm. “If my calculations are right, this area has similar dimensions to the Superman insignia. So I think we should dig right here.” He pointed to the center of it.

Kensi shook her head. “It’s like Mom and Dad are talking to us from the grave.”

Liberty was mystified at how amazing this grand adventure was.

Trent moved to Liberty’s side and pulled her to him, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Today’s the day, baby. No more mumbling numbers. No more being up for hours. We are finding it today.”

Two hours later, only the military guys were still digging. Liberty took a break on the edge next to Ava, Kensi, Kat, Serenity, Lucy, Cheryse, and Dawn. They were all sipping bottles of water and looked as tired as she felt. It wasn’t easy to move all this debris. It wasn’t like it was just sand. There was actual rubble, bricks, and cement. But the boys had made quite a dent in all of it. There was a nice circular area about four feet deep.

“Are you sure we should keep digging?” Marshall asked no one in particular.

“Shut up.” Hunter kept at it.

“Quit crying,” Trent said in a snarky tone.

Marshall lifted his shovel and used it to poke both of them in the back. “I’ve been doing double time compared to you two clowns.”

Trey turned on all of them. “Knock it off, before I knock your heads together.”

The women laughed. It wasn’t a loud laugh, but sort of a stifled laugh, especially after Brooks looked over at them with a sour expression and said, “I don’t see you ladies still out here.”

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