Hunting Eve

“Oh, I wouldn’t use the credit card I have for this.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill.

Because it was Jane MacGuire’s credit card, Kendra thought. She remembered Margaret had told her she wouldn’t use it for anything that wasn’t important.

He turned to Kendra. “What about you, young lady? You look like you could use a Drakebury Springs sun visor.”

“Actually, we’ve just come here for information.”

He glanced at Margaret and made a face. “And to steal from a poor tradesman who’s only trying to earn a living.”

“And had a big overstock,” Margaret murmured.

He chuckled again.

It was clear Johnson liked Margaret and would have continued to banter with her. Kendra tried to get them back on track. “Information.”

Johnson nodded. “You’ve come to the right person. My daughter wrote the book on this town. Literally.” He motioned toward a paperback book displayed on the countertop. It was a thin book, obviously self-published, with the title DRAKEBURY SPRINGS: HISTORY AND LEGEND. The author’s name was Susan Johnson, with a young woman’s picture rather immodestly placed on the front cover. “She was always crazy about gold mines and ghost towns from the time she was a kid. Always writing and drawing pictures. She’s a great artist, but when she was in college, she wrote this book.” He held it up and smiled proudly. “You can send it to her and have her sign it for you if you’d like.”

“How much?”

“One for twenty, two for thirty.”

Margaret opened her mouth to protest, and Johnson glared at her.

She changed her mind and gave him a su

“I was about to do that. I’ll take one.” Kendra paid him and picked up the book. “So are any of these buildings original?”

“Afraid not. The town is only a mock-up of a gold-rush town that went bust up in the mountains. Some of the stockholders of our company had ancestors who had businesses in that town and decided to capitalize on the Old West tourist craze. They built it as close to authentic to the family records as they could make it. But if you look at the photos in the book, you’ll see it’s a pretty good re-creation.”

She glanced casually at the photos, then stopped. “What’s this photo?”

“Oh, that’s the original town. It’s only a ghost town now. Pretty dismal, isn’t it? And sad. It was in a valley surrounded by mountains that were supposed to be full of gold. The town was thriving, and everyone thought it would go on forever. But that area was mined out pretty quickly, so the town was abandoned. Too bad it all went bust because those mountain mines were in a beautiful spot. My daughter and some of her artist friends painted a mural showing the view from up there. You can see it on the side of this building, facing the picnic tables.”

“Oh, we’ll have to take a look at it on the way out. Would you know anything about old coin factories around here?”

“Well, there was a coinery somewhere up in the mountains near the original town, but by the time the miners moved on, they were taking their gold to Jeffreysboro.”

“Jeffreysboro. Is the coin factory still there?”

He thought for a moment. “No, it was dismantled after the Civil War.”

“Then where might we go to find an original coin press?”

“Well, I know there’s one on display at the Denver Mint, but aside from that, I really can’t say. Kind of out of my area of expertise, you know?”

Kendra nodded. “Sure. Have a good day.”

“You come back now.” He was looking at Margaret. “I can always use a little challenge to spark my day.”

She gri

“Not much help there,” Kendra said. “Waste of time. We’d better either look up some antique dealers who specialize in coin presses or move on to the next town.”

“Yeah, kind of interesting though.” Margaret looked down at her mug. “And not quite a waste, I got a nice mug out of it. Pretty scenery with the trees and those—” She broke off, her eyes widening. “Holy smoke.”

Kendra’s gaze flew to her face. “What?”

“My very pretty mug.” She was staring at the mug with fascination. “It’s only a little slice of a picture … but what does this look like to you?”

“I could tell you if you’d give it to me.”

“Sorry. It just shocked me.” She handed Kendra the mug. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Kendra was staring at the picture on the mug—mountains, trees … “Oh, my God.”

“I’m not wrong?”

Kendra tried to tamp down the excitement and be objective about it. She didn’t want to be objective. “Similar. But the picture on the mug is so small it’s hard to…” Kendra was pulling her phone from her pocket. The next moment, she was accessing the sketch Jane had sent her. “It’s damn close.”

“I think we’re there,” Margaret said softly. “Bless Bill Johnson and his souvenir mugs.” She took back the mug and compared it to Jane’s sketch. “You’re right, it’s very small. We need bigger.” She smiled. “And I’d bet we’ve got bigger. This mug must have been taken from some artist’s rendering. What did Johnson say about that mural?” She was already half ru

Kendra had caught up with her. “Incredible. It’s the same, or so close it doesn’t matter. The stream, the boulders, the mountainside, the cliff.” She held up the phone to compare it to Jane’s drawing. “Unreal.”

“The angle is even the same.” Margaret shook her head. “Are we sure Jane’s never been there? Are we positive she didn’t just subconsciously remember this?”

“I don’t think so.” Kendra took several photos of the mural, then punched in Jane’s phone number and turned on the speaker. “How the hell do I know? But there’s a way we can try to find out.”

“Kendra. Anything happening?” Jane said when she answered. “Our interview with the forestry guru was a bust. We’ve left Denver, and we’re heading your way. If I knew exactly where that was. You said you’d be moving around.”

“And we have,” Kendra said. “And right now we’re in a tourist town called Drakebury Springs. We found something interesting.” Hell, mind-blowing, but she was trying to keep her excitement on simmer. “I’m going to send you a photo. Okay?”

“Of course, but what—” Jane inhaled sharply. “Dear God, Kendra.” She was silent a moment, and her voice was shaky when she spoke again. “There have been times in the last couple days when I thought trying to find this place was crazy. Maybe it is crazy, but it exists. It exists. It’s everything that I—every detail.” She cleared her throat. “It’s obviously a painting. Can you track down the artist? Find out the exact location?”

“Are you sure this isn’t a latent memory? That you haven’t been there before? It’s so close, Jane.”

“If it’s in Colorado, I’ve never been in the state before I landed in Denver. I know that I said I thought I might be a little crazy concerning my sketch, but I have to run with it. Now find me that artist.”

“No problem. The artists painted this mural on the side of a souvenir shop, and I’ll get in touch with them. I’ve already found the approximate location.” She briefly filled Jane in on the history Bill Johnson had given them. “So that landscape is somewhere in the mountains in the vicinity of that ghost town. And there was a coin factory in that general area, too. Not in the town itself but somewhere up in the mountains close to the mines. Johnson was very vague about the exact location.”

“We’ll find out,” Jane said. “You and Margaret have got us this far, we’ll work on it from here. I’ll call Venable and we’ll—” She stopped, then said, “We have a chance. We can find her. I want to zoom up to those mountains and—” She drew a shaky breath. “But I know we can’t do that. That’s a good way to get Eve killed. We have to be careful. Doane can’t know that we may be close to finding them.”