Damien’s eyebrows seesawed when he saw footprints on the steps. Like footprints in fresh snow, these footprints disturbed the dust and looked like they were recently made. He had a good idea who made the prints. It had to have been Jon and Annie. Before they escaped the attic they descended the steps looking for a way out.

His curiosity piqued, and his arms rested, Damien inched his dangling feet back onto the stepladder. He scurried down the stepladder and grabbed his saw, determined to finish the demolition and ascend the servant’s staircase, the secret room his final destination.

The treasure hid close by. He could feel it in his gut. The hidden gold beckoned him to come and find it, crying out silent petitions only he could hear.

I’m going to find it.Before the cops drag me away I’m going to find the treasure, Damien swore to himself. He climbed up the stepladder and went to work cutting a big C-shape into the overhead joist blocking his entry.

He hardly noticed the sawdust showering his face and hair. Gold fever gripped him. His brother’s obsession with Jean Lafitte’s hidden stash no longer seemed so odd. He understood now. Arcadias wasn’t crazy after all.

After five minutes of cutting he stopped his saw. He reached up with his left hand and tugged on the joist. A big section of wood came free and crashed onto the floor. Damien placed the saw a safe distance away atop the cement wall. And then he grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up. Once his stomach rested atop the cement wall, he swung his legs over one at a time and dropped onto the first step.

A dust cloud billowed up. He coughed, and then started climbing. Cobwebs tickled his arms and brushed against his sweaty face, sticking to his skin. He looked at the footprints on the dusty steps as he climbed the narrow staircase. This forgotten staircase lay dormant for so long. But tonight it had visitors aplenty.

Damien reached a landing. His breath caught when he spotted a revolving door standing ajar. Beyond the door he spied a tiny room, hardly bigger than a closet. The hidden room!

He pushed the door open a little more and stepped inside the room. His headlamp revealed more footprints. He could tell they had been recently made. Jon and Annie no doubt made them. There were large footprints and smaller ones—the small footprints obviously left by Annie. Damien scanned every square inch of the room but didn’t see the treasure box described in Rose Whitcomb’s journal.

Although he thought the Rafters knew more than they let on, he didn’t think they took the treasure box out of the room. There would have been an outline of the box in the dust had it been in there.

Confident he’d missed nothing, Damien left the hidden room and continued up the staircase. He came to a door leading into the attic. Goosebumps broke out on his skin. He could sense the treasure was very close, and that it resided somewhere in the attic. The gold tugged at him.

His pulse racing, Damien opened the door and stepped inside the attic.

Chapter 41

Newton Laskey removed his vibrating cellphone from his sport jacket. He looked at the screen; a text from his wife.

He read the message. I wish you were here. But I’m not mad. I know you’re keeping the nation safe. I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.

Laskey put the phone back into his pocket along with his guilt. He’d long ago mastered the art of postponing his marital obligations. But at some point he knew a big decision would have to be made. If he continued working these long hours his marriage would erode even further. He loved his wife, but he also loved his career. Something had to give.

A pair of headlights turned into the driveway. Laskey watched the headlights grow larger.

The Bedford Police SWAT team rolled up the driveway in an armored rescue vehicle. As soon as the armor-plated vehicle pulled to a stop, doors in the back swung open and officers deployed out the back of the ARV with practiced efficiency. Standing in the background, Newton Laskey witnessed them maneuver into place. A nauseous feeling twisted his stomach.

Two marksmen climbed up into trees and aimed their scope-mounted Remington 700 sniper rifles at the plantation house. Two other Special Weapons and Tactics officers snuck onto the upper gallery and, using black paracord, hung charcoal-colored ball cameras from the gallery columns. The baseball-sized cameras dangled in front of the windows and rotated four revolutions per minute, streaming video to a Personal Display Unit—PDU, held by another SWAT officer. All these preparations took only a few minutes.

Laskey watched a tall SWAT team member talk privately with Sheriff Tubbs. He strained his ears but couldn’t hear the conversation. Laskey pretty much knew the topic being discussed though. The SWAT leader, a lieutenant, wanted to know when he could send in his men. Legality held them up for the moment. SWAT teams often find themselves in hot water for making raids without warrants.

Not long ago, Sheriff Tubbs ordered a deputy to go and retrieve the needed warrants. An off-duty judge could still issue the warrants even though it was far past courthouse operating hours. The deputy had a list of judges to contact in case of an emergency. He would keep at it until he reached one of the judges.

Laskey flinched at a hand touching his shoulder. He turned and saw his agents, Kevin Brubaker and Otis Grant smiling back at him. “What are you two so happy about?”

Brubaker continued to grin. “Your theory about the cop and the shooter knowing each other holds water, Newt.”

Laskey felt his heart quicken. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Kevin. What did you find out?”

Brubaker took a long drag on a cigarette. A smoke cloud billowed out his mouth as he began to speak. “Facebook strikes again. We found out that the Charbonneau brothers and Josiah Barrett went to the same high school together. Arcadias and Barrett graduated the same year, and both are Facebook friends.”

“Good work, guys. Maybe your discovery will delay the raid. This SWAT team is ready to roll. They’re just waiting for warrants. And they might not wait much longer,” Laskey said.

“That’s fine as long as they can distinguish the good guys from the perps,” Otis Grant said.

Laskey massaged his brow. His head throbbed from all the lights. The red and blue cruiser lights flashed onto the house, the grass and trees, and everyone’s face like a disco ball. All the flashing lights served a purpose though. They hopefully intimidated the perpetrator(s) inside and bullied them into surrender.

“And so from the info you just discovered, Kevin, we can surmise that one of the Charbonneaus answered the door when Officer Barrett showed up. They then talked for a while, Barrett turned to leave, and Arcadias or Damien then gunned him down. Why would they do that? And what do you think the conversation was about?”

“That is the million-dollar question, Newt,” Brubaker said. “And I don’t know the answer.”

Laskey turned to agent Grant. “How about you, Otis, do you have any thoughts on the matter?” Although he looked like he could play running back in the NFL, Otis Grant’s mind was even stronger than his body. Not only did he possess keen intelligence, his uncanny perceptive abilities left his peers wondering whether he was borderline psychic.

Grant shook his head. “I’m as baffled as you are, Newt. Either Jon Rafter has lost his mind, or the guests have taken over. Somebody inside felt threatened by the cop and felt the need to shoot him. Whoever they are…they’re hiding something.”

“Or maybe the cop was in on it,” Brubaker mumbled.