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“If your brother knows about Rocky, it could mean here at the reservation, since Rocky seems to be the start of all of this, but Danny would know that, too.”
Jim snapped his fingers. “Dax would leave me a clue that only the two of us would understand.”
“Which brings us back to your father’s cabin. That’s where someone tried to kidnap you.”
“Maybe Dax didn’t mean the beginning of the Timberline Trio case or the Lords involvement in it. Dax had no way of knowing how much Scarlett and I had figured out.”
Scarlett rubbed a circle on Jim’s back. “The beginning of something between the two of you.”
“We were never close, Dax and I. There was a big age gap between us, and he started following in Dad’s footsteps pretty early on.”
“So, it wouldn’t be the beginning of the Lords of Chaos, since that wouldn’t mean much to you.”
Granny tapped her needles together. “The beginning—every birth is a beginning.”
“We were even born in different hospitals.”
“Even before that, then. The beginning for the two of you. The beginning of the Kennedy family. Something just the brothers would know.”
Jim’s body stiffened.
“You know? You remember something?”
“Dax was older than I was when our mom left. He always had a soft spot for her, never blamed her for leaving. He used to tell me that Mom said the only happy memory she had of our father was the day he proposed.”
“The beginning.” Scarlett squeezed his hand. “Was there someplace special he proposed?”
“Under the Kennedy Christmas tree.”
“In the cabin?” Scarlett tilted her head.
“In the forest, by the old mine, where Carson stashed the kids he kidnapped a few months ago. My parents used to hang out at that mine—smoke cigarettes, do whatever teenagers do. There’s a pine tree there and that’s where my father proposed to her. For some reason, Dax loved that story, probably because it was the only softness in his life and reminded him of Mom.”
“Do you think he’d bury the drugs there?”
“It’s a place only he and I would know about.”
“Then let’s go. If we have some concrete proof in the form of drugs, the FBI is going to have to take a closer look.”
“Let’s go back to my place to get some shovels and tools. I’m going to call Duke Harper on the way.”
Scarlett broke away from Jim and kissed Granny on the cheek. “Thanks for the information, Granny. Don’t worry. We’ll be okay.”
Jim squeezed Granny’s hands. “I’ll take care of her, Evelyn.”
When they got outside, Jim held out his hand. “Do you want me to drive?”
“I got this. I’m the one with the lead foot, remember?” She pulled away from Granny’s house and made the right turn out of the reservation just as the skies opened and rain hit the windshield faster than the wipers could keep up.
The car crested the hill and started its descent, and Scarlett hunched forward in her seat to peer through the water sloshing across her windshield. The car picked up speed.
“I wasn’t joking about the lead foot, Scarlett. Slow down.”
“I—I can’t.” Scarlett pumped the brakes again and heard the sickening sound of metal on metal as the car lurched to the right.
Her entire family had died in a car crash on this road, and it looked like she was about to meet the same fate.
Chapter Sixteen
Jim gripped the edge of his seat as the car skimmed the shoulder of the road, wet leaves and branches slapping his window. The greenery flew past him in a blur, and his heart thundered in his chest.
Scarlett had both hands on the steering wheel in a life-and-death struggle with the car, her knuckles white.
He shouted, “The parking brake. Put on the parking brake.”
Scarlett stomped her left foot on the parking brake and the car shuddered and weaved. The back wheels fishtailed on the slick surface of the road and they started traveling sideways.
The car bucked and slowed down, but the tires were moving independently of anything Scarlett was doing with the steering wheel. The forest on the right side of the road was rushing at them as the car shook and coughed. A large tree trunk loomed out his window, and Jim yelled, “Step on the gas.”
