A loud snore caught his attention from the front of the house.
He found Kevin curled up under the covers on a cot in the middle of the biggest bedroom Silas had ever seen. Maggie’s room. Tall, skinny doors led out to a balcony. A deep seat was built into a huge window, framing in the view of river and mountains.
The view was the only thing the room had going for it. The cot was pushed up against a wall where a king-size bed should be. Next to it was a small coffeemaker on the floor. Next to that was a painting of Mr. and Mrs. Campbell propped up against the wall. There was a power strip near the bed that housed a variety of chargers and a stack of spreadsheets and blueprints.
The woman even worked in bed.
Kevin gave another enthusiastic snore. His tail wagged under the thin blanket. Silas sighed, snapped a picture, and headed back downstairs.
He found Maggie and Dean in the study at the front of the house.
“Who wants to read a book next to a fire guarded by a gargoyle?” Dean complained, eyeing the fireplace surround currently being attacked by a scrub-brush-wielding Maggie.
It was a rainy afternoon, and Maggie Nichols was hell-bent on not taking advantage of it.
“Who doesn’t?” Sy and Maggie said together. She shot him a considering look.
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m gonna need you two to spend more time apart. I can only deal with one Maggie at a time.”
“Mags, how upset are you going to be if I tell you one of my crew decided to eat pizza and take a nap in your bed?” Silas asked.
She looked up and gave him her first real grin since the fight. It made him feel like some kind of champion. “I take it you found Kevin?”
He showed her the picture.
“Now, that’s someone who knows how to use his afternoon off,” Dean said behind Maggie’s back. He pointed at her and then twirled his finger around his ear. “Don’t think you can work me around the clock when I move in.”
She glanced at Silas. “Not that you need to know, but Dean and Cody are moving in.”
“Kid was couch surfing,” Dean explained. “I’ve got a call in five. I’ll be upstairs with a vat of coffee if you need anything.”
He waited until Dean was gone before perching on the wide sill of the front window.
“No lecture on letting strange teenagers move in?” Maggie asked.
He held up his hands. “None from me. I asked around. Consensus is he’s a good kid from a crap family. Also his grades suck.”
“I don’t know how much help I’ll be with homework,” she mused.
“Was this Campbell’s study?” he asked, examining the coffered ceiling above.
“I think so,” she said as she vigorously scrubbed at the blackened marble surround. “All of his books were on the shelves in here. I boxed most of them up so they wouldn’t get damaged, but I read the first one. It was good.”
“I liked it,” he said. “It had a little bit of everything. Action. Adventure. Romance. Treasure.”
She paused her scrubbing. “You read it?”
“I read all of them. I’m from Kinship. A. Campbell is practically required reading here.”
She shifted on her knees to get a better angle.
“Watch your head,” he warned.
She looked up at the mantel jutting out above her and then froze.
“What? Spider? I can be your hero and trap the long-legged little bastard,” Silas offered, standing up.
But she was reaching into the bucket and pulling out a wet cloth. “Not a spider. Not sure what it is.” She reached up under the mantel and gently began to scrub.
He got down next to her. There was a perfect circle embedded in the bottom of the mantel.
“It looks like one of the souvenir coins they sell downtown,” she noted as the gold finish began to glint through the baked-on soot.
He took the rag from her and worked at the center. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured.
“Why would Campbell or someone hide a fake gold coin in his study?” Maggie wondered aloud.
“Darlin’， there’s nothing fake about this gold.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, scooting closer to him.
“Just about certain. This is the Wild West, remember? We’re born knowing real gold from fake.”
“Let me get my camera,” she announced. She sounded excited, like a kid just before going downstairs on Christmas morning.
He kept at it until he’d managed to clean off most of the muck and found himself staring at an honest-to-goodness gold coin.