Free Alvarado Gold by Victoria Pitts-Caine

business, I can keep my mind on family business. Sam had read exactly where the gold was buried. We just needed to find out where Mr. Hansen lived in 1870.

Chapter Ten
    Jack called us into the green room for his ten o’clock meeting. I never could figure out why he called it that since the room was beige. He probably picked it up on some late-night TV show where the next participant was left to play out their nerves and anticipation. Some of the things he’d think up when he held his meetings always made me nervous, so I guess the name was appropriate. The two conference rooms, the boardroom and Reginald Geller’s office all had one glass wall, which faced onto an atrium. I wondered if old man Geller, the company president, designed the complex so he could watch us during our meetings. He usually wasn’t at the office; he spent most of his time traveling to Egypt or Israel to procure work for the company. He also sat on the board for The Museum of the City of San Francisco and Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum of San Jose, which had its advantages.
    I slid into one of the soft cushioned chairs that made the most intolerable meeting bearable. I was careful to position myself across from the glass wall so I could look out on the last of the spring flowers the gardener had placed around the waterfall. He must have worked after hours since no one ever saw him. Geller wanted it that way.
    In fact, no one ever saw Geller, either. I think I’d only seen him five times in the five years I’d worked there. Jack was my real boss.
    Docurestore had taken such a large slice from my life. I was too dedicated and I knew it. I came in early and worked late into the night to have other people receive the glory and the kudos. There was no reward for me here. I’d returned out of respect for Jack. And, yes, I had to admit, the love of the work itself. I remained lost in a print of Winslow Homer’s Maine seascape when he walked in the green room.
    “Ms. Brown. I’d like you to meet Sherry Walker and Mitch McCaffery.” Jack motioned to two kids who looked like they’d just graduated from San Jose State. Probably had, in fact, since graduation had been last Saturday and tended to roll out new flesh. This is great . Two greenhorns on a project thousands of years old. They most likely didn’t even know what papyrus was.
    “Hello. Please, call me Addie. Jack is way too formal. He makes me feel like I’m old enough to be your mother.” Wouldn’t take much and I would be.
    “How long have you been with Docurestore, Addie?” Sherry chirped. “Jack has told us so much about you and how great you are in restoration.”
    “I’ve worked here a number of years but now I’m only on temporary assignment for the summer on this project.” Sherry, who was bright and cheerful, slowly mouthed words into syrupy sentences that made me ill. Was I like that when I was her age? I certainly hoped not. McCaffery brought to life the word nerd. All his attire missed was white socks and horned rimmed glasses with tape on the bridge piece. He already had the pocket protector jammed full of pens and highlighters. How can I ever thank Jack enough for landing me with these two?
    Since I’d heard Jack’s start-up speech on these projects hundreds of times, I pulled back from the conversation. Gary seemed to be hanging around in the corners of my mind more than I wanted. The old letter in Spanish had me thinking, too. Was it the clue we needed to find the gold? Or was this just another hint from Grandpa? I really wasn’t listening to Jack as he told us about the Cairo project until I heard a sentence that jolted me out of my thoughts of Gary and the letter.
    “Addie, you’ll be the lead on this. Every decision is in your hands as is the responsibility there are no mistakes.”
    “Thanks, Jack, I’ll do my best.” I heard myself say. While I thought, Thanks, Jack, for a near impossible task with two green kids and an August deadline!
    At three-thirty I