Free Molten Gold by Elizabeth Lapthorne Page A

someone in one
of the other offices who frequents ours, that’s certainly possible, but again,
why wouldn’t they have made an effort yesterday?”
    “You said you kept my name quiet—how did they figure out who
I was and where I lived if only a few people knew I might have been involved?”
    Again Jared had to think hard. Adelaide was asking excellent
questions and he struggled to piece it all together.
    “Well your name was mentioned in that memo,” he said after a
moment. “I can’t think of anywhere else where it’s currently written down.”
    “What exactly did this message say?” Adelaide asked.
    Jared had to think. “I can’t recite it verbatim,” he warned
her. “But I know I said that I didn’t think you had any knowledge about the
gold, an eighty-five percent certainty, so quite a strong belief on my part.
But I also said I felt confident that Mark did know about the gold, that
he possibly had a few bars and likely knew about the other members of his
team.”
    “You still think my uncle had something to do with the theft
of the gold?” Adelaide said. She seemed sad but no longer shocked or outraged.
    “I think something happened while they were on tour out
there, yes,” Jared replied as gently as he could. “That doesn’t make them bad
people—indeed Mark’s record is filled with commendations and positive reports
on his honor and bravery. It’s hard to explain, but you need to believe me—things
are different out there. Decisions are made when your priorities aren’t the
same as they are in safety here at home.”
    “I thought about that a lot last night,” Adelaide admitted.
“And I reread some of Uncle Mark’s letters to me too. He didn’t bare his soul
or anything, but with that extra perspective I could see he was a different man
in some respects. He craved news of my parents and me. Even local gossip about
people he knew, anything to keep connected with us. And he expressed many times
how grateful he was for my letters and the small trinkets I sent him. Things
like socks or candy bars—really small things that were often overlooked.”
    “It’s a different world and often we find it’s the small
things that we hold on to,” Jared agreed. “For me it was letters and photos.
We’d talk endlessly of our friends and family, experiences from our youth,
anything to pass time and keep our minds off what was going on around us. So
having those connections and even updates from back home meant so much.”
    Adelaide looked at him, her eyes wide and knowing. Realizing
just how side-tracked he’d become, Jared cleared his throat and sat up
straight.
    “Okay, well we know Steve had at least one gold bar and I
suspect Mark did too. That means the other two men in the team were probably
also exposed to whatever situation brought Steve and Mark into contact with the
truck of gold,” Jared hypothesized. When Adelaide nodded, he continued. “I
think a good starting point would be for me to check their records, maybe see
if we can speak to them and clear some of this up.”
    “Do you have current addresses for them?” Adelaide asked.
    Jared stood and went to collect his laptop from its case. “I
can log in remotely to work on the secure network. I won’t have access to
everything, nor any of the files on my computer hard drive in the office, but
we should be able to search the men’s records and see where communication and
checks are delivered. Hopefully something will pop up.”
    Sitting next to Adelaide on the couch, he booted up his
laptop and signed in to the web-based server. In a few short minutes he was
doing a search for the names of the two other men in Mark’s Delta group.
    “Here we go,” he murmured. “Mark Baker, Steven Graves,
Jerome Morrisey and Brett McLean.”
    Adelaide got up and Jared split his attention between the
screen and her. She went into the hallway and he heard her rummaging in her
handbag. Jared returned his attention to the screen and started to