Chapter 4 

They escaped through an old ventilation passage behind the stone room.

By the time they emerged outside, the stranger was gone.

A black SUV was parked across the road.

Its engine started.

Then disappeared into the darkness.

Clara watched the road.

“Who was that?”

Daniel shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think he knew about the room?”

“He knew we were here.”

They returned to the diner after midnight.

Neither slept.

They studied the photograph.

Four men.

But only three faces.

Thomas.

Samuel.

And the unknown young man.

The fourth had been deliberately erased.

Daniel pointed to the man’s clothes.

“He’s wearing a watch.”

Clara leaned closer.

“So?”

Daniel opened an old photograph of his father.

His father was wearing the same watch.

Clara looked at him.

“Maybe it’s your father.”

“No.”

Daniel shook his head.

“My father is already standing there.”

They searched the storage room again.

Under an old shelf, Clara found a metal plate.

It had been nailed into the floor.

There was an engraving:

17 — 4 — 9 — 21

Daniel inserted his compass into the indentation.

A hidden drawer opened.

Inside was a small piece of paper.

Four words:

THE GOLD ISN’T THERE.

Daniel stared.

“Then what are we looking for?”

Clara looked at the map.

“I don’t know.”

They followed the trail the next morning.

Raven’s Mouth was six miles into the mountains.

The deeper they went, the more signs they found.

Old carvings.

Broken markers.

Pieces of rope.

Someone had been through the forest recently.

Daniel found a cigarette still damp from rain.

“Someone’s following us.”

Clara looked around.

“Maybe the man from the diner.”

Daniel shook his head.

“Maybe.”

But another possibility had begun to form.

What if the stranger wasn’t looking for the treasure?

What if he was looking for them?