The True One

Chapter 2

Alek

Two days earlier.

Shining a flashlight through the squeeze that led down into a larger cavern, I offered my free hand to Mrs. Lopez. "It's slippery. Hold on."

"Oh, this is so exciting!" She clamped onto me as her husband, in the rear, shuffled sideways behind us down the incline.

After an hour-long moderate hike, we'd entered a system of caves and reached an oblong space about the size of a semitruck. "It's exciting for me too, Mrs. Lopez. I've been hearing stories of this cave's existence for years, but it was only since we found the remnants of that old map in an estate sale that I've had the information I needed to locate it. And now, here it is. Old Man Barlow's treasure is someplace in the very room in which we stand."

"It just looks like a cave to me," Mr. Lopez said. "Where's this supposed treasure?"

"Fred, watch your tone," his wife called back to him.

"No, no," I said, as I removed my backpack, and from it, a shovel with a retractable handle. "He's right. You're right Mr. Lopez. Not a single pirate doubloon in site, is there?" I flicked the shovel, and the handle sprang up. "We're going to have to dig."

"You mean, you will have to dig. I didn't pay to do manual labor." Mr. Lopez eyed the shovel like I was about to hit him with it. He'd made it clear to me back at Aurum Venari's Treasure Adventures headquarters, with his wife out of earshot, that this whole thing had been her idea. After the brief time I'd spent with them on this excursion, that made sense. Mrs. Lopez, sweet and bubbly, was desperate to bring some excitement back into the drudgery of a life married to this clod. They'd spend whatever money they had for that excitement.

"Of course. I'll dig. The question is," I waved the shovel around, pointing at different corners of the cave. "Where?"

"Let me look at the map again," Mrs. Lopez said.

Propping the shovel against a wall, I took a worn map out of my pocket, unfolded it for her and let her study it, my flashlight focused on the area designating this room. I was proud of this map. I'd fashioned it after some eighteenth-century cartography drawings I'd found online, then weathered it by crumpling it, spilling tea over its surface, and baking it at a low temperature in the oven. If you didn't know better, like my current clients, you couldn't be blamed for thinking it was real.

"Okay, so we came in through there." She pointed towards the part of the map showing the cave's northern entrance. "And the legend states 'in a chamber buried, a golden flame, forever lit, but never claimed.'"

"You memorized it. Impressive." I didn't have to fake a smile this time. Mrs. Lopez was throwing her whole self into this. Whether she believed it was real or not, her passion was a pleasant contrast to her husband's grumpy old man bit. "We might just have to offer you a job at Aurum Venari."

Hand covering her mouth, she giggled. "I might just have to accept."

"Can we get on with it?" Mr. Lopez flashed his light back the way we'd come like he was eyeing his escape.

"Go on, Mrs. Lopez. Let's solve the mystery and find us our treasure!"

#

I hated it here. Here, in this case, was the outdoor, curbside seating of Alfie's Chow Palace, where the smell of food grease mixed with vehicle fumes. This was Norvin's favorite place to grab lunch and his most often requested meeting spot. I kind of hated him too for dragging me here, but my annoyance with him was a bit like eating an Alfie Meal, easily accepted at first, but a decision I'd always come to regret.