Trouble and Treasure: The Complete Series

By Odette C. Bell

The complete Trouble and Treasure series. Follow Sebastien and Amanda on their wisecracking, witty adventure for treasure in this six-book box set.

Amanda's an ordinary girl, but when she wakes one night to find everything from common criminals to highly-trained mercenaries traipsing around her house looking for the 'goods', her life takes a turn towards the adventurous and the far-too-dangerous.

Sebastian is a lawyer who just happens to have an unusual hobby: he's an esteemed and accomplished treasure hunter. But when he meets Amanda, that all changes. On the run for their lives with every criminal unit he has ever heard of on their tails, Sebastian must somehow keep Amanda safe while finding the Stargazer Globes, the greatest treasure map in the world. The only problem is Amanda screams too much. But then again, Sebastian has a problem too: he lies.

….

Trouble and Treasure follows a wisecracking lawyer and the woman he shouldn't fall for fighting for treasure. If you love your action adventures with wit, action, and a splash of romance, grab Trouble and Treasure: The Complete Series today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell boxset.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jun 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386958505

Book preview

Trouble and Treasure: The Complete Series

Odette C. Bell

Odette C Bell

www.odettecbell.com

Copyright

All characters in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Trouble and Treasure: The Complete Series

Copyright © 2020 Odette C Bell

Cover art stock photos licensed from Depositphotos.

Odette C Bell

www.odettecbell.com

Trouble and Treasure: The Complete Series Blurb

The complete six book Trouble and Treasure series in one volume.

Amanda's an ordinary girl, but when she wakes one night to find everything from common criminals to highly-trained mercenaries traipsing around her house looking for the 'goods', her life takes a turn towards the adventurous and the far-too-dangerous.

Sebastian is a lawyer who just happens to have an unusual hobby: he's an esteemed and accomplished treasure hunter. But when he meets Amanda, that all changes. On the run for their lives with every criminal unit he has ever heard of on their tails, Sebastian must somehow keep Amanda safe while finding the Stargazer Globes, the greatest treasure map in the world. The only problem is Amanda screams too much. But then again, Sebastian has a problem too: he lies.

Trouble and Treasure: The Complete Series

Title Page

Copyright

Blurb

Table of Contents

Trouble and Treasure

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

The Cross of Constantine

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

The Captain's Chest

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

The Ship Breaker

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

The Finder's Curse

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

World's End

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Sample

Newsletter

About The Author

Reading Order

Guide

Front Matter

Start of Content

Back Matter

Trouble and Treasure

Chapter 1

There was a noise coming from downstairs. From somewhere around the vicinity of the front door, I heard a scratching.

It was subtle at first – the light touch of an object brushing against the grain of the wood.

I rolled over, sending a dusty, worn velvet pillow tumbling off the bed and onto the equally worn carpet below.

I closed my eyes, intent on going back to sleep. The noise, however, didn’t stop, and this damn house was so large that even the tiniest sound was magnified like a trumpet as it echoed through these empty, dusty halls.

It was probably some unusually persistent woodland creature, I decided and rolled over again.

A badger maybe, a squirrel? Some lonely puppy dog that’d bolted from one of the nearby country estates only to find life in the rolling woods not nearly as fine as life in the manor?

Oh, fine then, I grumbled, pushing the covers off with a great harrumph. If whatever was scratching at my door was so damn intent on ruining the woodwork, I’d give it a piece of my mind.

I thundered down the stairs, tying the cords of my thick dressing gown around my middle.

I hear you. I hear you, I mumbled under my breath. Keep your damn tail on.

I reached for the handle.

I opened the door.

I didn’t see the enterprising woodland creature I expected.

I froze. My stomach sucked in with a tension-filled, electric charge as my eyes widened at the sight before me.

A gun.

There was a man with a gun on my doorstep, and the gun was pointed right at me.

The sudden shock spread across my body, sinking hard into my legs and hands. Every part of me screamed out to run, but the surprise nailed me to the spot.

The man was large and wearing a dark black leather jacket, leather gloves, and a black woolen balaclava.

Get in, he rumbled, sounding like a rasp grating over wood. Scream or try to run, and you’re fucking dead.

I shook, the ties of my bathrobe banging into my knees.

I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. All I could feel was nervous tension pressing against my body like a balloon ready to pop.

Get in, he repeated, his tone so deadly, it sounded like the gun was for show. From his sheer size and intense menace, this guy looked like more of a threat than anything little me, Amanda Stanton, in her pilling old bathrobe could muster.

D… d… don’t kill me, I whimpered.

The guy replied by using his free hand to shove me back from the door. He pulled the door closed behind him with a poignant, careful silence.

My breath filled my awareness as I battled for air. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

He looked around the place, then fixed his gaze on me. Take me to the goods.

I stared at him in horror.

Goods? Did he think I was a drug dealer or some bucolic weapons shop?

I… I don’t know—

The fucking antiques, lady – where are they? He shoved me, pushing me further down the hallway.

He apparently didn’t think the antiques, or ‘goods,’ could be in the hallway – perhaps where he came from all ‘goods’ were kept in basements or attics or in the back of your sedan right next to the bodies….

That thought chilled me. It seemed my body had turned to the fragile snow that settled above drifts – the kind that could be blown away only to melt in the warmth of a breath.

The antiques, I tried to repeat to myself. He’s after the antiques…. Which ones? I couldn’t stop, turn, and politely enquire whether he was after some ‘30s-era tins or a complete collection of hippie magazines from the ‘60s, could I? This old house was chock full of antiques.

This guy could be after anything, and he wasn’t about to play nice to get it.

I sucked in a breath, trying hard to stop myself from hyperventilating. I had to calm down. There was a man in my house with a gun, and he was after antiques. Give him the correct antiques, and he’d go away, right? In which case, he could have everything, because we were having a special sale for violent armed burglars today. Take it all, I pushed the words out, proud I’d managed it in one go.

Slowly, painfully, I was pulling myself together. My legs were wobbling less as he pushed me down the hallway, and the ringing heartbeat in my ears pulsed into a steady white noise.

He shoved me in the back with his gun. No games.

Well, at least that ruled out the collector’s edition board games I’d unearthed the other day, a trite (but situation-inappropriate) part of my mind concluded.

As the man pushed me toward the dark library at the end of the hall, another wave of fear broke against me, and my feet tingled with the undeniable urge to run.

My eyes darted to the side as we passed the ornate dresser I’d polished only that morning – it still had the spanner I’d picked up out of the garden shed sitting there. It was well within reach.

I briefly flirted with the idea of grabbing it up and clocking the guy with it – but rationality caught up with me and pointed out that would be a great way of getting shot or punched so hard, my teeth ended up in China.

I heard something off to my left: a soft thud and a short scrabble. Perhaps it was those woodland creatures I’d dreamed up earlier deciding to try their own luck at breaking and entering.

Join the party.

The scrabbling turned into a tinkling as a window broke in the library before us.

The burglar froze – he obviously didn’t think it was a vandalizing bunny rabbit in there.

Shit, he said, as quiet as a single drop of water on glass. He secured a hand around the top of my chest and thrust me to the side, out of the view of the open library door.

The sudden force of his bulky arm squeezing against my throat sent such a race of adrenaline barreling through me that I jolted hard.

The abstract concept of the gun at my back had turned into the undeniable reality of an arm closed tightly around my neck.

Desperation kicked through my immobility. I screamed. I drove my foot into the guy’s knee and twisted to the side.

That’s when three guys with guns burst out from the dark library. These guys weren’t of the leather-jacket, home-burglar variety either. They looked like those SWAT teams I’d seen on TV: machine guns, goggles, helmets, a variety of straps and pockets, and stances that had the undeniable menace of training.

I noticed the men, noticed their guns, noticed that they’d sprung from my library… and I cracked. It tipped me over the edge.

I grabbed the spanner – the one on the dresser, the one still within reach – and I swung it behind me.

It connected with the guy’s nose in a haphazard fashion, but there was a definite and welcome cracking sound.

He dropped his gun, his arm slackening around my throat. I ducked down, dropping to my hands and scrabbling to the side like some crazed crab in a scruffy dressing gown.

About a second later, there was a thump as the SWAT guys tasered the burglar with all the speed and efficiency of, well, SWAT guys.

The burglar’s body jolted from the sudden violent rush of electricity, and he fell to the floor with a thud that shook the lightshades above.

He was down. His gun was gone. He was unconscious.

I sat on the ground, back pressed against the wall several meters from the prone man, staring at the scene. The shock and surprise of the situation – and the harrowing, unpredictable, relentless pace with which it had unfolded – had reduced me to a simple pair of eyes backed up by spluttering, panting breath.

But it was okay now – it was over. The cavalry had come.

I stared up at the three men in my hallway. One leaned down and grabbed the blaggard’s gun, another peeling off to check the burglar, and the other… he stood there and stared down at me.

This was the point – TV had taught me – where gallant police officers should be saying, It’s alright ma’am – everything is okay.

Silence.

The guy took several steps toward me, leaned down onto his knees, and rubbed the back of his hand across his chin.

The hair on my arms stood on end, the skin prickling.

Something wasn’t right.

Where are the artifacts? the guy asked, his voice toneless.

Oh – my – god.

I didn’t answer – I stared at the guy in shock.

He looked back. Take us to the artifact. His voice didn’t change pitch – there was no emotion there, only mechanical ease.

He didn’t stand up. He waited.

This was happening again?

I blinked, shook my head, and felt the pressure of new tears welling in my eyes. This was all too much – getting free from a burglar intent on stealing my goods only to run into a trained team of mercenaries (because they sure as hell weren’t the police) after my more sophisticatedly named ‘artifacts.’

What on earth were these people after?

He motioned me up with a flick of his hand. Up.

I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to curl into a ball and wake up. This was all so sudden and so unpleasantly, pressingly real.

Artifacts, he repeated the single word. He spoke with the right amount of force behind his tone to let me know he didn’t need to threaten me. He was a mercenary with two mercenary buddies and a couple of machine guns – I was a puddle of adrenaline-fatigue and bathrobe. He would win.

I silently pushed to my feet. Take everything you want, I said through a clenched jaw. I don’t know what you’re after. Just take everything.

One of the other mercenaries held up a hand to his ear. His face stretched with a controlled but recognizable tension. He made a fancy gesture to the leader.

Move, he said to me. For the first time, emotions curled through his voice. They were bitter as freshly squeezed lemons.

A mix of fear, tears, bravado, and gut-wrenching frustration came upon me all at once, as if every possible emotional reaction to this situation condensed into a tight lump in my gut.

The emotions swelled, and with them, determination settled over me. It was sharp, it was sudden, and I went with it. Go to hell, I spat, Get your own damn artifacts.

Before the lead guy could shoot me for being a bolshie hostage, I realized where I was standing. As quickly as I could, I rammed my back into the wall and right into the light switch.

The hallway lights went off with a click.

I was still holding my spanner. I swung it before me in an arc as I pushed off the wall and ran to the side, heading straight for the darkened room before me.

It was one of the large drawing-rooms, and from memory, there was a giant mound of yellowed magazines by the door. I ducked to the side, legs scraping along the edge of the papers but not enough to trip me up.

I knew the men were right behind me – I could hear their quiet racing steps.

I twisted left and headed for the far end of the room, narrowly edging by the giant oak table scattered with old photos and torn newspaper clippings.

I heard a thud from the door as one of the mercenaries collected the pile of magazines. There was another thud as one of them ran right into the table.

Perhaps they weren’t used to navigating cluttered terrain – your average bad-guy-for-hire probably only had to put up with alleyways and abandoned warehouses.

Or perhaps it had only been luck, because seconds later I felt a hand blast out from the darkness and collect around my arm, pulling me backward with snapped force.

I gave a strangled scream before the same hand managed to clamp around my mouth.

Terror engulfed me. It started in the back of my head, and like a powerful blizzard, burst forth and froze every inch of me.

This was it, I realized. This was honestly it.

The light flickered on.

The three mercenaries were on the other side of the room, one picking himself up from the toppled mound of papers, another nursing his leg near the edge of the massive table, and the last one – the leader – by the light switch.

If all three were before me… that meant….

The mercenaries raised their guns, and my captor raised his.

This is our find, the mercenary leader said, voice toneless.

This was my house, I wanted to shout back. Well, technically my dead great-uncle’s house, but whatever.

The guy with his hand over my mouth didn’t reply. He kept the heavy gun in his other hand steady and pointed it at the mercenaries.

Who sent you? the mercenary leader asked. Shaw? Romeo? The Americans? The Brits?

I didn’t follow a word. Why would the Americans and British – or this Shaw and Romeo, for that matter – send bad guys to my house? For these mysterious artifacts? Or did this select group (including entire freaking countries, apparently) have it in for me?

The guy who held me didn’t respond – just kept his grip and his gun steady.

The mercenary leader shook his head. Kill them – we can find it ourselves.

Ah….

My captor fired first.

With movements quicker than I could follow, he shot both pile-of-magazine-tripping mercenary and table-knocking mercenary right in their firing shoulders. He hauled me to the side, shot out the light above us, and narrowly missed a volley from the mercenary leader.

Just like that. It all happened in the blink of an eye, I swear.

I had a second to process it all before I tumbled head-first into a pile of soft magazines.

I heard another shot ring out.

There was a thud.

Then there was another thud as I slipped off the magazines and ended up as a puddle of worn-out fear and dusty bathrobe on the floor.

I waited there, lying face-first on the musty carpet. I was spent.

There was quick footfall beside me. I flinched, not knowing what to expect.

I wasn’t wrenched to my feet, choked, and told to Go and get the collector’s items.

Instead the man offered two short words, Stay here.

He moved off into the dark room to check that the rival bad guys were down.

Stay here. The words echoed in my mind with an eerie hollowness.

It took me a moment – in which I heard my captor shove the prone bodies of the mercenaries – then I decided staying here wasn’t something I wanted to do. Here was too full of bad guys, guns, and dust to be healthy.

I scrambled to my feet. Though I still felt fear, the realization I had to get out of this place pumped through my body along with every last drop of adrenaline I had left.

Despite the shock, my eyes were adjusting to the darkness. Plus, over the weeks, I’d memorized all the box-filled death traps in this house.

Still on my hands and knees, I crawled under the table. From there, I could crawl to the opposite side of the room and through a different door that led back to the hallway. Once there, I’d run like crazy and get the hell out of here.

A plan.

Now for action. I scampered with fiendish gusto. Though the room was still dark, my eyes were adjusting, and silvery light filtered in through the moth holes in the curtains. It had a dappling effect on the darkened room, offering the merest illumination to guess where I was headed and nothing more.

I crawled, the pound of my heart beating violently in my throat. Though my nerves were still fraught, I was glad I could act.

I made it under the table as I heard a soft grunt from the other side of the room. Through a streak of light, I made out the rough, scuffed surface of a boot. It belonged to my most recent captor – the man whose hands smelt of fine coffee and expensive French cologne. That, or it belonged to yet another new-comer intent on illegally and violently extracting the location of the ‘historical products’ or ‘items of interest’ out of me.

I continued to crawl underneath the table. I headed to the far-right corner.

When I’d first come into this room, this giant oak table had sat roughly in the middle with a most excellent view of the windows beyond. This also made it a most excellent tripping hazard, considering the boxes that lined every wall and the magazines strewn across every centimeter of the floor.

I’d pushed the table to the side, right against the wall. Right on that wall was a second door to the room. At the time, I’d figured it hadn’t mattered whether I partially blocked off one door – now it could save me. If I’d left enough room to open the door and squeeze through the gap, I’d be out of this room (hopefully) before Mr. Coffee-and-Cologne-Hands noticed. I would run like the wind in any direction (probably the nearby road, on the off chance that some passing car wasn’t filled with hoons and goons on their way to threaten and rob me).

I made it to the space between the door and the table and managed to stand up in the gap. I lightly turned the door handle.

There was the softest of squeaks as the aged mechanism rolled in my hand. I agonized over the sound with throbbing, chest-aching fear. It didn’t stop me from squeezing through the gap and out into the cold corridor beyond.

The moment my bare feet hit the once-plush Persian runner, a shot of sharp, bitter fear rushed over me. It pushed me forward.

I reached the front door and wrenched it open.

Don’t, a deep, resounding voice rumbled from behind.

It lit the final powder leading to my keg of panic, and I bolted. My bare feet hit the uneven cobblestones outside the door with a frantic slap, slap, slap.

I reached the rough stones of the turning circle. I didn’t care about the sharp, jagged edges lacerating my tender flesh. I ran, for I was being chased.

I could hear that man with the coffee-scented hands behind me, hear the rhythmic pant of his breath, hear the measured beat of his footfall.

My panic rose to a level I’d never ever experienced. Opening the door to a leather-clad burglar was one thing – having an evil SWAT team burst out of my library was another. Having a hand scented with coffee and cologne clamp around my mouth in a darkened drawing-room was something again. Yet being chased so silently and efficiently from behind was so much more.

I screamed as he caught up to me. That old mammalian part of me that didn’t want to die gave one last gut-wrenching, lung-punching cry before it was all over.

Jesus Christ, calm down, came the barely puffed voice of the man. He was right behind me.

Calm down? Why? It was easier to steal antiques from people who were stoic and silent?

I put on another burst of speed and managed to peel away from the guy.

I promptly fell into a hole.

I fell heavily. Maybe I sprained something. Maybe I even broke something.

It didn’t matter.

The scent of damp grass filled my nostrils, and the sound of someone leaning right next to me rang through my ears.

Listen to me, he said, voice quick but clear. I’m not here to hurt you. I saved you.

Like hell he did – he broke into my drawing-room and shot out my light.

If you don’t believe me, then here, take this.

Something metal was pressed into my upturned left palm. It felt like the butt of a gun. It was heavy and had a weight that offered unbelievable reassurance.

… Had the guy handed me a gun? Why?

I let my grip stiffen around it, and I pushed off the ground. There was a dull pain in my right ankle, but I managed to look past it. Instead I looked right at the guy standing a respectable, almost non-threatening distance from me.

He had his hands up and his fingers spread in classic I’m-not-armed fashion.

Through the pale moonlight, I could see his expression. It wasn’t leering – I couldn’t detect the glint of his teeth as his lips puckered to reveal a criminal sneer. He looked calm and aware.

I sat on the grass, gun held awkwardly but nevertheless tensely in one hand. I stared at him, gazing at the dark shadows that obscured most of his face and the even darker shadow his tall, broad form cast against the grass.

Mr. Coffee-and-Cologne-Hands had just armed me. Was it a gesture of trust or some bad-guy game? Would he wait for me to say something brave, then giggle, pull out his own bigger gun, shoot me, and shout, Puuuuuuunked, in a drawn-out, nasal tone?

He didn’t move his hands. He kept them up, still, and where I could see them.

Are we going to do this all night? he asked. It’s just I can’t guarantee no one else is coming.

What do you mean? There are more? Who were they? Who are you? What’s going on here? Why did you give me your gun?

As I asked my questions, the man brought one finger down for each. Though in an ordinary, non-bad-guy-filled scenario such a move would have seemed innocent, the moving fingers reminded me of a countdown.

Don’t do that. What are you doing? I asked, tension pulsing through my voice as my hands trembled around the gun.

Keeping track of your questions, he answered easily. Now, what do I mean? I mean that you aren’t safe here. I can’t guarantee there aren’t more guys out there. Indeed, it’s a safe bet there are. What was the next question? Who are they? That depends, some of them are petty criminals hired on a whim by people who either can’t afford or are too stingy and stupid to hire real mercenaries. The rest range from ex-servicemen with debts to pay to bankrolled killers.

The term bankrolled killers sent such a shiver down my spine, I almost dropped the gun.

It didn’t help that the wind was picking up, shaking the branches of the nearby oak trees and pressing through my sodden trouser legs, making the flesh underneath prickle and quiver.

What was next? the guy continued in a quick tone, keen to finish all the questions as soon as he could. Oh yeah – who am I? We’ve met before. Sebastian Shaw.

A tremble of recognition passed through me. I knew the voice and that subtle mix of coffee and cologne. It was the man from the auction house – that persistent, dogged hunkasaurus who’d seemed unusually interested in my spotting globe.

Now he was here, standing on my lawn, handing me guns, and shoving me to the side as he shot so-called bankrolled killers.

You remember me? he asked carefully, possibly realizing that a single name to a frazzled woman might not get him far. We met at the—

Auction house, I supplied in a quiet monotone.

Yeah, he said, and forgive me if it sounded almost caring. Two more questions, right? he continued. I’ll start with the last one first. He still had his hands in the air, and he still wasn’t moving a muscle in my direction. I gave you my gun so you could trust me – it’s one thing asking a panicked woman to trust you when you’re holding the gun, but it’s something else if you give the gun to her, right?

He seemed to want my confirmation, but I was stuck on the term panicked woman. Despite the fact I clearly fit that category, it rallied my pride. Hurry up and get to the bit where you tell me what’s going on.

I’m afraid we don’t have time for a full version, he said, cautiously looking over his shoulder at the long driveway that circled down to the road below.

There was a low thumping of an engine running somewhere down the hill. It could be a farmer doing some late-night mowing or another car-full of bad guys ready to do some people mowing instead.

As he moved his face toward the noise, I could see his sharp brow crinkling over his eyes. It was Shaw, alright. The build, the stature, the face, the voice. Apparently Shaw was more than a lawyer/antique dealer. That, or he had a natural talent for putting down bad guys.

I saw the dips and ridges of his tensed neck muscles as he arched his head further toward the sound. He didn’t turn his body fully, and he kept his hands where I could see them. We might want to get out of here, he said in a low tone.

I don’t trust you yet, I hissed, so don’t you move.

He turned his head back to me, but apart from that, he stayed as still as a tree trunk.

You tell me what’s going on. Then I’m going back into the house to call the police. No, I corrected, "we are going back into the house." I kept the gun pointed at him.

I realized I wasn’t offering much incentive to play along – tell me your story, and I’ll arrange for the boys in blue to put you behind bars. But I had a gun, and guns offer real currency in otherwise-shitty deals.

He sighed. I could tell with every second he was paying less and less attention to me and my inexpertly held gun and far more attention to the ever-growing putt-putt of the engine echoing through the valley.

Short version. His tone was clipped. That globe you put up for auction isn’t an ordinary antique. It has a treasure map on it. It’s also part of a set – a set you said you own. Combined, that set is a map to the greatest treasure humankind has ever imagined.

My jaw could have dropped off. Treasure map?

Treasure map, he repeated easily. You don’t have to believe me. But do believe this: the men in there, he shrugged toward the house, aren’t here for tea and biscuits.

I sniffed, feeling the weight of the gun in my hand as if it were the only solid thing left in the world. I’m going to call the police, I rasped.

They won’t get here in time, he said, tone dropping a notch or two.

The fine hair along the back of my neck stood on end. The sound of the engine came closer and closer. Down by the edge of the property, I heard the crunch of tires against gravel.

Find somewhere to hide. Shaw stared straight at me. He didn’t take one look at my gun as he moved back and turned toward the driveway below us.

D-don’t move, I tried.

He responded by reaching into his pocket then throwing a set of keys right at me.

The keys bounced off my chest, falling to the soft grass below.

My car is parked in the laneway. He pointed across the field in the direction of the closest town. It’s by a grove of oaks, right next to a bridge.

Though I knew the place, I didn’t make a move for the keys.

Lock yourself in or drive away – your choice. He reached behind him and pulled something from the back of his pants.

It was a gun. Another gun, apparently.

I had a gun, and he had a gun – the odds were back to being utterly against me – he was trained, and I was a whimpering mess.

Go, Amanda, get out of here, he encouraged with a sharp flap of his free hand.

I remained where I was, gun still held before me, eyes wide. Everything was happening too fast.

The car came into view at the top of the hill. Though it wasn’t a car – it was a big black van.

Run, Shaw snapped, flattening himself as he lifted his gun at the approaching vehicle.

Run? At night with bare feet in a pink dressing gown while every mercenary and burglar in the district wanted to steal my antiques?

Or stand right there and advertise our position – that’s a great way to get yourself shot. Shaw half turned to me, though his eyes were still focused on the van, and he waved me down with an emphatic pat of his free hand.

I watched the hand flap in the darkness, the light of the moon glinting off some ring on his middle finger.

G-e-t d-o-w-n, Shaw spat again. Obviously fed up with me standing there all dithery and overcome, he snapped up and pushed me over with all the finesse and kindness of a playground bully.

I yelped, tumbled over, and came to rest face-first in the damp grass.

A scream of protest came to my lips, but the crunch of the van’s tires became sharper. Judging by the clarity of the sound, it wasn’t far away – fifteen meters maybe, possibly ten.

Lying on the ground, immobile and face-first – again – gave me time to process what was going on here. Very soon this Shaw character was either going to shoot the occupants of that van, be shot by the occupants of the van, or throw up his hands and join their evil order, turning around to capture and torture me.

I was exquisitely aware, as the crunch of dirt and stone under wheels filled the night air, of how slippery and sweaty my palms had become. I blinked my eyes once, then screwed them shut against the outside world and all the apparent gun-toting misery it had to offer tonight.

There was a single gunshot. Though I’d been expecting it, my stomach gave such a jolt, it felt as if it would jump right out of my middle.

As my skin prickled with the expectation of a full-on gunfight, a massive beam of light sliced over the lawn.

No, my first thought wasn’t aliens (well, maybe for a nanosecond). The sound of a chopper’s rotors cutting through the night breeze sounded from above.

We have you surrounded, a determined, guttural voice crackled over a loudspeaker. Stay in your vehicle. Any attempt at violence will be met with swift retaliation.

Over the ear-splitting sound of the chopper, I couldn’t hear whether the van was doing what it was told. So, with an almighty sniff, I sat and took a peek.

The chopper above was hovering low – so low that the downward stream of the rotors not only flattened my hair but threatened to flatten my body as well.

The black van had indeed stopped. Despite the phenomenal force of the downward draft, I stared up at the chopper above. Not only was it large and sleek, but it had two prominent gun turrets on either side of its nose.

Gun turrets – that’s right. A helicopter with actual gun turrets.

That point ricocheted around my head with all the force and speed of a bullet. The mercenaries and burglars had been one thing – but this was something else entirely. The great hulk of metal that hovered above my turning circle was something that belonged in a war – not on a country estate.

Somehow this situation had taken a turn toward even greater danger and peril, and yes, I was still in my dressing gown.

About bloody time, Shaw managed to shout over the roar of the helicopter.

As the words left his mouth, several black-clad figures leaped from the open doors of the chopper and rappelled down, landing on either side of the van. They had very large guns.

With my hair still flattened against my face and my eyes blinking hard to stay open, I watched, my bottom lip quivering. Then… then I pushed up, my feet sinking into the soft damp grass.

The spotlight from the helicopter locked on the van.

I stepped backward, receding further into the darkness beyond this fraught scene.

The men from the helicopter shouted various threatening orders at the occupants of the van. Though I couldn’t make out the exact words over the sound of the rotors above, I could bet they weren’t asking for directions.

I took several more steps backward, my feet gently pressing into the firm ground.

I turned.

I ran.

I ran because there was a helicopter above my lawn, there were mercenaries in my drawing-room, and there was a burglar in my hall.

Keys jingling in my hand, gun immobile in the other, I made it to the house before anyone knew I was gone.

Chapter 2

Sebastian Shaw

I shouted over the sound of the rotors, voice straining with the effort. Though the chopper had already landed, it was taking too long for the damn thing to wind down, and I needed to get their attention. So rather than shout until my lungs were empty and my throat was cracked and dry, I pulled open the pilot’s door.

Hello to you too, said Garry, a giant with a baritone voice and a distinctive South African accent so resonant it could have been heard over a jet engine.

No time, I shouted. She’s done a runner. I’ve got a heavily armed team in the drawing-room – left of the front door when you come in. I sliced a hand toward the large, imposing front door to the manor ahead of us. The place was huge, old, and judging by all the junk that had been in that drawing-room, a bloody death trap. But hey, it had treasure too – otherwise I wouldn’t damn well be here.

Maratova, his M-15 slung over his shoulder, jumped out of the back of the bird, scuffed army boots landing roughly on the loose stones of the turning circle. Hair whipping back across his face from the still-dying rotors, he reached down, pulled up his balaclava, and fixed it in place. We’ve got this, Shaw. You can go back to your books.

I ignored him. Maratova liked to think a real man was judged by the length of his rifle. I didn’t give a shit how long his gun was. All I wanted was to find those antiques before one of the other teams got their hands on them. Oh, and there was the fact I’d turned my back on her for one second and the girl had done a runner with my gun and keys.

Shit, tonight couldn’t get any worse.

Maratova cracked his neck, adjusted the sight on his rifle, then slapped me on the back as he walked past. He tapped his earpiece with one hand, cleared his nose, spat on the ground, and grumbled a, Got it.

The only thing he had was an ego the size of Mars. To hell with it if I was going to let this idiot ruin my find.

Shit, if I’d known they were going to bring Maratova along, I would have called the boys in blue instead.

Rather than fight Maratova, I shrugged, shot Garry a look, and walked off around the side of the chopper.

I had real intel on the targets inside, but Maratova wasn’t the kind of gunslinger to stop and get his bearings. Shoot first and let someone else clean up was more his style.

Garry shrugged, and the rest of the unit jumped out of the chopper to follow their leader.

It wasn’t as if they were going to face any resistance: I’d taken down Romeo’s boys in the drawing-room.

Fuck, I hissed as I remembered one tiny fact: I’d given the girl my gun. The same girl was now holed up in her house somewhere. Granted, I hadn’t been dumb enough to leave it loaded, but Maratova wouldn’t know that. I could see the woman, frightened out of her wits, doing the first thing she could think of with the gun and point it at the heavily armed men smashing through her house.

She’d been attacked by a unit of mercenaries. In her current state, I doubted she could tell the difference between the good balaclava-wearing, gun-toting guys and the bad ones.

So I turned on my foot, scattering stones as I went, and bolted toward the front door.

If she was smart (and I doubted that, considering how she’d announced to a room full of mercenaries, antique dealers, shady government agents, and plain old crooks that she had a set of the rarest treasure maps out there), she would have taken my keys and headed for my car.

Amanda didn’t strike me as smart. Amanda seemed ditsy, unkempt, and unlikely to be able to deal with a full-scale incursion into her country manor.

She’d be hiding under her bed – I’d bet a tenner on it.

Amanda Stanton

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried the back door again. I offered a silent swearword as I realized it was locked. The click it gave as it resisted my desperate attempt to open it sounded like a gunshot.

I heard the front door openning.

With my heart in my throat, my hand shaking as I clutched the door handle, I stared around wildly.

I’d made it to the kitchen. It was right at the back of the first floor, and it had a door that led out onto the back of the property. There was a garden path outside that led into the woods, with a shortcut down to the laneway beyond. There was an old bicycle tied up to a tree on that laneway, a quaint vestige of my great-uncle’s estate.

The guy – Sebastian Shaw, the extremely good-looking lawyer who’d turned out to be an extremely good looking mercenary/spy/criminal – had offered me the keys to his car. I wasn’t stupid. There was no way I was going to get in his car. It was probably stuffed full of weapons, dead guys, and stolen goods. I was going to take the bike, stick to the old country road, and cycle like a woman possessed, still in my pajamas, until I reached the local town.

But the door meant to lead me to my brilliant escape was the door that wouldn’t open. It was locked, the key all the way back near my front door in one of the drawers of a side dresser.

I mouthed another silent swearword as I heard the sound of heavy footfall coming from up the hall.

Instinctively I ducked to my knees, crouching and sidling awkwardly until I was hiding behind the island bench, back pressed up against a jar full of dried pasta and a knife board.

The gun was still in my hand, and I held it at an awkward angle – afraid of the damn thing, but not willing to let it go when there were more unwanted guests traipsing through my great-uncle’s manor.

I had no idea if they were good or not. Just as I had no idea if Shaw had been honest. Somehow I doubted it. When it came to rescuing people from break-and-enters, the police had that covered – shifty men in suits, no matter how dashing, didn’t. Whatever Shaw was doing here, and whatever that helicopter and that van had to do with it, I doubted any of it was legal.

As I sat there, heart thumping so violently I could feel it through my clenched teeth, the footfall got closer and closer. I guessed there were several men, but not once did they speak to give away their exact number.

It was all so professional and all so frightening. The burglar at the door and the mercenaries in the drawing-room had been one thing – hell, even Shaw had been manageable somehow (if you count manageable to mean I’d spent most of the time crawling away from him in the mud). But there was something about the silent way these men walked up my hall, the way each step was so damn precise and light that I had to strain my hearing to even pick it up.

Christ, Christ, Christ. I slammed a hand over my mouth, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to make it all go away. I wiped my eyes, tears forming and streaking down my cheeks. That was when I realized I still held the gun.

I gave an involuntary and audible squeak.

The steps stopped. They’d been heading up my stairs before, but after a pause, they came my way.

My heart could have popped – never before had I felt such intense, pressured stress. I could hardly breathe, and my eyes were so tear-streaked, I could barely see.

I’d closed the kitchen door behind me, but I hadn’t had the presence of mind to shift a table or something heavy in front of it.

So there wasn’t anything but an unlocked door separating me from whoever the hell was beyond it.

If it was the police, if it was somehow the army – if it was some legitimate government security force – they would announce themselves. They’d shout out a quick, This is the police. We’re here to help you, ma’am, and we’re here to catch the bad guys. Sure as hell the guys outside my kitchen door hadn’t paused to reassure me they were here to help.

I clutched the first thing I could find – which happened to be a jar of dried pasta and not one of the knives on the magnetic rack across from me. I lurched toward the back door.

It was at that point it opened toward me.

I skidded to a stop, a dark, tall, large figure before me framed by the moonlight. The man took a step forward as the kitchen door behind opened with a soft clunk.

I’d never been so desperate in my life, and my body, pumped with fright, did the first thing it could think of and lashed out with the jar. The pasta rattled around as the jar struck the guy’s upper arm.

Ow, the man protested as a red dot of light crossed his face and drifted to my upper arm.

I screamed. I’d seen the movies – I knew what was coming next.

Hey, hey, hey – it’s fine. Maratova. She’s fine – she’s fine. Occupant of the house, the man, who I realized was Shaw, spat his words out in quick file, his hands up.

Despite his explanation, several more of those red-pointed lights flew over the room and settled on or around me.

That’s when I chucked the pasta jar right at Shaw’s head, ducked around him, and bolted out of the back door.

I heard the jar shatter against the floor and someone swearing, but I didn’t stop to clean up the mess and make sure everyone was wearing shoes lest they slash their feet on the glass.

I flew across the path, arms pumping, feet stumbling in the dark, but never stopping, gun still held awkwardly in my vice-like grip.

Sebastian Shaw

Did that woman attack you with a jar of pasta? Maratova snorted like a bull.

I didn’t answer. I turned to follow her.

We’ve got this, Shaw, Maratova blurted gruffly.

Was that the click of a safety going off? Maratova was no idiot – his safety would have been off the second they saw that van. Nope, he would have clicked it on again so he could click it off to give me a pointed message.

While I often worked with the Special Operations Unit, we couldn’t be classed as friends. Not me and Maratova anyway. I had a certain history with that raving idiot.

It was a violent history.

That wasn’t the point. Amanda was now running down a dark garden path, seconds from falling in a ditch and breaking her neck. Or worse. As far as I knew, there could still be more bad guys – amateurs or professionals – roving those woods. It wouldn’t take Amanda long to realize her gun didn’t work. Nor would it take long for her to be taken down.

She’s the owner, I said. She’s scared. She has no idea what’s going on—

And she’s got a gun. Maratova signaled two of his men to stay behind while he and another one headed for the back door.

It’s not loaded, I spat back, trying to get it through his thick skull that Amanda was as much of a threat as his own grandmother (though, knowing Maratova’s particular upbringing, his granny could likely skin sharks).

How the hell do you know that? Maratova shoved past me roughly, pausing to listen to my answer. It was obvious he didn’t think Amanda could give much opposition. He probably thought he’d pop out and she’d be hiding stupidly behind a painted flowerpot.

But that girl could run.

My gun, I snapped back. I gave it to her.

The guy next to Maratova snorted, and Maratova gave a growl. I don’t even want to know why. With that, he turned stiffly and stalked out the door, gun raised.

It’s not loaded, I screamed back.

Way to go to break our cover, one of the guys said – Jefferson, I think. He raised his gun and took up a position near the kitchen door. Everyone in this house knows where we are now.

As if Maratova’s loud, guttural, annoying tone hadn’t already done that. Rather than point that out, I sidled closer to the door. I was playing a dangerous game here: I was on their team, technically, but that technically could see me with cable-ties secured around my wrists and a black eye if I didn’t respect their rules.

Yet something was niggling deep in my gut. It was the way she’d looked at me out near the turning circle – the whites of her eyes glinting in the moonlight, her lips slack and her mouth open.

It was miles away from the light, breezy, frankly ditzy way she’d been when we’d first met. When she’d walked into that auction room, smiling nervously, the auction house owner tittering excitedly at her shoulder, I’d been ready to write her off as a new secretary or PA – a vague and flakey one. When she’d sat through the auction, shock plastered over her face as the innocent spotting globe she’d put up for sale started to go for millions, I’d realized something was up. It wasn’t until Narcina – a shady Egyptian antique dealer – walked right up to her and asked her to withdraw the item from sale and sell it to him for an even higher price, that I knew something was wrong.

That’s when she’d done it. Shock still plastered over her cute face, her button nose crinkled and her blue eyes popping, she’d stood up, blinked at the man, and stuttered, I have more of them. I have a set of… five, I think.

God, you could have dropped a fucking grenade in that building, and not one single person would have moved. They were all of them in there for one reason: the spotting globe at auction was a map that led to potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in lost treasure. We’re talking Spanish galleons stuffed with doubloons, Roman hoards, Egyptian tombs, even treasures the Nazis stole and squirreled away through the war. While each globe was valuable, they didn’t work as a map until they were combined. There were five globes in total – and when Amanda had innocently admitted to the room that she owned the whole set… well.

My heart could have stopped at that point. I’d been searching for a hint of those globes my entire career, only to have one pop up for freaking auction down the street from my office. I hadn’t had to battle bandits in South America for it, hadn’t had to fight through the war-filled valleys and mountains of Afghanistan, hadn’t even had to pull out my gun.

They were called the Stargazer Set. And among those in the know, they were the most famous, previously elusive, and most highly desired treasure maps in the world.

Ditsy Amanda had them. All of them, apparently.

I was sure she didn’t have a clue what they were, nor, it was obvious, did she understand what was happening to her.

What was happening was what happened when you blurted out you had the Stargazer Set in your basement.

Come on, Jefferson, I tried, voice at a normal volume as I was sure there was no one left conscious in the house. You know Maratova – he’s going to scare the shit out of her, or worse. You want that?

Jefferson wiped his nose with the thumb of one of his combat-glove-covered hands. She threw a pasta jar at you – I don’t think she’s a fan.

She has no idea what’s going on. She isn’t the criminal here. Let me… I trailed off, not sure what I wanted. Did I want to be the one to go out and pull her out of the ditch while she flailed at me with the butt of my own gun?

Nope. But I owed it to the girl. She’d been dumb telling everyone in that auction room she had the Stargazers, but I’d been worse for not warning her when I’d had the chance.

The trouble was I wanted those globes. The only person who knew where the rest of them were, and the legitimate owner (not that anyone in this building – good or bad – cared who officially owned the things) was pelting through the forest trying to get away from me. Maratova, despite my insistence that her gun wasn’t loaded, would still treat her as armed, and he’d use protocol on that. That same protocol wouldn’t be kind to Amanda. The poor girl would explode if she was tackled by a trained soldier or had several M-15s pointed in her face while Maratova screamed at her to drop her weapon and drop to her knees. In other words, she was in trouble.

There sure was a lot of trouble going on here tonight, and I doubted it was over yet.

Chapter 3

Amanda Stanton

I kept running for my life. My heart beat so fast and violently, a cold pressure spread through the top of my chest.

I’d managed to make it down the dark garden path, my bare feet grating against the rough stones and soil as I headed toward the woodland below. When I hit it, despite the leaves and sticks and god knows what else on the forest floor, I kept running.

I hadn’t had any time to think since the moment I’d rolled out of bed and walked downstairs to meet the first of my attackers.

They were after my globes, like the one I’d been so foolish to sell at the auction house earlier that week.

When I’d come to my great-uncle’s estate, entrusted by my great aunt to sort through his junk, I’d never expected to find anything valuable. Great-Uncle Stanton had only ever collected trash. From the mountains of yellowed paper in the drawing-room, to the boxes of old tattered photos in the lounge room, to the cupboard full of used baked-bean cans, old Great-Uncle Stanton, though a collector, was a collector of rubbish not treasure.

That had all changed the Tuesday before last when I’d made my way up to the attic. I could still remember heaving the door open and recoiling from the loud bang as the old wood swung back on its hinges and impacted the floor. A massive cloud of dust had spilled toward me, and I’d almost fell off the ladder from the coughing fit that ensued. When I’d pulled myself up and onto the floor of the attic, everything had been worth it. All those weeks of going through all that junk, of trawling through the millions of old newspaper clippings, cigarette tins, postcards, stamps, and badges so yellowed, bent, and rusted with age I had to wash my hands every half hour – all of it had been worth it.

For there’d been treasure above. While the majority of the manor, from the bottom floor to the top, was filled with glorified rubbish, the attic was a sight I’d never seen outside of a fancy museum. Statues had been pressed up against the walls. Old urns had toppled on their sides, coins spilling out in a sea of gold. There’d been fancy desks and seats, covered with leather-bound books and parchment manuscripts.

On a side wall amongst all this treasure had sat a simple desk. On top of the desk had been two things: one worn leather notebook and one old hideous spotting globe. Amongst all the wonder that had surrounded me, that simple sight had caught my attention.

My old Great-Uncle Stanton had been the black sheep of the family, having left medical school halfway through his degree to take up treasure hunting instead. The rest of the family had thought he was mad. They’d also thought, incorrectly, that all his years of traveling and toiling had brought him naught but further insanity.

The family had been wrong, and the treasure I’d found had proven that.

My great-aunt, Imelda Stanton, the executrix of Great-Uncle Stanton’s will, had dealt with the treasure, leaving me to deal with the dregs.

And that was why I was in this current predicament.

But I had a plan, and that plan was to continue running.

Sebastian Shaw

It was over for tonight, and maybe it was over in general. Despite the fact I would do anything for those globes, my hands were tied, literally. I hadn’t ingratiated myself with my comrades in arms. At the second suggestion I run after Maratova, the boys he’d left behind had gotten mad, complaining I was drawing attention to them before they’d checked the house for contacts. So they’d done the first thing they could think of: pistol-whipped me, bound my hands behind my back with cable-tie, and gaffer taped my mouth. It was genuine military hospitality.

Though we were meant to be on the same team, technically, I didn’t begrudge them – they wanted those globes as much as I did, maybe more. Heck, you could bet that every single well-informed, well-armed guy out there wanted the same thing.

You couldn’t calculate how much they would be worth, and it would be a world full of fun finding out. Treasure hunting was the grandpappy of fun.

I hadn’t grown-up wanting to be a treasure hunter. I hadn’t seen Indiana Jones as a kid and thought, That right there, that’s the job for me. Nope, I fell into it.

Despite the thrills, spills, maps, and gold – treasure hunting also had its downside, and Maratova, boy was he a downside.

By the time Maratova came back to the manor, I was sure Amanda would be dragged in by his side, a shaking mess, tears streaming down her face, feet bloody from running through the forest, and body a bundle of bruises from tripping in every ditch from here to town.

My expectations were wrong.

Amanda Stanton

As I ran, careful to avoid the trees and scrubby undergrowth, I realized I needed something to run toward. The more I heard the frenzied sound of pursuit, the more I realized I couldn’t carry through with my original plan and run for the old country road and into town – they would catch me the moment I hit the open ground.

I couldn’t hope to outrun them – I needed a place to hide.

So I veered off, remembering that down an old glade was a storm pipe. It wasn’t massive, not like in Jurassic Park – it couldn’t fit a van in there or anything, but it was big enough for