Something More by Janet Dailey

mouth.
    â€œWhy not?” she countered, with a grin.
    â€œWhy not, indeed,” he murmured. “How does one o’clock sound?”
    â€œThat’s fine.” She snapped her purse shut. “How do I get there?”
    â€œIma Jane can give directions in the morning,” he said.
    To which, the woman quickly agreed. “I’ll be happy to do that.”
    â€œThanks.” Rising from her chair, Angie slipped the long purse strap over her shoulder and sent a last glance at Luke. “I’ll see you tomorrow at one.”
    â€œI’ll be there.” He nodded and watched as she turned and made her way to the door.
    With her departure, Luke’s table was no longer the center of the room’s attention. Ima Jane returned to the bar, and Joe Gibbs drifted off to hustle a game of pool. Still poring over the newspaper clippings, Tobe sat down in the recently vacated chair across from Luke. Dulcie crowded close to his arm and tried to see what was so interesting about the old newspaper stories.
    Fargo frowned curiously at Luke. “Why’s she coming out to the ranch tomorrow?”
    â€œShe says she wants to see where her grandfather’s body was found.” There was a vague movement of his shoulders that said Luke didn’t completely buy into the reason she’d given.
    Fargo grunted a response and stared at the door, his thick brows puckering together in a perplexed frown. “It still don’t make sense.”
    â€œWhat doesn’t?” Tobe glanced up, almost glad of an excuse to quit reading.
    â€œHer granddad coming all the way out here to look for the gold.” Fargo flung a hand in the direction Angie had gone.
    Unable to follow Fargo’s thinking, Tobe asked, “Why wouldn’t he come look for it? If I thought I knew where it was, I’d sure be there looking.”
    Fargo pounced on that answer. “That’s it exactly. Why did he think he knew where it was buried? According to her, there wasn’t any map pinpointing the location.”
    â€œJust because she didn’t know about it, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have one,” Tobe reasoned.
    â€œYou’re probably right on that.” Fargo nodded after giving it some thought. “He must have had a map, else he wouldn’t have gone around askin’ people about mysterious landmarks.”
    â€œHe didn’t need to have a map to do that,” Tobe countered. “He could have been asking about places that were described in the letter.”
    â€œWhat letter?” Fargo drew his head back in startled challenge.
    â€œThe letter they talk about in this article.” Tobe tapped a finger on the glass directly over the newspaper clipping about the outlaw’s execution.
    â€œWhat are you talkin’ about?” Fargo demanded. “I don’t remember anything about a letter.”
    â€œThat’s not my fault,” Tobe retorted a bit testily. “It says right here, ‘As a final request, the condemned outlaw asked to be allowed to write a farewell letter to his wife and family. The request was granted.’ ”
    â€œThat’s it.” The one-armed cowboy slapped a hand on the table and chortled with glee. “He told ’em in the letter where the money was buried. He didn’t draw a map. He wrote one.”

Chapter Six
    A sharp pound-pound-pounding finally penetrated the layers of sleep. At almost precisely the same instant, Angie had a vague awareness of light against her eyelids. Quick to blame the source of brightness on a vehicle’s high beams, she rolled over onto her side and dragged the covers over her head to block the glare.
    But no roar of an accelerating engine followed it, no crunch of tires rolling over gravel.
    Instead, there came the probing query: “Angie, are you up yet?” The words registered, along with their implication it was morning, but Angie couldn’t place the