Secrets Of The Serpent's Heart (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 6) by N. S. Wikarski Read Free Book Online

happens, I’m glad you told me where you stand,” she said.
    He smiled briefly and kissed her on the forehead. “Happy birthday, toots. Stay safe out there.”
    She regarded him gravely. “You too, dude.”
    Cassie shut the door and leaned her back against it. She listened to his engine growl to life and roar off toward the highway. “Happy birthday to me,” she murmured ruefully.

Chapter 7—Paper, Airplanes
    Leroy Hunt entered his apartment around midnight and dropped his duffle bag unceremoniously on the floor. In a fit of peevishness, he gave it a well-aimed kick and sent it flying across the room. He slammed the door behind him, causing it to shudder in reply. He’d just returned from the latest of the many wild goose chases that had occupied his time over the course of the winter. As he well knew, each one had been cooked up by Mr. Big to keep him away from where Hannah Metcalf was actually hiding. This last junket had been the Mother Goose of them all. He’d flown to Minneapolis which still boasted a foot of snow on the ground. The only green things he saw in that Yankee icebox were the decorations for St. Patrick’s Day!
    A body would think that at least one of his fake leads would have taken him to Barbados or St. Kitts or even Miami. But no. In the dead of winter, he flew to every snowy hell hole in the sweet land of liberty. First it was Billings, then Montpellier, then Boise, and finally Minneapolis—the land of ten thousand frozen lakes! Every place he’d visited, the story was the same from some flunky on the payroll of Mr. Big. Yes, Hannah had been there, Yes, Leroy had just missed her. Yes, he could have an address where she might be found.
    As if the trips themselves weren’t bad enough, dealing with the preacher afterward was worse. The old coot would work himself up into a lather waiting for Hunt’s report. Once the bad news landed, he’d be madder than a snake on his wedding night who’d just married a garden hose. Metcalf even had the nerve to accuse Hunt of slacking off. If he only knew. The cowboy was pulling double shifts to carry out his own private investigation. While he was busy chasing down bogus leads for the preacher, he was also collecting a paper trail of the corporations that had leased the properties associated with those leads. He felt sure one of those companies would point back to the Somebody who was hiding Metcalf’s lost bride and the trio of relic thieves to boot.
    He took off his hat and coat, hanging them on the rack by the door. No sense in calling the old man this late at night to tell him Minneapolis hadn’t panned out. Leroy could easily postpone the wailing and gnashing of teeth til morning. He eyed his computer, sitting on a desk next to the window. He was itching to check out his latest bit of intel. First, he went to the kitchen cabinet and grabbed a bag of pork rinds. Airplane peanuts and tiny bottles of hooch were no substitute for down home comfort food—and drink.   He retrieved a bottle of whiskey, poured a glassful and swallowed it down. Then he poured another and carried it back with him to the computer along with the bag of rinds.
    Leroy consulted a note in his shirt pocket. Before he’d left Minnesota, he scribbled down the name of the corporation that had leased the property of his last fake lead. He typed it into the file he was keeping of all the shell companies that he’d encountered on his various jaunts. Then he did an online search to see if he could link this latest find to anything he’d come across before. He smiled to himself. The Minnesota lessee was an offshoot of a corporation that had made it onto his master list.
    He thought he’d take a wild stab to see if the parent company owned any properties closer to home. He checked the online real estate tax records for Cook County and the counties nearest to the city proper. What he found made him blink. He checked the name twice. Sure enough, the corporation owned a house in McHenry