Treasure Sleuth by Amy Shaw Read Free Book Online Page A

book in his hand like it was a bible, his face turning serious.
    "Gene lived his life sitting in cars on stakeouts watching deadbeats all day who were trying to fraud insurance companies," he began. "He spent days, weeks and months just tracking down low-life criminals who the police didn't have time for. He spent nights setting up sting operations to catch cheating husbands and wives. Catching up with people who couldn't pay, wouldn't pay. People who were abusing their children, and pedophiles who were abusing other people's children. Then he gets hired for a different kind of job where it isn't a person he is tracking down but a treasure. Something went off in his brain that day and he wasn't the same after."
    Abby could sense her grandfather's frustrations in Marks voice as she listened.
    Mark continued, "He looked back at all that time wasted sitting in cars waiting, looking at life through a lens and seeing disgust and negativity everywhere he went... he looked back at all that with heavy regret. The last few years of his life was his best. His most adventurous. But he was pissed off."
    "Pissed off with what? I thought he was happy," Abby asked.
    "He was pissed he needed me. He wanted to be out there every day himself, experiencing it, looking for the treasure with his hands rather than just his mind. He wanted it to be his fingers digging in the mud rather than tapping away on a keyboard. Seeing the trees in 3D life rather than watching it happen on a monitor via a GoPro camera mounted to my head."
    Mark turned to face the shelves of maps, stacked on top of each other with green and pink highlighters marking areas of interest. "We were a great team for sure, and I would have gotten into some real trouble if it wasn't for his eyes and ears looking out for me. I knew he got a buzz talking me through an escape route, but I also knew he was secretly wishing it was him hiding from the bad guys, close enough to hear their breath while holding a cold artifact down your front which you've just taken from them. I knew he wanted to follow me down the wells and into the secret tunnels using night vision scopes. And I knew his frustration when I got caught in underground rivers and got into breathing difficulties because of all the heavy gear I was wearing and trying to carry," Mark said looking down at the floor where breathing tanks lay amongst various back packs, ropes and metal clasps. "There were times when I couldn't talk to him because I didn't have a cell of energy left and all he wanted to do was pull me out with his bare hands. But he couldn't because in recent days he barely had the energy to walk up and down the lighthouse stairs. This became his mission control and finding the adventures became his adventure. So this is probably why Gene would never sit down and try to explain this to you because he'd rather you saw it, and felt it. Now that I know you've dreamed of becoming a writer, and he's left the key for you in this book, I can see he wouldn't want you to waste your life like he felt he wasted his."
    Abby was in shock. She had never seen her Grandpa or his life through those eyes before. Nor had she heard anyone talk with that level of passion.
    "But I'm not wasting my life. I like my job. I work for a forensic genealogy company that traces missing heirs. Thanks to me, families are located..."
    "Sorry that's not what I meant. That's not what your Grandpa meant. He felt he wasted his life because he didn't discover what he wanted to do until he was too old and frail to do it. Leaving you a book on writing is your Grandpa's way of giving you a shove in the direction of your dreams. To start writing. Not get caught up with life, with jobs or with helping other people without helping yourself. You can still do all that, but make sure you give yourself time to pursue your dream of writing and not wait until you're too old to start, lest you realize you could do it, love it and end up wishing you started sooner."
    Abby