Always Friday by Jan Hudson Page B

irritated her to no end. “Give me credit for some
brains!” She snatched her hand away. “I never realized just how stubborn you
are, Friday. When you make up your mind about something, an act of Congress
wouldn’t change it.”
    “Are you insinuating that I’m closed-minded?”
    “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m telling you flat out. You’re
closed-minded. You haven’t even heard all the evidence and already you’ve
decided that I’m suffering from some sort of nutty delusion. What is it with
you? I thought you were getting over your stick-in-the-mud attitudes, but they’ve
just been lurking in a dark corner waiting to reappear, haven’t they? You’re
quick to claim that you don’t jump to conclusions, but let me tell you, up
until now I haven’t seen any evidence that would convince me of it.”
    Dan started to say something, then paused and took a breath.
“I’m sorry, Tess. Perhaps you’re right. I know this is important to you. Why
don’t you show me the rest of the things?”
    “No!”
    “Now who’s being stubborn?”
    Tess shot to her feet and planted her hands on her hips. Her
eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to prove anything to you. None of this is any of
your business anyway.”
    “Children, children,” Olivia said as she came into the room
with Martha close on her heels. “What’s going on? We could hear you all the way
downstairs.”
    “Your grandson,” Tess said to Martha, “is undoubtedly the
most pig-headed man I’ve ever met!”
    Martha cocked her head. “Danny always has been a wee bit
stubborn.”
    “ Gram !”
    Tess crossed her arms and gave Dan a smug, I-told-you-so
look. “He doesn’t believe that we know where Laffite’s treasure is buried.”
    “But, Danny, the map shows exactly where it is.”
    “What map?”
    “ This map,” Tess said, whipping out another sheet of
tattered parchment encased in plastic. “The one that marks seven areas and
gives explicit directions to where treasure was stashed. The one that says: ‘Some
of these I buried myself during the time my commune at Campeche was flourishing,
and others were hidden for me by my good and trusted friends, the Bowie
brothers.’“
    Dan looked stunned. “Let me see that.” He reached toward the
map.
    She held the map away from him and tilted her nose in the
air. “Oh, I think not. If you will excuse me, I’m going to take a shower.”
    Tess fluttered her fingers in a farewell gesture and
strolled from the room, taking the map with her.
    “Tess, come back here!” Dan roared. But she ignored him and
hurried upstairs to her spacious third floor bedroom.
    She’d barely locked the door behind her when Dan started
rapping on it, demanding to talk to her. Stifling a giggle, she sauntered to
her desk and laid the map beside Casey Prophet’s journal and the other material
she’d been collecting. Serves him right for being such a spoilsport, she
thought, listening to him knock and call to her. It would do him good to stew
for a while. Daniel Friday might as well begin learning right now that he
should never ever underestimate her.
    *    *    *
    At dinner that night, the excitement was running high as
they started making plans for the treasure hunt. Everyone was talking at once. Everyone
except Dan. He sat picking at the casserole Ivan had left for them.
    “I just know we’ll find it. Providence had a hand in this,”
chattered Martha Craven. “Why just the weekend before I found the journals,
Olivia and I were at Delta Downs and found out Pirate’s Pleasure was for sale.
We were wishing we could buy him, weren’t we, Olivia?”
    Olivia nodded. “He reminded me of a thoroughbred my granddaddy
used to have. Pirate’s Bounty, his name was. Fast as the wind. When we
investigated, we found out that that Pirate’s Pleasure’s bloodlines could be
traced back to that very same horse.”
    “What in the world would you two do with a racehorse?” Dan
asked.
    “Why”—Olivia’s face was