Chapter 455

After the two were silent for a moment, Walker asked, “What are you going to do?”

Luke said, “Since their purpose is to stop us from searching for the treasure, we can’t let them succeed, and the next step is still to focus on searching for the treasure.”

“What about Morris Dwan?”

Luke thought about it and said, “Let’s not dismantle him first, just pretend that nothing happened and say that it was done by the oil thieves.”

Walker said, “Even if we don’t say anything, he will probably guess that we already suspect him.”

“So what? As long as we don’t flip out, he definitely won’t flip out, making him apprehensive isn’t a bad thing, the more this mindset, the easier it will be for him to reveal himself.

And even if his accomplices find the treasure first, as long as he can’t run away, we still have a chance.”

Walker couldn’t think of a better solution for a while, “Let’s do as you say.

Who do you think Morris Dwan’s accomplice is?

The black guy whose gasoline was stolen, or the black woman on the motorcycle you met, and yes, Carlos the canyon ranger.”

Luke said, “I don’t think the black guy is a strong suspect, and as for Carlos the canyon ranger and the woman on the motorcycle, I haven’t talked to them in depth enough to judge.”

Walker waved his hand, “Forget it, let’s take one step at a time, the canyon is so big there might be other people looking for treasure. It’s not likely that his accomplices are in the shadows and haven’t really shown themselves yet.

Luke cautioned, “Be careful if you’re alone with Morris Dwan.”

Walker nodded, “I know, I’ve tried no fewer bad guys than you have, and I won’t be soft when it really comes down to it.

Let’s go back before he gets suspicious.”

The two headed back down the road to the campsite, Luke held up the gasoline can in his hand, “Hey, Maurice D’Avan, look what’s this?”

“Wow, you found gasoline, that’s amazing, where did you find it?” Mollis D’Avan gave a look of surprise that was just a little fake in Luke’s eyes.

Luke pretended to be proud and said, “As I said earlier, we didn’t hear any movement last night, which means that the oil thief didn’t drive a transportation, and this barrel of gasoline isn’t light, so it’s impossible for him to carry the barrel too far.

Sure enough, I guessed right, he hid the oil drum nearby.”

In fact, Luke was purely making excuses for finding the oil drum, for a strong man like him, walking with this drum of gasoline was nothing at all.

Morris Dwan revealed a puzzled look, “Why would he do that?”

With the whereabouts of the other party’s accomplices unknown, Luke didn’t want to tear his face off, and naturally he wouldn’t poke him at this time, instead, he would continue to make excuses for him, “I’m guessing that it’s most likely a business.”

Maurice Davan still frowned, “What does that mean? How can stealing oil be a business?”

“Remember that little black guy I was talking about? He had his car’s gas tank stolen, too, and radioed the canyon warden for help, who promised to bring him five gallons of gasoline for a five-hundred-dollar fee.

And a similar thing happened today; do you think it’s pure coincidence?” Luke gave a you-know-what look.

Maurice D’Avan said in the same breath, “What an asshole, don’t let me find evidence of him stealing gas or I won’t let him off the hook.

My money is not that easy to cheat.”

“Believe me, we will meet that asshole sooner or later, no one can do bad things without being punished.

And what we need to do now is to find the treasure first.” Luke walked over to the off-side three-wheeled motorcycle and added gasoline to the tank, muttering, “No one is going to stop us from finding the treasure. No one!”

Morris Dhawan nodded and agreed, “You’re right, the treasure belongs to us.”

Afterwards, the three of them packed up their gear and hit the road, still with Luke riding the partial three-wheeled motorcycle and Walker driving the RV.

After traveling for a while, because the road was narrow, the caravan couldn’t continue to move forward, Walker parked the caravan on the side of the road and sat on the back of the motorcycle.

This time the treasure hunt, the three people were much quieter, no more passionate discussion of the treasure hunt plan as before, even if Luke and Walker did not show too obvious, the atmosphere also changed unconsciously.

After about half an hour, the motorcycle finally reached the bottom of the canyon.

This time Luke teamed up with Maurice Dwan and the two of them searched on the paratrike.

Walker went alone, searching along the east side of the canyon.

Luke and Morris Dwan searched along the west side of the canyon.

This arrangement was also made to prevent Mollis Dhawan from laying his hands on them.

However, according to Luke’s speculation, before the treasure was found, Morris Dwan did not have enough motivation and reason to do it.

And even if he wanted to do it, Luke was not afraid of him.

Originally, Luke was quite enjoying the process of exploring and searching for the treasure, but the fact that there was now an extra two-fifty in the team made it a bit diabolical.

Luke rode a three-wheeled motorcycle, and Maurice Dawan sat in the bucket and looked at the map in his hand from time to time.

The motorcycle drove forward for a certain distance, Morris Dwan opened his mouth and said, “Stop for a while.”

Luke stopped the motorcycle and asked, “Is there anything going on?”

Morris Dwan pointed to the ground in front of him, “There are tire tracks.”

Luke got off the bike to check, and saw the car tire marks, Luke’s observation power was much better than an ordinary person, Morris D’Avan found the car tire marks before he did, showing that he still had some skills as an outdoor adventure expert.

“It’s a car’s tire, the imprint is newer, it should have been left not long ago.”

Maurice Dawan said, “Looks like we have another contender.”

“Don’t worry, the treasure is definitely ours.” Luke got on the motorcycle and drove forward again.

However, he didn’t drive fast, and his eyes swept around from time to time to observe the terrain.

After driving forward for a few more minutes, Maurice Davan called a halt again, “There are new tire tracks up ahead.”

Luke once again got out of the car to check the point, this time the tire tracks were narrower and looked like they should be motorcycle tire tracks.

Luke looked closely for a moment and felt that he had seen this tire print before, much like the print left by the motorcycle driven by the black woman yesterday.

“It’s a motorcycle tire print, and the marks are relatively new.” Luke shrugged, “Why did so many treasure hunters appear at once, could the treasure really be around here?”

Of course it was more likely that this second five had recruited them.

Morris Dwan couldn’t tell if he was happy or angry and responded, “That means we’re in the right place, so let’s work harder.”

Since the tire tracks were new, indicating that the person might not have left yet, Luke raised his guard and looked around the area to see no suspicious figures.

Luke got on the motorcycle and once again drove the biased three-wheeled motorcycle forward.

This time, Luke kept an eye on Maurice Dhawan’s expression and found that he looked a bit gloomy.

In addition to observing the surrounding terrain, Liz Dhawan would also observe the ground from time to time.

Both men were quiet for the rest of the way, and Luke chose to keep his mouth shut and test Morris Dwan’s attitude towards the tire tracks.

After about ten minutes or so, Morris Dwan suddenly said, “Stop, the tire tracks on both the car and the motorcycle have disappeared.”

Actually, Luke had also observed this, but he didn’t say it the first time just to see Morris Dwan’s reaction.

Luke deliberately asked, “What do we do now?”

Mollis Dhawan replied, “The tire tracks of the two cars disappeared at the same time and there is no sign of returning the same way, which means that they probably turned around.

I suggest we turn around and go back to take a look.”

Luke and Maurice Davan’s judgment was the same, plus they were confident in their own strength and turned around to look back.

The motorcycle didn’t drive far back to a triangular turnoff, and Luke got off to check, thinking that both vehicles had probably left through the turnoff.

Luke continued to drive the motorcycle forward and again found the previous motorcycle and car tracks.

After traveling a little further, Luke suddenly stopped the partial three-wheeled motorcycle.

Morris Dwan focused his attention on the ground and looked up to ask, “Why the sudden stop?”

Luke pointed to a slope not far away, “There’s a spruce tree over there, I’m going over to check it out.”

Luke got out of the car and climbed up the slope, the slope was a bit steep and there were not many places to borrow strength, although he didn’t have much climbing experience, he was physically fit and climbed up the slope to a platform, there was a spruce tree planted in front of the left side of the platform.

Because the spruce tree is also marked on the map, so Luke paid attention, checking around the spruce tree, and found that there are two different sets of footprints on the ground extending deeper into the depths of the platform, and further on is a semi-circular cave.

Luke took out his pistol and followed the footprints on the ground into the cave.

Inside the cave there is a huge crack, there is also light shining in, not particularly dark, there are many footprints inside the cave, very mixed, there are traces of excavation, but each pit is not deep, less than forty centimeters.

With Luke’s experience, it should be someone trying to dig for treasure here, but from the depth it should not have been found, the pit where the treasure was buried could not be only forty centimeters deep.

To know, the height of the chest containing the treasure that Luke found last time was about forty centimeters, in addition to the buried soil.

Therefore, Luke presumed that these two people had not dug up the treasure.

Luke frowned slightly and inhaled hard, vaguely smelling a bloody odor.

Luke, as an old criminal police officer, was relatively sensitive to the smell of blood, his eyes scanned the surrounding ground and saw a trace covered with dirt, pulling away the dirt, there were fresh blood stains underneath, while there were only two human shoe prints around, and there were no animal paw prints to be seen.

Obviously, these two people should have had a conflict.

Luke squatted down to carefully identify the two shoe prints, the two sets of shoe prints were one big and one small, the big one should be a male’s leather boots, and the small one looked like a woman’s shoe.

Luke guessed based on the motorcycle tire prints outside that the woman was probably the black woman on the motorcycle.

As for who the man was, he couldn’t tell yet, and after some hesitation, he used an identification card again.

If he couldn’t find the treasure, he would lose a lot of money this time.

【Shoes, leather boots with mesh soles

Gender, male

Height, 178-183cm

Weight, 75-80 lbs.

Age, between 38 and 43]

Luke recalled the people he had seen, the males were also the black guy whose gasoline had been stolen and the canyon ranger, Carlos.

The black guy was not yet thirty years old, he did not fit the characteristics of the owner of the shoe prints, on the contrary, Carlos had a similar height and body type, although Luke also did not ask the other party about his exact age, but it felt that he should be in his early to mid-forties.

Could it be true that it was Carlos, the canyon keeper, and why did he clash with the black woman?

The two were fighting over the treasure?

Could it be that they had really found something in this cave?

Or maybe he had overlooked something?

Luke was a little puzzled for a while.

“Luke, what did you find up there?” Morris Dwan’s voice came from outside.

“I’ll be right down.” Luke answered and took a few pictures with his cell phone while leaving the cave.

At this time, Morris Dwan had already stepped down from the motorcycle and was trying to climb the slope, but he still had an injury on one of his feet, so it was a bit difficult to climb up the slope, and it would probably lead to the foot injury being torn again, so he eventually gave up his intention of climbing up to the platform, and he could only stand at the bottom of the slope and look out.

Luke shook his head, “There’s nothing inside.”

“Did you search carefully? Things like signs of excavation and marked spots where treasure was hidden.”

“Already searched, nothing.” Luke hid the discovery of bloodstains.

“If there’s nothing, then why did you stay up there so long?”

Luke said, “Because I had to search carefully and it took some time.”

Maurice Dwan pointed to the slope, “But I found shoe prints here, proving that those driving the car had been up there too.”

“That’s right, it does have their shoe prints in it, but nothing else was found, it’s just an ordinary cave.”

The two got on the motorcycle and continued forward to track the tire tracks, however, Luke only found the tire tracks of the car this time, and no more tire tracks of the motorcycle.

“Wait a minute.” Maurice Dwan once again called a halt to the partial three-wheeled motorcycle.

Luke asked knowingly, “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that the motorcycle’s tire tracks are missing and only the car’s tire tracks are visible?”

Luke said, “It’s possible they were in a group and put the motorcycle on the car after the rendezvous here so they could still save gas.

There’s also a possibility that the motorcycle took a side road in order to ditch the car, that’s a small motorcycle to be more agile and maneuverable than our partial three-wheeled motorcycle, as long as there’s a path one person wide to pass.”

Maurice Dwan still frowned, but didn’t say anything else.

Luke continued to follow the trail of tire tracks, and a little farther on, he could already tell that the vehicle was headed upward, looking as if it were about to ascend the north bank of the canyon, and Luke decided not to follow it any further.

Luke returned to the bottom of the valley and continued his search for the location of the suspected treasure site.

Luke searched the bottom of the valley once, but did not find any terrain that was extremely similar to the treasure map.

They could only view from the high point of the south bank, they could not see the complete terrain, which was somewhat deceptive, the other thing was that the balancing stone and the spruce tree were somewhat misleading, and there were a lot of similar markings in the canyon, which made finding the treasure somewhat difficult.

Luke secretly said, this time the preparation is still not enough, next time should buy a drone to scout in the air, it will save a lot of time and labor.

After Luke and Walker rendezvoused, the three of them returned to the RV again.

This time, Walker did not continue to go forward on the grounds that walking on foot was physically exhausting.

After a brief dinner, Luke prepared to return to the RV.

Maurice Dwan said, “Hey man, aren’t you forgetting something?”

Luke took out the keys to the partial three-wheeled motorcycle, “You’re talking about this, I’m driving tomorrow anyway, so just leave it here with me.”

After Luke finished speaking, he didn’t give Morris Dhawan a chance to refuse and directly returned to the caravan.

Morris Dwan’s face was a little hard to see, and he said to Walker, who was beside him, “I think he’s a little out of line, don’t you think, Walker.”

“You’re right, it may be that not finding the treasure again has thrown him off a bit, I’ll talk him down.” Walker finished and returned to the caravan as well.

Morris D’Avan’s face was grim as he stood still for a long time, but eventually returned to the tent.

After Walker got into the caravan, he glanced at him from the window and asked Luke, who was beside him, “Is there anything unusual about this guy today?”

“Yes, he’s showing a lot of nervousness today, and from what I’ve seen, he and the black woman on the motorcycle yesterday should be in cahoots.”

Walker thought about it, “There is this possibility, that black woman arrived one step ahead of us in both treasure hunts, it is indeed too coincidental.”

Luke said, “In my opinion, it’s not a coincidence at all, but rather, Morris Dwan told the black woman our plan in advance, so that she could search for the treasure first.

And Morris Dwan stayed behind to spy on us, intentionally causing trouble and delaying time to buy more time for that black woman to search for the treasure.”

Walker asked, “Didn’t you guys also find tire tracks on a car today? Was the man driving the car his accomplice?”

Luke thought about it and said, “I don’t think so, although the tire tracks of the motorcycle and the car overlapped, which could only mean that the owner of that car might also have come here to hunt for the treasure, but I don’t think they should be in a group.”

Walker asked, “Do you have anything to base that on?”

“We found a cave at the bottom of the canyon, according to the footprints, both the owner of the motorcycle and the owner of the car should have entered the cave, and I found bloodstains in the cave, I suspect that there might have been a conflict between them.”

Walker looked out the window, “Does he know about this?”

“He found tire tracks too, but he didn’t enter the cave on his bad leg, so he didn’t know about the blood.

He inquired about the situation in the cave, and I made a few perfunctory remarks.

As to whether he believes it or not, I can’t say for sure, depending on his actions tonight.”

Walker guessed, “You think he’ll run tonight?”

“Who knows?” Luke glanced at the motorcycle keys in his hand; with the off-road three-wheeled motorcycle, it didn’t mean much whether Morris Dwan ran or not.

Instead, he hoped that Morris Dwan would come and leave without saying goodbye, perhaps it would be more interesting.

The night is late.

Morris Dwan lay in his tent, tossing and turning and having trouble sleeping.

He obviously felt that Luke’s attitude towards him was a bit different, did they find out about him?

Where did he reveal himself? Was it because of the oil theft?

But Luke himself said that the black man’s gasoline was also stolen, so why would he suspect that he was stealing from the police?

Suddenly, something occurred to Maurice Dwan.

The last time he had searched the bottom of the canyon for a treasure site, it had been he and Walker in a group.

Today it was Luke who was exploring with him.

He had noticed that Luke was very observant and had some insight into the tire tracks.

Could he be judging the gasoline he stole by the footprints?

Yes, that should be the case, from the moment he volunteered to move with him, he was already wary of himself, he was watching himself, observing his reactions.

One was too careless.

Maurice Davan was reflecting, a habit he’d picked up as a child, every time he followed his father on an outdoor adventure, his father would tell him to take stock of the mistakes he’d made today and not to make them again.

From Luke’s move to take away the motorcycle keys, he already has the signs of tearing his face off, whether to go or stay, he must make a decision as soon as possible.

Morris Dwan’s ultimate goal is still to find the treasure.

He does have an accomplice, none other than Grey Roach, the black woman driving the motorcycle.

This was also the reason why he was reluctant to work with Luke and Walker, the uneven distribution could easily leave hidden dangers.

Should he leave or stay, he still had to see the progress on his accomplice’s side?

Besides, today’s car tire tracks gave him a bad feeling, who left that car tire track?

Was Grey Roach being followed?

Why had her motorcycle tire tracks disappeared?

Could it be true that she had taken a detour around the trail, as Luke had said.

With that thought, Maurice Dwan looked outside the tent at the RV, which he deliberately kept some distance from.

He took out his walkie-talkie, adjusted the frequency and called, “Hello, this is Morris, can you hear me?”

A woman’s voice came over the intercom, “Roger, this is Grey, is it easy to talk over there?”

“Yes, they may have gotten suspicious of me, what’s the situation on your end?”

“I found the treasure!”