He ignored the slight shaking of her hands and the dark circles under her eyes. If he ignored this nonsense, she’d probably drop it. No point in reinforcing bad behavior by giving her attention for it.

He timed his arrival at the site so that he got there a good fifteen minutes before any of the men would. That would give him enough time to dismantle the trap and hide it away before anyone got there and became curious. He’d thought about leaving it in place—but some fool was only too likely to spot the pouch and try to pick it up. Or worse than a fool, a kid, messing around where he shouldn’t be.

No, it was better to get rid of it during the day. He could hide the whole setup easily enough, then put it back after everyone was gone. That wouldn’t be hard; the men left the site at quitting time fast, the goldbrickers. Not a minute of unpaid overtime on their sheets.

But when he got to the roped-off area and looked down, he got a severe jolt.

The pouch was gone. So was the bomb. Not buried, as he thought in his first burst of incredulous thought, but completely gone.

The first thing he thought of was that some stupid critter had decided to mess with it. He looked for signs of animal tracks or other disturbances, certain that something must have carried the trap off somewhere. How an animal would have done that without being blown to bits, he had no idea—but mice carried bait off out of traps all the time without springing them, and maybe a possum or raccoon had found the pouch and carried the pouch and explosives off. Maybe a dog had gone after it. Maybe a cat thought it looked tasty.

Nothing. Only the signs of enough digging to free the tripwire and bomb, and footprints of common sneakers all around.

His next indignant thought was—They stole it! The bastards stole it! I’m calling the—

Calling who? The cops? And do what, report that an illegal booby trap baited with stolen artifacts had, in turn, been stolen? Oh, that would be just brilliant.

Now he was glad he’d set the thing up wearing gloves. If Talldeer had taken it—

Well of course she took the pouch; who else would have? But how in hell did she know it was wired? He was absolutely furious; his neck and face burned for a moment with rage. How had she known? And how dared she take his trap and bait?