Eyes, Page 3

behind, filled to bursting with precious gems worth many millions. Their value, even if it were doubled would not entice me to return. They are lost to me.

  I'm going to try to sleep now, and I have taken even more sleeping pills. Perhaps if I could only sleep....

  Twenty three year old Barry Walker closed the journal. He was a thief, but had none of the experience or sophistication of Anthony Harper. At best he was an opportunist, relying on raw luck rather than the meticulous planning that was the hallmark of the illustrious career of Harper. Even so, the irony that he had chanced to rob another thief hadn't escaped him. Harper had died in his sleep; his cheeks hollow, his skin an unwashed and unhealthy yellow colour, his eyes wide open as if staring at something from the very bowels of hell itself. Walker had almost missed the journal, but something drew him to it, lying open at the author's last page.

  His heart had skipped a beat when he'd read about the fabulous wealth hidden in the cave; his for the taking. He sat in the Lexus he had stolen, if it were indeed stealing if the previous owner had died from natural causes. With the field glasses he had found in the glove box he studied the cave through the open window. It was exactly as it had been described in the journal. The overgrown path he would have to fight his way through and even the solitary osprey circling above. The jewels were as good as his. He was young and strong and he wasn't scared. He placed the journal and the field glasses in the glove box, got out of the car and started up the path to the cave.