Unraveled

by Jennifer Estep

  Mosley turned around and punched in a code on a keypad that was attached to the first silverstone mesh door. The light on the keypad flashed green before winking back to red. He punched in two more codes; the light flashed green twice more before staying that color, and all three of the silverstone mesh doors slowly slid back one after another.

  “Well, you know where that box is, Finn,” Mosley rumbled. “I’ll leave you to it. Be sure and lock the vault again when you’re done.”

  The dwarf nodded at us, then turned and walked down the hallway and around the corner, presumably going back to his office.

  “Am I the only one who thought that was odd?” I asked. “It almost seemed like he was about to crack a genuine smile there for a second.”

  Finn shook his head. “Honestly, I can’t tell around here anymore. Up is down, and down is sideways, with all the new security measures and changes. Anyway, let’s go see what Dad left us.”

  We stepped into the vault. The last time I’d been in here, the space had been in ruins, since I’d used my Ice and Stone magic to collapse the ceiling on top of Deirdre and Rodrigo Santos, the professional thief who’d been helping her. But the piles of rocky rubble were long gone, as was all the gray marble dust, shattered lengths of silverstone rebar, and other debris. The area looked pristine, and the rows of safety-deposit boxes gleamed as though they had all just been shined by hand. Maybe they had been, given Mosley’s attention to detail.

  “This way,” Finn said.

  He led me to the back left corner of the vault. All the boxes were marked with small black numbers, and Fletcher’s box—1300—was the center box in a row of three across and three down. Nine boxes total, set off by themselves from all the others.

  Finn held the key out to me. “You found it, so you do the honors.”

  After Tucker had taunted me with the knowledge that my mother had been part of the Circle, I’d gone to Blue Ridge Cemetery to dig up her grave to see if Fletcher might have left a clue for me there, as he had in Deirdre’s empty casket. I’d found the safety-deposit box key buried in the dirt in my mother’s grave and had been wondering about it ever since.

  But now that we were finally going to open the box, doubt filled me, along with more than a little worry about what we’d find inside. What horrible secrets had Fletcher discovered about my mother? What hard truths about her had he hidden away for all these years? And how much would they hurt me now?

  “Gin?” Finn was still holding out the key to me. “Are you okay?”

  I blew out a breath. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

  Before I could think about it any longer, I took the key from him, slid it into the slot on the front of the box, and turned it. The lock clicked open, and I grabbed the handle and slid the safety-deposit box out of the wall. I carried the long, rectangular container to a waist-high table at this end of the vault and set it down there. Finn nodded at me, and I slowly lifted the lid of the box to reveal . . .

  A single sheet of paper.

  I frowned. Not what I was expecting. Not at all. Given all the photos and broken mementos that Fletcher had packed into the box in Deirdre’s casket, I’d assumed that this box would be filled to the brim with information too. But maybe the old man hadn’t had time to find out everything about my mother and the Circle. Maybe he’d just left behind a list of the members’ names. That would be more than enough for me to start tracking down Tucker and all the others, however many of them there were.

  Heart pounding, I reached for the paper. My fingers were trembling so badly that it took me three tries before I was finally able to grab hold and lift it out of the box. Finn moved to stand beside me, and I held the paper up where we could both see it to find . . .

  A rectangle drawn on the sheet.

  That was it. That was all. Just a large, simple rectangle drawn on a plain white sheet of paper.

  I turned it over, hoping that something was written on the back. A note, a phone number, an address. But nothing was there. I held it up to the light, thinking that maybe there was a rune, watermark, or some other faint symbol that I hadn’t noticed yet. Still nothing. Desperate, I stared at the front again, but it was the same as before.

  Nothing—there was nothing here. Fletcher hadn’t left me any clues about my mother, Tucker, or the Circle. Not a single one.

  Once again, I had zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. A whole big fat lot of nothing. More damn nothing than ever before.

  “That’s it?” I growled. “That’s all there is? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Disgusted, I tossed the paper down onto the table. The single sheet zipped across the smooth metal surface, floated through the air, and landed right in front of those rows of safety-deposit boxes. The whole bank of them looked like a doughnut now that Fletcher’s box was missing from the center. I glared at the paper, wondering if the old man was somehow mocking me from the great beyond. That’s certainly how it felt.

  Finn walked over and retrieved the wayward statio­nery from the floor, setting it back down on the table. He cleared his throat, breaking the tense, angry silence. “I know you’re disappointed. I am too. I expected there to be more in the box.”

  “But?”

  He shrugged. “But maybe Dad just didn’t have time to put any info in the box. You know how many hidey-holes he had in his office and all over town. Hard to keep track of them all, much less what he put inside each one. Or maybe he just didn’t have any information about your mother and the Circle to share. He’s gone now, so we’ll never know for sure.”

  Disappointment burned in my heart, charring all my earlier hope to brittle black ash. “No, I guess we never will.”

  I glared at the paper again, equal parts angry and frustrated. Part of me wanted to snatch up the sheet, rip it to shreds, and throw the whole mess into the closest trash can. Instead, I reached out, carefully folded it up, and slid it inside my jacket pocket. Maybe it was silly, but I was going to keep the sheet, if only for the simple reason that Fletcher had scribbled on it.

  Finn cleared his throat again. “I know you’re disappointed.”

  “But?”

  “But there’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

  He hesitated, then reached into his suit jacket and drew out a thick wad of papers, which he laid on the table in between us.

  “What’s all that?”

  “It came in the mail a few days ago.” He slid the documents across the table to me. “See for yourself.”

  I picked up the papers, unfolded them, and scanned the first page. I frowned. “This . . . looks like some sort of . . . deed made out to you.”

  Finn shot his thumb and forefinger at me. “Winner, winner. It’s the deed to the Bullet Pointe resort complex, which I now own lock, stock, and barrel.”

  I blinked at the name. “Bullet Pointe? That cheesy Old West theme park down in Georgia? The one that’s all cowboys, all the time?”

  Bullet Pointe was moderately famous in Ashland and the surrounding area, sort of like the poor, distant Southern cousin of one of the Disney theme parks. The rides, costumed characters, and live shows made it especially popular with families and schools. If you lived within driving distance, chances were that you’d been to the theme park on at least one family vacation or school field trip.

  Finn nodded, a bit of excitement flashing in his eyes. “Yep, that’s it. Dad took us there once for vacation. Do you remember, Gin?”

  I snorted. “Oh, I remember all right. You and Fletcher spent the whole weekend playing cowboys, while I followed you both around like a third wheel.”

  “You got sick too. I remember you eating way too much pizza and then puking your guts out the second we got off one of the swing rides.” Finn grinned. “Good times.”

  I rolled my eyes, then asked the obvious question. “And how exactly did you wind up with the deed to this tourist trap?”
>
  He shifted on his feet. “Deirdre left it to me in her will.”

  My eyebrows shot up into my forehead. “Your lying, ice-queen bitch of a mother actually left you something?”

  Finn winced, the teasing grin dropping from his face and the excitement snuffing out of his eyes. Too late, I realized how harsh my tone had been and how much he was still hurting from everything that Deirdre had done. But I couldn’t put the words back into my mouth so I plowed on ahead.

  “I thought that Deirdre was flat-busted broke,” I said in a more neutral voice. “That the reason she robbed Briartop and tried to do the same thing here at the bank was to pay back all the millions that she owed to Tucker and the rest of the Circle.”

  Finn shrugged. “Looks like she was at least able to hold on to the resort. Maybe Tucker didn’t realize she owned it. Maybe she hid it from him. But even if he did know about the resort and pressured her to sell it, it’s not the kind of thing that you can just take down to the corner pawnshop and hock for cold, hard cash.”

  Well, hiding assets certainly sounded like something that Deirdre would have done. Even when Tucker had tied her down to a chair and tortured her, she’d still been scheming how she could turn the situation around to her advantage. Mama Dee had always been plotting something, so it didn’t surprise me that she’d squirreled away some assets for a rainy day. But an Old West theme park? I would have never expected that from her. It just didn’t fit in with Deirdre’s diva personality and addiction to the finer things in life.

  “She actually talked to me about the resort a few times,” Finn continued. “Before . . . everything that happened.”

  I waited, but he didn’t elaborate, and I realized that I was going to have to pry it out of him. “And what did she say?”

  Finn bit his lip and shifted on his feet. He looked past me, staring out the vault entrance and into the hallway, focusing on the spot where Deirdre had tortured him with her magic. His green eyes darkened, and his shoulders tensed, remembering the cold, horrible Ice burns that she’d inflicted on him. His hands curled into fists, and a faint, almost imperceptible shudder rippled through his body before he was able to stop it.

  “Finn?” I asked again in a gentler voice, trying to shake him out of his painful memories. “What did Deirdre say about the theme park?”

  He blinked, snapping back to the here and now, ­although he dropped his head and started drawing a line on the floor with his black wing tip, instead of looking at me. “Deirdre thought that the Old West theme was rather quaint. She told me that she bought the park on a whim decades ago, that it was one of her very first investments. The park itself is all cowboys, all the time, just like you said, but there’s also a hotel on the grounds, also named Bullet Pointe. Deirdre said that she’d focused all her efforts on the hotel. It still has the same Old West look and feel as everything else, but she claimed that she’d slowly turned it into a luxury resort. She bragged that folks come from all over the country to stay there and take advantage of the spa, the golf courses, and the lake that rings it and the theme park. Here. See for yourself.”

  Finn took the sheaf of papers from me and pulled out a slick, glossy brochure, which he passed back over to me. I opened it up and scanned through the pages. He was right. The Bullet Pointe hotel looked like a swanky place with just the sort of insanely expensive, over-the-top luxury that Deirdre had indulged in. Still, I wondered why she had left it to Finn and especially why the deed had shown up now.

  Usually, the wheels of estates and inheritances ground much more slowly, especially in Ashland. Most of the time when somebody died, long-lost relatives and second cousins twice removed came out of the woodwork like hordes of termites, with each and every one demanding a piece of the dearly departed’s money pie, no matter how large or small it was. But here was Finn, a scant two weeks after Deirdre’s death, deed in hand, with this shiny, new significant real estate to his name. It was all a bit convenient and far too quick and easy for my tastes. Something was going on here.

  “So what do you plan to do with your new windfall?” I asked.

  “Well, that depends on you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I know what you’re thinking—that this all happened way too fast and way too easily. And I totally agree with you. It’s definitely fishy. I didn’t even think that it was real, at first.”

  “But?”

  “But the second I got the deed, I started calling around, making sure that it was legit. The lawyer who did Deirdre’s will assured me that it was and put me in touch with the resort manager.”

  “And?”

  Finn hesitated. “And fishy or not, I thought that we could go down there this weekend and check it out for ourselves. The resort manager wants to meet me, the new owner, and make sure that I’m happy with how things are being run.”

  “You mean the manager wants to suck up and kiss your ass so he can keep his cushy job.”

  “Actually, it’s a she, but something like that.” Finn flashed me a faint smile, a rare occurrence these days. “But, hey, I’m not one to turn down a little free, enthusiastic ass-kissing.”

  “Those words sound so wrong coming out of your mouth.”

  “What’s the matter, Gin? Don’t like double entendres?”

  I huffed. “Those are not double entendres, and you certainly are no James Bond.”

  Finn straightened his tie. “Of course not. I’m much better looking than that limey bloke.”

  “You certainly have a much bigger ego.”

  He winked at me. “That’s not the only thing that’s bigger on me.”

  I groaned and shook my head. “It always amazes me how the ego of Finnegan Lane cannot be contained by a mere mortal like myself. It just oozes everywhere, infecting everything it touches.”

  “Infecting it with awesomeness,” he shot right back at me.

  My eyes narrowed, but Finn grinned even wider, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the table, knowing that he’d won our verbal sparring match. In that moment, he seemed more like his old self than he had in weeks, since everything with Deirdre had gone down. I didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble with more suspicions and worries right now, so I looked at the hotel brochure again.

  “You really want to drive down there this weekend?” I asked. “Don’t you need to stay here and help Mosley? I thought you guys still had some more safety-deposit boxes to sort through and make sure that the contents were returned to their rightful owners.”

  “We finished up with the last of the boxes a few nights ago.” Finn paused. “Mosley’s gone through all of them and double-checked everything. Apparently, he has a master list of every single item in every single box, right down to the last uncut diamond and gold coin.”

  “And how did he manage that? I thought the safety-deposit boxes and their contents were supposed to be completely confidential.”

  Finn shrugged. “I didn’t ask, and frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m just glad that everything’s back in its proper place. All Mosley is doing now is hiring and vetting new guards and poring over new security procedures and protocols. Believe me, he’s briefed me on those quite thoroughly.”

  Finn muttered the last few words, and his cheery expression vanished. This time, I winced for him. Anyone would have fallen for Deirdre’s deceptive charm and gotten ensnared in her elaborate plan to rob First Trust. But like it or not, Finn was the one who’d given Deirdre, Rodrigo Santos, and their crew of thieves access to the bank, even if it had been at gunpoint, and several of the bank’s guards had died as a result.

  Naturally, Stuart Mosley had come down hard on Finn. Oh, the dwarf didn’t yell or scream or threaten him. Mosley didn’t even say a single word about firing him. He just made sure that Finn was involved in every single aspect of getting the bank back up and running again, from reviewing the new security procedures, t
o assuring customers that their valuables were still safe, to attending the funerals of all the guards who’d died.

  Finn would have done all of those things anyway, but that last one had been particularly hard on him, since he’d worked at the bank for years and had been friendly with all the people who’d been killed. He didn’t say anything to me, but he’d come to the Pork Pit after a few of the funerals, his eyes dark, his face gray with grief, his entire being radiating sick misery. I knew that it tore him up inside that his coworkers were dead and that their families were suffering their devastating losses. Finn blamed himself for all of it, and the guilt was like a lead weight yoked to his shoulders. I knew that he wasn’t eating like he should, and Bria had told me that he was barely sleeping as well.

  Finn absolutely loved his job, so the robbery and every­thing that Deirdre had done to him had been punishment enough, but Mosley made him suffer a little more, just because. Something else that had added to Finn’s misery the last few weeks, although he hadn’t complained about his boss’s tactics. Not even once. Finn thought that he deserved to be punished, and nothing that I, Bria, or anyone else said convinced him otherwise.

  “Besides,” Finn continued, “I think that we could all use a break after everything that’s happened the last few weeks, and where better to get your mojo back than at a fancy hotel? A seaweed wrap will do wonders for the skin, and frankly, my dear, you could use some cucumber slices on your eyes. Get rid of those dark circles and worry lines, and turn your perpetual frown upside down.”

  “Frowning makes me look more intimidating, and the only cucumbers I’m interested in are the ones in the Pork Pit’s salads.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You are so wrong about so many things in life, I don’t even know where to start.”

  I grinned at him, and he sighed, knowing that I’d won round two. But Finnegan Lane was never down for long.

  “Come on, Gin,” he wheedled. “You, me, Bria, Owen. We’ll road-trip down there, spend the weekend playing cowboys and getting pampered, and be back in time for you to open up the restaurant on Monday morning. It’ll be fun. A vacation from everyone and everything in Ashland.”