Finn pouted for a minute, then brightened and started rooting around in the center console.
“Uh-oh,” Owen muttered.
“Well, then,” Finn said, coming up with a green CD case that he waggled at the three of us, “it’s a good thing that I brought along my Christmas playlist as backup.”
Bria pinched the bridge of her nose, while Owen sighed and slumped back against his seat.
I just laughed.
“Deck the halls,” I said. “Deck the halls.”
* * *
Three hours and several dozen off-key Christmas carols later, we made it back to Ashland. Our first stop was Jo-Jo’s salon so the dwarf could fully heal the burns and bullet holes still decorating my body. She took care of my wounds, then fussed over me for an hour, including making me a mug of hot chocolate. So much better than cucumber slices and being pampered at a fancy spa.
After that, my friends and I went our separate ways, each of us getting back into the groove of our regular lives.
The next morning, I got up, took a shower, and went to the Pork Pit an hour early. Sophia and Catalina had done a great job in my absence, and everything was ready to rock ’n’ roll, but I still whipped up a vat of Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce, enjoying the way it spiced up the air. The warm, comforting scent always made the restaurant feel like home.
By the time Silvio came in and took his usual stool at the counter, I’d moved on to one of my projects for the day. The vampire watched me use a hammer and a nail to carefully tack up a single sheet of paper on the wall close to the cash register, right next to a photo of Fletcher and his old friend Warren T. Fox that was already hanging there, along with a framed, bloody copy of Where the Red Fern Grows.
I stepped back, admiring my handiwork. “Well, what do you think?”
Silvio snorted. “Only you would be proud of a Wanted poster.”
My grainy image stared back at me from the wall, along with my name and the info about the reward that Roxy and Brody had offered for me. Silvio was right. Maybe it was egotistical, but I loved being the star of my own Wanted poster.
I grinned. “I stuffed my suitcase full of posters before we left Bullet Pointe. I have enough of them to paper the entire restaurant if I want to.”
He rolled his eyes. “That sounds like something Finn would do. Along with getting Wanted posters made up with all our pictures on them for Christmas presents.”
“Why, Silvio,” I drawled, “I think that’s an excellent idea. I was going to get you a tie. Or maybe a really bad Christmas sweater. But personalized Wanted posters? That is pure genius.”
His lips curled in disgust, and he actually shuddered.
I snapped my fingers. “Wait a second. I know. Why not combine the two? I’ll get you a holiday sweater that looks like a Wanted poster, complete with your photo on it. What could be more heartwarming than that?”
He just groaned.
* * *
The rest of the day passed by without incident, and I closed down the restaurant and went home, happy to be back in my familiar routine.
Late that night, I was in Fletcher’s house, relaxing on the couch in the den, with my stockinged feet propped up on the coffee table in front of me, and an old James Bond movie on the TV. Even though it was almost midnight, I’d just taken some chocolate cranberry-apricot cookies out of the oven, and the house smelled rich and decadent. And the cookies themselves? A divine mix of warm, melting chocolate and sweet pops of fruity flavor from the dried cranberries and apricots. The perfect treat for the final bit of work I had to do on this cold winter’s night.
Because I still had one more puzzle to solve—the paper from Fletcher’s safety-deposit box.
I polished off my second cookie, took my feet off the coffee table, and leaned forward. I’d spread the sheet on the table when I’d first come in here, but it looked the same as it had that day in the bank when Finn and I had first found it. A large rectangle drawn on a single sheet of white paper.
I still didn’t have a clue as to what it meant.
No, that wasn’t quite true. I knew that it was a message from Fletcher, some cryptic way of telling me something important. The old man wouldn’t have left the paper in the box otherwise. And the irony of the situation didn’t escape me either. Fletcher had purposefully set up this little treasure hunt, one that was eerily similar to my search for Sweet Sally Sue’s jewels.
The information in Deirdre’s casket had led me to dig up my own mother’s grave, which had led me to the key to that safety-deposit box at First Trust bank. Which had yielded a piece of paper that was going to lead me . . . somewhere else? But where? And to what?
More than that, I wondered why Fletcher had arranged things like this. Why make me jump through so many hoops for a plain piece of paper? There had to be something more to all of this. Or maybe Fletcher hadn’t wanted me to find any information on the Circle. Maybe he’d never wanted me to know about my mother’s connection to the evil group.
Or maybe he’d been trying to protect me from an even more horrific truth, whatever it might be.
I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. Even worse, I had this nagging feeling that I was missing something obvious, that this was an instance of Fletcher’s hiding something in plain sight, just like Deirdre had put the gems in those snow globes as though they were ordinary rocks. But try as I might, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Or the trees for the forest. Or however that stupid metaphor went.
I picked up the safety-deposit box key from the table and examined it from all angles, but it too was the same as before—just a key with a number on it. No runes, no marks, no symbols of any sort adorned the metal. Gin Blanco strikes out again.
That familiar frustration surged through me, but I couldn’t be too melancholy. Not with freshly baked cookies spreading their chocolate perfume throughout the house. Even if I couldn’t figure out Fletcher’s riddle tonight, then I could at least have one more cookie—or three—before I went to bed.
I tossed the key onto the table, but it flipped end over end and skittered across the wood, landing right in the center of the rectangle on the sheet of paper. I started to get to my feet to go get more cookies, but something about the key’s lying there made me stop, lean forward, and look at it again.
It reminded me of . . . something . . . something that I’d seen recently. Some . . . shape. But what?
I sat there and thought about it for a few minutes, but the answer wouldn’t come to me, so I got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with three more cookies on a paper napkin. I set the cookies down on the table next to the sheet of paper and arranged them in a neat row. . . .
That’s when I remembered the exact shape that the key in the center of the rectangle represented and, more important, where I’d seen it before. I stared at the key, the rectangle around it, and the cookies lined up on the table. My heart started pounding with excitement. I was right. I was sure of it. But even more than that, I felt a growing sense of anticipation, knowing that Fletcher had left something for me to find after all.
“Fletcher,” I said, grinning, “you sly son of a bitch.”
30
“This is a bad idea,” Finn muttered. “A very bad idea. You know how thin the ice is for me around here these days.”
We were back at First Trust bank, down on the basement level, standing in front of a closed office door. I’d called Finn first thing this morning and told him what I’d realized about the clue that Fletcher had left behind. Finn had been a little doubtful, but he’d agreed to help me see this thing through.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see. Now knock on the man’s door.”
He shot me a disbelieving look. Finn stared at the brass nameplate and winced, obviously not wanting to do this, but he raised his hand and knocked on the office door anyway.
“Come in!” a voice barked.
Finn sighed and twisted the knob, and we stepped into Stuart Mosley’s office. Although he ran Ashland’s most exclusive and influential bank, Mosley’s office was simply furnished, with a large wooden desk, two chairs in front of it, and several metal filing cabinets lining the walls. A few large rugs were scattered across the marble floor, and the only painting on the wall featured a lovely scene of a waterfall on Bone Mountain. My eyes narrowed. I’d been to that same waterfall with Fletcher many times. Once again, I wondered just how well Fletcher had known Mosley, but that wasn’t what I was here for today.
Mosley was sitting behind his desk, poring over a stack of papers, and he didn’t even look up when we stepped inside. “Yes?”
Finn shifted on his feet. I elbowed him in the side, encouraging him to get on with things, and he stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Mr. Mosley, I’m sure that you remember my sister, Gin Blanco. She wanted to speak to you about something.”
The dwarf still didn’t look up. “And what would that be?”
“A safety-deposit box,” I said. “Nine of them, actually.”
That finally got his attention. Mosley paused a moment, then set aside the papers he’d been looking at and slowly lifted his head. His black reading glasses made his hazel eyes seem larger than they really were, and I noticed the sudden, sharp interest in his gaze. “And what box would that be?”
I held up the safety-deposit box key where Mosley could see it.
He arched his bushy eyebrows. “Yes? I believe you already looked in that box several days ago, Ms. Blanco.”
“Yep. I did look in that box. At first, I was very disappointed with the contents, since the only thing inside was this single sheet of paper, as I’m sure you already know.”
I pulled out the paper from my jacket pocket and unfolded it before laying it down on Mosley’s desk and placing the key in the center of the rectangle just like it had been on my coffee table last night. At first, I’d thought that the paper was a dead end, but it was anything but. Instead, it had been a message about where the real information was—in the safety-deposit boxes all around that first one, forming a rectangle around Fletcher’s original box. Or a circle, depending on your point of view and appreciation for irony.
I drew my finger around the rectangle, tracing the shape all the way around. “And now I want to open the rest of Fletcher’s boxes. All the ones that form a ring around that first center box. Nine boxes total, counting the one that I already opened.”
Mosley took off his glasses and set them aside, then leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands together, studying me. I stared right back at him. Beside me, Finn kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, still uncomfortable about my confronting his boss.
“And why would you think that Fletcher had another box here?” Mosley finally asked. “Especially so many of them?”
“How interesting that you would call him Fletcher, instead of Mr. Lane. Are you that familiar with all your clients?”
Mosley shrugged, not really answering my question.
“I know that Fletcher had more boxes here because he drew this treasure map to them. He just didn’t say X marks the spot. He was too smart for that, and he trusted me to figure it out on my own. In fact, I’m guessing that he set things up precisely this way because he realized that I was the only one who’d have the stubbornness and determination to figure out what his clue really meant.”
Agreement flashed in Mosley’s eyes, along with what looked like respect.
I tapped my finger on the paper. “When Finn took me into the vault a few days ago, I noticed that Fletcher’s box was in the middle of this bank of nine boxes that were set off by themselves in the back corner of the vault. I’ll admit that it took me a while to figure out what this rectangle meant, that the old man was telling me that I’d only opened the first box, and that all the other ones around it belonged to him too. But Fletcher was paranoid, and he wanted to make sure that no one else found out about those boxes but Finn and me. That makes me real curious as to what’s in them. But you already know, don’t you, Mr. Mosley?”
He studied me over the tops of his fingers. “And what makes you think that I know what might be in those boxes?”
“Because you’re the secrets keeper around here. You know who every single box in your vault belongs to and what is in every single one of them. So you know that all those boxes belong to Fletcher.”
Mosley kept staring at me, and I looked right back at him. Finn kept shifting on his feet, glancing at both of us in turn, and the only sound was the faint scuff of his shoes on the floor.
Finally, Mosley barked out a laugh. “Fletcher always told me that you were clever. I didn’t think that you’d figure it out myself.”
I gave him a thin smile. “Good thing Fletcher didn’t share your doubts. Although I wondered why he trusted you with his boxes.”
“That’s between Fletcher and me.” Mosley’s smile was as sharp and razor thin as mine was. “Let’s just say that the two of us did each other certain . . . favors from time to time.”
I opened my mouth to ask exactly what those favors had been, but Finn touched my arm in warning and gave me a stern, pointed look. He knew Mosley better than I did and was telling me that I’d pushed his boss far enough today. So I clamped my mouth shut. Besides, Finn and I still needed to get in those safety-deposit boxes, and I was betting that Mosley was the only one who could open them. That’s how Fletcher would have set it up, and it seemed like he and Mosley had been close enough—or at least done each other enough favors—for Mosley to honor the old man’s wishes.
Finn cleared his throat. “Gin and I would really appreciate it if we could go look in the boxes now.”
The dwarf stared back at Finn, and his eyes and face softened, just a bit. For a moment, Mosley’s gaze seemed distant, as though he was thinking of something else, or rather someone else—Fletcher. I saw so much of the old man in Finn, and it seemed like Mosley did too.
The dwarf pushed back from his desk and gave me another cool look. “Well, then, now that Ms. Blanco has decided to be civil about things, I will be happy to let you into Fletcher’s boxes.”
* * *
Mosley made Finn and me step outside his office, then closed and locked the door, not wanting us to see what he was up to. I tilted my head to the side and pressed my ear up against the door, but I couldn’t hear a whisper of sound from the other room.
“Don’t bother,” Finn said. “His office is soundproof.”
“What do you think he’s doing in there?”
Finn shrugged. “Probably getting the box keys. Rumor has it that Mosley has a secret safe hidden somewhere in his office. That seems like exactly the sort of place that Dad would leave those keys.”
Sure enough, a minute later, the office door opened, and Mosley appeared, carrying a small silver key ring in his hand. Finn and I followed him down the hallway to Big Bertha.
Mosley nodded at the two giant guards standing there. Another new security measure. “Jimmy, Tommy, take a break.”
At the stern order, the two men nodded and moved off without a word. Mosley punched in the codes on the keypad, and the three silverstone mesh doors slid back one after another. I thought that Mosley might step into the vault with us, but he flipped through the keys on the ring before selecting one and holding it up where Finn and I could see it.
“Per Fletcher’s instructions, he wanted you to open this box first,” Mosley said.
I took the key from him and looked at the number stamped into the metal—1301. Starting at the beginning, in more ways than one. “Thank you.”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Ms. Blanco. You too, Finn. Bring me the keys back when you’re done.” Mosley nodded at both of us and left, heading back to his office.
I waited until he was out of sight
and the echo of his footsteps had faded away before turning to Finn. “You ready for this?”
He blew out a breath. “I guess I have to be.”
We stepped into the vault and went to the back corner where Fletcher’s safety-deposit boxes were. They were exactly the same as before, three boxes across and three down, for nine boxes total. I hadn’t noticed before, but the boxes were slightly out of order, with 1300 in the center, and 1301 in the upper left-hand corner. Another small clue that I’d initially overlooked.
So I slid the key into the lock, turned it, and pulled the box out of its slot in the wall. Anticipation surged through me, and I hurried over and set the box down on the table at this end of the vault. For once, I didn’t have the patience to wait, and I yanked open the top of the box to find . . .
Photos—dozens of photos stacked inside the box.
They were all of the Bullet Pointe resort.
I stared down at the photos, dumbfounded.
Finn groaned. “Are you kidding me? I never want to see that place again.”
But I shook off my surprise and started going through the photos, looking at and then handing them off to Finn one by one.
Most of the shots were the same sort that Ira had taken—pretty pictures of the hotel, theme park, and lake. My heart started to sink. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe there wasn’t any information about the Circle in here at all. Maybe Fletcher hadn’t known anything about the mysterious group. After all, the old man had kept tabs on Deirdre to make sure that she wasn’t headed back to Ashland to threaten Finn. Maybe that’s what he’d been doing down at Bullet Pointe. Following her and seeing what she was up to.
Finally, I came to the last picture, a large rectangular print that had been stuck in the very bottom of the box, as though it were of no importance at all. I glanced at it, expecting to see another shot of the hotel lobby. That’s exactly what it was, but I recognized someone in this picture.
My mother.
I sucked in a breath. Finn realized that I’d finally found something, and he put down the photo he was looking at to peer at the one in my hand.
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