by Patti Larsen
“Should I…?” He gestured behind him with a jerk of his thumb and though I almost said yes, Daisy shook her head and stood, straightening her skirt.
“No, don’t be silly.” She laughed, a tinkling sound far too brittle for my bestie’s usual bright amusement. “I’ll go.”
“Actually,” Crew said before I could protest, standing with one hand reaching for my bestie while he pulled an envelope from his back pocket, grin making him look like a mischievous kid with a secret he couldn’t keep inside much longer, “I have something to show both of you.”
Okay, he had my interest and then, my forgiveness for interrupting because Daisy’s expression changed from fraudulent happiness to curiosity, her spark waking up again.
“What is it?” She accepted it from him as he beamed at me, eyes twinkling.
“A letter,” he said.
I snorted, smacked his arm. “Obvs,” I said. “What’s in the letter?”
Daisy unfolded it, scanned it, her gray eyes widening and a real smile lit her up. “It’s from your father’s lawyer.
Crew nodded, almost bouncing on his toes as he spoke. “From Dad’s estate,” he said, voice vibrating with excitement, enough to dispel the last of my bad humor and worry about Daisy, Malcolm, even pushing aside my lingering stress over finding the body of Jack Nethersole (was that really just this morning?). “It got misplaced after Dad died. They just found it, sent it to me. It’s actually from my grandfather.”
Funny, we were just talking about lawyers and inheritances and the dead delivering messages from the grave. Sounded like Crew’s was much better than Daisy’s, though.
“The same grandfather that wrote The Reading Hoard: Fact or Fiction?” I almost took the paper from Daisy but held off, letting her have this moment of happy in an uncharacteristic surge of control over my curiosity.
“The very same,” Crew said. “And you’ll never guess what he talks about in it.”
Daisy looked up, beaming now, too. “The map,” she said. “He talks about another piece of the map.” She looked at me. “And Iris, Fee. Something about her having possession of the whole thing!”
Wait, Grandmother Iris had the map? And Crew’s grandfather Alistair knew her?
Okay, enough was enough. I grabbed my phone, hit speed dial and when the familiar gravel voice on the other end of the line answered, I didn’t bother with a greeting.
“Dad,” I said. “We need to see you. Right now.”
***
Chapter Twenty
I stood in my parent’s living room, Dad and Mom seated side-by-side on the sofa, Crew in an armchair and Daisy perched on the edge of the love seat while I filled in the story we’d been investigating since I discovered the box buried in my back yard.
Wow, was that three years ago? Amazing. But no more so than the astonished looks on my parent’s faces, how Dad’s natural curiosity—yes, I came by it honestly—lit up his face like a Christmas tree loaded with far too many lightbulbs for his own good.
When I finished off by handing over Crew’s letter, Dad skimmed it before Mom took it from him, her lips pursed while my father stood and started to pace. Awesome. Dad pacing meant his mind was churning and amazing things came from John Fleming’s brain.
Why hadn’t we brought this to him earlier? Stubborn, that’s why.
“What do you think, John?” Daisy’s radiant delight made me grin from ear to ear. So nice, after the conversation we’d had before Crew’s appearance changed everything again for the better. My bestie’s shining optimism and brilliant hope was alive and well no matter what her family decided to do to her. And that was actually the biggest treasure in all of this.
Well. Until we found the real treasure, that was. Because it was becoming more and more apparent we were going to find it. Weren’t we?
Oh. My. God. We really were.
Dad stopped in mid-pace and grinned at Daisy as if he’d lost forty years off his age and had his innocence handed back to him on a silver platter. “Lu,” he said, spinning on my mother who looked up from the page she was reading with her typical focus and care. “That thing you found. At Mom’s. Remember?”
She nodded quickly, standing and hurrying to the kitchen. I followed, Crew behind me, Daisy on his heels, Dad taking up the tail end of our procession. Mom stopped abruptly and I came this close to running into her as she reached out and tugged on the folding stairs Dad had mounted on the wall. As they eased down on pressure sensitive hinges and locked into place, I realized this treasure hunt was taking us somewhere I hadn’t explored since I was a kid.
Mom and Dad’s attic.
The hatch overhead eased open without a complaint, settling against the top step while Mom climbed up, disappearing into the darkness overhead. As I followed, light appeared, my mother turning on the lights above to guide my way. Within moments I was standing in the dim but uncluttered space that held the memories of my childhood, furniture no longer in use piled in corners, a few chests, boxes, some old shelves filled with orderly stacks of books and magazines. Most people’s attics were dusty, musty and filled with clutter. Lucy Fleming’s attic?
You could have eaten off the softwood floor.
“Here.” She was digging in the corner, pulling aside what looked like picture frames, fairly large ones, old paintings she no longer wanted to hang downstairs. Crew eased past me into the light of the gable window that let in the last fading illumination of the day. That, paired with the shining brightness of the row of bulbs hanging from the empty rafters overhead gave a clear view of the frame Mom won free from the leaning pile and held out to my fiancé.
He examined it, holding it carefully in both big hands, squinting down at what looked like a torn sheet of canvas. When I joined him, heart pounding, the familiar lines and squiggles I’d become accustomed to, drawn in the same hand as whoever created the pieces I’d been storing in my grandmother’s music box, made me squeal in delight.
Took a lot not to take the frame and torn canvas from Crew’s hands and do a little dance with it hugged tight to my chest.
Daisy must have been feeling the same way because she grabbed me and clung on, laughing as she watched Crew examine it further, that breathless anticipation a perfect match to my own.
“I found it stuffed behind Iris’s bed,” Mom said, bemused herself, though her own excitement clearly rising. “I was cleaning out her things after she died and didn’t have the heart to throw it out since it obviously meant something to her. Why else would she hide it there?” She wrung her hands at Dad. “She never lost her sharp mind, John, so I assumed it was important but I forgot all about it.”
My father, meanwhile, was nodding and shaking his head in alternating order, pure amazement still clinging to him, that air of a teenaged boy who’d uncovered the most amazing surprise ever in the history of surprises making me giggle.
“It’s real,” he breathed. “The hoard is actually real.” Dad laughed then, suddenly, deeply, slapping both thighs with his big hands. “We talked about it, when we were kids.” His eyes gleamed with twinkles as he approached Crew, only accepting the canvas from my fiancé when he offered it to my father with something akin to reverence. “Everyone did, I think. It’s a younger man’s dream, though. I gave up on it long ago.”
“What of the treasure hunters who debunked its existence?” Leave it to Mom to be the practical voice in the group. “Olivia had them brought in to prove the treasure was real but they did the opposite.”
I nodded, Daisy releasing me. “There’s a couple of theories there,” I said, hating to harsh the mood in the attic, our little party, but knowing it had to be said. “Either they just didn’t have the information they needed or…”
“Or.” Dad looked up at me from the torn map and its old frame and frowned at me, though not in anger, in thoughtful concern.
“Or someone doesn’t want the treasure found.” I glanced at Crew. “Marie Patterson was in Grandmother Iris’s inner circle.” I’d seen as much in the
photo Doreen Douglas had kept in her office, heard that from others who’d known them both. Wasn’t lost on me Peggy Munroe was one of them, too. “Could she be somehow keeping it from being found?”
“But why?” Mom nibbled her bottom lip. “Does she want it for herself?”
“Maybe she already found it.” I scowled at the idea. “No, Grandmother Iris was much too smart for that. She wouldn’t have left me the clue if the hoard had been uncovered.” She’d wanted me to follow the trail she’d laid. To find it, because she’d failed to?
Or did my grandmother know more about the treasure, even maybe where it was, but lacked the resources to do anything about it?
“Whatever the case may be,” Dad said, “it’s obvious the treasure is real. And we’re going to find it.”
A short time later, while Mom, Crew and Daisy perused the clues we’d discovered until now, I followed Dad to the kitchen when he left to fetch a drink for my mother. Not to talk about the treasure, though that would continue, I was sure, as the evening went on. Good thing I had staff to take care of Petunia’s, both of them, though the fat pug of the same name was likely being stuffed fat by my guests back at the B&B, something I’d pay for tonight in aromatic punishment.
No, it wasn’t this mystery I wanted to talk to Dad about. The encounter with Malcolm still lingered and I had another unsolved case hanging over my head to get answers for. Answers that should have been much easier to uncover if my father would only talk to me.
He must have known I was going to push him because he sighed, turning toward me, that knowing look in his eyes telling me things would go one of two ways—either I’d get what I wanted or we’d have a fight about it. I really hoped it was the former. I hadn’t had a fight with my dad since I’d packed up and left Reading behind and the memory of that departure still made my chest and throat tight with old emotion.
Dad reached out and hugged me, cradling me against him, cheek on my hair, big heart beating in my ear while he sighed and nodded.
“Come to the office in the morning, Fee,” he whispered. “It’s time I told you everything to do with the woman we named you after.”
***
Chapter Twenty One
It was hard not to feel excited. After all, here I was on the cusp of solving maybe two mysteries, both of which had plagued me for ages and neither that had seemed to have much forward momentum until the last day or so.
While I appreciated the snuggle with Crew in the cab of his pickup when he dropped me off, I was much more enthusiastic about retreating to my apartment with my laptop and doing further research into his grandfather and possible connection to Grandmother Iris. Crew let me go with a laugh when my wriggling state of curiosity meant he wasn’t getting the kind of attention to his kisses he normally did.
“That’s what I get for falling in love with a Fleming,” he said, winking and letting me go. “Let me know what you find out.”
Of course, I didn’t uncover much of anything after I tucked in with Petunia beside me, the house upstairs quiet. So frustratingly tantalizing, the bits and pieces of the mysteries dangling in my mind’s eye but still so far away. I finally sighed and went upstairs for a midnight bowl of strawberries from the main kitchen fridge, craving something sweet to munch on in the open doorway of the big stainless steel appliance.
My favorite place to snack, and Petunia’s too.
As I eased open my door to the foyer, I immediately heard voices, low and intense, coming from somewhere on the other side. My momentum was already carrying me through to the entry, but it turned out the two people in the midst of their disagreement didn’t notice my approach where they stood, heads down and body language aggressive, in the doorway of the dining room.
I immediately recognized Hudson Harriet, of course, but to my surprise it was young Tori Stonehouse who he seemed in the midst of an argument with. How did they know each other? Because of Nethersole? Maybe if I’d been alone I might have managed to eavesdrop long enough to find out. Instead, however, the overeager pug at my feet, spotting people in the place where food occasionally—okay, often times—was offered up, hurried toward them with her grunting passion for all things handout killing my opportunity for stealth.
Tori looked down at Petunia, surprised, before her eyes lifted to me. There was enough recognition—and not of the I know you variety—in her gaze I finally understood she wasn’t the girl I’d first thought, but an opportunist who’d clearly set her sights on whoever it was could give her the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed. And fair enough, no judgment, as long as both parties were happy with the arrangement. Thing was, though, the man who’d been filling that particular need of hers?
Yeah. He was dead.
As for her companion, Hudson glanced at me as if I were a mere distraction before leaning in and saying something at a hissing whisper to Tori. She brushed him off, forcing a smile about as fake as her fingernails when I came to a halt next to them.
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other.” I snapped my fingers at Petunia to draw her attention but she ignored me, fat butt wiggling on the floor, brown eyes white-rimmed while she licked her lips in anticipation of a treat or two. Poor thing had no idea there was no food coming.
And, from the way Tori backed off, I wasn’t getting any satisfying tidbits myself.
“It’s already well past my bedtime.” She departed without another word, heading for the kitchen and the back door to the annex. Hudson watched her go, scowling, until he realized I was watching him. His forced joviality rang about as untrue as anything I’d ever encountered when he barked a quick laugh that made Petunia jump.
“Me too, I guess. Good night, Miss Fleming.” He dashed for the stairs and huffed his way up them, using the bannister to pull himself along. I let him go, glancing down at my pug who groaned her disappointment and met my gaze with her own full of longing.
“That was interesting,” I said. “Strawberry?”
If the drop of drool that hit the floor was any indication, she was all for my suggestion.
After decimating Mom’s stockpile of the gorgeous red fruit—I ate far too many for my own good, though Petunia was eager enough for more when I finally closed the fridge door with a sigh of contentment—I headed back downstairs and did a quick search of both Tori and Hudson, looking for a connection. Nothing overt popped up, mostly just information about Jack Nethersole. Hudson himself didn’t show up at all. I finally closed my computer and went to bed, making a note to pass the argument witnessing on to my fiancé in the morning.
So much better when we worked together.
When Mom arrived in the morning, I didn’t say anything to her about Dad’s promise to tell me about Fiona Doyle, instead happy to conspire in whispers and giggles with her and Daisy over the map and the treasure. While we still only had pieces, finding the actual main document on parchment, despite its missing chunks, was so heartening I almost forgot about mystery number two as I helped deliver breakfast in the dining room.
The sight of Tyler Hendy sitting alone, looking at his phone with a grin on his face, reminded me there was a dead body to deal with as well. I smiled at the young golfer when he looked up and he beamed back. Easy enough to take that expression as an invitation to join him, something he didn’t contest when I offered him more coffee from the pot in my hand.
He held up his phone to show me a listing of the leaderboard. “I’m #1!” He laughed then, shook his head. “Wow, that sounded pretty high school. But it’s exciting.”
I couldn’t help but smile back, despite knowing he was at the top of the pack because of the death of Nethersole. Then again, maybe he would have beaten his rival this time…?
“Congratulations,” I said. “What time are you playing today?”
“I tee off in two hours.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to get to the club and warm up.” His earnest expression turned from over enthusiastic excitement to down-to-earth practicality. “The worst thing I can do today is let th
is go to my head.”
Okay, I really liked this kid. Whether he killed Nethersole or not.
Oh, Fee.
“Mr. Hendy.” Petra’s appearance, smile, offered handshake shouldn’t have shocked me, though it did seem to take Tyler by surprise. He half-stood, gesturing for her to join him and the pointed look she gave me after I filled a mug for her told me to get lost so she could woo him.
Well, he deserved to be sponsored so I did just that, though I admit I lingered at the side table, rearranging the pastries Mom had delivered from French’s Handmade Bakery every morning, listening in as Petra pitched Tyler her best offer.
“You really need to give up those old fashioned steel shafts,” she was saying, amusement in her voice. “Technology could skyrocket you to the next level. If you’re playing this well with that equipment, imagine how you could be hitting if you had the kind of advanced performance products I can supply you.”
Tyler laughed, but it sounded rueful. “I’m kind of attached to them,” he said, leaning forward on his forearms, toying with his ball cap as he sighed. “But, maybe I could be persuaded. Especially since my set isn’t complete anymore.”
“I heard your six iron went missing yesterday.” Petra tsked. “You made a great shot with the five instead, though.”
He shook his head. “Could have holed it if I’d had my six.”
I couldn’t help myself, my curiosity making me turn back toward him. “Where did it go?”
Tyler shrugged at me, not seemingly surprised I asked the question or that I’d been listening in. “Not sure,” he said. “It was in my bag when I got here and I used it during the pro-am. But I can’t find it anywhere.” He sighed. “They were my father’s clubs and I play with them for sentimental reasons.” Tyler met Petra’s eyes. “Maybe you’re right. It might be a sign it’s time to give them up and really commit to accelerating my career.”
Petra leaned in, grinning. “Let’s talk numbers.” She glanced at me before lowering her head toward his, voice dropping, cutting me out of the conversation further.