Cody nodded. “Maybe. Which is why we’re going to continue to leave that treasure alone.”
“Or maybe we can—”
Cody shook his head. “The game has to be our priority now. The gold is bringing too much trouble. It’s gotten dangerous.”
Before I could argue my side, Willa interrupted. “Blah, blah,” she said. “I’m so over this treasure. You said yourself it would be impossible to find. I’m going to lie out before the afternoon rain arrives. Anyone want to come? Porter?” She got up and leaned over, flirtatiously reaching for his hand to pull him up.
The disconnect was stunning. We were sitting there talking about life and death and Willa was thinking about her tan.
“You go,” Porter said impatiently to Willa. “I want to figure this out. It’s important.”
“Suit yourself,” Willa said, and when she’d gone, Porter shot me a look as if expecting a reward for not running after her. Too little, too late.
I decided to get my notes to show Cody. He just needed some time to understand that at this point, a treasure hunt wouldn’t be interfering with the show. Deb had plenty to do to occupy her for the next day or so. Our absence from camp wouldn’t matter.
A few minutes later when someone came up the beach, I assumed it was her. But it wasn’t. It was Phil. He was panting and out of breath. He’d rowed a canoe over by himself.
“Deb got a call from the network boss,” he announced between gasps. “He found out that Deb fired Joaquin. Everyone has to leave the island tomorrow. No more show, no more game.”
We were stunned into silence.
“I’m sorry guys, but this is the end.”
33
“Hold up,” Rohan said. “No game? No show?”
“Deb’s on her way to tell you herself, but she needed some time to digest it,” Phil confirmed.
“No money, either,” I realized. “If there’s no game, there can’t be a prize.”
“Exactly,” Phil said. “But hear me out, because even though the show is history, I have a plan. I know you guys found something having to do with the treasure, something big, so let’s follow up. Why not, right? This is our only chance.”
We looked around at each other, shocked.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want treasure, but I can’t have this show ruined. Something has to come out of it. This is my career, I’m totally stalled. Anyway, I can’t split the reward with you; the crew had to sign a contract.”
Cody turned to me. “It looks like the only way we can come out of this mess with something good is if we find the gold. Do you think we can do it?”
I nodded. “I do. I really do.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Cody asked. “Let’s go.”
The only one who objected was Willa, but it didn’t matter, because by the time we packed up our supplies the clouds had started to roll in. Once tanning wasn’t an option, she realized if she didn’t go she’d be left all alone.
I wasn’t happy she was actually coming, especially when I saw her stuffing a fleece jacket into Porter’s backpack. I sighed. So they were together.
Let it go, Riley.
Before we left, I pulled out the satellite. I didn’t have AJ’s email, so I sent a message to his Facebook instead. We’re going to the fourth marker. If you can, meet us there.
Cody, the tracker, easily led the way to the fourth marker. When we got there, I pulled everything out: the map, AJ’s notes, the Cipher. All of it. AJ and I had been so sure that flipping the direction from south to north was the right thing to do. But why hadn’t we found anything?”
Going south from this point was the safer choice. Maybe the mapmaker was so tricky that he’d slid in a boring, easy clue to throw everyone off.
It was so hard to decide. If I chose wrong, it would be a classic example of Riley’s Law—me, leading everyone astray on our final night here and throwing away our last chance. I rubbed my necklace and thought of Miles. If anyone had been in tune with the island, it was him. A little too much, but still. He wouldn’t choose a route that felt so counter to the spirit of the map. He’d never pull a move like Riley’s Law.
But then I realized—I hadn’t pulled a move like that in a long time, either. In fact, I’d been doing pretty great, and part of it was because I’d started to trust myself again.
And I felt like I should trust the reading of the map that was closest to its spirit, to the ways it had directed us thus far. North. We were going to go north a thousand varas, exactly the way AJ and I had, and maybe with this big group of people we’d see something that the two of us had missed.
How was it fair otherwise? Someone with a passing knowledge of treasure signs could stumble on this marker, interpret it straightforwardly and find the gold. That went against every bit of secrecy and trickery this hunt had stood for thus far.
No, a close reading of the map definitely advised flipping the directions, so that’s what we would do.
“This way,” I said, pointing north.
“Hold on,” Cody said. “Look. The other guy, whoever dug this marker up first, went in the other direction.” He showed us some divots in the dirt that revealed the path they’d taken.
“The exact opposite way?” Alex asked. “Yikes. What if we’re wrong? If we go in the wrong direction, it’s all over. This guy will find the gold and Deb will find us.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said. Alex was right, though. I hesitated. Whoever was searching—MrJackSparrow or whoever it was—had been right on everything so far. What made me think I was smarter than him?
Not smarter, I thought. Just someone who pays attention. Who notices things and processes them. Just like Deb had said. And when I looked at the hunt as a whole, it didn’t make sense not to include the map in the interpretation of this final marker. I stood by that.
“But I’m sure. Or nearly sure. It’s northwest. That’s the direction we’re going to go.”
And so we did, pushing through the scrub and underbrush. This time, there was no path to follow, not even a slight one, so it took longer. It was getting darker, too, and not only because the day was getting late. This time, a storm was definitely on its way. The forest had gone still, other than the small insistent whispers of wind that hinted bigger gusts were on their way.
“Do you guys hear that? Is that a drone?” Rohan called out. We all stopped and listened and stared up at the sky through the swaying palm fronds. Even through the sound of the wind I could tell it was definitely the buzz of a drone.
“Phil, I thought you said the show was finished? No more filming,” Cody said.
“Yeah,” he answered distractedly, scanning the sky. “The show’s definitely dead. Deader than dead. Along with my career.”
But he didn’t seem overly upset about it. When the drone came into view he quickly unzipped his rain jacket and began swinging it over his head.
Cody yanked it out of Phil’s hand. “Not cool,” he said. “It could be Deb looking for us. We didn’t hightail it out of camp so some search-and-rescue team could jump in on the action.”
Why had Phil tried to signal the drone? He was the one rushing us out of camp before Deb came by to stop us.
Cody and Phil went back and forth, getting heated, but it didn’t sound like Phil was offering a real explanation. Maren didn’t hesitate to jump in with her two cents, either. She had never seemed to like Phil.
Porter used the distraction to tentatively approach me. “Frisco,” he said.
I clenched up hearing the nickname. “Nope. No way. You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
“Riley,” he corrected. “Can you listen to me for a minute?”
The drone zoomed out of view. It wasn’t clear if it had seen us—usually the drones hovered above for a minute or two after spotting its target. This one hadn’t stopped moving, so maybe
we were clear.
Cody backed away from Phil. He spun his finger in the air. “Let’s move.”
I fell in behind Cody. Porter didn’t take that as a deterrent. He kept up, walking beside me and even moving a little bit ahead to hold back branches that Cody was pushing through.
“It wasn’t what it looked like the other night,” he said. “I swear. Willa told me she wanted to talk to me, she had something really serious to discuss, and the cabin was one of the only places it was private.”
“Private,” I repeated, looking at him incredulously. I stepped hard on a branch and it cracked. Cody turned and gave me a look of disapproval.
“Leave no trace,” he warned. “Seriously. It’s good etiquette.”
“Did you really just say etiquette?” Maren called out. “As in what, forest manners? No one’s here. No one is coming back. It’s only us. Who are we being polite for?”
“The forest gods.” Cody held his arms out wide, palms facing the sky. “Or Mother Nature, I don’t know. It’s a show of respect. You just do it, you don’t ask why.”
“Yes, privacy,” Porter said to me, determined to press on. “And I said sure. Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, and I didn’t know what she wanted to talk about. It seemed serious.”
I pushed through a branch, not holding it for him. He ducked.
“And you needed to talk in the dark?” I asked.
“It wasn’t dark! I mean, it was when you arrived, but that’s because the lights went out right before you got there. And then suddenly she was all over me, and then the lights went on again, and you were there . . .”
Willa had managed to move up the line, past Alex and Rohan and Phil, and now she was directly behind us. “Come on, Porter,” she said, almost lazily. “You know that’s not how it happened.”
Porter jerked his arm. I hadn’t seen it, but Willa must have reached out for him. “Willa, what the hell? You know I liked Riley this whole time. I told you. We talked about it. Why are you doing this?”
Porter’s expression was a bit wild—angry and confused. “Riley, please, I don’t know why she’s doing this, but don’t listen to her.”
“Yes, Riley, definitely don’t listen to me.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, batted her eyelashes, and twisted a strand of hair around her finger, amping up her usual flirtatiousness to a level that bordered on absurd. “Why would you? I’m sooooo unattractive. There’s no way Porter would be interested in me, right?”
“Okay, wow,” I said. Even Porter was looking at her in disbelief. “This is all getting a little too nuts.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Porter insisted. “It is nuts.” He lowered his voice. “Specifically, she is nuts.”
I held up a hand. “I need both of you to stop talking.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. Porter seemed sincere, and the fact that he was disputing Willa’s account right in front of her made me think he was telling the truth. He certainly wasn’t trying to play both of us. But even if his story was accurate, it still left me feeling disappointed. Why would Willa have turned on me like that? She’d gone after Porter with such brutal precision, knowing what it would do to me. And it had hurt. Possibly even more than Porter’s role in the whole charade.
I couldn’t deal with the two of them, but luckily we had reached the clearing that AJ and I had been so sure held the treasure. “Let me finish this, okay? I promise I’ll listen later, but right now, I really have to do this.”
I put everyone to work. “We’re looking for anything unusual. Something man-made, for example. If this truly is the site of the treasure, then there will be a marker with a triangle on it.”
But our search didn’t produce anything. Was this how it would end? A wild-goose chase with nothing to show for it? Alex came over to see the map. “How do you know there will be a triangle symbol at the treasure site?”
I showed her the line of text and symbols on the map. “See that bisected triangle? That’s what that means.”
“So treasure symbols are universally recognized? If someone on another hunt saw this, they’d interpret it to mean the same thing?”
“Yes. But sometimes signs can have multiple meanings. It’s all about context. If it’s in a certain spot it might mean one thing, but when it’s paired with another symbol, the meaning could change.”
Alex seemed impressed. “How do you know all this stuff? It’s pretty amazing. Show me something else.”
“Okay, well see this bottom line of text? It’s separate from the others, so that’s a clue to look at it carefully. And because the triangle is there, it probably means this line of text is about the final step. The word dig, well, that’s obvious. The circle with the dot in it means gold.”
Alex laughed. “Funny, it’s such a boring sign for gold. Look at how fancy the eagle is, but the gold is just a plain old circle.”
“It might be plain but it does double duty. It also means three, because—”
I stopped. Signs that mean more than one thing. Context. I flipped through the Cipher for the page that discussed the number three, and there it was: symbols for three, depending how they were used, could also mean triple the distance.
“You guys, I figured it out! We stopped too soon. We’re supposed to triple the distance—a thousand varas—which means we need to go another two thousand.”
The wind was gaining strength. Leaves and bits of twigs rushed along the ground, swept up in a current of air. It almost appeared as if the forest was picking itself apart and fleeing.
“Did you say we have another two miles to go?” Willa asked. “In the dark, in a storm? No way. That’s it—I’m out.”
Her tone startled me. A few minutes before, she had been simpering and pouting but in an abrupt shift her voice had become clear and decisive. Even her demeanor was different; all that flirtatiousness had evaporated.
“I’m not getting paid enough to do this crap,” she said. “There’s no camera here, and even if there was, it’s not like anyone is going to see any of the footage anyway. What am I mucking around in the jungle for when I could be over at the crew village, hanging out with Justin? Phil, I’m sorry, but the deal’s off.”
Everyone seemed as shocked as I was. None of us said anything, aware that something big was being revealed but not quite sure exactly what.
Finally Rohan did the honors. “Hey, man,” he said to Phil. “You’d best spill it.”
At least Phil had the decency to look embarrassed. “Well, uh, you see—”
“Deb paid me to come here,” Willa cut him off. She said it factually. Not ashamed or embarrassed, simply said it, the way she might have said I live in Los Angeles. “I’m not really a player. She brought me in to add a little spice where it was needed, make things interesting.”
“Making you what, a lightning rod?” I asked.
Willa cocked her head. “More like a lure. They gave me all your names ahead of time so I could look everyone up online. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, VSCO, Snap. I found out what you guys like—brunch, hunting, hiking, and yes, football. Of course I knew about Murch’s stupid blog, by the way. A basic search gave me that. I didn’t even have to try.”
A certain amount of pride seeped in as she described her cyberstalking skills. She must be better at reading people online than she was in person, because I sensed a wave of anger gathering from the rest of us and it didn’t stop her from talking. Or maybe she didn’t care.
“But more importantly, I could tell what most of you were missing.”
She pointed to me. “Friends.”
I guess we weren’t sugarcoating things at this point, but strangely, I didn’t mind. My time on the island had apparently given me some protective armor. I nodded. Why not? It was true.
Porter was next. “To be treated normally. Not to have anyone pity you as the guy who broke his back
.”
Porter’s cheeks reddened, but I was probably the only one who noticed because Willa had moved quickly to Alex.
“Unconditional support,” Willa said, and then softened. “I was glad to know about your past, Alex, because you didn’t deserve any of that. I tried to be there for you.”
Alex was spitting mad. “And now what? I’m supposed to be grateful? Are you kidding? Phony support doesn’t count,” Alex shot back. “That’s the worst kind.”
“But it wasn’t phony!” Willa exclaimed. She scanned our faces, seemingly noticing for the first time we weren’t impressed with her revelation. “Oh, come on. Don’t hold this stuff against me. All of you came here to play a role, too. I’m just one of the few who got paid for it.”
“Well, I certainly can’t be mad at you, darlin’,” Cody said. “I haven’t exactly been straight with y’all.”
“Thanks, Cody.” Willa gave him a hug, circling his waist with both arms.
“So you’re admitting it!” Porter exclaimed. “The whole thing with me and you in the cabin was a setup, exactly like I’ve been saying. Tell her. Come on, tell Riley that’s what happened.”
Willa nodded. Again, I had to admire how little shame she had. “It was.”
I thought back to the night when he first started ignoring me. I wondered if that had something to do with Willa, too. “The night of the truth game,” I said. “Why were you so mad?”
“Willa said she heard something about how you were on the show because you knew Deb, and she’d given you information about all of us to create story lines.”
“So, basically, she accused me of what she was actually doing and then you believed her without asking me about it?”
“Well, when you put it like that . . .” Porter looked away sheepishly.
Maren did a slow clap. “That’s not for you, faker,” she said to Willa. “It’s for me, for being the only person here not to get taken in by a con artist.”
“Actor,” Willa corrected. “But I get it. No hard feelings on my end. This might surprise you, but I was rooting for you. After everything you went through—”
Reality Gold Page 27