“Alex, look at me. You entered a guest’s room without permission?”
She nodded; so did Robbie.
Rick’s stomach clenched at their confession. He cleared his throat. “What did you do, Alex?”
“We kinda found a note in Miss Kelley’s room to Mr. Gordon. It sounded like they were arguing because she was jealous of Miss Potok. Miss Kelley said she wanted to apologize because she was wrong about Mr. Gordon and Miss Potok.”
“What I meant was, how did you get in?”
Alex reached into her front pocket and pulled out the master key. Rick recognized it immediately. She handed it over without a word.
Who did he blame for this turn of events? A child who’d made a mistake? Or himself? Better yet, what did he do about it?
Chapter 30
ALEX
June 17
Hey journal,
This is like the suckiest day ever. Marquetta’s gone home mad and I’m in trouble again. It’s all that Miss Potok’s fault. She’s lying to Daddy about the map and he doesn’t get it cause she’s always acting sweet with him. I think that’s one reason Marquetta went home and now things are bad between all of us.
I don’t even care about finding Daddy a girlfriend anymore. I just want Marquetta to be my friend. I totally miss her. What am I gonna do if she doesn’t come back? She gave you to me so I could really talk to someone who wouldn’t judge me. Now I see how special that is. Please Journal, you gotta help me. There has to be a way to fix this.
Maybe I’ll text Marquetta. I hope she’s still talking to me.
xoxo
Alex
Chapter 31
RICK
Sending Alex to her room was easy. Getting Robbie home turned into one of those easier-said-than-done tasks. Robbie’s mom and dad were both in town for a medical appointment. Marquetta was still AWOL. And Rick was in no mood to serve as Robbie’s babysitter. As a last resort, he called Deputy Cunningham on his meter reading route. Adam agreed to stop by, collect Robbie, and drive him into town. He also promised to come back after he read the last meter.
Rick opened the door to his office and eyed the visitor’s wingback chair in front of his desk. Captain Jack had called it the hot seat. He smiled at the memory. Captain Jack had also told him this room had a calming effect. “It’s like an old library. There’s patience. Knowledge. Truth.”
So many things didn’t make sense. A murder. How he’d gone behind Marquetta’s back. And Alex—sneaking around the B&B. Rick entered the room and sat in the hot seat. He stared at his chair. The one he’d inherited from his grandfather and imagined him, craggy face and all, watching with those hard brown eyes from the chair behind the desk.
“What about it, Captain Jack? Are you going to give me some grand words of wisdom?”
Silence. Rick drank in the smell of leather and old books.
“I didn’t think so,” he said.
The mute presence dared him to continue. Dig deeper. Stop hiding.
“Everything’s closing in around me, Captain Jack. I’m losing my daughter. This murder investigation is a spiderweb of deceit and lies. And I might have destroyed the trust of someone I really care about.”
He leaned back. Stretched his legs.
“You always told me to solve the biggest problem first. Well, that’s Gordon’s murder. And Alex is right, Deputy Cunningham is a nice guy, but he can’t do it alone.”
Rick stood, took a deep breath, and loosened his shoulders.
“Get out of my chair, old man. You left me this place, and that murder is a black stain on our reputation. On mine. I won’t let my daughter see me as a failure. Marquetta, either. I don’t know what’s up with her, but you’ve got something to do with it. Someday, I’ll figure it out. Until then, I’ve got a murder to solve.”
The overstuffed leather monstrosity whooshed as Rick sat and fired up his computer. His pulse quickened. His breathing grew shallow. Somewhere in here were one or more clues. His job was to find them.
He began with the images of the body. Photo number eight clearly showed Gordon sprawled over the rocks face down. Rick zoomed in. Gordon’s wet clothing clung like moss on a rock. Rick closed his eyes, imagined the feel of it, heavy with moisture, but not dripping wet, either.
Patience. Knowledge. Truth.
What a joke. There had been so little of those recently around the Seaside Cove B&B. Time for more. Rick examined the same photo again. This time, it seemed more complete. He saw more detail.
Gordon’s death was like an onion waiting to be peeled back one layer at a time. This photo might be in the first layer, or the tenth.
“Do what you did in New York. Dig deeper,” he said. “Find the facts.”
So what were the facts? The real ones. Not something a treasure hunter concocted.
First, he knew he’d caught Cadman retrieving the monopod from the rocks. Which meant it should be in these photos. It wasn’t. Nor had Deputy Cunningham’s search turned it up. Nowhere in any of these photos were there any signs of a monopod. Nothing.
He stood and went to the window. In the distance, the shoreline beckoned. So many cracks and crevices in those rocks. Exactly which one had hidden the monopod? Rick glanced back at the photo on his laptop.
“How did you know exactly where that thing was, Cadman?”
Yes. That was one question. No more vague BS like a little birdie told him. He turned back to the ocean and watched the swells roll toward land, gradually build to a high crest and deep trough, then roar in.
He hurried back to his desk and slid his fingers over the trackpad of his Mac until he brought up photo number twelve. It and eight were the best “body” shots. Arms crossed, he reclined in his chair and tilted his head to one side as he tried to visualize what might have happened before he arrived. He scrolled forward through photos until he got to the ones of the paramedics. The scene was as he remembered it. Two big guys had Gordon’s body on a lightweight carrier. Even in the photo, they obviously struggled to keep their balance. Just like Cadman last night.
Rick scrolled back to photo number twelve. Marquetta had said the guests were pawing over the body. But, Gordon lay face down. Anyone trying to find something like a map would have wanted to check Gordon’s front pockets as well as his back. When he and Adam had inventoried the scene, their working theory had been someone turned the body over. In retrospect, that couldn’t have happened.
The rocks were too uneven. Too jagged. A mountain goat might be surefooted out there, but not a person. With all the deep crevices and sharp angles, walking down there was treacherous even for young, big guys like those paramedics. Rick had the photo to prove it. The bottom line was good old gravity made it physically impossible for any of these people to have rolled the body for a thorough search.
But what about photo number eight? The wet clothing? He scrolled back-and-forth between eight and his one ocean shot. He’d caught the current surging out. The ocean surface was a good two feet below the rock he’d been standing on. And the rock was nearly dry. So if the body had been found on a boulder a few feet in from where he took that photo, and if those rocks were otherwise dry, Gordon must have been in the ocean. And he didn’t get out on his own.
Now he had three big questions. Was the San Manuel real? Who had the missing map section? And who had helped Gordon climb out of the ocean?
Rick looked at the wall where an old map of Seaside Cove Bay hung. Many years ago, Captain Jack had the map framed under protective glass. It seemed kind of silly, actually, because it was just part of a USGS topographical map. Rick rested his finger on the glass over a spot in the middle of the bay. Cadman called Gordon’s the “X marks the spot” section. And his guests all wanted it. Even if they found it, what would they do with it?
In fact, who were these people? Other than liars. How were they tied together? Other than their little treasure hunting club. Rick returned to his chair and opened the computer program containing their guest registrations.
Just to be thorough, he also checked the registrations for Reese and Monica. They were from Manhattan Beach and Lakewood, respectively. He recognized Monica’s address from the envelope she’d shown him at breakfast.
The return address was Gordon’s. But, what if someone faked the invitations? They would have also faked the return address. He pulled an envelope from today’s mail out of his inbox. Whoever sent those invitations knew the addresses of the others. Easy to find in a group like this. They certainly would have known Gordon’s address. What they couldn’t fake, though, was the postmark.
And Monica had an envelope with just that. At last, had he found the truth? If Gordon didn’t send the invitations—if the weekend really was a setup—things changed.
Drastically.
It made Gordon’s death premeditated murder.
Chapter 32
ALEX
I told Daddy last night how much I love my room. It totally has all my favorite colors. This is the prettiest girl’s room ever. And it was fun working with Marquetta to decorate. She did an awesome job. She knew exactly what I wanted. And now I might never see her again.
She’s not talking to me. She didn’t answer my text.
Daddy always tells me things will get better with time. I don’t understand why grownups say that. Do they think it’s gonna make us kids feel better? My dad still misses my mom. He’s super sad a lot and won’t ever talk about her.
Now that Daddy and Marquetta had that big fight she’s never gonna come back and I don’t wanna hurt anymore. It totally sucks not being able to have the one thing I want more than anything.
There’s a knock on my door. It’s probably Daddy. I don’t want to see him right now. He’s the one who made Marquetta mad. “Go away.”
“Alex? Sweetie? Would you open the door?”
“Marquetta?”
I scramble off the bed and unlock the door. When I open it, she’s standing in front of me. All blurry through my tears. I reach out. She steps forward. Oh my God, she feels good.
“You’re here. You’re really here.”
“Oh, Sweetie.”
She hugs me back and I never want this feeling to end.
“Can I come in?”
I feel my head nodding, but I can’t talk. My throat’s all tight and my eyes are totally burning.
“Let’s sit down. Okay?”
I keep my arms wrapped around her as she leads me to the bed. If I let go, she might leave again. When we sit on the bed, she hugs me. I snuggle closer and just want to be quiet and feel her arm around me.
Marquetta’s so strong. She’s become, like, my idol. Or my mom. When I can finally talk, I sniffle, “Marquetta, aren’t you afraid of anything?”
She brushes the hair away from my face and kisses my forehead. “Everybody has something that scares them, Sweetie.”
“But you never get scared and you don’t let stuff bother you. You got mad, but you came back.”
“I’m not leaving you. How could I?” She smiles at me and presses my cheek with her fingertips to wipe away a tear. “You’ve got enough worries. Growing up is a hard job. I understand how difficult it is. I had plenty of drama when I was your age.”
Her touch totally comforts me. “Like what?”
“Oh, boys, school, the usual. The same kinds of problems you’re facing now. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
I curl up in her lap. The way she cradles me makes the pain fade away.
“Everybody’s mad at me.”
“That’s a heavy load, Sweetie—everybody. Like who? Robbie?”
“He’s mad cause I got him in trouble. Is he ever gonna talk to me again?”
“I’m sure he will.”
“He never says anything about what happened to his mom. Do you know?”
“It’s not a secret, Alex. Robbie’s dad worked for a big company. Robbie’s mom was an elementary school teacher. They were on vacation when she was injured in an auto accident. Robbie and his dad only had minor injuries, but his mom was in the hospital for a long time. Robbie’s dad had to quit his job so he could stay home and take care of her and Robbie. These days, life’s a constant struggle for them.”
“Could we do something to help them?”
“I tell you what, why don’t you come up with an idea? We’ll work on it together. You like Robbie, don’t you, Sweetie?”
“Yeah. A lot.”
“I hope you understand Robbie’s not the last boy you’ll like. There was a time when I cried myself to sleep for months because a boy looked at me the wrong way. At that moment, I thought it was the end of the world. I hated my mom because she told me there would be others, but eventually I realized she was right. There were other boys. If Robbie doesn’t get over this, then it wasn’t meant to be.”
I sit up and look at Marquetta. “Are you alone because you never found one that was meant to be?”
Her jaw gets all puckery. She looks out the window and chews on her lower lip. “I don’t know, Alex. I hoped there might be one, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Is it Daddy?”
She strokes my shoulder with her hand. “Whatever happens between your dad and me will never change how I feel about you. And you’ll come to realize if you make a mistake, it doesn’t mean your dad will love you any less.”
“Even if I don’t like his new girlfriend?”
Marquetta sits back like someone slapped her. “Why do you think he has a girlfriend?”
“Cause he’s spending so much time with Miss Potok.”
“Sweetie, that doesn’t mean they’re involved romantically. Besides, she’ll be leaving soon.”
“And then we can go back to the way it was before she got here?”
But she doesn’t say what I want to hear. She looks really sad. Like I feel right now.
“Things have changed, Alex. Your dad violated my trust.”
“But I did the same thing. I violated Daddy’s trust, and you said he’d forgive me. Why can’t you forgive him?”
It takes forever and my heart is pounding while I wait for her to tell me everything will be okay. I bury my face in her T-shirt. “All I want is for things to be the way they were before.”
“We can’t really go back, Sweetie. I wish we could. How did you violate your dad’s trust?”
We sit there holding onto each other for a long time. Marquetta seems to know I need her touch right now. The longer she holds me, the stronger I get until finally the words just come out. “Me and Robbie kinda broke into Miss Kelley’s room.”
“Oh, I see.”
She’s totally gonna leave. I just know it. But she doesn’t. “You’re not mad?”
“You made a mistake, Alex. We all do.” She kinda laughs to herself. “At least you didn’t take a ride in the dumbwaiter.”
“What we use for the laundry?”
Marquetta bites her lip and says, “It’s no longer safe. The equipment is very old.”
“You totally rode it!”
She pushes me away and looks into my eyes. “You have to promise me you won’t get inside. Your dad would never forgive me for telling you this.”
“Was it scary?”
Marquetta grips my shoulders and frowns. “It’s off limits, Alex. Got it? Just like Miss Kelley’s room. That’s why your dad wants you to stay up here. You have to think about what you’ve done and understand it was wrong.”
“But me and Robbie were trying to help Daddy investigate.”
“I’m sure you wanted to help, but you made a bad decision.”
“I tried to explain why we did it, but Daddy was too mad. He didn’t even care when I told him about the note we found. Miss Kelley was trying
to make up with Mr. Gordon.”
Marquetta huffs. She sounds frustrated. “You understand why sneaking into her room was wrong, don’t you?”
“Yes. It’s that trust thing. I get it, but if I’m gonna be in jail, somebody ought to know what else we found out.”
“Oh, Sweetie.” She sounds super disappointed. “Is that your way of telling me you broke into another guest’s room?”
“Mr. Santiago’s.”
“Oh, Lordy.”
I can tell she’s mad, but she can’t stop herself from smiling at me.
Then, she says, “All right. You can confess. What did you find out?”
“He had all sorts of news stories about Mr. Gordon. It’s kinda like one of those stalkers.”
“What an age we live in.” Marquetta shakes her head and grips my shoulders tighter.
I frown and look up at her. “How come you’re so upset?”
“The fact that a ten-year-old knows about stalkers troubles me deeply. So that’s it? All you found were news stories?”
“They went back a few years. I read a couple of them. There must have been a lot of money involved.”
“Money? Why do you say that?”
“Because they were all about treasure hunts.”
Marquetta nods to herself. “Is there anything else? Please tell me you didn’t go into any other rooms.”
I wanna tell her about Miss Potok and the map, but the way she said that has me worried I’ll disappoint her and so I can’t tell her. I so wish I could, but instead I shake my head. “No.”
“Thank goodness. I need to have a talk with your dad. I’ll see if I can’t get you out of jail.”
I hug her again. “It’s not so bad now. You’re here.”
Marquetta waits until I pull back. When she stands up and looks down at me, she looks super sad again. She’s blinking back tears and I know I have to tell her. I have to. I’m gonna burst if I don’t so I throw my arms around her again. It feels so good. Just like…
“I love you, Marquetta.”
She makes a funny little noise. Then she kisses my forehead. “I love you, too, Sweetie.”
A Treasure to Die For (A Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery Book 1) Page 11