“Sure, thanks,” I answered.
Tillman was already moving in the direction of Peg. “If you’ll join me, Agent Tanaka.”
“Call me for anything,” Jun murmured, slipping away from my side.
I caught his hand briefly and squeezed his fingers before he pulled back, made a fist, and knocked it against mine. I grinned widely, watching Jun follow Tillman.
We were a team—albeit a pretty unconventional one.
A special agent and historian.
Uncovering the truth in both the past and present, trying to stop history from repeating itself with more senseless deaths, all in the name of a pirate’s buried treasure.
I mean—wefist-bumped!
Jun Tanaka was happy-ever-after material if there was such a thing.
IT WAShalf past five by the time I was back at the Smith property. I yawned, jaw cracking, as I stood beside the perking coffee machine. If I had to readjust the strange life I lived to include murders and deadly races for treasure, then by God I was going to forgo the stimulants that were at home anyway and have some real coffee. I picked up my X-rated coffee mug—what had Jun called it,Tako to ama?—and poured some cream into it from the mini fridge directly behind me in the break room.
My hands were still disgusting. I grunted and went into the adjoining bathroom, wincing and cursing as I washed the scratches and cuts clean with soap and water. I pulled out a small first aid kit from under the sink and sat on the floor, carefully applying medicine and about a dozen boring, adult Band-Aids to my palms. I looked like a kid who was playing pretend doctor or something. I flexed my hands a few times, the Band-Aids crinkling uncomfortably, but it’d do for now.
The coffee was ready in the break room, and I filled my mug. I took a tiny sip and groaned. Nothing hit the spot like caffeine. I walked through the makeshift aisle and turned the corner to my desk.
“Smells good!” Barney called from the gift shop’s main floor.
“You’re welcome to a cup,” I answered, turning on my computer. “There are extra mugs in the break room.”
Barney’s head appeared above the wall of crap that shielded my desk. “Appreciate that.”
“No problem.” I smiled as he went to help himself before I turned back to the computer screen.
Once upon a time, the database had been a nightmare on an Excel spreadsheet, created by the guy who had the job before me. It was clear when I took over that, one, he wasn’t all that interested in doing about 80 percent of what this job entailed, and two, he didn’t have a clue how to use Excel. One of the first projects I began at the home was getting real software to input data and photographs, so our inventory was accurate, complete, and at-hand for insurance purposes. This program was pretty cool too, because it was so customizable that I could search by location and narrow it down to everything in a particular area of the home. And since Ghost Smith kept returning to the third floor, that was where the search started.
I brought up a photo of Smith’s topographical map and enlarged it to the size of my screen before sitting back and staring at it. I was trying to figure out what in particular about the map made this group believe the treasure’s location could be ascertained by it, when I noticed the star.
The star—like the ceiling paper. Exactly like it. I knew I’d seen it before!
I leaned forward, zooming in even more on the picture. The star had been drawn on after the fact. The ink was a different shade than the hand-drawn map, and compared to the notes Smith had written on the map, it appeared to have been added by another individual. Smith had a shaky hand—even in his younger years, there was always a small tremor in his writing—but whoever drew the star was sure and strong in their motions.
So… there was a star on Smith’s map, made by someone else, that matched the paper in the closet, added by someone nearly ten years after Smith had passed. The only person living in the home at that time was Mrs. Smith, who by all accounts had lost her touch with reality upon her husband’s passing and remained in mourning the rest of her life. But Captain Edward Rogers was still alive, living in St. Augustine.
A single heartbreaking thought occurred to me just then.
What ifRogershad put Smith in the wall? Smith vanished in 1871, no one found his body, and he was proclaimed dead. But his lover… what if Rogers never stopped looking for Smith? And somehow found him andmaybethe treasure he’d likely been killed trying to protect.
It was too much conjecture—but that message in the nook?AnXon my heart. Smith certainly didn’t write that about his own heart.
Regardless of the bittersweet romance that I both did and didn’t want to be true, the fact remained that Smith’s body was put into the wall (because I didn’t need a medical examiner to confirm it, call itmygut instinct), and it had to have been well after he died. His wife would have noticed a decomposing body. And this star on the map matching the paper was too coincidental.
Except—whyput Smith in a wall and cover it over, meaning to hide him away forever?
Was Rogers afraid of something happening to the remains?
I zoomed out on the map and hit the print button. I swiveled around and grabbed the paper from the printer, holding it out to look at. The star was located in the middle of the water. That must have been why Peg was murdered. Whoever was behind this, be it Josh, Adam, Bob, or a realGhost Smith—they must have mistaken the star as the location of the treasure. Peg brought them out on the ocean, and then she was killed so she couldn’t demand her fair share, only for the murderer to realize the star didn’t mean what they’d thought. They returned with the intention of taking another look in the Smith Home, and here we ended up.
I picked up my mug and took another sip of coffee. I nearly set the printout aside when my eyes caught something. A second star. Diagonal from the star in the ocean, near the opposite bottom. It was located directly on top of the Smith Home. And then suddenly it all sort of clicked.
Smith hadn’t brilliantly hidden his untold riches from the world.
