“Be careful,” Jun said. “Promise me that.”
“I promise. Will you be careful for me?”
“I will.”
I said goodbye and stood. The light outside was a fiery orange and pink as the sun set. There wasn’t much time before darkness fell. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and hurried to the first floor. Herb was going at his usual tortoise speed of shutting off lights and closing the home up for the night.
“I’ll see you later!” I called.
“Leaving already?” he asked, poking his head out of the dining room.
I opened the front door and glanced back at him. “I’m supposed to be on vacation,” I said, which wasn’t a lie. “Got a boyfriend to tend to. Oh! Herb, do me a favor?”
“Yup?”
“Don’t set the house alarm.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Why?”
“It gave another false read early this morning,” I lied. “I’m just keeping it off. I’ll talk to the security company after my vacation.”
Herb nodded and smoothed his mustache. “If you say so. Have a good night.”
I ran out after that, jumped off the porch steps, and slipped and slid on smashed sapodilla fruits as I made for the back gate of the property. I sneaked out to the little driveway, forgoing my helmet because I was running out of time. I brought my Vespa off the kickstand and waved to Adam as he put the Closed sign in the door before shooting onto the road.
Wind whipped through my hair as I made a right onto Greene. I slowed to work through the crowds at Duval before taking another right and driving until I hit Eaton Street. At this point I’d nearly made a big square around the property of the Smith Home. The sky was mimicking a pastel painting as I slid into the nearest available parking spot. I hid Pink Princess in plain sight among a half dozen rental mopeds before walking back the way I’d come from. I was certain I was acting like a maniac, but I needed it to appear like I’d left the Smith Home for good that night, and I couldn’t afford to be caught as I made my waybackto the property.
There was a method to my madness, which was why I was cutting through the backyards of private homes and inns. I went slow enough to give Adam and Herb time to leave, so the evening had taken on that deep blue tone before the dark arrived in full. I eventually reached a fence in someone else’s yard I had to scale. And I did scale it, which impressed me to no end—but then I fell off the other side and into the Smith garden. At least there was no one around to see that.
I brushed the front of my clothes, thought briefly about why I gave a shit if these rags got dirty, and made for the back door of the historic home. I stopped at the porch steps and looked up, studying the darkness through the windows. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t totally terrified about the stunt I was about to pull off, but what I’d said to Jun was the truth, and that’s why he and Tillman were on board.
If I wasn’t there to do this, the killer could very well escape with a million dollars and never face a penalty for the deaths of two people who never deserved such brutal fates. And, well, if I fucked up… itwasmy idea. No one to blame but me.
Taking the house keys from my pockets, I went up the steps and unlocked the back door to let myself inside. I didn’t advertise my presence, and completed a full sweep of the house to confirm it was currently empty. Just me and a million dollars hidden in a secret room. I raced up the two sets of stairs to the third floor and went to the closet. Inside, I turned on a lantern we kept for power outages. I didn’t want to use the house lights and scare away my midnight prowler from trying a third time to get the clues he needed.
Too bad for him, I’d figured out Rogers’s hidden message first.
First, I picked up a pencil and the topography printout, then studied the ceiling paper of stars and moons until I found the exact two stars on the wall that matched the map. I circled them both and used a tape measure to draw a diagonal line, connecting them. Next was the wooden lid to Smith’s compass in the study. On the inside was a tiny drawing, faded with age, but I’d deciphered it to be the Dry Tortugas—a small cluster of islands about seventy miles west of here, first discovered by the Spanish and home to shipwrecks and forgotten forts. Along the island shapes, there was a star, which, when I studied the wall again, had a matching partner on the ceiling paper. I circled it before turning the lid sideways. The length of it measured exactly from the star until it intersected with the previous line. I followed it with my pencil.
The last item had been Rogers’s own diary, so thank God Lucrecia had visited that day; otherwise, I’d be tearing this house apart, looking for the last star. I hadn’t found it the first time I’d thumbed through the 1880 booklet with her, but after skimming the empty pages again as she readied to leave, I found, on the very last page in the back, a map drawn in the same sure, strong hand as the stars on the topographical map and compass lid. Finding the matching star on the wall, I traced the length of the diary, and it also intersected with the first line.
Stepping back, I stared at the marks I’d made.
AnX.
The first star, in the waters off the Keys, was where Smith and Rogers met. The second on Smith’s house must have signified Rogers’s visits and their secret rendezvous. The compass lid—it had to be the location Smith had recovered theSanta Teresa’s wealth—and the last, where Rogers found Smith’s lost remains and the hidden treasure he’d died protecting.
I pulled my cell out of my pocket and loaded up an app that broadcasted a live video feed. Jun and Tillman would be able to see everything happening in the house, and the video would also be recorded and saved for use as damning evidence in a courtroom. I slipped into the hall and propped it in a corner on the floor so the camera had a full view of the upstairs area. I gave my audience of two a thumbs-up before going back into the closet. This part wasn’t really in our schedule of catching the bad guy, but it was something I had to do.
For Smith and Rogers.
BecauseIwas the someone who understood what Rogers saw in another man, and if there was a way to bring them both peace, even a century late, I’d do it. So I grabbed a face mask and pair of safety glasses from the closet floor before picking up the sledge hammer I’d snuck inside.
Xmarks the spot.
I swung hard at theX, putting a hole right through the wall within the nook. It crumbled fairly easily due to age and the fact that it was a false wall behind the first false wall I’d discovered. A few more swings and I had a big enough gap that I could see a door. I set the hammer down and broke the wall with my hands, tossing debris to the floor.
It really was something incredible—one of those moments that was too storybook to be true, and yet there it was, staring directly at me. The hurricane damage to Smith’s home had been serendipitous, and he’d taken the opportunity to have a hidden room built, using a narrow amount of his study, and then hid the door behind the original wall with the latch, then hid that inside an ordinary closet.
