Page 59 of The Curse Breaker

My eyes fluttered open, and I saw him running down the beach toward us, holding something up in his outstretched hand. It was another piece of treasure.

Kimble.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was back.

Charlotte let go of me immediately.

“Is this what you want, Gracey?” Kimble taunted, holding the coin high above her head. “Or is it some other name now? Cara? Cecilia? You’ve never kept a name long.”

“That’s the beauty of who we are now.” Charlotte—Grace—glared at him, her eyes aglow. “We can be so many things. We have the time, Jonas—or should I call you Ansel?”

“You are who you always were, no matter the name,” Kimble told her, circling her now. “A spider weaving deadly webs.” He flipped the coin in his hand. “Give me the kid, or I rip that precious ring off your finger and call for her myself.”

Evelyn heard Grace inhale sharply. “You mangy mutt, you wouldn’t. You’d be sacrificing yourself too,” she retorted.

“What do I have to live for?” he asked. “Now choose: the girl or this coin.”

Grace pushed me to the sand hard and lunged for the coin. Kimble tossed it to her and reached down to help me.

“You alright, kid?” he asked, helping me up.

“Yes.” I was still trying to catch my breath.

Grace laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft, Jonas.”

“Get out of here, Gracey, or I’m coming for the ring.”

I didn’t understand their argument, but I knew I was safer with Kimble than Grace.

The two looked at each other.

Then Grace ran off down the beach. I could hear her laughing, her voice carrying on the wind. “See you in two hundred years!”

She disappeared into the fog, and I finally exhaled.

I pushed Kimble away. “How could you let her run off with the treasure? You spent weeks searching for it!” I yelled at him. “Now neither of us will be able to break the curse!”

His smirk was irksome. “You really know nothing about Tesouro Eterno, do you?” He looked at me hard. “Let’s go, kid. We’ve got a lot to talk about, and two hundred years is not as long as you think.”

Twenty-one

Benny

Present Day

As they pulled through two large iron gates, the Long Island Sound visible in the distance, Benny saw a stone mansion with several smaller mansions nestled around it. Kids in red, white, and black plaid uniforms walked two by two behind their teachers as if they were in the Madeline storybook Grams read to her when she was a child.

You don’t belong here, was her first thought. Her second: Quitters never win; winners never quit. She thumbed the beaded silver bracelet on her left wrist. It was Grams’s. The one thing she’d been gifted from her grandmother. Feeling anxious, Benny pulled her camera out of her bag and rolled down (yes, rolled down) the window in Kimble’s Jeep to take pictures of the grounds.

“What are you doing?” Kimble asked.

“Trying to capture images in case we need to look back at them later for clues.” She snuck a photo of Kimble as well and then put the camera back in the bag. “That’s what I did with Zara and Ryan for the first game.”

Kimble parked the car. “Whatever floats your boat. Let’s get this over with.” He pulled at his collar in annoyance.

“Fine,” Benny said under her breath. Life would be easier when Kimble was cut loose and didn’t have to deal with her, Evelyn’s friends, or the treasure anymore. She led the way to the mansion, and he followed dutifully. Inside was a large foyer acting as an admissions area, where parents and children as dressed up as she was sat in velvet wingback chairs.

“May I help you?” asked a woman, not looking up from her desk.