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Gibson crawled back out to find that it was now raining. She hustled through the storm to the front door of the house to find it locked, and the key no longer under the cat statue. She pulled out her pick kit and defeated this obstacle quickly. As she went inside a crack of thunder made her jump.
She took out her iPad and went through all the photos and video she had taken before. Paintings, sculptures, some furniture, and rugs. She had logged all that inventory and gone online to get prices for them. She figured it was nowhere near enough to constitute the man’s stolen mob treasure.
She might have thought that he had sunk all his money into Stormfield. After all, five million bucks would have been big money back in the nineties. But she didn’t think that was it. The note confirmed this.
Look harder. It’s worth it.
So if his killers were Francine and Doug, had their father told them anything? If the treasure was in some bank account or safe-deposit box, or other financial hiding place, Gibson might have a shot at tracking it down. It was what she did for a living, after all.
But Langhorne’s note showed that he was well aware that people were looking for something he had. And he was egging them on, daring them to find it. Seeing if they were smarter than he was.
Am I smarter than he was?
She drifted through room after room, looking for anything that might be a clue or lead to a clue. She needed to know more about Langhorne and even more about his time as Daniel Pottinger. The first she could possibly get from Earl Beckett. The latter she might have to get from Clarisse.
If I ever call her back, and right now I’m not sure I want to.
She didn’t like being shit on, not that anyone did. But she liked it even less from a person who was clearly enjoying pulling Gibson’s strings.
And what is the woman’s beef with me, anyway? It’s not just standard manipulation technique. Something else is going on. Something personal.
She heard the noise a second later and her hand flew to her gun. She aimed the Beretta in front of her and walked toward the sound. She wanted to meet the intruder on her terms.
Gibson rounded the corner and slipped down the dark hall. The sounds were coming closer and her finger edged to the trigger.
“Shit,” she exclaimed.
Virginia State Police detective Wilson Sullivan was staring at her.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me here,” said Gibson, putting her gun away.
He frowned and said tersely, “I’m not. I saw your van outside.”
“Of course.”
“But I want an answer as to what you’re doing here. And I want it right now.” He took a step closer. “Because the fact is, you shouldn’t be here. I could arrest you for being here.”
“It looked to me like you guys released the crime scene. And I thought we were working together. I was just trying to find a lead of some kind.”
He studied her for an uncomfortably long moment. “And did you find a lead?”
She told him about the message she’d discovered on the boat.
“So thereissome treasure out there that he’s playing games with?”
“Sounds like it. Or he could be bullshitting everyone and there’s no treasure at all.”
“Which do you think it is?”
“You know as much about Harry Langhorne as I do,” she said. “He’s obviously a complicated guy. So I’m not sure which way to go on that question.”
He nodded and looked around. “Find anything else besides the note?”
“Not yet. Still raining hard out there?” she asked, noting his wet coat and hair.
“Bucketing.”
“We might want to stay inside then and go over the place.”
