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“I guess so, can you think of anything else?”
She shook her head and he held out his hand to offer her a coin.
She took one and then held up a finger. “Wait a minute.” Piper leaned forward and poked a small hole in the ice. “Don’t want the money to go to waste. Doesn’t the park collect it every few weeks and donate it to local charities?”
Dawson couldn’t help but think out loud. “Is that the part about no spoils then?”
Piper held up her hand. “I have absolutely no idea. But let’s stick with traditions. I kind of like them.”
He watched as she closed her eyes for a moment and saw her mouth a few words. Then she tossed her coin into the fountain, where the tiny bit of water on the top let it flow into the hole.
“Your turn,” she said folding her arms and turning toward him.
“What did you wish for?”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh.” She pointed at the water and ice. “You go next.”
He followed her lead and closed his eyes for a second. It was juvenile. It was slightly silly, and there were a dozen things he could wish for. He could wish that they would solve all these clues correctly. He could wish for the funding for the training ground. He could wish he could end up syndicated to one of the big sports channels. Or he could make a wish about him and Piper. Maybe that was foolish. Maybe he was pushing for something that might never happen. But this was his wish. And he could wish for whatever he wanted.
Dawson let the coin flip into the water. Without any prompting, it landed straight down the hole that Piper had made.
“Bravo!” she shouted. Her smile was wide and her cheeks rosy with the cold air. “What did you wish for?”
He gave her a wink. “Now, that would be telling, and that’s what I think the last part of the clue is. Theno spoilspart.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember as a kid, people telling you that if you told what your wish was, it wouldn’t come true?”
Piper wrinkled her nose. “I guess so.”
He leaned down toward her. “So what you do you think? You tell me yours, and I tell you mine? Or we both keep our secret in the hope it might come true?”
It was like a challenge. And he knew Piper wouldn’t be able to resist. She dug her hands deep in her pockets. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to keep my secret then.”
“Me, too.”
She was looking at him with an almost smirk on her face. This teasing was driving her crazy. Piper pulled her phone out from her pocket. “Okay then, so I guess this time to prove we solved the clue, we take a picture of us at the fountain?”
Dawson nodded in agreement, and they posed together with the fountain in the background as she snapped the picture and emailed it to the attorneys’ office.
Her sigh sounded a little wheezy. “I guess we just need to wait to hear from them now.”
They started to walk back to the car.
“Don’t you think this one was a bit easier?” asked Dawson.
“I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it. Maybe we’re just getting better at this.”
“Or maybe the first few were to make sure we were paying attention. If Margaret Smith really wanted us to inherit from her, I don’t imagine she would deliberately make all the clues unsolvable.”
Piper tipped her head back as they walked. “It kind of feels like this could go on forever.” She held out her hands and spun around. “This city is abigplace. We might not even have scratched the surface yet.”
“We have to. We’re time limited, remember. And they’ve spaced the clues out. Even if we don’t know how many there are—they do. Just imagine if there wasn’t a time limit and this could go on forever?” As he said the words out loud, he couldn’t help but wish they were true.
Her spinning stopped; her face right under his nose. They were near the entrance to the park, and she had a warm glow around her from the street lights.
“We had a deal.”
