Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
STERLING
I should have been worried about the Learys. I should have been calling my brother or Hawk to let them know things had just gotten more complicated. I was more interested in the look on Forrest’s face.
“Does the clue refer to an actual boathouse?” I asked, my eyes roaming the square as I ate my salted caramel cone, making sure the Learys didn’t pop back up.
Forrest took another slow lick of his ice cream. The delay felt like a tease. Or maybe he just liked knowing something I didn’t. Or he was pissed off that I hadn’t shut down Callum Leary. He’d have to live with it.
I wasn’t sure Forrest could understand the danger of saying a flat no to Callum Leary. I’d learned the hard way that there was a certain type of man who didn’t like women telling them no . Callum Leary felt like one of those men to me. Refusing to take his card could have been an act of war. I wasn’t sure I wanted it in my pocket, but taking it had been simpler than refusing. I’d figure out what to do with it and Callum Leary later.
“So?” I prompted, tired of waiting.
“It’s a place,” Forrest said. “But this isn’t going to be easy.”
“Where is it, and why not?” I asked, ready to catapult off the bench and onto the next clue.
I wanted the money. Of course, I did. But it wasn’t just about the cash. Not anymore. I was chasing the win, the rush of elation when I worked the clue and the cipher, when I finally put the pieces in place, and the answer revealed itself. It was like my programming classes and the sense of satisfaction I got when I finished a new project, hit run , and my code worked. Except solving Forrest’s father’s clues was like that times a hundred. I wanted more, even if it meant torturing myself by spending time with Forrest.
“Well,” Forrest said, after taking a last lick of his cone, “the boathouse is at the lake house. And my mother sold the lake house after my father died.”
“Oh.” I sank back into the bench. I hadn’t thought about that. Alan Buckley had put this whole scavenger hunt together years ago, and I was starting to wonder if he’d intended to be at Forrest’s side as he tackled the clues. Maybe Alan had planned to pass down his interest in ciphers. We’d never know.
“Where is it?” I wasn’t going to give up just because somebody else owned the boathouse.
“On a small, private man-made lake about three hours from here. To the west. Not quite headed back to Sawyer’s Bend but in that general direction.”
“And what kind of lake house are we talking about?” I pressed. “A cottage with a little boathouse or a mini-mansion packed with security?”
“Cottage-ish with a boathouse,” he said. “Not packed with security when we lived there. Probably not now. As best as I can remember, it wasn’t that kind of town. Wasn’t much of a town at all.”
I stood, brushing the crumbs of the cone off the front of my jeans and tossing my hair back over my shoulder. It was a beautiful summer day. Sunny and warm, but not miserably hot. A good day for a car ride.
“We’ve come this far. Let’s go,” I said. The sooner we cracked the next clue, the sooner I could retreat and get some space from Forrest. No reason to put it off if we knew where we were going. Maybe the boathouse would be the end. At this point, I was afraid to hope.
“You want to go to the boathouse? Even though we can’t get in?” Forrest’s eyes were distant, filled with doubt.
Annoyance prickling in my chest, I realized I wanted him to be as excited as I was about this crazy quest we were on. As soon as that thought registered, reality hit me. It had to hurt him to be here without his father. Adding in that Forrest had only been thirteen when he’d lost Alan and that Alan had chosen to leave his family?—
I knew all about love and grief and betrayal. On top of that, the Vitellius and the code that had started our hunt was the thing that had broken us apart in the first place. Forrest probably had a lot of sticky, ugly, complicated feelings about all of this.
He had made it clear then and clear now that he didn’t care about the money. Maybe it was time I believed him.
I kept forgetting that I hated him, that I didn’t want anything to do with him. Staring down at him, my hands propped on my hips, my eyebrow raised in irritation, I had to admit there was a part of me that wanted to forget about everything that had gone wrong. There was a part of me that wanted to do this together. As a team.
But that part of me needed to shut the hell up. We didn’t need to be a team. I could solve Alan Buckley’s clues with minimal input from Forrest. I’d get my payday and walk away. If he’d lied to me once, he’d lie again. I’d told myself that about a million times. But lately, a little voice had been asking, Would he? Would he really?
I’d made so many mistakes I couldn’t count them, and I was getting a second chance. Didn’t Forrest deserve the same?
I couldn’t answer that. I didn’t want to. If I did, I might have to forgive him, and I wasn’t ready for that. I was ready to solve this thing, and I wasn’t walking away because things were getting complicated. I was tougher than that.
“Don’t you want to find the next clue?” I demanded.
“We don’t even know what we’re looking for,” he shot back. “All it said was boathouse .”
His tone made it clear he was more than a little ticked at me. I didn’t care. “Then let’s go to the boathouse and see if we can find anything.”
Forrest crossed his arms over his chest, seeming to take root on the bench. “So, we’re breaking and entering now?”
His obstinance was making me crazy. Did he want to give up? Now? I wanted to throw something at him, but my ice cream cone was gone. “I don’t know how we’re going to get in. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
He sighed and looked around, evidently deciding that I had a point. “At least it’ll be hard for them to follow us on the country roads,” Forrest said, standing and balling his napkin in one fist. “Let’s go.”
He stalked across the park to the car, his eyes moving from right to left. I did the same, but all I saw was a normal summer day in a small town. No Learys in sight. That didn’t mean they weren’t out there, or that they didn’t make me a little nervous. I knew what they were capable of, and despite his assurances, I didn’t trust Callum Leary. Still, I figured we were safe in the meantime—Callum needed me to solve the clue, and I needed Forrest. We all had the same goal: solve the puzzle. Taking us out, or whatever hit men did, didn’t help further that goal. Still, I didn’t love the idea that we were relatively safe right up until we found Alan Buckley’s money. I wanted the cash, but the second it was within reach, Forrest and I would have targets on our backs.
Forrest put the car in gear, and we headed out of Willow Springs. The drive to the lake house was quiet. Blue skies and green trees whipped by the windows, the bright summer sun beating down on the car. By noon, we had the AC at full blast.
On the way to Willow Springs, I’d been the one with her mouth glued shut. This time, it was Forrest, and I found myself wanting to know what he was thinking. Was he grieving his father? Was he working on a strategy to break into the boathouse? Was he thinking about me?
Stop it , I ordered myself. I don’t want him thinking about me. We’re over because I hate him, remember?
I did. I remembered.
And still, I wanted to know—how much of the sadness in his eyes was about his father and how much was about me?
Oh my God, Sterling , my inner voice chided in exasperation. Are you competing with his dead father for who hurt him more? Grow up. It’s been a year since you dumped him. Get over it.
I snuck a glance at Forrest, who had one hand on the wheel, his eyes haunted as he watched the road ahead. My questions were immediately answered. Fuck . None of this was about me. I was being a self-centered asshole. My broken heart wasn’t at the center of the universe. I let out a sigh and leaned my head against the window.
It was mid-afternoon by the time we pulled off the state road onto a nondescript, winding country road. Long miles later, we popped out from beneath the trees to see a small lake, the shoreline dotted with cottages. The road turned, and we disappeared into the trees again, winding our way around the lake.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I had to ask. I didn’t think Forrest had been here since he was thirteen.
“Mostly,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “There’s only one way around the lake. I just have to follow it until I find the right house number.”
The somber look had left his eyes. A thread of energy ran through him, charging up with every turn around the shoreline. I didn’t have to wonder if he truly recognized our surroundings.
I fell quiet, watching out the window. Based on the houses we passed, I thought Forrest was right about security. The cottages I saw weren’t tiny or shabby, but they weren’t the kind of mini-mansions I’d expect to be wired the way Heartstone Manor was. These places probably had basic out-of-the-box security systems, if anything. I’d be able to spot any sensors on the windows, and maybe they wouldn’t have bothered with the boathouse.
I’d find out soon enough. My palms tingled with anticipation. What kind of code would it be this time? What kind of clue? And where would it take us when we found it?