Chapter 7
7
“‘My darling little thieves...
“‘Please do not mark my passing with too many tears. I was born, I burned a bright trail and now I fade to make way for you. There’s always another treasure to reach for and I hope you’ll do my reaching. My final wish, that is if you hardheaded fools can work together, is a hunt for the next treasure.’”
Lawrence paused to run his hand over his lips and shake his head. “Oh, brother...”
Celeste could tell what Doris was gearing up to ask and her stomach fluttered wildly as she imagined the possibilities. “Please keep going,” she quietly pleaded.
Lawrence sighed. “‘My stubborn Celeste, arrogant Magnus, sly Santiago and constant Lawrence... I’m asking you to unite one final time for my last heist. Beyond the grave, I’d like to correct mistakes I made when I was alive, and I think this should be the ticket. There will be different stages, multiple marks, leading to one true goal. I pray that you excuse one another’s weaknesses and take solace in one another’s strengths. If you’re to accomplish this feat, you’ll need each other more than you ever believed. I had Lawrence, but who do you all have?
“‘Celeste, I beg you read my short collection of journal entries. I’ve written about myself from the time I was a young woman, all the way to my death, and I’ve taken the bits of myself you will need to learn about yourself . Magnus, it’s time for you to see outside of your narrow window and join something larger than yourself. You’re not getting any younger and I worry that Nordic veneer will never melt enough to let someone in. My dear Santi, you’re perfect as you are, don’t ever change—’” Lawrence cut off with a snort.
Celeste couldn’t help her laughter, but Doris had a way of slipping levity into any uncomfortable occasion. Soon, the entire room fell into a fit of giggles while Santiago flashed them a smug grin. “We all know I was Mother’s favorite,” he said above the noise.
“Ah, hush up,” Lawrence chuckled. “You were just the baby of the group.”
“I wasn’t called hardheaded or an icy Scandinavian,” Santiago retorted.
“I don’t think she said I was an icy Scandinavian,” Magnus said, rolling his eyes.
“All right now, everybody calm down and let me finish this.”
Once the room settled down, Celeste smiled and redirected her attention to Lawrence. The promise of a last heist hung in the balance, and she wanted to hear more.
“‘Lawrence, give them the tools, be patient and guide them as best as you can. What they will need to get started is in the box I have left for you. More will be offered at a later stage. Thank you for being my steadfast and most trusted companion throughout the years.
“‘Now, on to the first clue to their first location. Peter promised her home but when he died, she couldn’t imagine a hearth without him. Not even the god of the seas could lure her back to the flowers and fountains. That kind of love is nestled deep, but it’s also quite fragile. If ever you were to take hold of it, be gentle lest you crack its surface. But go with a bold voice. Sing a joyous song that’s loud enough to drive the bear back to his iron cave.’” He flipped the letter, glancing at the backside before taking off his glasses. “That appears to be it.”
She didn’t know what she was expecting, but Celeste certainly needed more than that. They all sat there for a moment, perplexed and quiet.
Finally, Santiago scowled. “I don’t get it. Give us a hint, Lawrence.”
“Son, I don’t know what she’s talking about. This is my first time reading the letter.”
“Is she talking about a place or an object? Or both?” Beatrice asked, pulling out her phone. “There was a bear...is it folklore or something?”
“Possibly,” Celeste murmured. Good God, she hated riddles and Doris knew that. Why would she want to make it even harder on them? She glanced at Magnus, whose eyes seemed fixed on the urn beside Lawrence. It didn’t appear that he was thinking hard. It looked like he was seething behind his narrowed eyes.
“Wait,” Magnus said. “Are all of you just going to skip over the part where a dead woman just assigned us to go on a scavenger hunt?” He stood up and began pacing the room. “Forget the clue for a second and let’s get back to the fact that we haven’t seen each other in years and now she’s asking, no, demanding, that we move on with a joke or two?” He stopped at the desk and picked up the urn, testing its weight in his hands. “Why are you doing this to us?” he whispered to it.
Everyone sat in stunned silence.
Except for Celeste, who frowned in annoyance. “Did you know her at all? This is who Doris was. Were you expecting a traditional funeral where we’d all stand over an open grave weeping and wailing?”
“I don’t know what I expected,” he snapped. “Certainly not this.”
“What do you need to rehash to make this day acceptable?” Celeste said, walking toward him. She could feel her heart rate rise and her hands shake in anger as she approached him. “Do you finally want to talk about Stockholm?”
He scoffed. “Do you?”
“I jumped in the water because you dropped the damn box,” Celeste said, her voice rising to an uncomfortable shrillness she had tried to avoid.
Magnus set Dr. Grant’s remains down with a heavy thunk before wheeling on her. “A boat on the river was not my original plan and you know it,” he said, pointing his finger at her face. “But you didn’t listen to me. You were obsessed in doing her bidding until you couldn’t keep a rational plan.”
“Get your finger out of my face,” she said in a steadier voice.
His blue eyes flickered to his hand before lowering it. “Do you finally want to acknowledge why you ended up scaling down an apartment building in the middle of the night?”
“Your plan was going to take much longer and we didn’t have the time.”
“Reckless,” he growled.
“Chicken shit,” she countered.
“How can I talk to her?” Magnus thundered, looking around the room. “How am I expected to work with a woman who doesn’t give a damn about her safety or anyone else’s?”
Celeste gasped and recoiled from him as though she’d been hit. His words were far more hurtful than her calling him a chicken shit. She had only endangered her life that night, no one else’s. Since then, she’d taken every care to make sure Beatrice never had to see action.
“Lawrence, were you finished reading things?” Santiago asked in a bored tone. “Because I think they’ve devolved into shouting.”
“Now, listen, you two,” Lawrence said, rising from the desk. “It’s all a package deal. She made it clear that it’s all of you or no one. The scavenger hunt, as you put it, is going to be hard enough with four of us. It’ll be damn near impossible if it’s just three.”
“So, I’m being coerced into participating in this insanity?”
“How dare you make this about you!” Celeste shouted. “Are you even remotely curious about what Doris left us? Are you just going to shut it down like you shut everything else down?”
“I can take his place!” Beatrice volunteered.
“Can it, Bea!”
“Have you changed yet?” Magnus asked.
“Have you pulled the stick out of your ass yet?”
“You know,” Santiago interrupted. “You two worked well enough together when you were fucking. Why don’t you try that again?”
Celeste’s mouth fell open as her face grew hot.
Magnus scrubbed his hands down his face and gave a frustrated growl. “If she can’t even listen, I can’t do this.” He stepped away from her and strode out of the library.
“That’s it, just run away when it gets difficult!” Celeste called out, chasing after him. He cut a fiery path throughout the ground floor of Doris’s home like a tidy tornado, full of fury and focus. But she didn’t want him to leave with the last word hanging over her head. She wasn’t reckless, she was creative, she thought on her feet. Celeste could manipulate any plan to suit the same goal. It didn’t matter about the means; she always found her end. “You want to shout at someone for not listening, why don’t you do it in a mirror, Mags? You’ve never wanted to listen to me. You always dismissed my ideas!”
Right before he got to the front door, he stopped abruptly, dropped his head and let out a tired sigh. “That’s not entirely true. Against my better judgment, I took a backseat to some of your most outlandish ideas. And at one time, it seemed worth it. But near the end? We were fools to go to Stockholm.”
Anger flared through her as she searched for a retort. “But—”
“Doris is dead, Celeste. Can I just sit with that for a minute?”
She paused midstep as a chill ran through her body. Every time she heard the words Doris and dead , her brain froze in fear and guilt. Her mentor had been dying, and she hadn’t even known. She had visited this house at least once a month, until Doris began waving her away in February. Celeste took to calling her a bit more, but their conversations were short and to the point. When Doris gave a ragged cough, she dismissed it as a cold or a long bout of pneumonia, assuring Celeste that she was seeing a doctor.
And now Doris was dead.
“You’re right,” she breathed. “She is...”
He turned around. “And last night was the first time I’d seen you in five years.”
She nodded.
“It’s a lot, don’t you think?” he asked, letting his eyes rove over her.
Celeste suddenly felt naked under his stare and Santiago’s words came back to her. They used to fuck. They used to be good together. She hated the way her thoughts ricocheted from grief to embarrassment. “It is.”
“Just give me a minute to get my shit together. My semester is nearly over, and I need to sort that out before I can think about...any of this. Maybe we can talk on Wednesday?”
She scrunched her nose. “You’re still teaching?”
Magnus shrugged. “Doris always told us to keep a day job, a good front. I like teaching.”
“Makes sense. You love lecturing people,” Celeste said without thinking.
His dry laughter almost shamed her. There was no reason to be so reactionary toward a man who was suggesting a truce. “Santi really got under your skin, didn’t he?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Excuse me?”
He pushed away from the door and made a languid path toward her. She inhaled sharply when he stopped just before her. At this distance, she was able to see the blond-and-silver whiskers sprouting on his jaw, the strong column of his neck where the muscles made a barely perceptible twitch. “He reminded you of our not-so-subtle dalliances,” Magnus said in a low voice.
Celeste shrugged. “And?”
Before she realized what he was doing, Celeste felt his warm fingers dip under her chin and pull her gaze upward. “When we weren’t arguing with each other, we spent a lot of time pleasuring one another.”
Her face was on fire and her mouth went dry. “So what?” she croaked.
His eyes landed on her mouth as he lightly brushed her bottom lip with his thumb. “What did you feel when I kissed you in Sanderson’s office?”
Thrill, excitement, fear...desire. She had kissed him back with the same ardent energy he gave until Beatrice told her to hurry up. His lips moved just as expertly as they had years before and it shocked her how quickly she found herself back in her stride. But Celeste would be damned before she told Magnus Larsson that. “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.
His hand slipped away, leaving her bereft of his intimate touch. “I know enough about you to say that’s a lie,” he murmured, drawing even closer to her. Soon, she’d be lost in the deep blue of his eyes. “The Celeste I knew felt everything. That’s why she snaps and bites,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve always been able to read your face, the blush that creeps up your chest and the way your nipples tighten when you stand too close to me... After Wednesday, I can gladly lecture you about the rest of your body, Dr. St. Pierre.”
She drew her head back sharply and looked him in the eye but couldn’t bring herself to speak. It had been a long time since someone had dragged her like this, and she didn’t know how to respond. Luckily, Magnus leaned back on his heels with a tired smile. Only then did she feel safe enough to take her next breath. “Get home safe, Mags.”
“Sleep tight, CeCe,” he replied as he walked away.
She watched him exit Doris’s home without another word.
Celeste stood in the hall, frozen in shock, dreading what Wednesday would bring.