Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
With Cap in a wheelchair from Thirsty for History, we head to the last places Anson included in his letter.
Nash tried to drag it out with his historical acronym game, but I didn’t back down this time.
The little hope I had in the bank recovering our funds vanquished with Barry’s phone call. I’m done playing games.
Plus, I can’t break into the cemetery until after dark.
Unfortunately, at every item that looks suspicious or out of place—from the cracks in the floorboards to the most discreet spots of the garden—Cap and Nash poke holes in every single theory I conjure up.
“Too handled,” “Not original,” “You think Anson Burns was able to climb on the roof without anyone noticing?” And perhaps the most damning of all: “Union soldiers were billeted there at the end of the war—still there in the summer—Anson wouldn’t have been able to do anything except look at the house from the street. ”
White Point Garden is no different. They murder every good idea I have with logic and a knowledge of history I don’t have.
“Look at the night herons,” Cap says around Penny, his gaze lifted to the sprawling live oak canopy above us. “Crazy sons of bitches nest here every year.”
Nash is fully invested, adding, “Egrets too.”
The birds above us bark out squawks that nearly send me screaming like a banshee off the edge of the sea wall and into the bed of oysters that surround us.
I can’t shake the feeling there’s no gold to be found and we’re going to lose everything.
And even though Nash said he would help—and I believe him—what then?
Even if we pay the bills, the store is losing money.
I can’t lean on outside financial support forever.
My mom lost her retirement, we’ll lose our insurance—he can’t foot the bill for all that.
That’s not even counting the cost of her surgery if we lose insurance.
Which is why I’m standing in front of the brick wall of St. Michael’s Church with a shovel in hand and zero fucks to give.
“You know this is a horrible idea,” Nash says, stance wide and arms folded over his canoe-covered chest.
“Says the man who once encouraged his students to break into the Fontain City Pool and fill it with tea bags so they had a greater understanding of how the colonists felt during the Boston Tea Party?” I assess the wall to figure out how I’m going to get over it. “Your concern is noted.”
“One,” he says, “I didn’t think they would listen. And two, that was Fontain. This is Charleston. And a historic cemetery. And you have a shovel. To dig up the graves of signers of the Constitution.”
I flip him off. I don’t care what he says.
“Hoist me over.”
He makes an annoyed sound. “This is insane.”
I look at him, one hand on my hip, the other holding the shovel. “You can either help me or go sit at your office with Cap and Sunny and wait for me to do it by myself. Either way, I’m doing this. With or without you.”
He fights a smile then kisses me on the mouth.
“You’re such a pain in the ass.”
“So you’ve said. Now, help me over.”
At the wall, he interlaces his hands together in a makeshift foothold, and I smile triumphantly. I lean the shovel off to the side, put a foot in his hands, then sling my leg over the top.
Heart pounding, I slide down the other side into the cemetery. Between the openings of the iron gate, Nash passes me the shovel.
It occurs to me I don’t know how I’m going to get out of here. I might be trapped in an old cemetery at night.
Nash reads my mind. “You’re freaking out.”
“Why did you let me do this?” I grip the shovel. “This—this is stupid.”
At this, Nash chuckles. His fingers wrap around the gate between us, and my hand not holding the shovel does the same.
His forehead rests on the bars. “It’s kind of fun though, right?”
My heartbeat vibrates my entire body, fun the last thing I expect him to say. I am a ball of anxious fear, and yet, I puff out a laugh. “I was thinking terrifying. But sure, fun works.”
And maybe it is fun.
He fights a smile. “I’m happy you’re here.”
The eerie cemetery, barely illuminated by streetlights, grows eerier with his words. “Let’s talk about our happiness over dinner when I’m done not dying.”
His eyes trap slivers of streetlight and dance. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
We hold each other’s gaze until someone passes on the sidewalk.
Nash leans his back against the gate to hide me. Over his shoulder, he says, “If you’re doing this, go. I don’t know how much time we have.”
I suck in a breath and hold it, jogging with the shovel to the grave of John Rutledge first.
When I realized the new memorial slabs were lying on top of the ground, I knew there could be something beneath them.
I became obsessively certain there was. Slabs could have been laid without the graves ever being touched.
For the first time out of all the clues, something might be undisturbed. Even Nash and Cap agreed.
Reaching in my pocket for my phone for a light, I remember I left it in my car at Nash’s office. Damn. I’ll have to rely solely on the faint glow from the street.
I wedge the shovel under a corner of the stone slab and push down on the handle, trying to pry it up; it doesn’t budge.
Nash calls to me, but I ignore him. I have to dig at an angle from the side. In the dark. At a grave. Terror turns my blood ice cold.
An echo of laughter and deep-voiced conversations floats from the street. A car horn beeps. Loud music from a nearby bar dances around me.
Nash says something, but I can’t worry about him. I take a long blink and a deep breath.
I think of Bennie.
My mom’s brain.
The antique store I’ve spent the better part of my life in.
I raise the shovel, Nash calls my name, and I whisper, “I’m really sorry about this, John Rutledge.”
Before the shovel meets the earth, a flashlight shines in my face and makes me scream.
When a deep voice says, “Drop the shovel,” I do.
A police officer stands, stern voiced and broad shouldered, using the brightest flashlight ever created to blind me.
I put my hands up, palms facing him, and squint. Terrified.
“This—this isn’t what it looks like,” I stammer, looking toward the gate and Nash.
It’s open; he’s gone.
Oh no.
“I’m—” Screwed. “Do you know Leroy?”
Into the radio on his shoulder, the officer says, “Got her.” To me: “Afraid not.”
He spins me around and cuffs me—cuffs me! I’m going to jail. I’m going to jail and I can’t afford bail. Shit.
“What the hell were you doing in here?” the officer asks, making my brain break; I’ve never had a speeding ticket and now I’m about to do hard time. “You know desecrating a grave is a felony in the state of South Carolina?”
“I—I wasn’t desecrating it.” He guides me—in cuffs—through the dark cemetery. “I was—I was looking for something.” Adrenaline clears the muddied waters of my brain. “For the federal government. I was trying to return funds stolen from them in-in-in 1865. I only have $17.32.”
He makes a disbelieving noise as we approach the open gate leading out of the cemetery. “They ask you to do that?”
“Ha.” I say it like he’s funny and I’m funny and this whole thing is so damn funny. “No. I’m surprising them.”
“You’re surprising the federal government?” He doesn’t believe me. “By grave digging?”
“Yes. If you’d let me explain. I—”
And just when I think things can’t get any worse, we step onto the sidewalk and I lose my ability to speak.
Not because Nash is standing with his arms folded over his chest, losing his battle with a smile.
Not because Cap is cough-laughing his ass off.
Not even because Sunny has her hands on her hips, muttering, “This damn girl. What the hell you done did? You like a boomerang from hell.”
But because next to all of them is Jonathan, disheveled and wearing a suit, holding a bouquet of flowers.
Shit.