Chapter 31
31
Davis
There are too many of us.
Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as too many good guys looking for a treasure either.
It’s not about the help.
Or even about trusting this many people to keep the secret if we find the treasure and someone other than me or Vanessa sees what’s inside of it.
It’s about how little time I have alone with Sloane all day.
And how much all of my friends and family are competing for her attention.
Ellie and Sloane have a long talk while standing over a rock, and they hug when Beck calls Ellie to help him look under a different rock.
Tripp offers Sloane baseball tickets six more times.
My mom peppers Sloane with questions about when she moved to Shipwreck and how she likes it here and when the best time to visit is.
Sloane thanks Levi and Ingrid for sending Giselle, and before I realize it, Ingrid and Sloane are trading phone numbers so Ingrid can help make book recommendations for Sloane’s neighborhood book club.
Vanessa asks Sloane if she’s ever been arrested.
Sloane asks the same back.
We eat lunch outside in the late afternoon, and I don’t get to sit next to Sloane. Beck and Wyatt monopolize her time, with Levi and Ingrid hanging close enough to hear the things I can’t.
I’m getting cranky about it.
And worried too.
Is this because I came too early last night?
Is she avoiding me?
Is it really just about the treasure?
Fuck. I don’t even know how this is happening. It’s been five days since she asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend, and I feel like I’ve lived five lifetimes in that span.
Good lifetimes.
And today is another lifetime.
A lifetime where we spend the whole day using state-of-the-art equipment, underground detection devices even better than metal detectors, with large digging machinery and extra lights on standby if we need them, but still can’t find the damn treasure.
No matter how much we scour the area around the waterfall.
Tripp and Lila do a real photo shoot closer to the lake in the preserve to sell the cover story. Vanessa doesn’t give me shit when she catches me using a device I shouldn’t have to keep trying to ping Dixon’s cell signal.
Went dead sometime yesterday, nowhere near the preserve.
No cameras have caught him near the museum again.
As the sun dips lower in the late afternoon, everyone but my mom, my sister, and Beck and Sarah leave to head back to Copper Valley to pick up kids from school and go about their normal family routines.
And eventually, with the darkness winning, we call it quits too.
An entire day, spent all around the waterfall that should be where the treasure is, with nothing to show for it.
But it means I get another day with Sloane.
To do what, I don’t have a fucking clue.
Clearly won’t be finding a goddamn treasure.
Maybe she’s right.
Maybe it doesn’t exist.
Maybe it was found years ago by someone who doesn’t know what they found, or who sold it off to someone else who buried it inside their walls for someone to find centuries from now.
“Half the joy is in the journey,” Vanessa says to me as we reach the cars to head back to Beck’s place and regroup for the night.
Authorities are crawling all over the cabin behind my trailer, so we can’t go back there.
I grunt in return.
And Sloane smiles at me.
“What?”
“I know I shouldn’t be glad you’re frustrated, but honestly, it’s not getting old to realize you have actual real emotions and aren’t straight-faced all the time.”
Vanessa laughs.
“Probably you too,” Sloane says to her. “Especially since most of what you’ve done all day is just frown and growl at everyone around you.”
“You’re very happy for a woman who’s still stuck with my brother for another couple days. Or longer.”
“Patrick was actually the best of my ex-boyfriends. It doesn’t take a lot to impress me or make me happy.”
Vanessa’s nose wrinkles. “That’s very sad.”
“Yep. So today was fun. And I’d like to find the fucking treasure and get back to normal too, but since I clearly can’t decipher pirate code, and I’m honestly nervous to go back to my house, at least I’m with pleasant people in the meantime.”
“I don’t think you were wrong with your assessment of where the treasure should’ve been.”
“Agreed,” I say.
Sloane wrinkles her nose. “But it wasn’t there.”
She’s not wrong about that either.
“I started looking at the rocks and the trees to see if there was possibly another clue somewhere in there, but I came up empty,” she adds. “Which isn’t really a surprise. Two hundred years is a long time for a tree to grow and hide its secrets.”
“You guys coming for dinner?” Beck calls over the cars. “We should have enough extra food.”
“Are you sure?” Sloane calls back. “I saw your snack backpack today. Also, no one asked, but it’s my professional opinion that you should have your metabolism checked if you haven’t. How much you eat is abnormal.”
Look at that.
Even when I’m irritated and frustrated, she makes me smile.
I’m fucked—I like this woman too much.
And I’ve done it to myself.
“My obstetrician and then Ava and Francie’s pediatrician said the same thing,” Sarah says. “We’ve had him checked three times now. He’s fine. Perfect, actually. Which is a relief since the girls take after him.”
“ Yes . She still thinks I’m perfect. High five, world.”
“Is he really always like this?” Sloane whispers to me.
“Yes.”
“Always,” Chuck agrees. He’s back on shift.
“Glad you’re perfect,” Sloane calls to Beck. “Had to ask.”
“You’re a good person, Nurse Sloane,” Beck replies. “It’s an honor to have you marrying into the family. See you at my house. Last one there might go hungry.”
They duck into their car. Vanessa gets into her car, and Mom opts to go with her. Sloane and I get into the car Levi’s team is still providing with Chuck in the driver’s seat.
And we all head back to Beck’s house.
Sloane’s quiet as we drive. She stares out the window and starts humming again.
Same song as before, “When You See Me.”
My heart squeezes itself.
I let a lot of people down when I broke up the band. Learned to live with it. Forgive myself too.
But hearing her humming an old tune of ours twice now—this one hurts.
It hurts that I hurt her.
She seems to catch herself, and she goes quiet once more.
“You okay?” I ask her after another few minutes of silence.
“I’m trying to think like an eighteenth-century pirate. What would you do if you’d retired from piracy and were sitting on a treasure?”
I watch her in the dim glow of the dashboard screen up front. “You think he used it?”
“Imagine spending your life filling your treasure chest and then not using it. It doesn’t make sense. Even if he had to sell it off, there had to be places that he could’ve sold a gem here or traded a gold coin there.”
“Those would’ve eventually resurfaced and been recognized somewhere.”
“But would they? If it was coins that had already been in circulation before the Revolutionary War, then would they ?”
“I’d use a treasure if I had it,” Chuck says. “Why go to all the trouble of criming if you’re not going to enjoy what you stole?”
Sloane leans back in her seat. “Exactly my point. Why bury a treasure somewhere you can’t reach it? Why have a treasure and not use it? You can be mostly incognito and still use your wealth.”
Both of them slide me a look.
Not hard to understand why. I like to be incognito, and I don’t have many spending restrictions.
But there are still logic gaps in their argument. “You can’t just use as many gold coins as he recorded having in his captain’s log.”
“Maybe he lied in his captain’s log and that’s part of why he and Walter Bombeck had a falling out. Men do love to exaggerate their…accomplishments.”
Chuck snickers.
“It’s out there,” I tell Sloane. “Even if his exploits were exaggerated, he made enough to retire, enough to have his first mate wanting what he had, and enough to live on.”
She sighs. “My brain and body both need a break.”
She’s not alone.
I’d say it’s a good thing we’re going to Beck’s, except when we arrive, it’s not Beck who greets us.
It’s Pop Rock.
In the driveway.
And he’s pissed.
Ever seen a pirate angry?
That’s Pop right now.
He’s shrunk a little in stature since the first time I saw him, but he’s in full pirate regalia, from the boots to the sword to the coat to the hat to the bird on his shoulder.
“ You stole my diary ,” he yells at me before we’re fully out of the car.
Sloane jumps in front of me like she needs to protect me from the old man’s wrath, and my heart does that pitter-patter thing again.
“Whoa, deep breath, Pop. It was me. I took the pictures. Davis doesn’t have your diary.”
His eyes cross. “ You took pictures of my diary? ”
“ Rawk! What do you want on your tombstone, sucker? Rawk! ”
I move to get in front of Sloane, but she flings an arm out and holds me back.
And my heart pitter-patters harder.
People don’t protect me.
I protect them.
This woman will be the one to break me.
“Someone’s going to get hurt looking for the treasure.” Sloane’s voice is calm and measured, and she doesn’t flinch when Pop takes two steps toward her. “Your family will get hurt looking for this treasure. You think the people who are breaking into the museum and into my house will stop with me? They’ll target Tillie Jean next. Or Grady and Annika. Or you. Or any of your other kids or grandkids.”
Pop growls.
“ Rawk! Watch the fucker’s blood pressure! Rawk! ”
“Good point, Long Beak Silver. Pop, let’s go inside and have some food and talk about why we need to find this treasure now.”
“Nobody’s finding the treasure.”
“Because you already found it?”
He snorts.
That’s not a good sound.
“Where’d you find it, Pop?” Sloane says.
“I didn’t find it,” he grumbles. “Been all over that damn nature preserve. My whole damn life. Figured it out without all of that fancy internet stuff you can do nowadays. And I’m telling you, it’s not there. And I’m also telling you, I want my diary back.”
“ Rawk! Hand it over and walk the plank! Rawk! ”
“Shouldn’t that be or ?” Sloane says to the parrot.
“ Rawk! Fuck off! Rawk! ”
“Max will be so disappointed in you.”
“ Rawk! I love Max! Rawk! ”
“Exactly. Wait. Wait . Are you sure the diary’s missing, Pop? We don’t have the diary. When did it go missing?”
Shit.
Fuck .
Vanessa and Mom step out of the car behind us.
“Been missing since yesterday,” Pop says.
Sloane’s phone lights up, glowing from her pocket.
She cringes.
I curl my hand into a fist again to keep from pulling her close. “If that’s Nigel, I’ll be happy to answer him for you. If you want me to.”
She’s rolling her eyes as she pulls it out, but that’s not Nigel texting her.
It’s Tillie Jean.
“They found the coat in one of the glitter bomb receptacles from the wedding,” she murmurs, showing me the message.
There’s a picture of an old pirate coat.
Glittered now.
That’ll be something for the museums.
“Is it damaged?” I ask.
“Somebody stole my coat too?” Pop says. “ Why is everyone stealing all of my things? ”
“Maybe because that’s what pirates fucking do ,” Sloane snarls back. “You know who’s a pirate? You’re a pirate. Your ancestors were pirates. You know who’s not a pirate? I’m not a fucking pirate . But I’m hip-deep in this anyway, so go inside, sit down, eat something, and quit yelling . Or I’m calling all of your family up here to get you.”
“Pop? That you?” Cooper calls.
Cooper.
Of course.
His house is next door.
Next door being a relative term. Lots are big up here on the top of Thorny Rock Mountain.
“Go back to your honeymoon,” Pop calls back. “I’m practicing a bit for the Pirate Festival next year.”
Cooper angles into view. “Kiva said she saw you pacing down here and thought you got the wrong house.”
Pop looks at me.
Then at Sloane, who’s still vibrating with irritation.
Then he looks at Cooper. “Yep. Must be getting old. Got confused. Thought I was practicing at your house.”
“ Rawk! His brain’s as saggy as his balls! Rawk! ”
Pop eyes me again. “Do not fuck up my family, you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
Sloane slips her hand into mine and squeezes, and everything inside of me relaxes.
We’re okay.
She’s okay.
She still trusts me.
I didn’t fuck up.
Again.
Yet.
“Which way’s your house?” Pop says to Cooper, like he’s actually confused, even though we all know he’s not.
Cooper eyes me.
Dude’s about as serious as Beck usually, so the look I’m getting now?—
I don’t like it.
It’s like he’s thinking, and he doesn’t like thinking. Probably especially whatever he’s thinking about.
“Hope you’re having a nice not-honeymoon,” Sloane says to him. “Sorry about the glitter at your wedding. Again.”
His face relaxes into a grin. “Best part of the day. We love glitter. TJ’s gonna regret that no-glitter edict. Because wait until she sees what I’m planning without it.”
Cooper steers Pop down Beck’s driveway and toward a waiting car.
Sloane looks at me.
She doesn’t have to say a word, but I know what she’s thinking.
He knows. He definitely knows .
He knows Thorny Rock isn’t truly Thorny Rock, and he doesn’t want anyone else finding out.
Except that’s not what she says.
“Patrick has it. Patrick stole Thorny Rock’s diary. I’d bet an entire year’s paycheck he has it. So what are we going to do now?”
I mentally crack my knuckles. “Find it first.”
“Hope we can.”
Gonna have to.
There’s no other way.