Chapter 1 #2
as we traveled south along the coast, where sleek resorts and lake homes faced the water. Toward the end of all the newer
developments were smaller beach cottages that had been around since the late 1800s, perched on the edge of the sand and surrounded
by wild grass. As the car slowed, I spotted my nana’s house, painted various jewel-like shades of blue and surrounded by a
white picket fence.
Heron Cottage.
Two tiny bedrooms, one tiny bath. Named after the great blue herons that lived around the lake. Females often made nests in
our trees. I remembered nearly running into one of the big birds on the beach the last time I was at the cottage—I’d been
walking around in a fog, tying up loose ends after Nana’s funeral. My heart squeezed at the thought of her, and it was all
I could do to endure a fresh wave of grief that washed over me as I hefted my luggage out of the car.
“Right on the water, noice,” the driver said, making a half-concerted effort to help me with my bags as he looked around. “You ever rent this? You could
make a ton of cash.”
“It’s a private home.”
“Shame.”
I thanked him for the ride and tipped him on the rideshare app to get him to go away, sighing when the wheels of his car briefly
spun in the sandy gravel of the driveway. Then I quickly took stock of the cottage while digging out my old keys.
All the plantings around the front of the home were overgrown and spilling across the stony walkway, spiky sedge and butterfly milkweed.
We didn’t have much grass, but what we did have should’ve been mown.
Our family lawyer handled most of the probating of my nana’s will and was supposed to have hired
lawn care services.
Guess I’d be doing it myself.
Even the cottage’s mailbox was overflowing. “What the hell am I paying you for, Mr. Kimbell?” I whispered to myself. I supposed
I’d add “book a meeting with the attorney” to my to-do list.
At least I’d made it here. I stuck my key in the front door and inhaled familiar scents before I even stepped inside. Old
wood and my grandmother’s oil paints, the smell of my childhood. For a fraction of a moment, some sort of internal autopilot
kicked in: I was home, which meant Nana was just there, inside, waiting for me. A strange, disconcerting feeling followed
when my sluggish brain remembered she’d never welcome me home again. I paused at the door as grief crept out of the corners
of my heart and ambushed me with hurt.
Oh, Nana. I don’t think I can do this . . .
I swiped at my eyes before tears could fall and exhaled a shaky breath. Then I steadied myself and swung the front door open.
When I did, shock hit me like a punch in the gut.
My family home was not in the state I’d left it last fall.
Furniture lay broken. Beer bottles were strewn everywhere. Books scattered. And a pane of glass in the back living room window
had been smashed.
The beach cottage had been trashed. Utterly.
“What the . . . ?” Dazed, I parked my rolling luggage near Nana’s old rocking chair, the spines of which were busted, as if
someone had kicked them. And when I took tentative steps across the old wood floor, my sneakers crunched broken glass.
Books everywhere.
Pizza boxes littered the kitchenette.
My nana’s painting easel lay on its side.
A warm breeze blew through the smashed window as I crossed the small living area to the narrow hallway that contained the
bath and bedrooms. Nana’s mattress had been pushed off the bed. The drawers of her dresser were pulled out, as if someone
had been searching for something. But last summer, before I left for Harvard, I’d packed up all her stuff and taken it down
to the basement. So there was nothing in her room to find. Nothing but her paintings—all signed with her name, Kitty Malone—which had been taken off the wall and stood in a stack. One was slashed down the middle.
“What the hell . . . ?”
My mind snapped to the news story that my driver had mentioned, the one about the gold bar being found in a sewer last month.
If that renewed the public’s interest in Wyrd Jack’s treasure, people might be coming out of the woodwork. Professional treasure
hunters, and not-so-professional. Had one discovered that I was related to him? Broken into the cottage to look for more gold
bars?
Distressed, I stepped out of Nana’s old bedroom and opened the bathroom door. All my toiletries and towels were dumped in
a heap inside the bathtub.
But it wasn’t until I entered my old bedroom that my shock shifted to anger.
It was the only room in the house that wasn’t completely trashed. But that was the least of my worries.
My paddleboard was missing from the pegs on my wall. Paddleboard, paddle, leash—all my equipment, gone. And that wasn’t all
. . .
Someone has been sleeping in my bed.
Wrinkled sheets formed the shape of a stranger’s body. A small bedside pottery tray—one that normally held jewelry I’d remove
at night—was being used as an ashtray for joints and empty disposable weed vapes. When I stepped farther into the room, I
glanced at my old chest of drawers and found myself staring at two more surprises.
The first was a spotted sandpiper, lazily nesting inside my open underwear drawer.
The second was a silver key chain sitting behind the sandpiper.
Not my key chain, not my keys.
“Scram, beach chicken,” I shouted at the bird, shooing it out of my drawer.
It made a lot of noise, and for a moment, I thought it might even attack me. But when it finally left the room in a flurry
of feathers and headed out the broken window, I was able to pick up the key chain.
That’s when I spotted the vintage brass decoder ring, dangling with the rest of the keys.
Shocked, my hand flew to the matching ring that hung on a chain around my neck.
A coldness spread through my core.
All at once, I knew who’d been squatting here and had trashed my nana’s cottage like the world was about to end.
Seb Jansen, erstwhile fourth Wag and the biggest deadbeat in town. My former childhood best friend.
Way former.
He’d just made himself my new enemy.