Chapter 21 #2
Golden Venus. Your father never wanted to part with it, and if you’d seen it, you’d understand why. If it ever were to be
sold, it would surely bring in wealth beyond belief. But I have tried to ensure you will never need to do so. Greedy strangers
who want it are coming out of the woodwork, circling like hyenas. They already believe your father’s poem will lead them to
one of his hidden smuggling caches. So I’ve devised a game to keep these covetous hunters occupied and have hidden a series
of clues based on the poem that lead to nowhere. However, if you ever find yourself needing to retrieve the sculpture, know
that I have placed it in the smuggler’s hole your father built near the beach cottage. I showed you how to open it using both
rings as keys. I’ve buried those in a grave at the foot of the stone tower south of Sleeping Bear Dunes. I know you’ll remember
when I took you there to see your father’s old hideout. Hire a boat to take you up the river to the war camp with the tower.
The grave is behind the tower, marked with a simple cross.
It is my hope that you’ll never need to retrieve the sculpture and will pass along its location to Kitty. Knowledge of its hiding spot is a blessing but also a heavy burden. Perhaps it will be less of one when Kitty is old enough to understand her family’s history.
Know that I will always be with you, even past the grave.
All my love,
Mama
“Son of a bitch,” Seb whispered, sounding as shocked as I felt.
I blinked at the letter, eyes flicking over the lines again. “We’ve been following a treasure hunt to nowhere?”
“Jumped in that hole in the cave for no goddamn reason.”
“The stupid time capsule!”
“It really was just a fucking generic penny?”
“Jesus.” I pushed off the bed and paced the floor around it. “I’ve been anxiously checking for news that the cops are looking
for us since we left the festival. What if we’d gotten in trouble? It was a wild-goose chase the entire time.”
I’m not sure why this smarted, but it did. Maybe it was because this treasure hunt had made me feel like my life was opening
up again over the wash-rinse-repeat of this past year, that I was finally letting go of the unending grief.
My stomach felt sick. What an utter fool I’d been. “Why didn’t Nana tell me about this?”
“Maybe she didn’t know.”
“The wedding certificate was hidden behind one of her paintings.”
Seb’s face twisted. “Right.”
“Besides, she had to know.” I pointed at the letter. “Mabel told her daughter, Elsie, and I assume Elsie eventually told Nana
because she’s mentioned by name—Kitty.”
“Maybe she’d planned on telling you or leaving you a note like this. She definitely didn’t expect to have a heart attack.”
None of us did.
Seb held up his arm to stop my pacing. “You’re focusing on the wrong thing. Fuck the time capsule and the rest of it. We can
just go straight to the grave she mentions. A tower near Sleeping Bear Dunes . . . ?”
Sleeping Bear was a few hours up the coast. It had been designated a national shoreline—one of a handful in the country—and
the park included a couple of islands and adjacent coastline on the mainland. Lots of sand. Really beautiful.
“Paige, listen to me. We can find this grave, I just know we can.”
“What if someone already found it? Nana’s mother, or even Nana herself. The instructions for finding it are right here.”
“No way. Nana Malone was always clear that the Venus had never been found. She wouldn’t lie to us about that.”
He was right. She wouldn’t.
“But hey,” he said. “What about this smuggler’s hole? Mabel wrote that it’s near the cottage. Did Mabel and Jack own this
cottage?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know, to be honest. Nana inherited it from her mother—from Elsie, but Nana never mentioned
it being passed down from Mabel. And I’ve never seen mention of any cottage in all the books that have been written about
them.”
“If I were a betting man, I’d say this is Mabel’s cottage. Which means the smuggler’s hole she mentions is near here.”
I couldn’t imagine where. There was the cottage and the garage, a couple of trees, and a little grass that still needed mowing.
Beyond that was sand and water.
“You know what I think?” Seb said.
“Please.”
“I think we have everything we need to find the treasure in this letter. We just have to put our minds to it and figure out
a few details.”
“A few? How are we in any better position to find the statue now?”
He whistled at me. “You’re spinning out. Take a breath.”
Was I? He used to tell me that when we were young and I was freaking out about something. I stopped pacing and stood in front of
him, exhaling a shaky breath. “I’m okay.”
He nodded. “There you go, see? We were on Treasure Hunt 1.0, and it led us to this. All we need to do now is a little research
for Treasure Hunt 2.0, and we’re back in business.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Don’t you?”
Oh, I absolutely did. This was the break I’d been hoping for. Or maybe it was even the answer from Nana that I was hoping
for last night on the beach. I said a thank-you in my head, just in case. “We can get started after you unpack . . . unless
you have other plans.”
“No plans are a match for the Golden Venus.” Seb fell back on the bare mattress and sighed. “Besides, with all these roomie
rules we’ve both agreed to, we’re going to need something big to distract us from putting our hands on each other again.”
The way he looked at me from the bed, blue eyes glittering with mischief, we were going to need a lot more than Treasure Hunt
2.0.