by Lucy Quinn
12
“What do you think?” Cookie asked once they were back outside and heading back toward the inn. They’d walked to the library since everything in town was only twenty minutes from the inn, at most. That was one advantage of a small community, and Cookie had felt the need to stretch her legs, get some fresh air, and work off some steam all at the same time.
“About what? Winifred?” Dylan asked. He was on her left side, Hunter on her right. And the fact neither of them was looking directly at the other was fine with her. As long as they weren’t antagonizing each other, Cookie was willing to take the win. “I think she’s telling the truth. I’ve known her my whole life, and she hates falsehoods. Always has.” He chuckled. “She’s also a fierce hand with a wooden ruler and practically a human lie detector, so you’ve been warned.”
“Now you tell me, after I confronted her,” Cookie said, shaking her head. “Thanks for that.” She sobered. “But I agree with your assessment. She was genuinely shaken up about Fleet’s death.”
“And as far as her husband Jeremy goes, she’s right on the money,” Dylan continued. “He can be a sour old man with a sharp tongue, usually after he’s been drinking, but he’s as big around as my wrist and barely strong enough to carry his own groceries. Even if he suddenly turned violent, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against someone like Fleet.”
“He’s certainly not sour after he’s been partaking in Rain’s special brownies,” Cookie said, shaking her head.
“Rain’s brownies?” Hunter asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Rain took it upon herself to interview him. Apparently she bribed him with her baking.” Cookie gave a half shrug. “I didn’t know until it was too late. But she did manage to find out he has an alibi. In light of what that information and what Winnie had to say, I think it’s safe to rule him out as a genuine suspect. That leaves Lester….”
“And what Winnie said about how she always thought Lester and Fleet might kill each other someday,” Hunter rumbled from her other side.
“Exactly.” Cookie pushed her hair out of her face, only to have the biting wind toss it right back at her again. “Sounds like they went at each other a lot, and if both of them were into her, well… We’ve seen murders done with a lot less motive.”
Dylan shook his head. “Sure, they fought,” he admitted, “but that’s all it was. Lester would have died for Fleet, and vice-versa. I don’t buy it. Besides, what about that orange-haired guy and his friends?”
“They’re still a strong possibility,” Cookie agreed. “But so far we don’t have any motive for them to kill Fleet except to scare Lester, unless they just went too far or something went wrong.” She sighed. “And there’s still the big problem with that theory.”
“The poison,” Hunter supplied, looking self-satisfied when she nodded and Dylan glared at him across her. Hunter ignored him. “If things go south with your best friend, you’re gonna slug him, maybe hit him upside the head with a baseball bat or even grab a gun and put a bullet in him if one’s handy and you’re hot enough. But poison him?” He grunted. “That just doesn’t track.”
“It doesn’t make sense for Carrottop either, though,” Cookie argued. “Why use poison on a guy? And they didn’t exactly strike me as the ‘ninja assassin’ type, anyway.” She shook her head. “This case just gets weirder and weirder.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence, with Cookie trying hard not to picture a bunch of fake ninjas—one with bright orange hair like a cartoon character—torturing and poisoning her best friend.
Nobody ate much of the food Rain had set out for them—none of them were terribly hungry. But they had all happily gone for the piping-hot coffee she’d offered, and Cookie was pouring her second cup when Dylan’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his front pocket, smiled, and set it to his ear.
“Yo, Hammer,” he greeted. “I’m gonna put you on speaker, okay?” He tapped the screen and then set his phone on the table beside his coffee mug. Then he, Cookie, and Hunter all leaned in to hear better. “All good?”
“Yeah, man,” a deep, gruff voice replied. “Just getting back to you about that token, you know? Made some decent headway on it.”
“Awesome,” Cookie cut in. “Which bank is it for?”
“Hey there, lady.” Hammer’s voice took on a lighter, more bantering tone. “This wouldn’t be Cookie, by any chance?”
With a quick glance at Dylan and a raised eyebrow, Cookie said, “Yeah, that’s me. Hi.”
“Well, this is a pleasure.” He let out a short laugh, and for a man with such a deep voice, Hammer’s laugh was surprisingly high pitched. “Heard a lot about you, little lady. Die-cut’s pretty smitten with you, you know.”
Ignoring Hunter’s scowl on her other side, Cookie grinned at Dylan. “The feeling’s mutual.”
Dylan rewarded her with a big, warm smile.
“That’s good, that’s real good,” Hammer opined. “’Cause he don’t fall easy, our Die-cut, but when he does, he falls hard. Why, this one time, he—”
“Let’s save for that some other time, Hammer,” Dylan cut in quickly. “The bank?”
“Ha, right you are, business first,” his friend agreed. “So that token, it’s from a bank called Banktresor Suisse, which just means ‘the Swiss Bank Vault.’ Good name, right?” They could hear him tapping some keys on his end. “The place is hardcore, too. It took me a while to even figure out which bank the token came from, let alone gain any sort of access.”
“But you did, right?” Dylan asked. “Because I know how you love a challenge.”
“You know it, man,” his friend answered. “Spent the past two hours bashing on it. Whoever’s handling their cyber-security is good, real good. But lucky for you, I’m better.”
“So you know whose account it is?” Cookie asked. She was already fairly certain it would prove to be Lester’s, but that wasn’t good enough. She had to be sure.
“Ah, sorry, no can do on that one,” Hammer replied. “They’re smart. They keep all that data offline so there’s no way to electronically tell who holds what account, no names in their databases at all. I’m betting that stuff is hardcopy only, real old-school.”
“Ah.” Cookie did her best to swallow her disappointment. “So what did you find out, then?”
That earned her another laugh from the other end of the phone call. “Well, I might not have the account holder’s name,” Hammer confirmed, “but I was able to track that little doohickey of yours. And I can tell you when it was activated—only a month ago—and that it’s lived in the exact same place until just a few days ago. Even got the map coordinates.”
“Send ’em over,” Dylan instructed, and again they heard the tap of keys. Then Dylan’s phone beeped. He pulled up a text message with coordinates in it, and opened them in a map. They all watched intently as the map zeroed in on Maine, then Hancock, then Secret Seal Isle and then up away from the town to a spot that held only a pair of houses and a smaller boathouse between them, before settling on the home that belonged to Lester.
“That’ll do it,” Cookie said. “Thanks, Hammer.”
“Hey, you don’t want the rest?” he asked teasingly. “Because there’s more.”
“More? You said you couldn’t get the name,” Dylan pointed out.
“The name, no. The bank balance, though? Yeah, that I got.” Hammer whistled. “And let me tell you, it’s impressive.”
Cookie tilted her head. “How impressive?” she asked.
“Oh, only about thirty-five million,” Dylan’s friend replied. “Dollars, not euros.”
This time Cookie, Dylan, and Hunter were the ones whistling.
“I know, right? Die-cut, you didn’t tell me you were living in Smuggler’s Paradise, dude. What’s up with that?”
“Oh, yeah, everyone here drives a Ferrari and owns a yacht,” Dylan quipped back. “I’ll send you pics of mine some time. Anything else?”
“Ha, that ain’t enough?” his friend rep
lied.
“No, it’s great,” Cookie cut in. “Thanks so much, Hammer. We really appreciate it.”
“You got it, pretty lady,” he said. “You take good care of the Die-cut, now, you hear?”
“Thanks, man,” Dylan added. “Next get-together, first round’s on me, okay?”
“Don’t think I won’t remember,” Hammer warned. “Mind like a steel trap, you know that. Anyway, catch you later, man. Stay sharp.”
“Always.” Dylan ended the call and pocketed his phone then glanced over at the other two. He shook his head, looking apologetic.
“You did say that Lester always had money to help out local kids,” Cookie reminded him. She could already guess where his thoughts had gone.
Sure enough, he shrugged. “Yeah, but not like that. That kind of money…” Dylan ran a hand over his short hair. “There’s no way he came by that legally, right?” He turned toward both of them, clearly hoping they’d argue.
Hunter frowned, but for once he wasn’t trying to take Dylan down. “It’s possible,” he admitted. “He could’ve inherited it, sold some kind of patent you don’t know about, or something along those lines.” He rubbed his jaw. “But it’s not likely,” he added finally.
Cookie could only nod. She laid a hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Dylan nodded. “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s go get some answers.” He glanced up at her. “That’s the next step, right? We can’t just dance around him anymore, not after that.”
“No, we can’t,” she agreed. There was still a chance that Scarlett’s kidnappers were watching Lester’s house and waiting for them, but she had to risk it. Because they needed to know exactly what they were dealing with and why.
And it was looking like Lester Margolis was the only one who would have all the answers.
13
“All right, Lester,” Cookie declared as soon as the old man opened his door a crack in response to her sharp knock. “Spill it.”
He glanced at her through the narrow gap then nodded. “Ms. James,” he said, his expression grim and his tone a lot less welcoming than the first time they’d met. “What can I do for you?”
Dylan slid in front of her, blocking her from sight. “You can open this door, for starters,” he ground out, and the door quickly slid shut before opening again, this time fully.
“Dylan.” Lester’s tone was wary, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What brings you here?” His gaze flicked to Hunter. “And who the hell’re you?”
“Special Agent Hunter O’Neil,” Hunter replied, pulling his ID and badge out of his jacket pocket and waving them in the older man’s face. “We have some questions regarding Fleet, your bank account, and a few other details that don’t exactly line up.”
Lester flinched, his eyes going wide before squeezing shut. Then he sagged, all of the fight seeming to leave him. “Good,” he said finally, blinking his eyes open again and flicking from Hunter, to Dylan, and back to Cookie. “Because I just can’t take this anymore.” His face was clouded over with pain as he turned away from the door and trudged into the living room. Cookie followed after him, responding to his unspoken invitation, and Dylan was right behind her. Hunter brought up the rear, shutting the door against the cold.
Once they were all settled in the stylish, yet comfortable living room, Lester started to talk. He wasn’t looking at them, or anywhere in particular—he was staring straight ahead, his eyes focused on some other place, some other time.
“Fleet and I used to dive and swim right here every day when we were kids,” he began. “There wasn’t anything here back then, just the rocks and the water, but for some reason this became our spot. We knew every inch of this beach, every beat of the tide, every scrape of the rock below the waves.” He sighed. “And that’s where we found it.”
“Found what?” Cookie asked, leaning forward from her seat on the couch, facing the old man in his armchair. She had no idea what he was talking about, or how it connected to everything that was going on, but she was sure that it did.
“The treasure.” Lester smiled a sad little smile like he was remembering something that had once brought him joy but no longer did. “It was in a chest, the kind you see in the movies, big and heavy and solid, with big metal joints and clasps. It had gotten wedged in some rocks way down deep, probably carried there by a current at some point. It had a lock on it, too, but that was so rusted it nearly fell apart in our hands when we touched it.” He shrugged. “We tried to figure out where it came from once or twice, but we didn’t have any luck with that. Too many possibilities. Still, it was definitely from an old sailing ship, maybe pirates, but maybe just merchants, or traders, or some diplomatic mission or something. All we knew was it was old and valuable.”
“You’re saying you found sunken treasure,” Hunter said, and Cookie could tell just from his tone that he was skeptical. “For real.”
The old man suddenly heaved himself up from his chair, stomped over to the mantel, and gazed at the row of small figurines and geodes and other items lined up there. Grabbing something from the center of the row, he turned and tossed it at Hunter who caught it reflexively, looking surprised. “We each kept one,” Lester explained, returning to his seat. “Just to prove to ourselves that it hadn’t been a dream.”
Hunter studied the object for a second then passed it to Cookie without a word. She took it and studied the coin. It was almost twice the size of a silver dollar and twice as thick, with crudely carved symbols and blunt edges. And she had no doubt at all that it was solid gold.
Dylan took it from her, handling it carefully then passing it back to Lester. “So that’s where the money came from,” he said softly, his voice gone rough and ragged, and Cookie knew what he was thinking. Finding a chest like that was impossible, a fantasy, but Lester and Fleet had done it. Which meant they had come by that money honestly after all.
Lester nodded and stared down at the heavy coin, turning it over and over in his hands. “We were just kids,” he explained. “We had no idea what we were doing. We took the treasure to our mothers, excited about our booty. We didn’t really know what it meant. We associated it with adventure and the sea. You know how kids are.” His sad smile resurfaced again. “But then our mothers, who’d been closer than sisters, started fighting over it and the next thing we knew, there was a feud happening about how to handle the money. It tore their friendship apart. Fleet’s mother told him he wasn’t allowed to spend time with me anymore. It was really ugly.”
“You obviously managed to remain friends, despite all that,” Cookie said. “Did they eventually work it out?”
Lester snorted. “Sure. But only after Fleet and I stole the treasure back and buried it. We didn’t want what happened to our mothers to happen to us, so we buried it and swore we’d never let it come between us. Later we put a building over the spot. Fleet said it was to keep us honest.”
Cookie’s mind jumped to the shack within easy sight of this very room. “The boathouse.”
He nodded. “The boathouse,” he said. “We staged a break-in at Fleet’s house, and as far as anyone else was ever concerned, the treasure was stolen. Our mothers eventually became friends again and that was the end of it. The money was our secret and hidden away where no one but us could find it. We never told another soul what happened to it, and we both swore not to touch it unless we were both in agreement. When we got older, we eventually dipped into it just enough to build these houses, side by side.” He sighed. “We’ve lived here ever since.”
“But the money you gave to Mike and all the others,” Dylan said, his brow furrowed. “That had to come from the chest, right? So you and Fleet agreed to dig it up at some point, and you used your half to help people?”
Lester laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “I used it, yes—but we hadn’t agreed to dig it up again. I told Fleet I’d made that money in the markets. Which was true. And boy, did he ever hate that. You should’ve heard him always going on and on
about the evils of the stock market and how it was just a way to keep the everyman down. He meant it, too. Fleet was a real man of conviction. When Occupy Wall Street was happening, he was right there in the thick of things, camping out in New York City. When he finally came back home, he had a scraggly beard and holes in his shoes, looking like he’d just spent three months out in the backwoods.”
“Yes, you told us before he had a passion for protesting,” Cookie said.
“Passion is a bit of an understatement.” Lester scratched his stubbly beard and sighed. “Anyway, he was so caught up in his rant about the stock market, it never occurred to him to ask where the money came from that I invested. He just didn’t ever realize I’d used my portion of the treasure as seed money.”
“You’re saying that even though Fleet had a moral objection to the stock market you took your share and invested it?” Cookie asked, careful to keep her tone even. She wanted him to keep talking, but if he felt judged he’d just get defensive. She’d seen it dozens of times while working for the FBI.
“That’s right. I’d been telling Fleet for years that we should dig it up and make it work for us, but he was steadfast against it. I figured someday he’d come around, or at least be resigned that we have to work with the system we have, but he never did. Beyond his house here on the island, he really had no use for money or the stock market. He said both were evil. He was real self- righteous about it, too.” The old man’s mouth tightened. “So I did it anyway. I took the coins, sold them off it, invested the money and kept investing it until both of us had more than we’d ever need.”
“And you never told Fleet?” Cookie asked.
“No. I tried a few times, but he was adamant that he didn’t want to even discuss it. I’d sold that treasure off through a dealer named Daryl years ago, and he was never anything but a professional. Never told Fleet… or anyone else for that matter.” Lester frowned. “I’d gotten used to not having to worry about how I was payin’ the bills, and I figured I wasn’t doing anybody any harm. I kept Fleet’s share in a separate account, untouched. It was ready and waiting for him should he ever decide he needed it.” He looked down at the gold coin again. “Then he got sick.”
