The Treasure of the Hairy Cadre (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 8)

by Susan C. Daffron

  Zack rubbed his eyes. “Just tell us your first and last name. What is it?”

  “Why didn’t you say so, man?” Flan settled down onto a mossy log and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I’m tired. All this running around in the woods. I don’t know how you people stand it.”

  “Your name?” Zack said more emphatically.

  “Oh yeah. But you have to promise not to tell anyone. It’s a secret. If your name was Fergus, you wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Fergus? What’s your last name?” Zack said.

  “Hey man, don’t call me that. It gives me the shakes. Call me Flan.”

  Zack said in a more forceful voice. “Fine, Flan. What is your last name?”

  “Flanagan.” The man rubbed his chin. “It’s been a long time, Zack. You’re looking real good.”

  Zack stared at the man for a moment. “So are you, considering you’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Hey dude, chill out. That was just an ugly rumor. I think your grandma mighta been upset with me. I mean, to be honest, that woman had a pretty wicked temper.” He shook his head and gazed down at his flip-flops.

  Zack bowed his head. He seemed to be having trouble digesting the idea that he was related to this person, so Sara said to Flan, “Have you been following us?”

  Flan looked at her. “Yeah. I kinda got lost a lot though. Trees are confusing.”

  Zack straightened and glared at Flan. “Why? Why on earth would you follow us through the forest all this way? Are you here to steal the treasure from us now that we finally found it? Does that mean it’s actually worth something?”

  “Dude, calm down. So many questions. I’m feeling overloaded. And hungry. Do you have any food you might be able to share? All this walking has made me totally famished. I had some Cheetos in my pockets, but I ate most of them and now the ones I have left are all crumbly.”

  Zack ran his fingers through his hair and turned away from Flan, muttering a litany of foul language under his breath. He stalked toward the trees where the dry bags were suspended and began undoing them.

  Since Holly had settled down somewhat, Sara sat down on the log, next to Flan. “I think Zack might be a bit upset. He thought you died a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, well, he probably was better off that way.” Flan had light gray-blue eyes that were the color of well-worn denim. The melancholy look in them tore at Sara’s heart.

  Sara stroked Holly’s head. “So what happened?”

  “I tried to kinda keep an eye on Zack for a while after my mom died, you know. But then there was that fire and he disappeared. They took him away and I lost track of him. Even Ira had no idea where he went.”

  “How did you find him again?”

  “I was just minding my own business hanging out near a newsstand one day and I saw this magazine. And there was Zack standing there in a suit on the cover. I mean he was older, but it was like my heart stopped for a second. Zack looks so much like my father. It was like seeing a ghost, and I swear I almost keeled over right there on the sidewalk.”

  “I suppose that must have been surprising.”

  “Oh man, you can’t imagine. It was like a totally whacked-out acid trip, but without the acid.” He put his palm to his forehead. “I missed a lot of years. The time, jeez, it went so quickly. I don’t know what happened.”

  Zack returned with the dry bags and handed them to Sara. “Here you go.”

  She took the bags from him without comment. He clearly was still extremely distressed. She unrolled the plastic and peered inside a bag, trying to lay low. Time for her to be quiet now.

  Zack sat down next to her on the log. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, so he could look around her at Flan. “So what have you been doing all this time while I thought I was an orphan because you were dead?”

  “Hey, I wasn’t dead. It’s not like there’s some zombie thing going on. That’s too creepy, dude.” Flan shrugged. “I move around a lot. You know how that goes. Mostly I’ve kinda been hanging out.”

  Sara asked, “Do you have a job?”

  “I’m unemployed right at the moment. Weighing my options. There’s a lot of choices, you know.” Flan gave an exasperated gesture. “It’s complicated, man.”

  Zack rested his forehead on his palms and mumbled. “This is unreal.” He lifted his head. “So okay, it sounds like you’ve been busy since you abandoned me. One more time: why are you here now?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay. That guy Ozzy was bad news.” Flan gestured toward the metal box in front of the cabin. “Ira really wanted you to have that stuff.”

  Sara sat up straight and glared at Flan. “Wait! Did you steal my canoe?”

  “No way! That wasn’t me. Ozzy pulled it away with that big boat. I think he thought the canoe was Zack’s or something.”

  “But what happened to it?” Sara knew her voice was shrill, but she still felt terrible about losing the camp’s canoe.

  “No clue. Ozzy ran off with it. That’s the last I saw of it.” Flan gestured toward the forest. “You know, I thought I was lame around boats, but that guy takes the cake. When he was trying to flip the canoe over, I thought he was gonna seriously injure himself. Speaking of which, you don’t have cake in that bag do you? Cake would be good.”

  Sara bent to pick up the bag again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have cake. Have a cracker.”

  Flan took the cracker with a disconsolate look. “Saltines? That’s pretty bleak, now that I was thinking about cake and all.”

  “Did you take my boat back to the marina?” Zack asked.

  “Yeah, I did.” Flan pointed at Zack. “Dude, you suck at fixing stuff.”

  “Thanks. Nice of you to notice,” Zack said.

  “The engine was just flooded, that’s all. I don’t know what you did to it, but after it sat for a while, it was fine. I kinda motored around in it and parked it a few times, thinking you’d find it again. But you guys wouldn’t look the right way. It was driving me nuts. Then after y’all stole Ozzy’s boat, I figured, well hey, you took my ride, so I’m taking yours.”

  Flan took a long package of saltines from Sara, ripped open the cellophane, and pulled some crackers from the stack. “I waved when I went by, but the boat you were on was just floating around. I didn’t want to pry, in case you were having, like, a romantic interlude or something.”

  “You came here with Ozzy?” Sara asked.

  “Well, he didn’t know that, but yeah. I was all stealthy-like. Why do you think I’ve got those Cheetos in my pockets? The insides are all orange now. Those stains are never gonna come out.”

  “Eww.” Sara waved her hands in surrender. “Please don’t mention Cheetos. They must be stale and horrible by now.”

  “She had a little run-in with cheesy orange badness,” Zack said.

  “Whatever. It’s cool.” Flan chewed his saltine thoughtfully and swallowed. “Anyhow, my job here is done. You finally found the treasure. I was starting to wonder about you two. Ira told me where it was, but he said you had to find it. We had, like, a pact.”

  Zack waved toward the box, which was surrounded by the various Ziploc baggies. “So you already know what it is, right? It’s just a bunch of coins, trinkets, and sheet music.”

  “Yeah, Ira was a mad metal-detecting fool. He found stuff all over the place for years. He was always talking about the thrill of discovery. And that’s all his most precious finds, man. Ira didn’t want that loser son of his to get his nasty paws on his treasure.”

  “Is any of it actually worth anything?” Sara said.

  “Well, Ira thought so. I used to hang with him when he was out detecting and he told me stories about all the cool things he found. But I dunno like round dollar figures or anything,” Flan said. “I’m not into that kind of materialism. It’s not my scene.”

  Sara tried not to giggle. Flan’s speech patterns sometimes mirrored Zack’s, so she was starting to understand how Zack had ended up wit
h such an unusual accent. Given the expression on Zack’s face, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to mention that though. Instead, she said, “So what are you going to do now? How did you get here this time?”

  “Well, I was hanging out at the marina and there was this boat kinda sitting there.” Flan waved dismissively. “Hey, if you’re gonna leave the key just sitting there in the ignition, well, what do you expect?”

  “You ripped off a boat?” Zack said.

  Flan jammed another saltine in his mouth and crunched loudly. “Hey don’t get on my case. So did you!”

  Zack groaned. “Thanks for the reminder. I guess I’m following in my father’s illustrious footsteps.”

  Flan grinned. “Yeah, I really missed you, kid.”

  Zack reached around Sara and took the cellophane-wrapped row of crackers from Flan, removed one of the crackers from it, and popped it into his mouth. He said to Flan, “So, I know it’s been a while, but you look different than I remember.”

  Flan took the crackers back. “Dude, I can’t help it if you’ve got a bad memory.”

  Sara stood up and brushed saltine crumbs off her shorts. It was obvious these two needed to chat alone and that she should get out of the way. Overly brightly, she volunteered, “I’m going to go look through the treasure some more. We just left it lying over there.”

  Flan and Zack looked up at her and nodded. Sara called Holly and went to the tent to get the leash. The last thing she needed was Holly running off again. She settled Holly in with a chew toy next to her and began going through the Ziploc baggies they’d opened, sorting through the items, and carefully returning them to the baggies.

  She hunched over the box and pulled out more bags. There were probably twenty more layers, stacked like a plastic version of one of those absurdly decadent chocolate tortes.

  Oh, perfect. Now she wanted cake. She glanced over at Zack and Flan, who were deeply engaged in conversation. It was hard to imagine what Zack must be going through. To suddenly discover a parent who had given you up years ago would be upsetting on so many levels. More than anything, Sara wanted to give him a hug and spend some time talking to him alone.

  Holly put her head on Sara’s leg and gave the baggie in her lap a couple of half-hearted sniffs as Sara began pulling out the contents. So far, she had examined a class ring from 1946, a silver heart-shaped pendant, some remarkably ugly charms that were missing their bracelet, a locket that was rusted shut, a gold hoop earring, and something that might be a gold nugget. The last item in the bag was a ring with three stones. She slipped it onto her finger. If they were diamonds, which was debatable, the center stone had to be at least a carat and the side stones were probably a half-carat each. She pulled it off and looked inside the band, where she saw “14kt” engraved in the metal. Maybe it was actually real. Wow.

  The next Ziploc contained more rings. Several were sterling silver, two looked to be Black Hills gold, and two more were fourteen-karat gold. Another fourteen-karat ring held a blue stone. Maybe sapphire? Sara stroked Holly’s head. Going through treasure was fun.

  Zack and Flan were still talking, so Sara decided to delve into the bags of coins next. She sorted and counted out a total of one hundred sixty-three coins. The most interesting were the seventy-two silver dollars. Fifteen of the dollars had a profile of Lady Liberty with dates that ranged from 1880 to 1921. Fifty-seven of the dollars had a different—and Sara thought—prettier image of Lady Liberty with flowing hair. The dates on those coins ranged from 1922 to 1928.

  Moving beyond the pile of dollars, she stacked two Liberty quarters from 1926 and 1927 and twelve quarters with George Washington’s picture on them with dates from 1934 to 1945. She counted forty-one dimes from 1918 through 1945, two 1946 dimes that had Franklin Roosevelt’s image on them, seven nickels from the World War II era, ten pre-war Jefferson nickels, one beat-up penny from 1905, two Buffalo nickels from 1927 and 1937, and fourteen wheat pennies that ranged in age from 1917 to 1946.

  She looked at her neatly stacked piles of coins and then at Holly. “This is quite a haul. I have no idea what coins are worth. These could be worth millions. Or almost nothing.” Holly wagged her tail, but had little insight to share on the topic.

  Holly looked up and Sara turned around as Zack sat down next to her on the moss. He kissed her cheek. “You look busy.”

  “I’m playing with old money.” She held up one of the shiniest pretty Liberty dollars. “It’s from 1924 and when I look at it, I think how different the world was then. If this coin could talk, it would have so many stories to tell.”

  “The first thing it would probably say is ‘thanks for taking me out of that stupid box.’”

  “I suppose the treasure might have missed some of the nineteen nineties, but you know what I mean. It’s possible these could be valuable to coin collectors, but I don’t know anything about the subject.” She put her hand on his arm. “Where did Flan go?”

  “Supposedly he’s off taking a leak, but it’s more likely he’s getting lost in the trees again.”

  “Are you okay? I tried not to eavesdrop, but you looked upset.”

  “Yeah, I am, I guess. It’s weird to meet someone you thought was completely out of your life forever. Now I’m just sort of numb and—I dunno—sad, in a way. And angry too. I’m not really sure what I feel.” Shaking his head, he picked up one of the jewelry Ziplocs. “There’s some cool sparkly stuff in this one.”

  “I know. One of the rings has what could be rather large diamonds. Or cubic zirconia.”

  “So how do you want to handle this? Do you want to pick out stuff and keep it? Or do you trust me to get all of it appraised and go for cash? You always have a plan. What do you want to do?”

  “I haven’t thought about it. I was worrying about you.” She put down the Ziploc she was holding. “All right. First, I think we should make sure Flan hasn’t gotten himself completely turned around out there in the forest. Then I’ll make us some lunch while you deal with him. Does he have a place to stay?”

  Zack’s expression brightened. “See! I knew it. You always have a plan. You’re dependable that way.”

  “Dependable? So you’re saying I’m predictable and boring?” Sara’s mind flashed back to her last conversation with Josh. Did Zack think she was boring too?

  “Hey, I didn’t mean it as an insult. Being dependable is a good thing.” He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s go see if we can figure out where Flan disappeared to. He probably got distracted and decided to take a nap or something.”

  Holly stood up and Sara clipped Holly’s leash onto her collar. Dependable? What was that supposed to mean? He said it was a compliment, but to her it sounded like Zack found her about as thrilling as an old shoe.

  Used cars and grandmas were dependable. Whatever he meant, the comment certainly didn’t make her feel particularly desirable or fun. It wasn’t like she had to be the life of every party, but always being the uptight plain-vanilla teacher in the room wasn’t so great either.

  After a short search with Holly of the surrounding area, Sara and Zack found Flan standing next to a thimbleberry bush examining a leaf.

  “What are you doing?” Zack said.

  Flan looked up and his eyes widened as he dropped the leaf. “Where did you come from, man?”

  “The campsite.” Zack pointed behind him. “Over there? Remember?”

  “Oh yeah. I got confused. Look at these leaves. They’re wild with all these intricate veins and capillaries. It’s like a matrix. But totally huge. They’re like…prehistoric!”

  Holly sniffed at Flan a few times and shook her head, her ears flopping up and down.

  Zack narrowed his eyes and glanced at Sara before saying to Flan. “Sara was thinking of heating up lunch.”

  “Excellent! I’ve totally got a case of the munchies. What are you making?”

  Sara said, “We have some freeze-dried backpacking food. Today, I was planning on vegetable stew.”

  Flan sta
rted walking away and Zack grabbed his arm. “This way.”

  No one said much during lunch. Flan was extremely focused on his food and Zack didn’t seem to have the energy to say much of anything. Sara busied herself cleaning up and putting everything away, so she could hang up the dry bags.

  Flan stood up abruptly. “I gotta fly.”

  “I hope you don’t mean that literally,” Zack said. “You know you don’t have wings, right?”

  “No, man, I mean I gotta go. I just remembered my job here is done. You found Ira’s stuff. I promised him I’d make sure that happened. But now I gotta get back home. Get my act together, you know.”

  Sara wasn’t sure what “getting his act together” might mean in Flan’s case, but he did suddenly seem more lucid. “It’s a little late to be starting back. We’re planning to hike back down to the lake early tomorrow morning so we can cross it before nightfall. It would be much safer if you waited and went with us.”

  “No. I gotta go right now,” Flan said. “I got things to do.”

  Sara glanced at Zack, who gave her a slight shrug in response. She said, “Well, let me give you some food and water, just in case.”

  “That would be cool,” Flan said.

  Sara went through the dry bags, selected some easy-to-carry snacks, and put them in a baggie. “Here you go.”

  Flan took the bag and water bottle and held out his arms to Zack for a hug. “So stay in touch, okay? You know where I am.”

  “I do now.” Zack hugged Flan awkwardly and they let go, staring at each other for a second, before Flan turned toward the stream.

  Sara pointed at the water. “Follow this until it meets the creek, and then follow that downhill toward the lake. Okay?”

  Flan gestured dismissively. “Hey, I did it before. No problem.”

  “Be careful,” Sara said.

  Flan waved goodbye and disappeared into the thick vegetation.

  Sara made a wry face at Zack. “Well, I guess it’s just you and me again.”

  Zack wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her hard. “You have no idea how happy I am about that. I think it’s gonna take many, many hours of therapy to get over meeting dear ole dad. My therapist isn’t gonna have any trouble paying for her daughter’s college education now.”