by Cassie James
I pace away from the house, toward the wide expanse of yard that separates this house from the last one. The other houses we passed were much closer together, but from here, I can barely see the closest neighbor.
Hollis needed all the privacy he could get here.
It’s just a guess. I still have no idea what it is Hollis hid, and now that we’re here, part of me wishes we weren’t. It would be much easier to just turn a blind eye and pretend there’s no mystery. But it’s too late now. Pearl might have tried to dissuade me from seeking Hollis’ treasure out when she was alive, but it seems pretty damn clear to me that she wanted me to find it now that she’s gone.
“I’m afraid that’s your burden to bear as a Lexington.” That had been her warning to me when I’d tried to ask her about Hollis’ treasure. She’d said it because I mentioned people were being assholes, but it feels like the words apply right now. Replaying the words is the closest thing I have to advice from Pearl, so that’s what I do. I let those words become a mantra as I bend at the waist in the middle of the yard, leaning with my hands on my knees as I try to catch my breath.
Footsteps shuffle across the grass to me, and I distinctly recognize Jake’s hand on my back. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this today. We can turn around and find a hotel.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, “but it’s time.”
He doesn’t say anything else as he rubs small, soothing circles across my back until I feel calm enough to face this house. He lets his hand slide down to rest on my lower back as I manage to stand upright again. I step into him and tilt my head up to place a chaste kiss on the side of his jaw. It’s all I can muster at the moment with all of the anxiety that’s still welling up inside of me, but it’s enough to make his eyes soften.
“Whatever is in there, you don’t have to face it alone.” We both turn slightly to look at where the other guys are waiting patiently by the car, letting Jake be the one here in this moment. “You trust them, right?” I can hear the second-guessing in his voice but I nod without a bit of hesitation.
“I do. If they’d wanted to make a play for Hollis’ treasure, they could have just come here without me. We’ve come a long way in a year, but I don’t doubt now that I can trust them, Jake. Every bit as much as I trust you.” I meet his eyes again with a half-smile. “I would have trusted you more except I haven’t forgotten how you didn’t talk me out of cleaning Morrison’s house in my bikini that one time.”
“Hey! I went with you to make sure he didn’t touch you or anything.” He wrinkles his nose, probably remembering how creepy Mr. Morrison was.
I clasp my hands together and flutter my eyelashes as I joke, “My hero.”
“Listen, J,” he smirks, “if you can survive a creepy afternoon with Morrison—for one hell of a payday, from what I remember—then I’m pretty damn sure you can survive whatever’s in this house.”
He’s not wrong. Nothing could be worse than having a sweaty man that’s old enough to be your grandpa staring at you as you mop his floors wearing only a bikini. I can survive whatever mysterious treasure Hollis cooked up to taunt a whole town with. I take one last deep breath and nod. I can do this. Especially since I don’t have to do this alone.
Jake keeps his hand on my back as we walk back over to the others. They’re quiet, waiting for me to be the first to speak, I guess. “Here we are,” I announce with an uncomfortable smile. I hold up the key that I’m assuming is going to open the door, considering it’s the only key we’ve got. “Now or never, right?” I give a nervous half-laugh as I look up at the beach house. Under any other circumstances, I’d take the time to properly appreciate this place. It’s a big, beautiful light blue house with bright white shutters and a long front porch. I grew up dreaming about houses like this, and now this one is mine. But it’s hard to appreciate it as I start towards the front door, not knowing what’s waiting for me on the other side.
My feet feel weighted down with lead as I grasp the banister and make my way up the stairs onto the front porch. The wood groans under the weight of all six of us gathering in front of the wood door. I can feel the guys all hovering behind me, waiting for that first glimpse inside. I reach back to unclasp the shiny new necklace hanging around my neck, but my hands shake too hard to work the intricate closure. Smith steps forward to help me.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Smith says quietly as he brushes my hands aside and undoes the clasp for me. I put my hand out to catch the key as the necklace falls from around my neck.
I nod to acknowledge I heard him since I can’t seem to find my voice all of a sudden. My throat is painfully dry as I glance back at them all patiently waiting for me to make my next move. They’re here. They’re here with me. I blink slowly and blow out a long breath as I steady my hands the best I can and slide the key into the front door lock with an audible click. That’s as far as I get before I freeze.
I hear a deep sigh from behind me before Jax steps up beside me and wraps his hand around mine, forcing me to turn the key. When the lock releases, he uses his other hand to unceremoniously push the door open. I snap my gaze over to him with a frown.
Before I say anything, he shrugs and growls out, “You really should know by now that I’m not a patient guy.” He doesn’t look the least bit apologetic about it, which is admittedly pretty damn on brand for him. I slug him in the shoulder, smiling a sugary sweet smile when he grunts. “I deserved that,” he admits as he rolls his shoulder.
I don’t know what I was expecting—magic maybe—but my first look into the beach house feels remarkably anticlimactic. I look either way as I step inside, taking in the big, open living space that seems to make up a living room, dining area, and kitchen. You can see straight through to the windows at the back of the house that overlook and a pool and the beach, too. There’s nothing that particularly screams hidden treasure. It looks like a house someone plucked out of a home decor magazine.
“Something’s not right.” I shake my head as I let my eyes take another pass over the view of the house.
This isn’t the kind of place you hide a secret. In fact, from what little I do know of him, I can’t imagine Hollis Lexington in this house at all. All the pictures and stories, Hollis was the kind of man that never took off his suit. I can’t picture him suddenly deciding he fancies a beach vacation, not even in a nice house like this.
“That’s a cute little place. It doesn’t really look like somewhere a Lexington would be vacationing, though.” Salma had been the one to point it out, that there was a little cottage behind that picture of Pearl at the beach. I’d assumed it was just a little artistic license. The Lexingtons wouldn’t have had any reason to own a tiny little beach cottage.
Unless it wasn’t the main property.
“Where are you going?” Smith asks as I trail through the house toward the big sliding glass doors at the back of the house. I don’t answer him, too afraid he’ll think I sound ridiculous following what’s purely a gut feeling.
The beach looks pretty in the distance, but I don’t let the view stop me as I step out onto the back deck and down the stairs to cross the yard. There’s a little building just off the far edge of the house—and just like I suspected, it’s the exact same building as Pearl’s picture, only cleaned up a bit. A new coat of paint, but it’s unmistakably the cottage I’m looking for. I stop in front of the solid wood door to wonder briefly why the blinds are closed in the cottage when they weren’t in the main house. Whatever’s inside, apparently no one wanted to risk having it seen from the outside.
It’s only when I put a hand on the door that I realize I don’t have any other key. Hoping for the best, I slide my same key into this lock, holding my breath as it fits snug into the keyhole. This time, I don’t hesitate when the lock clicks, I take one out of Jax’s playbook and push the door right open.
“What the fuck?” Smith’s voice startles me, making me jump slightly because I hadn’t realized the guys were following me. My one-track mind had
blocked out the rest of the world. But now everything comes back into focus as I stare over piles and piles of folders covering every surface in the small cottage. “Well, damn, looks like the treasure’s in the guest cottage.”
“Guest cottage,” Jake mutters under his breath with a quiet laugh as he shuffles closer and peers around me to get a good look. I’m sure we’re thinking the same thing. This kind of money is still just as outrageous to me now as it was a year ago. Who the hell has a guest house for their vacation home?
Well, now I do, apparently.
Except this cottage isn’t a guest house, it’s a super-sized filing cabinet. I cough as I step wide-eyed through the doorway. There’s a layer of dust covering everything as if this place hasn’t been touched in a while, which is strange considering it looked like the main house had been freshly cleaned. Less strange, I guess, because I can clearly see that whoever was last in this cottage—they didn’t want anyone else to see what was here.
I step toward the closest surface—the coffee table—and run my finger over the coating of dust so I can see the label. Mina Winchester. I’m pretty sure that’s Cece’s mother.
I pick the folder up and blow across the front of it, watching the dust scatter and then settle over the other folders. Not knowing what to expect, I hold my breath as I flick open the thin folder. A page of numbers and legal jargon greets me. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have known what this was, but now, thanks to Pearl, I recognize a life insurance policy when I see one.
It’s nothing to sneeze at, either. It’s a six-figure policy Mina Winchester apparently took out on her husband. Which wouldn’t be a big deal, except when I turn to the next page in the folder, there’s an obituary staring up at me. “I didn’t know Cece’s dad wasn’t alive,” I muse out loud, a bad feeling twisting in my stomach. No one responds right away, which makes me turn to look at the guys. Jax and Smith exchange a look that I can’t decipher.
Finally, it’s Jax that explains, “Winchester died in a pretty questionable accident. A lot of people suspected maybe his wife had something to do with it, but it’s not the kind of thing people openly talked about.” His grimace tells me the emphasis definitely belongs on questionable and not accident. “What’s in the folder, Juliet?”
I pass him the two papers I’ve looked over, but then I have to cover my mouth when I see what’s left in the folder. It’s a picture of Mina… but she’s barely recognizable around the cuts and bruising. Someone really did a number on her, and it doesn’t take much to put some things together. I slap the folder closed, not wanting to look at that picture anymore, and hand it off to Jax, too. The guys are huddled around him now, all of them wanting to get a good look. I’m sure they’ll make the same connection I did, and they prove me right about thirty seconds later.
“Well, hell. That part of the story certainly didn’t make it into the rumors,” Smith says as he runs a hand through his hair. This is a lot to process.
I shake my head as I let my eyes close. “How could no one know?”
“It’s Patience. People keep their skeletons deep in their walk-in closets.” Jax’s words rumble against my back as he wraps an arm around my middle and pulls me back against his chest. My eyes pop open in surprise.
“There’s something no one is mentioning,” Smith pipes in with a dark look. “All this stuff with the Winchesters happened just a few years ago.” It takes a minute for my mind to process what he’s saying. Hollis wasn’t alive a few years ago.
I protest, “Pearl never left the house, you guys. How could she have done any of this without ever leaving Lexington Estate?” I gesture wildly around us at what must be hundreds of folders. My guess is that we’re going to stumble upon a lot more secrets before this trip is over—but how could Pearl have stalked the neighbors without leaving home?
“Pearl left the house, Princess,” Jax corrects me. I start to protest but he shushes me gently. “Not much since you’ve been here, maybe. But she did used to leave the house, Juliet. We used to see her around town all the time. We always just assumed she was sticking closer to you, but now obviously we know she was sick, too…” Jax presses his lips to my shoulder, trying to comfort me I guess, but there’s no comforting me right now.
Despite the impression I got, Pearl wasn’t just guarding Hollis’ treasure by sticking close to the estate. She was also guarding me. The realization gives me an emotional flutter in my chest that’s almost too much to handle right now on top of everything else.
I pull out of Jax’s grasp and cross the room to another stack of folders. All coated in that same thick layer of dust. The top one is a name I don’t recognize, but the folder under it catches my eye. Brock Forrester. It’s a hell of a lot thicker than the file on Mina Winchester. I flip it open and snort out a laugh.
“Brock Forrester hired a PI to try to find Hollis’ treasure.” I flip through a few more pages before closing it and tossing it to the ground. Patrick catches my eye and looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I clarify my amusement, “He kept the guy on payroll for five freaking years and never found anything.” Smith picks up the discarded folder and rifles through it for longer than I did.
“No one should have had access to these kinds of records,” he muses quietly.
I sink my teeth into my bottom lip as I scan the room and the little hallway leading to a kitchen that I can already tell is in the same shape as this room. The guys seem to take my idleness as a green light to start looking through things themselves. As far as I’m concerned, they can knock themselves out. So far, all we’ve got here is speculation and some mild blackmail material. I wouldn’t exactly consider this the almighty treasure that everyone seems to think my grandfather left.
The only one not shuffling their way through the dust is Jake, who stands uncomfortably in the center of the room with his arms crossed. He doesn’t look like he wants to touch anything, not that I can blame him. Aside from the fact that these files are coated in layers of ick, Jake wouldn’t recognize any of these names, anyway.
“Damn. Forrester hired this PI to watch every little thing Hollis was doing up until he died.” Smith holds up the stack of papers from Brock’s folder. “Listen to this.” He puts on a fake voice, one that’s way over the top and comically sinister. “I don’t care about the others. Bring me whatever Hollis Lexington has on me.”
My mouth drops open as he reads Brock’s words. “That sounds like he knew Hollis was collecting information on everyone.” Smith shrugs one shoulder, but I think we both know the chances are good that that’s exactly what it means. So much for Brock Forrester not believing in Hollis’ mysterious treasure. “I guess that begs the question, then—what did Hollis have on him? Because it’s obviously something besides this PI stuff.”
Smith nods slowly. “You’re right.” He flips to the back of the folder and starts working backward. His eyebrows lift when he finds what we’re looking for. “Looks like Forrester was running some minor ponzi schemes. Nothing actually in Patience, though I’m sure people back home wouldn’t be so thrilled to have him near their money if they knew about this.”
We’ve only looked at two folders, and already secrets are starting to come spilling out. Things none of us ever should have known. And there are hundreds more folders in here we haven’t even begun to look through. If all of them contain sensitive information like this…
“I’m going to check the rest of the place,” I announce out loud. Jake takes a step toward me but I put a hand out to stop him. “I’d like to look alone for a minute.” If this is the last thing Hollis and Pearl left me, I want a moment just to digest it all alone.
Jake nods, his eyes going soft as he watches me give a tight-lipped smile. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
I pass through the doorway along the back wall, stepping into a kitchen that’s every bit as covered as the living room. It’s just more of the same, though, so I keep walking. Off the kitchen is a short hallway with three doors. I open the first to find an actual be
droom—no sign of folders. The second is a bathroom, no folders in there, either. When I get to the third door, I open it and stop short. It’s an office.
I glance behind me, but the guys all stayed at the living room to leave me to explore alone like I’d asked. I step into the office and find myself surrounded by the distinct smell of wood and books. My eyes automatically seek out the books, and I’m not honestly all that surprised to see an entire shelf of Moby Dick lining the wall. I’m still just not sure what the hell the book means. I thought it was the beach house, but I have to admit I’m not quite sure how the quote fits.
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
But the beach house is on every map known to man. It still feels like there’s something I’m missing. I run my hands over the spines of the books as I pass them on my way toward the big wood desk in the center of the room.
The top of the desk is clear except for two things. A folder and a book. I take my time walking around to the other side of the desk. I can practically picture Hollis sitting in here, pouring over folder after folder’s worth of Patience secrets. This is the first part of the beach house that actually makes sense to me. I run my hands over the desk and over the items waiting in front of me.
The folder on the desk says Juliet Lexington in a handwriting that’s now familiar thanks to Hollis’ inscriptions in those strange copies of Moby Dick. I touch the outside of it, tracing the letters of this name I’ve barely had a year. I’m not ready to open that folder—not ready to face whatever might be inside. I look instead to the familiar book set carefully beside my folder. Yet another copy of Moby Dick. I can practically see the inscription even before I open it. It is not down on any map; true places never are.
I like to think this copy was meant for me.
When I pop open the front cover, I don’t have to think because now I know. Right above Hollis’ familiar inscription is my name, written clear as day. I blink to keep a few stray tears from turning into full blown sobs and carefully close the book again.
