Correct. Her energy was zapped. “So are you.” His eyes were red, and he looked dead on his feet.
“Your uncle’s waiting down the hall, but I can tell him to come back another time.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “Don’t you dare.”
He smiled. “If you’re bossing me around, you must be feeling better.” He pulled the blanket off the bed and handed it to her.
She smoothed it over her legs. “I’m ready for him.”
He left, and soon she heard their footsteps approaching. They entered and her uncle bent to delicately hug her. “How are you?”
“Improving.”
“Can I get you something to drink?” Luke asked her.
“Yes, please. They’ve promoted me all the way to vegetable broth.”
“I’ll be back.”
With that, she and Robbie were alone.
Finley considered her uncle. Her father’s brother. She’d grown up with him, spent an untold amount of time with him, been on excellent terms with him. Because of that, she’d always assumed she knew him well. For the first time in her life, she doubted that. The mild, gentlemanly version of Uncle Robbie she’d known wouldn’t have been capable of stealing gold.
He sat in the remaining armchair.
It struck her that she had more faith in the man who’d just goneto get her vegetable broth—the man she’d met three months ago—than this relative of hers she’d known since birth.
She moved to tuck one foot beneath her opposite thigh and realized that required more strength than she possessed. “Luke relayed to me everything that you told him.”
“I figured as much. I’m sorry, Finley. I’m so very sorry about all of this. Your dad never would’ve wanted any harm to come to you.”
“I know.” Inwardly, she gathered herself, trying to psych herself up to hear the truth. “Please tell me how Carla died.”
His mouth pursed.
“Go on,” she said, a trace of steel in her words.
“The night after we . . . found the gold, Ed, Carla, and I returned to the site with supplies. It took us a few hours, but we dug up every bit of that gold. Then we drove to Carla’s apartment and helped carry her portion upstairs. We had to go down and back to the truck a few times. After we finished setting the last of it on her living room floor, I remember looking up at her and realizing something was wrong.”
“How so?”
“She was visibly nervous. Pale. Fidgeting. The worst feeling came over me.”
Finley registered the hum of employees chatting down the hall. The siren of an ambulance nearing the ER. “What did she say?”
“She said that if we wanted her to stay quiet about the gold, then we had to give her half of it.”
Oh no. Finley waited for the rest.
“She’d done none of the work,” he continued. “She hadn’t researched the path of the stolen gold. She hadn’t read account after account or studied historic maps. She’d never used a metal detector in her life. Yet she wasn’t satisfied when we divided the gold three ways. She was greedy and wanted more.”
He was conveniently overlooking the fact thatnoneof them had a rightful claim to the gold.
“Ed loved her, in his way.” He pinched his thumb with the fingersof his opposite hand. “When Carla turned on us, she betrayed Ed. She cared more about that treasure than she did about my brother.”
“What did you do when she said she wanted half?”
“I tried to calm her down. I couldn’t see how we’d be able to live with giving her half. On the other hand, I couldn’t see what we’d do if she went public and told everyone about our discovery. I hoped we could reason with her and figure it out.”
