Luke increased the size of the drawing until it filled his computer screen. Hungrily, he searched the image for information.
One of Dennis Vance’s daughters worked at a law firm. Reading the name of her law firm was like slotting a missing puzzle piece into place.
When Luke reached Finley’s room at the rehab center two hours later, he found her sitting cross-legged on her bed, wearing a soft yellow sweater and leggings. She’d piled her black hair onto her head. He’d brought her jewelry box to her days ago, and now several rings glittered on her fingers. Yesterday, he’d caught her speaking passionately to one of the staffers about the need for more managed feral cat colonies. The day before that, she’d started asking the nursing and PT staff if they felt called to adopt a dog, foster a dog, or volunteer at her non-profit.
She was more and more herself all the time. So how come he couldn’t stop worrying that her health would backslide?
She beamed at him. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“Then let me sleep on the sofa in here tonight. Please.”
“No. You’re running ragged even though I’m sending you home to sleep. I can’t imagine how worn out you’d be if you slept on this sofa every night.”
“I’d be better if I was near you.”
“You’re near me now.”
“Thank God. Can I get you anything?”
“More ice water? That kiss gave me a hot flash.”
He took her glass and refilled it with the jug an employee had left on the side table. “I have information.”
“Oh yeah?”
He handed the glass to her.
She took a long sip, then gave him a look that said,Spill all your information immediately.
“Turns out Dennis Vance’s daughter Julia started working as an administrative assistant at a law firm in Hartwell soon after her aunt Carla’s death. Which law firm do you think it was?”
Finley considered him for several seconds, swirling the ice in her glass. “Horton and Associates? Where my dad’s will was on file?”
“Exactly. I saw Julia the day I met with Rosco. She was the one who checked me in and showed me back to his office.”
“Is she tall? With dark hair?”
He nodded.
“I remember her,” she said. “I saw her, too, the day I went to Rosco’s office for the reading of the will. She’s Dennis’s daughter?”
“She is.”
“Which probably explains how the Vance brothers learned of the treasure hunt.”
“Right. They knew Carla, Ed, and Robbie had found gold. But they didn’t know what had become of it. Julia was graduating college right around that time. She needed a job, so I’m guessing her father encouraged her to apply for a job with Ed’s attorney.”
“Free two birds with one key. She’d be earning a paycheck, and she’d also have opportunity to snoop through my dad’s legal documents.” Finley’s sweater slipped off one shoulder. She tugged it back in place. “Dad mentioned the treasure hunt in his will. If Julia told her father about that, it wouldn’t have been a stretch for him to correctly conclude that the treasure hunt was leading me to Confederate gold.”
“Exactly.”
“The will also included the first clue and Dad’s instruction to open it on my next birthday. The brothers would simply have waited a few months for my birthday to roll around. Then they tried and failed to hack into your computer. They succeeded at getting inside my house and searching it once or maybe twice. And they tailed us places.”
“I still don’t know how they did that. I can say for sure that no one car ever followed us from point A to point B during the treasure hunt. A couple of times, a car took some of the same turns that I took. But whenever that happened, it was never the same make and model as the time before. I was paying attention.”
