Suddenly Alex was behind me.
“The treasure is real,” he said.
Quin studied the bar, Lumpy Jim his beer. Silent Jim looked up at Alex as though he’d never quite noticed him before.
“Mr. McPhee,” Edith said, her posture loosening and the all-new smile on her face so wide I thought her neck must have hinges. “I’m sorry to bother your staff on a busy day—”
“Dahlia is not my staff,” Alex said.
“Oh, of course, of course,” she said soothingly. “I’ve hand-delivered those papers we discussed. Now, I’ve marked the spots where I need your signature with thelittlestyellow flags to help you find—”
“Thanks.” Alex slid the envelope off the bar. “I think I get it.”
I wanted him to drop the package into the bin with the lemon peels and coffee grounds, but he didn’t. Or into the lost-and-found box under the bar, Alex, do it!
That’s when I remembered that I had acquired something that had gone lost, too. I went to the far end of the bar and reached into the bin, sifting tentatively through the orphaned gloves and stuff. Quin stretched his neck to check my progress.
I retrieved the red package, tiny snowflakes, that Marisa had left behind and put it into Edith’s hands.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said.
“Return that to Marisa when you see her,” I said. “She dropped it on her last visit.”
“This is probably for—”
“I’ll be in touch,” Alex said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
Edith’s grin dropped a bit at the edges, but she recovered. “I could wait if you wanted to grab a pen… No? Well, you shouldn’t wait too long. Theselingeringdeals have been known to fall through. Well, then… Go Bears!” She made a little fist like a pom-pom and shook it. No one joined in. She dropped her hand and strode toward the exit.
The door banged shut. The TVs blared.
Lourey, across the room, mouthed something at me and mimed drinking a beer. Oh, right. This was probably my last shot to prove to them that I was serious, and I meant to do it.
I slipped out from under Alex’s hand. I was a little sore with him about keeping Marisa away from me. Another decision that had been made without consulting me—and this one was certainly my business.
I poured out the beers I’d started pulling for the band before Edith had walked in and started over.
“The treasure’s real?” Silent Jim finally spoke up.
Quin gave him an odd look I couldn’t read.
“If you know where to look,” Alex said simply.
“You say things like that, McPhee,” Silent Jim said, “and you’ll have the hordes prying up the floorboards the second your back is turned.”
Little did he know.
I sensed the Jims turning my way for some kind of translation. “He means the pub,” I said. The paperwork to sign over the place was still in Alex’s hands. Just because I wasn’t sure I wanted to run the pub—did that mean he had to sell it? “The pub is your treasure, right, Alex?”
“No,” he said. “I meant the treasure.
“But not the ghost,” Alex said after a second of thought. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
41
I decided to leave talk of selling the pub until later, when I could get Alex alone. I carried a tray of beers to the band.
“What kept you?” Lourey asked testily.
