“That very much depends on what’s inside that box,” she replies.
Annika’s giving me a one-eyed glare. “I swear on my bladder, if you’re about to drop news that’s going to make me have to pee?—”
“You should probably go pee,” Sloane says.
“Dammit.”
Grady drops his knife and strolls in from the kitchen, leaning against a column holding up the high ceiling between the two rooms. “Tell me that’s not real.”
Can’t do it. “It’s real.”
“That’s not what I asked you to tell me.”
“It’s not real.” Cooper pulls himself out of his massage chair. “It can’t be real.”
“Real what?” Waverly asks. “Real treasure?Real treasure?No.”
“It’s real,” I repeat.
“It’s real,” Sloane says. “We found it.”
“But youcan’t,” Cooper says.
“Why not?” she asks.
“BecauseIfound it.”
All of us—even the kids—gape at him.
“Excuse you,what?” Tillie Jean says.
Sloane takes a step back.
I take a step back.
Grady takes a step back.
Max grins.
Cackles a little, even.
Waverly hits a button to stop the cycle on her massage chair, then she straightens. “You found a treasure and you didn’t tell your wife?”
Cooper winces. “I made myself forget. Because the more people who know a secret, the more people who know a secret. So that can’t be the treasure. Because the treasure’s been…safe…for about ten years now.”
Sloane leans against the nearest wall, then slides down it, ending with her legs splayed in front of her. “Oh my god, second treasure.”
“Second treasure whenthere is no treasure?” Tillie Jean says. “Give me the chair back. I need to sit down. And then murder my brother for lying to all of us. And then sit down again.”
Sloane shakes her head. “No more murder. Today.”
“Did you murder someone?”
“Patrick. Almost. But I wasn’t looking where I was throwing so it wouldn’t be first-degree. Probably even count as self-defense, actually. And he’s still alive. And likely has a concussion. Serves the fucker right.”
“Fucker?” Tillie Jean’s daughter says.
Nobody blinks an eye.
