“It’s baggage,” I tell her. “Not interested in baggage.”
She looks at Sloane. “Do you want it?”
“My house was robbed, my ex-boyfriend attacked my favorite protection specialist, and I had to face some guy named Uncle Guido in the name of finding this treasure. I’ll go to therapy for the memories. You keep the gold.”
“Are theyallbad memories?” Tillie Jean asks.
Sloane goes pink. “No.”
“Good.”
Cooper kneels in front of the chest and picks up one of the gold pieces under the third diary. “It’s identical. You’re right. They must’ve split it.”
Grady shakes his head and pulls Annika over with him to look at it too. “Two treasures. Pirate nutjobs.”
“We’ll announce it’s been found and put some on display in the museum,” Tillie Jean says.
“Tell people it was found at the waterfall,” Sloane says. “Don’t tell them where it was really found. If you can.”
“Will Patrick know the truth?”
“Patrick has a concussion,” Sloane reminds her.
Tillie Jean grins.
Sloane grins back. “Courtesy of me,” she whispers.
I hold out a hand.
She high-fives me, then looks at the room at large. “You didn’t see that.”
“This morning isn’t happening,” Max says. “It’s all a figment of everyone’s imaginations.”
We all look at the two toddlers.
Could be their first lasting memory.
More likely, they won’t remember any of it.
“I can’t tell my mama and Roger, can I?” Annika says.
Tillie Jean hugs her. “We’ll figure it out.”
“They already know,” Sloane says. “If not, they strongly suspect. They told me things while you were in the bathroom.”
“Freaking bathroom,” Annika mutters. “I miss everything when I’m in the bathroom.”
“We good?” I ask Cooper and Tillie Jean.
Cooper nods. “Always, man. Can’t be mad at someone who saved my lucky socks for me all those years ago.”
Shit.
Forgot I did that.
“That was gross,” I tell him.
“And they weren’t actually his real superstition,” Waverly says with a grin.
