“Paige?” my father’s voice said behind the door.
“Let me out!” I shouted, racing to the door and slamming against it with my shoulder.
Bad idea. Not sure how that always worked in movies, butthe pain that rocketed down my arm was almost unbearable. The door didn’t budge.
“Stop wearing yourself out,” my father said in a muffled voice beyond the door. “No one can hear you through these walls but me, and it’s getting a little annoying.”
Jesus fucking Christ.Who evenwasthis monster? How did I share any DNA with this man?
“I knew you were up to something with Paul,” I said.
“Is that why you brought that form for me to sign? Was that just a rouse?”
I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of knowing it wasn’t. The form was on the bed with all the scattered contents of my purse. I snatched it up and quickly folded it into a small square and stuck it in the coin pocket of my shorts in case he tried to take it back.
“You know,” his voice said outside the door. “When Big Burg called me up last month after that gold bar resurfaced, I hadn’t heard from him in a few years. I’m sure your grandmother has told you by now, but we use to run together, back in the day. Never knew my daddy, and my mom was a boozer who couldn’t even hold a job cleaning toilets. But Big Burg and his daddy took me in—they were good to me. Showed me the way of the world. We chased treasure, just like you and your friends are doing now.”
“You are nothing like us.”
“Maybe. But we were the OG treasure hunters. I heard about the Golden Venus from the Vanderburgs, long before I met your mother.”
“Did the two of you plan to steal from her?”
“Oh, Paige. You know nothing about any of that. All we did was take control of an account that belonged to your mother—notto Kitty. Your mother knew about it. Why do you think she left it all to me in the will?”
“She didn’t! You took it!”
“Remember that Kitty poisoned your mind to me,” he said. “So if I were you, I wouldn’t trust anything she’s told you about me, your mom, or the Venus. Kitty just wanted to horde it—she even kept its location from your mother. Big Burg was the one who figured that out and opened my eyes to it. What kind of mother keeps things from their child?”
“What kind of father ditches their child for cash? Did Big Burg inspire that, too?”
“Say what you will about Big Burg. If it weren’t for him, I might be dead in a ditch.”
“I wish you were.”
“Now, now. I know you’re sore about the family money. But you should know that I wanted to take you with me. I tried. My lawyer tried. But Kitty was relentless.” He chuckled darkly. “Sorry to speak ill of the dead, but your grandmother was a selfish bitch.”
My blood boiled.
Whatever leeway I’d given him for being my flesh and blood vanished.
“Listen to me, Paige,” he said. “You may have memories of your mama; I don’t know. But you don’t have a full picture of her. The one thing she wanted in life was to find the Golden Venus. I’m going to honor that wish.”
“Bullshit!”
“When it’s finally uncovered, I don’t need you and your friends taking it to Haven Pawnshop and selling it for a fraction of what it’s worth. Let the adults take care of it, darling.”
“I’m not your darling or your daughter, you sick bastard! I’mthe person who’s going to cut out your heart and feed it to my dog if you don’t let me out of here right now!”
“Keep screaming at me, and I’ll call the police and say I caught you breaking in here, trying to steal valuable artwork from me. I’m one of their biggest donors in town, so I’m sure they’ll be happy to take you in and lock you up. One way or another, we’re going to have a chat about those rings you dug up, and you’re going to tell me where the lock is that they fit.”
Jesus.He knewthatmuch about our treasure hunt?
“When you do,” he finished, “you have my word that I’ll cut you in for some of the profit, under the table—Big Burg doesn’t have to know. I’ll pay for Harvard, if that’s what you need. You think about it, and see if we can come to an understanding before Paul gets here with the rings.”
I listened to his footfalls retreating down the hallway before he called out for his housekeeper and headed downstairs. Shock held me at the door a little longer. I just couldn’t wrap my head around everything he’d just told me, couldn’t wrangle all the wild emotions that were filling up my chest.
Stumbling to the bed, I fell apart, crying into the mattress so he couldn’t hear me.
