Benny happily complied, and we all took turns puffing off his monstrous origami creation, coughing and teasing one another. When it got passed to me a third time, I could already feel it warming me from the inside out and slowing my thoughts. Seb must’ve noticed, because his foot nudged mine under the table.
“Hey. Should probably take it easy to start. Always more later.”
I was a little embarrassed that everyone might be thinking I couldn’t keep up with them, which is how I’d felt at every party I attended back in Cambridge—all two of them. But none of the Wags gave me a hard time, and when the tulip was ash, I felt lovely and relaxed. My previous worries receded to the background, and soon we were all digging into the spread of food Lulu had ordered, laughing and retelling old stories. Gossiping aboutthe town. Even teasing Jazmine about Paul. I forgot about everything else. It was just us, old friends, and not even Lulu’s presence could put a damper on that.
Strangely enough, she was the one who got us all talking about the treasure hunt again.
Chapter 18
“So, about that whole brewery fiasco,” Lulu said, moving half-eaten food containers aside. “Obviously found nothing. But is it worth going back?”
“Paige may be onto a new trail,” Seb said. “Show them what you found.”
I pulled the book about Haven Beach from my bag and leafed through it until I found the right place, then laid it on the table for everyone to see. “Downtown was once called Three Corners. Check it out...”
Everyone bent over the book, but it was Benny who pulled it closer. “I’ve heard old people in Bean’s calling it ‘the Corners’—but I always thought they meant that roundabout intersection by the brewery.”
Seb grunted. “They do. Look. Here it is in 1918,” he tapped on a historical photo printed on the page. It was where Main Street crossed Tembly Avenue, one of the other big streets that ran through town and stopped at the river next to the brewery. At that intersection was Haven Beach’s one and only roundabout. In the center of the roundabout’s grassy median stood an American flag, and at the base of the flagpole was a plaque embedded into the grass. The flag and plaque were still there today.
“What’s that memorial for?” Lulu asked.
“It’s not a memorial,” Benny said. “It’s a time capsule.”
“Cornerstone of Haven Beach,” Jaz elaborated. “Something the town erected when they went from a township to an incorporated town.”
“In 1930,” I confirmed, telling them what I’d learned in the book. “First we were Three Corners in the 1800s—barely a village. Then we were Haven Corners. Then Haven Beach.”
“If that time capsule was buried in 1930, Wyrd Jack was in prison most of that year,” Seb said.
I nodded. “He died at the end of the year.”
“If Mabel was the one who hid the Golden Venus and the clues to find it,” Seb mused, “she might’ve been doing it in early 1930. The stock market had already crashed, and people were coming out of the woodwork to harass her for locations to Wyrd Jack’s smuggling hauls.”
“Shit!” Benny tapped on his phone screen. He pulled up the secret photo of Mabel and Wyrd Jack that Jaz had found in the Black Book—we’d texted it to him when he was arranging for us to get into the brewery—and pinched the screen to blow it up. “I remember spotting this when you sent it, Seb. Look.” He held out his phone to show us what he’d blown up in the corner of the photo—in the distance was the flagpole that stood over the time capsule plaque. “Literally in the corner of the photo.”
“Shit!”
Jaz tossed her sunglasses on the table. “I don’t know, guys. Sounds to me like something buried in the ground might be considered ‘deep.’”
“Deep in the Three Corners,” I said.
We all looked around the table at one another, smiles popping up.
“Wow!” Lulu said. “You really think we’ll find something there? Let’s go dig it up!”
Benny shook his head. “We’d all be arrested on the spot, Lu. You can’t destroy a public memorial in broad daylight.”
“Gotta be stealthy about it,” Seb agreed.
“This might be another midnight job,” I said, excitement coming over me. “We’ll need shovels and probably something else to get under that plaque. Anyone got digging tools?”
“It’s really out in the open, guys,” Benny pointed out. “Even at four a.m. there’s still the occasional car passing through. If we decide to pursue this, we’re going to need some kind of cover.”
What that was, we didn’t know.
But after some further excited discussion, we ended up temporarily putting the plan on the back burner while folks stripped down to bathing suits and raced for the water.
We were all water people: swimming would give us clarity.
