“There are prizes?” he asked, perking up.
“What kind of punk-ass treasure map do you think this is?”
“Sorry.” Charlie took another tentative step forward, and then another, at which point he spotted the fluorescent duct tape arrow pointing at the outdoor table. A brown paper bag sat on top, with the wordsOPENMEon the front.
“Go ahead,” she stage-directed when he hesitated. “It’s just a present. Not something weird.”
“But I don’t have a gift for you.” He turned back to the door, like he was thinking of running in to grab something for her. One of the lamps, maybe. Or a remote control.
“Just open it.” This was not the kind of surprise that benefited from a big buildup.
“It’s a shirt,” he announced, like she might not know what was in the bag.
“Now we’re even. Since you gave me a shirt.”
“I’m not suregaveis the right word.”
“The important thing is that it’s mine now.” It was soft and stretchy and smelled like Charlie. He’d have to pry it out of her cold dead hands.
“Is that the end of the treasure hunt?” he asked, examining his new Dolphin Bay polo. New-ish, anyway. In the borrowed-from-the-laundry-room sense. Jean refused to pay people who were supposed to be paying her.
“No, Mr. Low Expectations. You have to put it on.”
He shrugged it on over the shirt he was already wearing. “What now?”
“Into the wild blue yonder.”
“We’re going flying?”
“No.” Though it was touching that he thought she had access to a plane. “You have to follow the map. We’re going out.”
Charlie glanced down at the paper in his hands. “Outthere?”
“Yes.” Technically he was pointing at a parking lot, but that was beside the point.
“I probably shouldn’t. I told Mugsy I’d…”
“You told Mugsy you’d what?” she prompted when he trailed off.
“Be available. In case she wanted to call.” A shadow passed over his features.
Jean emerged from behind the planter, tired of trying to boss him around from a distance. “What if I said you could bring your phone with you on our excursion? Seeing as how it’s highly portable?”
He watched her stalk closer. “That’s nice of you—”
She silenced him with a finger to his lips. “Do you know why I brought you this shirt?”
“So we can match?”
“No. But also sort of. If someone sees you out there, wearingthis,” she drew a soft line from his mouth to his chest with the tip of her finger, “what do you think will happen?”
Charlie opened his mouth to guess, but she cut him off.
“You’ll be invisible. Hidden in plain sight.” Jean didn’t know exactly why Charlie was avoiding the outside world, but she had ruled out a number of possibilities, including agoraphobia. Charlie had been out in the wild studying snakes, which would freak out plenty of people who weren’t phobic about leaving home. And yet he’d told housekeeping he’d do his own cleaning. It was hard to imagine a more serious sign of your aversion to human contact than that.
“But—”
“Nobody cares about the resort staff,” she said, cutting off his protest. “We’re like elves. Magically getting shit done.”
