Something Wilder(37)

“Jesus Christ, Bradley,” Leo said. “You’re the biggest flake I’ve ever met in my life.”

“I was really busy!” he protested.

Leo glared at him. “Busy like when you were supposed to plan my thirtieth birthday, and we ended up at the Golden Krust? Or Walter’s promotion?”

Loyally, Walter piped up to tell Bradley, “I actually think supermarket cupcakes are better anyway.”

“Could we just throw them all over the edge?” Nicole asked Lily. “It’d be so much quieter.”

“But if the treasure is real,” Walter said, focusing everyone back on the subject at hand, “and Terry needed your journal to find it, doesn’t that mean we have the map to the real treasure?”

“Hypothetically,” Lily said.

Bradley looked around the fire at each of them. “We’re doing it, right? We’re going to follow Duke’s clues to Butch Cassidy’s money.”

“And what makes you think you’d get any of it?” Nicole said, glaring at him. “It’s Lily’s map.”

“Because we had a code,” Walter said. “Like the outlaws. Remember?”

Bradley grinned. “That’s right, Walt.”

“I think we’re missing the point,” Leo said. “Terry is dead. If we go back and tell the authorities that he fell, there’s a good chance we won’t be suspects in a murder case. Going off on a treasure hunt is a very bad look.”

“But if our plan is to tell them that Terry wandered off anyway, why can’t our story be that he wandered off and we went looking for him?” Bradley paused, seeming to wait for immediate dissent. At Lily’s silence, Bradley continued, bolder now: “We were already planning on doing a fake treasure hunt over the next three days. Why not do a real one?”

“Dub,” Nicole said quietly. “He’s on my shit list, and Lord knows I hate to admit it, but—Brad makes a good point. Why not just go and see?”

Lily’s eyes flew to hers. “I thought you said you couldn’t lie to the cops.”

“It’s ten million dollars.” She shrugged, like Sorry, but you know I’m right. And then she looked around at the rest of the group. “Whatever I say here stays here, okay? I’m just spitballing, but… We could go ahead as if we’re going to look for him. How many times did he say he knew this place better than any of us? Maybe he took off and fell over. Maybe I can trick my brain into thinking that. Maybe,” she said, her voice thick with emotion now, “we go looking for the money.”

“How long would it be?” Walt asked. “Out and back?”

Lily studied the hand-drawn map, blood pounding in her ears as she nervously tapped a finger against her leg. “If we’re riding to the Maze and then going by foot? Three days? Maybe four. But this is really treacherous country. It’s not family fun or tourist friendly. You need a permit with your itinerary so they can find your body if you don’t come back. We’d need to stop and get supplies.”

“If you’re leading us, we can do anything,” Bradley crowed, confidence booming. “We’ll just call the police on the other side. With the money. You’re in, right, buddy?” He looked over at Walter.

After a beat of hesitation, Walter nodded. “This is my do-over, remember?” He looked at Leo meaningfully. “All of ours. When will we ever have a chance like this again?”

“It’s not like taking an afternoon hike, Walter,” Lily said. “It’s dangerous. What we’ve done is the easy part.”

“That was easy?” he said.

Lily met his eyes. “That was nothing.”

The fire crackling was the only sound.

She expected someone to push again. She did not expect the words that rose out of the darkness to be Leo’s: “But do you think we could do it?”

“Leo. Are you telling me you actually want to do this?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying,” he admitted. “But that riddle feels like something, Lil. I know you feel it, too.” She blinked away, running a hand down over the goose bumps on her arm. Lil. No one had called her that in years.

And he was right; she did feel something deep in her gut that told her not to ignore this. Leo pushed on: “I know we all thought he was an asshole, but Terry believed it enough to bring a gun. To take Nicole hostage. Was he going to shoot us? Was he going to make Nicole take him down into the canyon?”

“Don’t forget the zip ties,” Bradley said. “You don’t bring zip ties to fight bobcats and cougars.”

Leo walked around the fire to kneel in front of her. He put his hand on the journal. “Terry needed what was in here. And you have it.”

There was an ember of hope flickering faintly beneath her ribs; he stoked it with the unexpected hunger in his expression. What did he want her to say right now? It all felt like too much to process at once. Terry’s death aside… she felt in her bones that the riddle was more than just a game.

And yet Duke hadn’t given this diary to her. He hadn’t told her he’d found the treasure, either. He was fine selling her favorite place in the world, leaving her poor and alone. She was tired of her life being decided by Duke Wilder.

Still. Was it worth just… looking?