“But it might be, Vi,” Smith warned, “if you had his treasure. Don’t trust your instincts too far.”
Vi glanced at Smith and realized he was right, and she was wrong. She fiddled with her wedding ring and remembered that this Oscar fellow could have easily taken her forever from those she loved. Vi saw the same awareness in Smith’s eyes.
“People get hurt all the time for just being in the way,” Smith reminded her. “Maybe right now he’s demonizing you to his nephews. Maybe he’s saying that you’re a rich girl and you’ve had more than your fair share this whole time. Maybe he’s making them swear to do whatever it takes. He doesn’t care about you.”
Vi nodded and sighed. When they reached the ruins, Vi turned on her torch and stepped into the darkness of the sullen, broken walls.
Chapter 16
At first, Vi thought that the ruins were untouched. Then she realized that there were signs, if you knew to look for them. It wasn’t so much footprints in the dirt but the utter lack of dirt.
“Why would you sweep?” Vi demanded. “This is so ridiculous.”
“They don’t want anyone to know that they’re puttering around in here.” Smith looked around. “They probably are in here as often as they’d like. The old man either didn’t know or care.”
Vi turned a circle in place. “If you were looking for treasure, where would you look?”
“Here,” Rita said sardonically. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Yes,” Vi said with a roll of her eyes, “but—”
“But The Goblet of Nemo is ridiculous,” Smith said, eyeing the long, broken hallways. “Even I know that and I didn’t have your fancy Oxford education.”
“Exactly. It sounds like something that dear Edgar would have scoffed at.” Vi turned her torch around the floor and then towards the stone steps that led out.
“Edgar?” Smith demanded, looking beyond Vi to Victor.
Her twin laughed. “If Edgar Rice Burroughs would scoff at The Goblet of Nemo, we should. Vi and I don’t adore dear Edgar because he wrote a story of reason. He wrote a story of fluff.”
“Brain sweeties,” Vi laughed. “That’s what Victor and I called them when we were in school. Something to cleanse the palette after a treatise or essays on morality.”
“Or, Euclid.” Victor shuddered. “The latest Tarzan novel has always been the answer to Euclid.”
“Regardless,” Smith said, shaking off their joking, “the goblet is ridiculous. It didn’t come from these ruins where real people lived, so looking here is also ridiculous. This was a plot, right? A plot of someone who raised that Oscar fellow on nonsense that was so believable to him, so real, he lost his position as a professor.”
“Exactly,” Vi agreed. “So where would someone hide a supposed treasure whose existence was based off of idiotic stories that they made up on their own? Because whoever didn’t tell Oscar it was all a game and let him lose his position and be made a mockery of is a beast.”
“Wherever it was hidden, it wasn’t here,” Smith replied. “The beast knew they’d look here. Anyone looking for treasure that was real would look here. Anyone who was torturing those children would put the treasure somewhere entirely unexpected.”
“But somewhere that was obvious,” Vi added, leaving the ruins. She wasn’t going to waste her time looking for a fantasy that wasn’t there. Vi ran up the steps and then stopped suddenly in surprise. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Harriet said, her wrinkled hands fisted, her age spots making her seem fragile despite the banked anger in her eyes. “Is that all you have to say?”
Vi’s gaze moved to the young man behind Harriet. The old woman and the young man had matching eyes, except that Harriet’s were a bit mad. Victor placed his hands on Vi’s shoulders, and she knew that he’d try to save her if that young man decided to use the gun in his hand. She’d try to save both of them if she’d thought to have the pistol ready and not tucked into her dress.
“What would you like me to say?” Vi asked. “I assumed you were a kind woman who was willing to help us find the treasure and end all of this.”
“That treasure is mine.” Harriet glanced towards the younger man and adjusted it to, “Ours.”
Vi followed Harriet’s gaze, and the young man blushed despite—or maybe because of—the gun he had trained on her.
Vi told him, “You don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t I?” he asked.
“For treasure?” Vi’s tone was sufficient to have the young man blushing deeper. “If you hurt us, the constables will be involved, they’ll overrun this place, and enough people know about the treasure and your family that they’ll find you. Everything will be finished for you then.”
“I—”
“John,” Harriet snapped. “It’s all for you. Oscar and I are old. You deserve better than jumping for every passing partner at your company and scurrying to get them tea and files. Now lift the gun, and we’ll lock them in that cellar room and finish our search. We’re close. I know it.”
Rita stepped out from behind Vi and lifted the elephant gun to her shoulder. “Shall we have a shootout Old West style? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever said or done, but if you think I’m going to be locked in a room and left to hope someone will find us, you’re wrong.”
“You won’t shoot us,” Harriet told Rita, “you’re a sweetheart. You invited a strange woman to live with you. Sweet girls like you probably don’t even know how to shoot that gun of yours.”
“You invited her to live with you?” Smith asked and Vi glanced at him, noting the knife in his hand. “Why?”
“She’s sweet.” Rita’s tone was defensive and she scowled darkly when Smith snorted.
“I will shoot you where you stand in a half a second to protect my family and friends,” Rita told Harriet. “It’s not our fault that your grandfather was crazy and played mind
