She scanned the row below and the one above, looking for place names now. She pulled Casablanca, getting the same results, threw it onto the growing pile on the floor and mumbled, “Idiot. He’s not hiding his stuff in friggin’ Morocco.”
Calm down. Think.
She leaned back on the desk and took a long breath. Then she glanced down at the first case and picked it up. Hide in Plain Sight, starring James Caan. Tapping her fingernails on it, she looked at the DVD rows again. Warm. That means close, right?
To the left of where she’d found that first one, was something called Gardens of Stone. She reached out and slipped it from its slot and looked at the cover. Starring. . . James Caan.
She snapped it open and pulled out the disc and looked at the back. Another word in carefully scripted black letters: “Toasty.”
“Oh my God,” she yelped, and she dropped the disc and charged right for the stairs.
She hit bottom and ran through the kitchen, then skidded to a stop, and ran back. Between the fridge and the wall was an antique wooden ammunition crate that Dan had picked up at a yard sale. She popped it open, snatched up a flashlight, and bolted for the backyard door. When she pulled it open the rain was sheeting off the upper sill like Niagara Falls, and it was already pitch dark outside. She snatched a blue slicker from a hook, thrust herself into it, and charged into the backyard.
The tall elms were whipping in the wind, and thunder boomed nearby as she marched across the sodden lawn. Gardens of Stone. Well, they only had one garden like that. Dan had once come back from some trip to Japan and announced how much he admired their Zen gardens, which turned out to be bare of greenery, floored in manicured sand, and decorated with rocks, whose positions were supposed to mean something spiritual.
She’d gone along with his plan, mostly because it was rare that they had the time to enjoy some project together. It had turned out nicely—a small raised plateau of white sand with beautiful stones poking up like the thick dorsals of whales. It sat there on a small rise at the edge of their back fence, between a pair of lush, normal gardens.
She clicked on the flashlight and scanned the stone garden. Her hair was already soaking wet so there was no point in pulling the hood up. The stones were arranged in no overtly specific pattern, but she counted them anyway. Thirteen. That didn’t mean anything. A bolt of lightning split from the sky a few houses away and she jumped. This is sooo stupid, Dan, she fumed. You’re going to get me electrocuted on a dumb-ass treasure hunt!
She stopped herself again and calmed her pounding pulse. Treasure. Where do you find the treasure, like if you’re a pirate? On a treasure map. What’s on a treasure map? An X! X marks the spot!
She looked around and found it, a broken stick from one of the trees above. She picked it up, fell to her knees in the soaked earth, and leaned over the garden, drawing a thick line in the sand from the top above to between her knees below and then left to right in as perfect a symmetrical design as she could. Then she tossed the stick away, lay the flashlight on one of the rocks, crawled to the middle of the garden, and jammed her wet fingers straight down in the middle of the X.
Nothing. Just soaking-wet sand crawling through her fingernails. Her other hand joined the first, and she dug, tossing gobs of wet sand between her legs, just as Neika always did when she was digging up one of her bony treasures. She went deeper and deeper, thinking that this was the stupidest wild-goose chase she’d ever been on. Except it was real, and he’d left her the clues for a reason, and, heck, if it wasn’t somehow exciting to be out here in the dark in the rain with the thunder and lighting and...
She hit something. It was probably just another rock. No, it felt smooth and flat on top. She leaned down and dug some more, the water dripping off her chin and her lungs panting steam in the air. She got her fingernails and around whatever it was, leaned back hard, and pulled. It popped from the ground. She stared at it. A small, rectangular black metal box.
She snatched up the flashlight, sprinted back for the house, and slammed the door behind her as she puddled the kitchen floor. She put the box on the island and whipped off her slicker. She took a breath and turned the box over, carefully. There didn’t seem to be any way to open it: no latch or lock—in fact, no top. Then she gripped it with one wet hand and smeared the bottom with her thumb. Something clicked. She pushed harder. It slid open.
A key. It was brass and about two inches long. She plucked it out, and there underneath was a small green tab of waterproof paper, like from one of those Rite in the Rain pads that Dan used whenever they’d all gone camping. Typed on the tab were two words: Uncle Bob.
Who the heck was Uncle Bob? Did anyone in the family even have an Uncle Bob? No, there was nobody like that. Wait, maybe it was a restaurant or something. Jenny looked around and spotted her iPhone where she’d left it next to the sink. She snatched it up and pressed the home key.
“Siri, who is Uncle
