Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Lucas sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I like your program,” he said. “And there aren’t many people’s judgment I trust more than Hawk and your brother. So, here’s what we’re going to do. If you want.”
I nodded, ready to agree to anything.
“You’re going to keep taking those coding classes,” Lucas went on. “You need to lay a good foundation, and the program you’re in is a solid start. Emmett and I will add on a few classes you’ll find through different sources. And when you’re done with all of that, we’re going to train you. If you make it through all the training, we’ll put you to work.”
“Really?” I said, afraid I’d misunderstood. “You’ll train me? Teach me the stuff I don’t know? And then you’ll give me a job?” I felt queasy at asking so bluntly, but this was too important, and I didn’t want to misunderstand.
“Yeah, if you can learn what you need to know,” Lucas said. “And given the way you’ve run through these ciphers, I’m sure you’ll soak up everything we can teach you. Then hell yeah, we’ll put you to work. I know you’ve got the thing with the will, but we can do a lot of this remotely. We’ll figure it out.”
“Thank you.” My heart pounded furiously in my chest. This was so much more than I’d hoped for. “I won’t let you down,” I promised.
“I don’t think you will,” Lucas said.
Forrest came back into the room, his phone in his hand. “Good news and bad news. The good news is that my mom says she has everything from my room before we moved boxed up in the garage at her house in Oregon. The bad news is that she doesn’t want anything to do with this.” He looked to me. “If we want to find that book, we’re going to have to go to Oregon and hunt through her garage ourselves. She didn’t exactly hang up on me, but it was close.”
My heart, still thrumming from the sudden change in my future and the possibilities, took a second for his words to sink in. He sat beside me, and I reached for his hand. I knew Forrest had been close to his mom and that the only thing they never discussed was his father. “I’m sorry you had to ask her,” I said quietly.
Forrest just shook his head.
“I think you two need to get out of town,” Lucas said. “Until you know who sent you into that root cellar, I don’t think you should go back to Heartstone Manor.” His eyes flicked to me. “Not unless you have to. And with the Learys involved, Oregon seems like a great place for a vacation. You can go through those boxes on your own. As long as you’ve got a phone with a camera, you can touch base with Emmett or me if you need to.” Lucas stopped and looked at Emmett, his chin lifting and dropping in the tiniest increment.
Emmett let out a breath. “There’s more. When Sterling cracked the code on the Vitellius, Hawk asked me to do another dive into you.” Emmett looked at me. “He thinks of you like a little sister. He trusts your judgment. But he wanted to make sure this one wasn’t hiding any more secrets.”
“I’m not—” Forrest started.
“Yeah, I know.” Emmett gave a semi-apologetic shrug of one shoulder. “This isn’t about you. It’s about your father.”
“He’s been dead a long time,” Forrest said.
“That’s one of the things I was looking into.” Emmett sat back. “The official story is that your father committed suicide.”
Forrest gave a curt nod, and I tightened my fingers on his hand.
“I don’t have any definitive proof,” Emmett went on, “but I don’t think your father killed himself. I don’t know if there was corruption or just laziness, but there are too many things that don’t add up.”
“Like what?” Forrest asked, his voice gruff.
“Like the fact that your father paid in full for a luxury European tour a week before he died. Your father was on the frugal side for a man of his means. I’ve seen his spending records. I can’t see him plopping down that kind of cash, knowing he wouldn’t be around to enjoy it, especially since it was going to be a surprise. I based that on the fact that you and your mother didn’t go on the trip or even attempt to cancel it and get a refund.”
Forrest shook his head. “We didn’t know about that. We’d talked about going, but it was… There wasn’t a firm plan.”
“There were other transactions that indicated he planned to be alive well after the day he died. There’s this scavenger hunt with the ciphers that it looks like he intended to do with you. And then there was the crime scene. The police report said he was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But when I dug into it, the gun they found at the scene hadn’t been fired, and he didn’t have any residue on his hands. I don’t know why no one followed up on that. I’m still poking around. I’ll let you know if I find anything else, but I think…” He looked to me, then back to Forrest. “I think it’s likely that whoever took the Vitellius ended up killing your father.”