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)
But it had been a year, and she still hadn’t forgiven me. She probably never would.
Letting out a breath, I watched as Mr. Webber set the box down on the edge of his desk and opened the lid. Steeling my heart, I looked inside. There was nothing but a single index card, like the kind I’d used to make flashcards in grade school.
The lined side of the card was facing up. In my father’s precise, printed writing, I saw the phrase, A mockingbird on my shoulder, singing with my strings in the Poplars.
Beneath was another long alphanumeric code.
“What?” Sterling breathed, reaching out to pick up the card. She flipped it back and forth, then leaned forward to check the box for anything else. There was nothing. Squinting down at the card, she said, “It’s another code.”
Mr. Webber’s hand came down on my shoulder. He squeezed, then gave a fatherly pat and said, “Good luck, Forrest. If that’s what I think it is, you’re going to need all the luck you can get.”
Chapter Five
STERLING
“Your father imagined you’d go on this journey together,” Mr. Webber said to Forrest, “but it does my heart good to see you with your beautiful future wife beside you. You can’t do this with your father, but it means something that you can do it with someone you love.”
Forrest looked poleaxed. I didn’t think he’d expected this trip down memory lane. Neither had I. I’d only been thinking about the box and how to talk our way into opening it without a key. And now here we were.
Except there wasn’t a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just another code to break. Well, really, this time, it was a clue and a code. At least I hoped A mockingbird on my shoulder, singing with my strings in the Poplars, was a clue. I had no idea.
“I’m assuming we can take this with us,” Forrest said, plucking the index card from my hands.
“Of course,” Mr. Webber said. “Guard it carefully.”
“I will.” Forrest tucked the index card into the inside pocket of his suit coat.
My head was spinning, torn between elation and consternation. I’d done it. I’d cracked the code, found the bank, and bullshitted my way into Alan Buckley’s safe deposit box only to find another fucking code.
I slid into the comfortable social niceties I could perform without much conscious thought, saying goodbye to Mr. Webber with a handshake and a half hug, thanking Mrs. Grady for her help, and following Forrest out of the bank, the whole time trying to figure out what the clue meant. Did it lead somewhere? Was it the key to decode the letters and numbers beneath? How could it be?
I’d done something no one else had been able to do—I’d gotten us this far. But damn it, I thought that would be it. We’d find the box, get our payday, and I could sail off into the sunset, loaded down with cash.
I buckled myself into the passenger seat of Forrest’s car, trying to figure out what was next. The part of me that loved cracking Alan Buckley’s code shouted that the next step was obvious. I’d just have to decipher the clue about mockingbirds and strings and hope that led me to the key I needed to decipher the code. My fingers tingled with the desire to act, to solve the puzzle and decode those letters and numbers into the next step in our quest.
The rest of me wasn’t so sure that twenty-five percent of Alan’s money was worth the risk.
I wanted the money. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work. I did. I’d been studying and mapping out a new career. I wanted to do more with my life than sleep late, drink, and party. I’d wasted too many years on that already. But I’d also learned money wasn’t just for buying things or showing off. Money was safety. If I could pay my own way, no one could tell me what to do. I could take care of myself on my own terms.
My father and I always had an uneasy relationship. Most of the time, he’d ignored me. According to Miss Martha, our family housekeeper, I’d thrown some memorable tantrums when I was a toddler. I’d come to Heartstone at four years old, probably terrified and alone after my mother died, and I’d screamed out all that fear and grief, pounding my little fists into Darcy, my stepmother.
I didn’t remember my mother, Trina. From everything I’d heard, she’d been happy to be Prentice’s mistress, not as thrilled about raising a child. Then she was gone, and there was Darcy, who loved me with everything she had despite my being a constant reminder of her husband’s infidelity. Darcy had absorbed my tantrums, returning my screams with love, and eventually, I’d settled. It took too long for Prentice. He wrote me off as a hellion and a disaster before I made it to kindergarten.