Ilona Andrews - Wildfire

“We have it now,” Bern said. “You can beat yourself up later. The sea is the pool. We’ll need a shovel. He must’ve buried it. Pirate treasure is always buried.”

I snapped a picture of the map with my phone. We found a pair of shovels in the garden shed and tracked our way through the lot down to the back of the property, where the woods stood dense. We pushed through the brush into a small clearing.

The sky broke open, sifting cold rain on us. I surveyed the clearing. On the right a big oak spread its branches, on the left two stumps and more brush. No signs of digging marked the forest floor.

If I were a little boy, where would I bury my treasure?

He’d made sure to point out the tree on the map. The tree was important.

I circled the big oak. Little round marks punctured the bark on the north side, two in a row, at about even intervals.

“What is it?” Bern asked.

“This was a climbing tree. These are nail holes. They must’ve nailed planks to it and then someone pulled them off.”

Bern took a running start and jumped. His hands caught the thick lower branch and he pulled himself up.

“Anything?”

“A hollow. Hold on.”

He jumped back down, a canvas bag in his hands. He set it on the ground, and I gently pulled the strings open. A plastic pirate chest, the kind you could get in a craft store or online, the plastic made to look like dark aged wood. A skull sat where the lid met the box, with two plastic swords thrust through the skull’s eyes. Smaller skulls decorated the surface.

Bern carefully pulled the swords free and opened the chest. I took the objects out one by one, carefully placing them on the canvas. A Swiss Army knife. A little velvet sack containing ten golden dollar coins, each with a different president. Three bullets. A yellow sports car. A flashlight. And a small cardboard jewelry box, the kind you would use to store a necklace.

Gently I opened it. A single USB stick lay on the velvet cushion. Inside the lid in a confident feminine cursive, someone had written, “Grandma’s Secret.”

I hugged the box. I felt like crying.

I drove through Houston’s traffic.

“It’s encrypted,” Bern said, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his laptop.

“Can you break it?”

“I’ll need time. It’s not one of the commercially available cyphers. This is a custom job and it’s very good.”

“Call Rogan.”

The car obediently dialed the number.

“Yes?” he answered.

“We have Olivia Charles’ USB. We can meet their demands.”

“What’s on it?”

“It’s encrypted. We’re bringing it home, but Bern’s uploading it to our home server as we speak.”

“Good. Great.”

“Okay, bye.” I hesitated for a moment. Why not? “Love you.”

There was a slight pause. “I love you too.”

I hung up and grinned. The Scourge of Mexico just told me he loved me. I never got tired of hearing it.

“What’s going to happen when this is over?” Bern asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What will happen with you and Rogan once this emergency is over?”

“Then we’ll have to do the trials.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“What exactly is the question, Bern?”

“Once all of these crises are over, what will happen with you and Rogan? Will you move with him into his house? Will you commute to work? Are you planning to marry him? Do you want to marry him?”

Well, that was unexpected. “You’ve been hanging out with Grandma Frida for too long. Are you worried I might take advantage of Rogan’s virtue and shack up with him?”

“No, I’m worried that you have no plan. You’re not thinking about any of these things, and you need to figure them out, not for us, but for yourself. What is it you want?”

That part was easy. I wanted to wake up next to Rogan every morning. Sometimes he would be Connor, sometimes he would be Mad Rogan, and I was good with that. I loved all of him.

“I don’t know how it will turn out. I’m taking it one day at a time.”

“We’ll be fine,” Bern said. “You don’t need to worry about us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I checked the accounts. We have enough money to survive on for about ten months. Maybe a year if we stretch. With no new cases coming in.”

“I know that.”

“You don’t need to worry about money. We can wait on things like House security. Don’t jump into something because you think that the family needs things, because we’ve become a House.”

Thank you, Garen Shaffer. “It’s not like that. I love him, Bern. I mean that.”

“I was afraid of that,” he said quietly. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

“Thank you. Rogan won’t hurt me.”

“You weren’t there when he was watching you with Garen. His face was flat. Cold. He stood there, without an expression on his face, and twisted solid metal into bows like it was Play-Doh.”

“He didn’t prevent me from going to that dinner. He never asked me not to go. When Garen walked into my office, he didn’t storm over and try to throw him out. He put himself on a chain for my benefit, because as much as he wants to wrap me in bubble wrap and kidnap me to his lair, he knows I wouldn’t stand for it. He’s trying to make sure I see all choices available to us as an emerging House. As we were walking home, after he watched me and Garen, he told me one more time that from a genetic perspective, Garen was the better choice.”

“Is Garen the better choice?”

“No. Because I don’t love him. Even if love wasn’t a factor, I would choose Rogan over him. When we were naked and freezing in David Howling’s cistern, Rogan sacrificed himself for me. He fully expected to die. If Garen and I were in danger, and only one of us could make it, Garen would rationalize why he was the better choice to survive and leave me.”

“Just be careful, Nevada.”

It was too late for that. I was all in. “I will.”

The phone rang. An unfamiliar number. I accepted. “You’ve reached Nevada Baylor.”

“You wanted to talk,” a cultured female voice said. “I will meet you at Takara in fifteen minutes. If you do not show, I’ll know where we stand.”

The call ended.

“Was that . . . ?” Bern blinked.

“That was Victoria Tremaine.” When Linus Duncan made you a promise, he kept it. She’d picked Takara, the place where I often ate. It was a dig at me. See, I know where you eat and what you like to order. I have your whole life under surveillance.

I locked my jaw and took the exit.

“You can’t be serious,” Bern said.

“She tried twice and failed both times. She wants to talk, I’ll talk to her.”

“This isn’t wise.”

“If we don’t talk, she’ll just keep trying and we can’t afford that. Eventually the girls and Leon have to go to school. We have to live normal lives. Our House status will protect us, but she’s determined. I don’t want her throwing wrenches into it.”

“How do you know it’s safe?”

“Because Linus Duncan arranged it. Do you want me to drop you off?”

“No.” Bern pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Bug. I want to know what we’re driving into. I want him to get eyes on the restaurant, and I want him to get us some backup.”

Takara served as our go-to sushi place when we wanted a treat. Its listing said Asian Fusion, which in their case meant authentic Japanese cuisine and bulgogi on the menu. A quiet place, furnished in rich tones of brown and green with elegant but comfortable décor. When Rogan invited me to our first lunch, I decided to meet him there, because Takara sat right in the middle of a large shopping plaza off I-10 that had everything from Toys “R” Us and Academy Sports, to Olive Garden and H-E-B, the trademark Texas grocery store. Nonstop traffic, lots of people, and very little privacy. The perfect place to meet someone you don’t trust.