Page 11 of Ruthless Riches
I glanced up at him. “Do you think we should start looking into it?” I asked in a tentative tone.
His shoulders tightened as he considered my question. I knew he wanted to dig into the case, try to find all the answers, but at the same time he also wanted to keep me safe.
“Are you ready for that?” he finally asked.
I nodded. “It’s already all I think about, so I might as well focus my time and energy on something useful.”
“Okay.” He took a slow sip of his coffee, brows dipping low on his forehead. “Where do you think we should start?”
“The Avalon tunnels,” I said right away. They’d been on my mind a lot lately. I knew the police thought the Butcher was using them to get around the island without being seen, but they hadn’t actually found any evidence to support that theory so far. I was sure it was out there somewhere, though. They just weren’t looking in the right place.
“You want to search the tunnels?” Nate asked, cocking his head.
“No. I think the police already did that.” I leaned forward, folding my arms on the table. “The thing is, though… there are so many tunnels on the island. I Googled it ages ago, just out of interest, and it’s practically a labyrinth down there. It makes me wonder if there’s something the police missed. Like some old tunnels that aren’t on the maps, or something like that.”
Nate nodded slowly. “You could be right, but how would we find out without searching down there for weeks? Maybe even months.”
“I’m not sure,” I said, forehead creasing.
Nate took another sip of coffee. Then he straightened his spine. “I might have an idea.”
“Oh?”
He leaned forward. “Remember your whole breaking and entering stage?”
I felt a blush creeping over my cheeks again. “Yes. Why?”
“You seemed to know your way around a lot of the places. Including this one,” he said, gesturing to the mansion around us. “How did you get the layouts?”
“The Avalon Historical Society. I told them I was a student doing a project on historical architecture in Arcadia Bay, and they let me look at old mansion blueprints. They have them because most of the estates around here are heritage-listed.”
Nate tilted his chin slightly to one side. “Do you think they might have old maps of the tunnels?” he asked. “Ones that show stuff that the current maps don’t?”
I sat up straight, face brightening. “Yeah, they might. Good idea.”
“Should we go and ask?”
“Definitely.”
I finished my coffee in one mouthful and followed Nate outside. Winter had well and truly arrived on the island, and chunks of frost crunched like sugar beneath our feet as we headed toward his car. Dark clouds scudded through the air, and the once-blue ocean had turned choppy and gray.
The Avalon Historical Society was in the center of Avalon City, attached to the main public library. The building was made of bone-white marble surrounded on all sides by Corinthian colonnades and topped with a slate-gray trapezoidal roof.
After we’d parked in the nearest available space, I waited on the sidewalk while Nate went to get a ticket for the car.
A creeping feeling that I was being watched suddenly started at my neck, working its way down my spine. I looked around, trying to figure out if the feeling was just a result of paranoia or if someone was actually looking my way.
The street was packed with people, but no one seemed to be paying attention to me. They all seemed busy, rushing off to work or appointments.
“You okay?” Nate asked when he returned from the ticket machine.
I gave the street another once-over. I still couldn’t see anyone looking at me. “I’m fine,” I said, giving Nate a faint smile. “Let’s go.”
A bell tinkled over our heads as we opened the Historical Society’s front door and stepped inside. A gray-haired woman with friendly hazel eyes and a name badge that said ‘Edith’ appeared at the counter a moment later. I recognized her from the last time I visited, and she seemed to recognize me too.
“Alexis! Nice to see you,” she said, eyes crinkling around the corners as she smiled at me. “How did your thesis turn out?”
I returned her smile. “It went really well. I’m working on something new now, and I’ve roped my boyfriend into helping me with it,” I said, gesturing toward Nate.
