Page 58 of Once a Hero

“Let me help.” John Doe was quick on his toes. He took off his glove and reached into Beatrice’s pocket, moving in an excruciatingly slow manner.

It made Jake’s blood boil.

Beatrice remained calm, as if a snake was crawling over her.

John Doe produced the brooch.

Under the lamp, it looked like the same brooch that Philomena had tried to give Jake at the café in San Francisco before she was murdered by coffee.

Did this confirm that Beatrice or her team had stolen the brooch off Jake’s table?

“I could take this from you and kill you and keep everything to myself and my team,” Oswald said.

“If you ask me to choose between my life and the Amber Room, I would tell you that I’d rather live. I value my life more than all the treasures on Earth.”

“Oh so philosophical.” John Doe stood awfully close to Beatrice.

“I’m being realistic.”

“You are so unlike your mother, then. She’s idealistic, not realistic.” Oswald thumbed the three-amber brooch.

“Be careful,” Beatrice said. “She’ll cut off your head like a praying mantis.”

Oswald laughed. “And you wouldn’t?”

“I told you we’re not related. Otherwise why would she want to kill me? Would a mother kill her own child?”

Barring insanity, Jake thought.

He was impressed that Beatrice had put Oswald at ease. Maybe she had taken acting classes in college.

Oswald put the three-amber brooch in his vest pocket. “You talk a good talk, lady, but you’re still going on the chopper.”

Jake listened but could not hear any helicopter blades. All was quiet beyond the sound of nature and impending doom.

Regardless, he did not want Beatrice to go.

“Before we go…” Oswald smiled. “You made a deal with Molyneux.”

Beatrice looked stunned. “What deal?”

“Which deal, you mean?” Oswald extended his palm toward John Doe. The latter handed him the dagger. “You get to have that cup of tea with Molyneux if you kill Grady here—also known as Jake Kessler.”

Beatrice’s knees went weak. John Doe held her up by her arm.

“Just take this pointy end and push it into his chest.”

“No.” Beatrice shook her head.

“The deal is sealed. The chopper comes and you go.”

Jake tried to read Beatrice’s face, but in the waning light he couldn’t make out what she might be thinking.

Somewhere, he heard a distant sound of…drones?

Sure enough, two drones appeared above them.

“This is the Eureka Bay Police!” The loud voice came through the loudspeakers attached to the drones.

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