Page 88 of Your Every Wish
Emma’s eyes are wet with tears. “He must’ve known he was dying even while the feds were closing in on him.” She grabs my hand. “In the end, he realized he did wrong by us and wanted to make amends. He loved us, Kennedy.”
I won’t let myself be moved by him. By anyone. All my life people have let me down. Even Madge. As far as I’m concerned, Willy’s attempt to try to absolve himself is nothing more than pathetic. “Too little, too late. And what does it even mean? He had to send some idiotic AI-generated riddle? Just tell us where the damn bag is.”
“I don’t think the riddle is about the bag. I think Misty mistook the golf bag for the metaphor.” Emma returns to the riddle, “ ‘Tucked away with care, in a bag that’s always there. Providing funds for the game, my presence, you can’t disclaim. ’ The bag represents Cedar Pines. He’s saying if we take care of the park it’ll take care of us. ‘In the shade of towering pines, a cedar stands tall.’ That’s his reference to Cedar Pines Estates. It’s got to be.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “Why go to all the trouble of hiding a poem in the wall if all he’s telling us is something we already know? It was in his living trust, for God’s sake. His lawyer made all the arrangements. So why all this cloak-and-dagger shit? He’s got to be trying to tell us where the money is, and he covered his tracks in case the FBI found his encrypted message before we did. It’s a code within a code.”
“I’m with Kennedy on this,” Liam says. “Now, we have to solve the riddle.”
Misty grabs the pad away from Emma. “The stacks. Here, look.” She points to the line that says, “Beneath the dry stacks where courts reside, my gift to my neglected daughters is tucked inside.” “How many times have I said it’s inside the stacks?”
Emma and I exchange glances. It’s true, she’s said it multiple times. What’s the likelihood that it’s coincidence? None, if you ask me.
“But what the hell does ‘dry stacks’ mean?” I direct the question at Misty.
“And what is ‘courts’?” Emma turns to Liam. “Do you think he means something about the Justice Department and his case?”
“Let me see it.” He takes the notebook from Misty and examines the riddle for a long time. “I’m stumped.”
“Should we show it to Azriel?” Emma says.
Liam shakes his head. “This isn’t really in his wheelhouse.”
“That’s because it’s ridiculous. Seriously, who does something like this? If he’s trying to hide money from the FBI why would we be any better at figuring this out”—I pull the notebook away from Liam and wave it in the air—“than they would? He’s just fucking with us from the grave.”
“He bought Cedar Pines Estates under a limited liability corporation,” Emma reminds me. “The FBI or the Justice Department might not know about it. But we do. Perhaps he’d hoped that we would get to the money first.”
“Then why not tell Townsend to simply tell us where the money is? Or better yet, just leave us the money in his will and have Townsend write us a check, like a normal person.” To be this close and still as clueless as when we first started is making me want to break things.
The room goes silent, and Emma gives me a pointed stare. We all get exactly what she isn’t saying. “That’s something we need to consider. Even if we find the money, we may not be able to keep it.”
“I’m keeping it. He owes us, Emma. This is our rightful inheritance.”
“What Emma is trying to say is—”
“I know what Emma is saying, Liam. I don’t need an interrupter. I need that money.”
“Kennedy”—Emma takes my hand—“that money could land you in worse trouble than you’re already in.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” What else am I going to do? I’ve got Brock Sterling breathing down my neck, my career on the line, my future at stake. A little dirty money seems the lesser of those three evils.
“Misty, are you seeing anything that could help?” Liam asks. “Do you think if you took some time, you could pinpoint what the stacks refer to ? It seems important.”
“All I can do is try.”
Unfortunately, she appears to be our only hope. God save us.
* * *
I’ve spent the last two days dodging calls from Madge. I just don’t have the wherewithal to deal with her. There’s nothing new to tell her and at the rate we’re going we may never find the money. Emma and I have read Willy’s riddle two hundred times between us and still can’t make sense of it. In fact, it gets more confusing every time we read it. Okay, we all agree that “In the shade of towering pines, a cedar stands tall, its presence defines” represents Cedar Pines Estates. Willy is telling us that the bag is somewhere here. But the part that flummoxes us time and time again is the line about the golf bag (at least according to our loose interpretation, it’s the golf bag) being buried in the “dry stacks, where courts reside.” What does that even mean?
Short of turning over every plot of dirt in the park—and maybe every trailer, too—where do we even start?
“I’m going for a run,” I yell to Emma, who’s still in her room either talking to Dex, who calls as often as Madge now, or doling out advice to the pitiful.
I do a few stretches before starting off. The upside of moving here, if there is an upside, is that I’ve gotten into pretty good shape. I’m up to three miles without breaking a sweat. Okay, it’s been in the low fifties, too cold to break a sweat. But at least I’m not doubling over and gasping for breath, like the first few times I ran the loop. That’s what I’ve taken to calling it. The loop. It’s the trail that goes from our trailer, past Liam’s to the creek, then past Rondi’s and the Bird Man of Alcatraz’s, to the clubhouse. If I’m not ambushed by the canasta ladies, who try to peg me down on when I’m going to fix the toilet and the leaky roof, I circle back past the bocce ball courts, past the tennis courts and the stinky pond until I wind up at the creek again. Then back the way I came.
It’s unbelievably scenic, despite the park’s state of disrepair. And the air never ceases to amaze me. Today, it smells like rain, coppery and earthy. I’ve never been what you would call an outdoorsy person, but here I find that I look for every opportunity to be in nature. Then again, I’d probably enjoy the fires of hell if it meant getting me out of that trailer.
