There were Christmas lights stringing the docks in Darkhaven Harbor when Doyle and I took the boat back to the island, but none when we approached the dock at Darkhaven. I hesitated before climbing out, thinking back to when I’d first arrived, with friendly Officer Brant, and the first meeting with Mrs. MacLeod.
She’d be spending her golden years in jail, fortunately, for going along with Simon’s drugging me and who knew what else. He’d glossed over the details of my paternity, promised her money, and just like 99 percent of people, that was all it took. I hoped the prison cafeteria served nothing but meat loaf and stew for her entire sentence.
Doyle touched my gloved hand with his. “You okay?”
His arm was still in a sling, his wool coat only draped on one side, and he shivered a little. I pulled him close so he wouldn’t get too cold. “Are you?”
“My dad got charged with accessory to murder, most of the rest of my family are in jail thanks to the state police swarming all over the island and finding their stash, you almost died saving my life near this very spot, and I’m headed back to the manor of a psychopath who drugged and killed people for fun,” Doyle said. “I’m fan-freaking-tastic.”
“You saved my life too,” I reminded him. “If you hadn’t attacked Simon, we’d be turning into skeletons number five and six in that creepy cave.”
Doyle grinned at me. His bruises had entirely faded, and he looked happier, less like he was carrying weight on him, than he had in the time I’d known him. I guessed putting your abusive asshole father in jail had that effect on a person.
Simon had been buried in the state-run cemetery near Thomaston. I didn’t go to the interment. I’d said everything to him that I needed to say.
Before we went up to the manor, I drove past it to the little cemetery, and I put a wreath next to Mom’s grave. I didn’t say anything to her either, but I figured once I’d had another month or two to process everything that I could come back. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere, not this time.
“Nice,” Doyle said. I shook my head.
“Mom hated Christmas, and wreaths, and anything sentimental,” I said. “So this would have totally pissed her off.”
Doyle stuck close to me as we went back to the manor, turned on a few lights, and headed out the rear door to the beach steps. The railing had been repaired, blond two-by-fours where the rotten old railing had been, complete with a new sign that read: Dangerous Cliff—Stay Back 10 Feet.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said as I carefully brought out Mom’s velvet-wrapped tarot deck.
I shuffled until I found the Devil card and held it up. “This was so Mom,” I said. The cards were all dog-eared and worn from decades of use, and I slid my thumbnail into the crease at the corner, peeling the two thin layers of card stock apart. Inside, on vellum paper so thin it was transparent, sat a tiny folded map. In all the questions from the cops after we’d made it to the mainland, the meetings with Simon’s lawyer, all the papers I’d signed to be the legal owner of the property on Darkhaven when I turned eighteen, I’d kept this to myself.
“We absolutely do have to do this,” I said to Doyle. “After everything we’ve been through, I am not just leaving this tunnel thing alone.” We took the steps down, and I flinched when I saw the dark bloodstains on the two steps where Simon and Liam Ramsey had gone down. This time, I’d brought lanterns and a satellite phone and everything else I could think of that we might need for exploring bootlegger tunnels and possibly finding a cache of loot hidden by my ancestor.
The map branched off from the tidal cave, through a sliver in the rock so small you couldn’t see it unless you knew to be looking for an opening. It was deceptive, though, a sort of L-shaped atrium to a network of dry, carefully excavated tunnels, and it didn’t take long, following the turns on Connor’s map, to find the small hollow at the end of the chain.
Doyle shone his lamp inside. There was a crooked stack of chests and crates in one corner, a pyramid of wine casks that looked like they were probably as old as the house, and a lot of odds and ends from centuries of occupation.
I put my hand on the lid of the top chest. Doyle gave me a grin. “Ready to be rich for real?”
“I’m ready to figure out what Simon was willing to kill me over,” I said, and flipped the lid.
It was empty. I opened the next, and the next. A dozen chests and as many crates, all empty. The only thing that wasn’t broken and used up was the wine and a small stack of spare bricks, piled in the corner along with other odds and ends from mansion construction—sheet metal, old tiles, boards eaten up with dry rot.
I waved away the ancient dust, sneezed, and started to laugh. “All of that, and it’s all gone,” I said. “I guess Simon was more right than he knew.”
“So Connor Bloodgood was as much of a grifter as his descendants,” Doyle said, also starting to laugh. I choked on the dust and picked up the flashlight.
“Let’s get the hell out of here. And maybe chuck one of those bricks through a window before we go.”
Doyle laughed. “Can’t blame a con for doing what comes naturally.”
I hefted one of the bricks. “Heavy,” I said, surprised at the weight. “Maybe I can sell these on eBay or something.” I dropped the brick back on the stack, and then started at the dull metallic thud. The red-brown outer layer of the brick flaked off where it had hit, and something gleamed underneath. Doyle’s breath caught.
“Ivy,” he said, scrambling to hand me his pocketknife. My hands were vibrating with excitement as I scraped away the thin layer of clay, the shimmer of silver reflecting my flashlight beam around the tiny room.
There were thirty silver bars in all, heavy and handmade, the spoils of Connor Bloodgood’s life melted down and hidden away for the future. They wouldn’t make me manor rich—private island rich—but they’d definitely pay for a couple of plane tickets to San Francisco. An apartment. Even college, if I wanted it. I could stop, and live, and be normal. If I still wanted to take off, given that I did, after all, have something holding me in Maine.
We locked up the manor and drove back to the dock, silver weighing down our backpacks. I cast off the lines while Doyle started the engine. I was getting pretty good at knowing my way around boats, and once some snow fell and things got quaint and festive, Maine wasn’t so bad. Valerie’s mom was letting me live with them while I finished out the year, Officer Brant had let Doyle move in with him in town, and neither of us had to go into a foster home, so in my book that was as happy as an ending got. Betty and I went to movies almost every weekend, and I’d even let her talk me into playing “Girl on the Beach” in one of her own works, so she could build up a reel to apply to film school.
And there was Doyle. He held my hand with his good one while I steered us out into the bay, and gave me a smile when I looked over at him. I could see myself with him, at least for a longer time than I’d ever seen myself with anyone, anywhere. Darkhaven had felt temporary. Doyle didn’t.
I looked back once at the looming manor house, the crooked light tower, the stark gray cliffs. If I never saw the place again, it would be too soon. The creditors could have it, sell it to pay the family debts. I’d been poor when I walked onto the island, and I didn’t need all the trappings I’d found there. The little bit left of Connor’s fortune would help me take my first step as an adult, but I didn’t need money in the visceral, desperate way Simon had. For a long time, I’d convinced myself I didn’t need anything.
But that wasn’t true anymore. I opened up the throttle, and the boat skipped over the waves, aimed back toward the mainland, and the first place I’d felt like I could maybe settle in my entire life. San Francisco was still out there, no longer an end goal but a new chapter. After that . . . I really could do anything I wanted.
Doyle smiled at me, and I smiled back. He put his arm around me, and for the first time I stood on my toes and kissed him, quick, tasting salt on his lips. He leaned in, and we stayed close, arms around each other as the lights of the mainland got closer. I didn’t know if I’d stay in Maine forever; I didn’t know if I’d get together with Doyle officially, and, if I did, if I’d stay with him beyond the end of the school year. I didn’t know if I’d go to college or even if I’d be on the track team next year. But for the first time in seventeen years, I knew I could stay in one place long enough to find out.