The agents had led the three KGC members away in handcuffs. The sight of criminals in handcuffs—two of them obviously injured—and several men in combat gear had caused no small stir among the tourists. Many had taken pictures of this unique addition to their vacation.
Now Mac and Charley and the rest of the group sat on the broad porch of the assistant lighthouse keeper’s house, enjoying the warm sunshine and watching the tourists as they made their way to and from the lighthouse. They were nursing sodas, although Mac held the icy bottle to her eyebrow, and Charley held his to his swollen lip. There seemed to be no animosity between them, and they sat with their chairs side by side, comfortable in their proximity.
“Bill,” Mac began as she tried to organize her thoughts. “I’m still not quite sure what just happened. How did you know Consuelo was an FBI agent?”
Bill sat back on the bench and put an arm around his wife. “I knew Consuelo from my days as an LA cop. She used to work undercover down there, and we had a couple of occasions to work together. When I showed up at Driftwood Shores, we recognized each other immediately. She was quick though. Actually, her real name is Rose. Her undercover name was Consuelo, so when she introduced herself as Consuelo and did it in Spanish, that let me know she was working undercover.”
Jasmine turned toward him. “Why didn’t you tell the rest of us? We wouldn’t have told anybody.”
“I didn’t know what she was working on and didn’t have the opportunity to ask. Besides, I figured it was none of my business. Never even thought it might have anything to do with us. So I didn’t see any need, and if I had, even though you wouldn’t have told anybody, no matter how hard you tried, you would have treated her differently, which would have amounted to basically the same thing. When you’re working undercover, it’s important that you stay basically invisible. The last thing you need is someone treating you differently than they should.” He shrugged. “I had to stay away from her just so I wouldn’t treat her differently.”
“So how did she get involved?” Mac asked.
“When Charley called,” Bill began.
“Charley called?” She turned to look at Charley. “You called Bill?” The accusation was barely hidden. What she wanted to say was, Why didn’t you call me?!
“I called Grandpa. It was the only number I had memorized,” he explained. “I had no idea how long I’d been in that cavern.” Charley shook his head, looking at the floor. “Even after I was able to break the lock on the gate—”
“What gate?”
He smiled softly. “Another story for another time. Anyway, when I finally got to the top of the stairs, when I finally found the stairs, and bumped my head against the floor of that room, it was kind of a comedy of errors between me feeling around in the dark to find the latch, convincing the people in the room that I wasn’t the ghost of the Gray Lady, and getting them to slide the bed away so I could get out. I was cold and wet and hadn’t eaten anything for a couple of days, so I was getting a little weak. When I finally got out, I was surprised and, I’ll admit, a little embarrassed, to find out it was a little after one in the morning. I asked to borrow a cell phone. The only relevant number I had memorized was Grandpa’s.” He looked around at all his friends. “You know how it is. I have everybody’s phone number programmed in my phone, but you don’t learn numbers; you just push the button.”
His gaze finally rested on Mac, who put her hand on his arm to reassure him it was okay, pleasantly surprised that, evidently, he felt some guilt in not calling her.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I expected him to be in Utah. I figured he could call the authorities here.” He grinned. “I was surprised and relieved, to say the least, to find out that all of you were here. He told me to sit tight and he would come up and get me.”
Peter picked up the narrative. “Of course, I had to trudge up the hill in the middle of the night and wake up Jack so I could borrow the rig to go get Charley. In the process, I woke up Bill too.”
“Good thing he did,” Bill intervened. “When I heard the story, I figured this whole mess was something the FBI should be aware of, and I happened to know an FBI agent in the area that I trusted. Rose had slipped me her emergency phone number, so I called her. Of course, she knew more of the story than any of us since the reason they were here was much the same reason we were. She came and picked up me and Peter, and we went up to meet Charley.”
“Wait a minute.” Mac looked between Bill and Peter. “So you knew Charley was okay last night?”
Bill nodded.
“Then why didn’t they just go arrest everybody last night? Why the little charade?”
“The FBI had been following Roxy and Miller and the KGC for some time. They even suspected they might have had something to do with the death of Charley’s parents. That’s why Rose was undercover. They had a pretty good idea what was going on, but they didn’t have enough evidence to convict anybody. They needed a confession.”
Mac sat silently, thinking through the events of the morning. She looked up at her grandfather. “That’s why it was so important that I invite Roxy along this morning.”
He nodded.
“But why didn’t you just tell me?”
He shrugged. “We considered that. Wanted to, but you needed to appear completely natural to Roxy.”
Mac turned to face Bill. “But I’m still not sure about the rest. How did Jack get the room, that particular room?”
Bill chuckled. “That part is easy. The management was more than happy to work with the FBI. The couple that was there, that helped Charley, received a full week’s stay free for vacating the room and agreeing to remain silent for another twelve hours. I knew where the latch was and how to open it because we were able see it once Charley had opened it from the other side.”
“And then the FBI just followed us down the stairs?”
Bill shook his head. “No. Rose and her team went down there with Charley last night and waited for us to arrive. They brought Charley some blankets and food and even prepared those lanterns we used so they would light easily. It was Miller and that other guy that followed us down the stairs.”
“Why did the FBI allow that other guy down there with that assault rifle?”
“They hadn’t planned on him, although if Obie hadn’t taken him down with the coins, he would have been shot in about another second or two.”
“And like Consuelo, er, Rose, I mean, said, thank goodness for bulletproof vests.”
“Amen to that.”
“So who built the passageway?” Jack asked.
“And who stole the money?” Jasmine added. “From Dimmick, I mean.”
Bill and Peter exchanged looks, and it was Peter who finally answered. “We don’t know. We can make a few guesses. The passageway would have to have been built early on, during or soon after the house was built. Haversham could have had something to do with it and possibly with stealing the money too. He obviously knew about both, but then the question remains, why did he write the poem instead of just taking the money?”
“Which reminds me,” Charley interrupted. “I need to return those coins in the safety deposit box to his great-granddaughter Mrs. Nelson down in Gardiner. My dad borrowed those coins from her originally, and that’s where we discovered the poem, which I think pretty much ties Haversham to the theft of the coins in the first place. My question, though, is who killed Haversham?”
“You think somebody killed him?”
“There’s no other reason for him to be nosing around the entrance to that sea cave.”
Peter sat back in his chair. “Those are questions we’ll probably never be able to answer.”
They sat in silence, enjoying the sunshine. After a few moments, Mac, who still rested her hand on Charley’s forearm, turned to him. “Charley, I feel the need to tell you something. Something very personal.”
Charley, who had been thinking that maybe now he and Mac might be able to begin exploring a deeper relationship, was a bit startled. He could feel the butterflies begin to churn in his stomach. He solemnly turned to meet her gaze.
“Charley,” she said earnestly, “you really stink. You need to get back to the house and get a shower.”