Dangerous Tease (The Layton Family 3)

“I thought yoga was supposed to make you more limber?”

“I'm sure it is, but I don't do yoga. I just said that to bust that young man's chops. He always did get riled quick. I think it's because they treated him with kid gloves after Michael died.”

“Who's Michael?”

Uncle Harlan made a thch-thch-thch sound and shook his head. “Sad story that is. The boy died so young. Sam never was the same after.”

“You need to stop talking right now.” Sam stood in the doorway, clad only in jeans, his forehead deceptively smooth considering the venom in his tone.

Uncle Harlan pursed his lips and shook his head. “There's nothing you could have done to save Michael. It's about time you accepted that.” His stance softened and the flush drained out of his cheeks as quickly as it had appeared. “Even if you'd found it, the money couldn't have helped him.”

A powerful silence descended, pushing down on Josie's shoulders like an unbearable weight. She'd gotten lost in a family drama that had been playing out for years with no resolution.

If Sam noticed the tension, he refused to acknowledge it. He stood as silent and solid as a statue, his face a mask of banality, giving no clue as to his emotions at the moment.

A chastened Uncle Harlan stepped forward, closing the gap between the two men to an arm's length. “Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”

“If you leave right now, I won't tell anyone you're here.”

“Sammy—”

“Just go.”

Uncle Harlan sighed and walked toward the door, pausing to rest his hand on Sam's shoulder. The men stood in the quiet for a few heartbeats, neither speaking nor moving.

The elder Layton gave Sam a quick pat and cleared his throat. “Well then, I'll be seeing you next Thanksgiving.”

When Sam didn't say anything, Uncle Harlan flashed Josie an apologetic smile and brushed past her and out the door. The subsequent click of the front door announced he'd left.

Josie looked around at the office's disarray. Papers were scattered everywhere. A stack of books had been knocked to the floor. For most people, this would be a bit more than daily wear and tear, but for Sam's house it equated to disaster-level carnage.

As if unsure about what to do next, Sam trudged to the desk and pushed at the papers on the floor with the tips of his bare toes. “Michael was my twin brother. He died of leukemia when we were twelve.”

“Oh God, I'm so sorry.”

“I spent an entire summer before he died searching for Rebecca's Bounty, convinced that if I could just find the treasure, we'd have enough money for some magical miracle cure because the treatment he was getting wasn't doing a damn thing anymore.” He kept his back to her, misery thickening the natural bass of his voice. “I climbed that stupid bluff every day. Hank, Chris and Claire came with me in the beginning, but by the end of the summer it was just me searching. I must have touched every square inch of limestone, crawled into every crevice and cried on every rock at McPherson's Bluff. Michael died, but I never stopped looking. Ever. If someone was meant to find Rebecca's Bounty, don't you think I would have found it by now?”

Josie took a tentative step toward him, her chest tight. “Sam, what happened with Michael, it wasn't fair but it wasn't your fault.”

But Sam wasn't listening to her anymore. Like a man suffering from shell shock, he stared past her, unblinking, confronting whatever demon only he could see. Tension turned his flesh to steel and he clenched his jaw so tightly, Josie worried he'd break something.

Wanting to ease his pain, Josie crossed to him. When he didn't brush off her nearness, she stepped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her face against his bare back. They stood intertwined like that for several

minutes, until his erratic breathing calmed under her damp cheek. He unwound himself from her embrace and stepped to the other end of the large desk. An all-to-familiar emptiness took the place of his warm body.

“Harlan took it.” Sam's shoulders slumped as he gazed into an empty cigar box in the middle of his once pristine desk. “I had hoped, for once, to be wrong.”

“The map? It's gone?”

“Only a copy of a fake. I figured if someone came looking, they wouldn't stick around here to confirm its authenticity.” All of the anger he'd suppressed burst to the surface in a howl of frustration. “You. Harlan. Who's next to use me because of Rebecca's Bounty? I've been looking for that damn treasure for my entire life. I've wasted years trying to it, to fill some missing part of me. Not anymore.”

He flung open a file cabinet and tossed out papers in such quantity the sheaves flew around him in a tornado of fury. Next, he attacked one of the book shelves, chucking worn books to the ground.

Josie slunk back to the doorway as he continued his path of destruction. Who knew better than her the pain of betrayal? God, what had she done?

Sam paced the length of his home office, running his fingers through his hair and grumbling about false hope and crazy relatives. He'd had enough. No more searching or failed attempts to fix the past. Uncle Harlan was right about one thing. Finding Rebecca's Bounty wouldn't do a damn thing to bring back Michael.

Just as his invectives slowed from a flood to a trickle, something sharp jabbed the arch of his bare foot and pain shot up his leg. He hopped awkwardly on the uninjured foot until he could lean against his desk. Holding his bum foot in one hand, he peered down at the diamond-shaped gold pin piercing his tender flesh.