But it was too late. He was gone.
Keene denied knowing anything of the treasure or the train robbery. He was in it only to ruin Rolls-Royce. The saddest part that night was having to tell Reggie’s wife, Elizabeth, of all that had transpired, once she’d arrived.
Her stoic expression, as she listened, nearly broke me. A tear slipped down her cheek. “Where is he?”
We stood aside. Her breath caught. She walked over, looked down at him, sank to her knees and called him a fool. “Why?”
Her ragged whisper tore through me. I put my hand on her shoulder, but she pushed me away, then started out.
Miss Atwater held out the sheets of music to her. “Your husband wanted you to have these,” she said.
Elizabeth took the music, looked over each page in disgust, tossed it all into the Grey Ghost. “Music won’t feed my child,” she said.
“Mrs. Oren,” Isaac Bell called out as she started to walk off. “I’m very sorry for your loss. But if you know where the stolen money is . . .”
“If my husband took any money, he failed to tell me about it. So, please. Allow me to take my leave. I need to return to my son.”
And though I insisted she was welcome to stay at Payton Manor, she refused. I fear she blamed me for her husband’s death. Perhaps she was right. The next day, she took her son and left, with naught but the clothes they wore. For weeks after, we searched the Grey Ghost, the warehouse, and Payton Manor, thinking that a half million dollars would be difficult to hide, but we never located any sign of the missing money. And this despite Mr. Bell’s assurances, his last words to us being “You’ll find it.”
85
The five of them listened, transfixed, as Trevor related what he recalled from the last journal entry.
“No doubt about it,” Sam said, “the sheet music is the clue. Maybe the notes are a code. Has anyone ever really looked at it since it was found?”
“The music?” Oliver asked. “I wouldn’t even know the first place to look. We could try to ask Uncle Albert, I’m just not sure it would do any— I say, Fargo. Didn’t Uncle Albert say something about your mother and my father finding the music back when?”
“He did at that.” Sam checked the time, took out his phone, and called his mother. He turned it on speaker so that everyone could hear.
“Sam? Is everything okay? How’s Albert?”
“He’s fine. Everyone’s fine,” he said. His mother had been upset with him for waiting so long to tell her about everything that had happened—until he’d explained about the hacking. He’d insisted that he would’ve called her earlier, except he was worried that she’d end up getting hacked, too. He wasn’t sure if she believed him and started right in with the question, hoping she wouldn’t think to belabor the point. “Albert was telling us about how you and his brother found the sheet music in the Gray Ghost that was mentioned in the journal.”
“Sheet music?” Several seconds ticked by, then she laughed. “That was so long ago, I’d almost forgotten. We used to play detectives. Something about a treasure we were going to find, and the music was a clue.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“The treasure?”
“The music.”
She laughed again. “It was falling apart when we found it all those years ago. I expect it ended up in the trash, at some point.”
“Did you get a good look at it?”
“Decades ago. Hold on . . .” She must have muted the call, as it went silent. A few seconds later, she was back on the line. “Just saying good-bye to my afternoon charter. Now, what is it you’re hoping I saw?”
“Anything. Something written on it. Notes circled.”
“If there was, it had faded by the time we found it.” She started humming a somewhat off-key but familiar tune. “‘Come away with me, Lucille . . .’”
“‘In My Merry Oldsmobile’?” Sam and Remi asked together.
“That’s the song!” she said. They heard a muffled noise, as though she were covering over the receiver. A moment later, she was back. “Hate to cut it short, but I need to return to my guests.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Sam smiled at Remi. “Reggie’s version of a message in a bottle to his wife?”
“Except the car’s been searched,” she said.