“Then maybe we leave them here. If no one’s found them by now, they’re not looking. Plus, these could be nothing.”
“Marj, things hidden underneath floorboards aren’t usually nothing.”
He had a valid point. “Anything else down there?”
“Yeah, hold on. It’s like a box or something. I may need to remove another board.” He jammed the crowbar back into a seam to remove the hidden staples, and soon another board sat next to the first one on the floor. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Do you h
ave a handkerchief or something?”
“I’ve never carried a handkerchief in my life, Bryce.”
“A tissue. Anything.”
I grabbed my purse and pulled out a small package of tissues. “Here.”
He removed one and then pulled a gun out of the floor. “I don’t want my prints on anything here,” he said. Then he pulled out another gun. And another.
“Three?” I gasped.
“That I’ve found so far.” He pulled out a metal box secured with a combination lock. “I’m guessing there are more in here.”
“Is that all?”
“Joe and I used to sleep in this room.” His voice sounded like an echo.
“I know. It’s okay.”
“All this time…”
“We don’t know what’s in those files, what’s in that box.”
“We sure as hell know these are guns.”
I said nothing. I certainly couldn’t dispute him. “That’s not really anything, though, right? You and Joe used to shoot with your dad.”
“Yeah. But we didn’t hide our guns under floorboards.”
I exhaled slowly. “If you don’t think the stuff is safe at the guesthouse, we can still leave it here.”
“And risk someone getting in here and taking it?” He shook his head. “No way.”
“Bryce, the case is closed. Your father and the other two are dead. The compound in the Caribbean is shut down. The victims were freed. It’s over. If they were looking at this cabin, they’d have already found this stuff.”
He looked above me, as if staring into some distance that wasn’t actually there in this small room.
“Bryce?”
“It’s not over, Marjorie. Not by a long shot.”
“If you’re talking about Colin and Ted Morse—”
“I’m not talking about them. At least not just about them.”
I gulped. “What are you talking about, then?”