Page 63 of Blurred Lines

"Maybe we missed something," Finn says stubbornly. "Caeleb, do you think this could have anything to do with that night in the vineyards?"

Again, a fresh ripple of unease goes up my spine. Is Emily leaving my fault? Did someone threaten her.

I open and close my mouth before shaking my head like a fish out of water. "I don't know," I admit miserably. "Maybe it is. Maybe this is all my fault."

Silas is beside me in an instant. He drops his arm on my shoulder. "No, it's not. If something happened, she could have come to us. We told her that we'd stand by her no matter what, that this—her—" He stops talking and shakes his other hand in the air.

I know what he's trying to say. Emily had become our cross to bear, and we would have done it willingly. We loved her.

We still do.

Silas paces back and forth, his movements a physical manifestation of his inner turmoil. "We deserve better," he finally says, stopping to face us. "All of us. We can't let her do this to us. We move on. We focus on finding out what her dad's letter was about, get to the bottom of this secret room nonsense, and then we close this chapter for good."

Finn nods, the resolve in his eyes mirroring Silas's. Our logic has worn him out. He's also fidgeting with his phone, which tells me he's tried texting Emily and heard nothing back. A surge of anger rises, fresh and hot in my chest. Emily could have done this differently. Hell, she's got a sister who's a detective. If her departure had something to do with that night, I'd have gone to hell and back to fix things.

That's kind of impossible when I have no fucking clue what's going on.

"She made her choice. It's time we make ours." Finn looks at me, seeking affirmation.

I take a deep breath, letting the reality of the situation sink in. Emily is gone, and pining after her, wondering about the whys and what-ifs, won't change that fact. "Alright," I agree, the decision feeling like a weight lifting, even if it's just slightly. "We've got a mystery to solve. Let's not give her the satisfaction of seeing us fall apart."

We gather our composure, tucking away the hurt and the betrayal, replacing it with a shared purpose. There's work to be done, secrets to uncover. We head inside the mansion, the door closing behind us with a definitive thud, a symbolic end to our pondering and a beginning to our renewed focus.

I'll be damned if I'm coming back to this mansion again. I have work to do in the vineyards, but I don't want to cross this threshold. So we finish what we need to, and we get out of here.

Sweat plasters my shirt to my back, the heat turning this whole treasure hunt into a miserable endurance test. Finn and Silas flank me as we approach the monstrosity that is Harvey's mansion.

"Remember," Finn mutters through gritted teeth, eyes scanning the overgrown gardens like we're enemy troops, "Harvey could've hidden that map anywhere."

"Yeah, well, the riddle sounds like we're staying outside," I mutter, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow. If there's one thing I hate, it's riddles as much as this damned humidity.

We split up, each of us claiming a wing of the mansion. One wrong move, and decades of searching for Harvey's alleged fortune could be wasted. Stepping through the massive front doors, I'm greeted by a cavernous entrance hall. Dust motes glitter in the faded sunlight streaming through a stained glass window, reflecting a weariness that mirrors my own

My boots click on the marble floors as I weave through the ground floor. Each room feels like a museum exhibit—grand pianos, oil paintings of people whose powdered wigs make me shiver, and enough gold leaf to sink a ship. I try doors, peer behind curtains, even crawl under a dusty divan, but there's no sign of a map, or anything resembling a clue.

"Any luck?" Silas hisses from the shadows of an archway.

I shake my head. "Place is a ghost town. Dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds, but no map."

"Kitchen?" Finn calls from somewhere down the hall. His voice is taut and a little too high-pitched. Even easygoing Finn can't hide his impatience.

We converge in the basketball court-sized kitchen. While Silas rummages through the pantry, I yank open the fridge and wince at how empty it is. What the hell was Emily eating? My stomach growls a protest. It was a bad move, tossing the picnic basket the way I did.

"Sandwiches anyone?" I offer, hauling out what I can from the fridge. "There's butter, lettuce, tomato—and, thank heavens, bread."

I try the freezer and manage to retrieve a scarce bit of bacon. Minutes later, our stomachs rumble as I finish whipping up three simple sandwiches.

We scarf down our food on the kitchen island, the hum of the fridge the only sound. Coffee—strong and black—washes away some of the fatigue, leaving behind a familiar tingle of determination.

"Alright, riddle time," Finn announces, crumpling his sandwich wrapper and tossing it into an overflowing bin. "Where did Harvey want to escape to?"

"Some tropical island," Silas suggests, kicking back on a stool. "Dude hated the cold."

"Nah, Harvey never said that, and the riddle doesn't mention beaches," I counter. "It's vague … something about shadows …"

Finn leans in, a fire in his eyes I haven't seen for months. "Remember how his old man died? The car wreck?"

Silas's eyes widen. "Dude, Harvey swore he'd never drive, hated cars."

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