Page 84 of If Anything Happens To Me

“No way,” I said. “I’m never taking this one off. Sailor’s knot. It symbolizes . . .”

“Us,” he said, smiling. “It symbolizes us.”

“It does,” I said.

He leaned forward, and every inch of my body shimmered because I was sure he was going to kiss me. Then a group of police officers walked into the parking lot and stood a few feet from the Jeep—not paying attention to us, just talking and laughing. But we felt self-conscious, so we both smiled and pulled apart.

And then Matt shifted into drive.

And we headed out of the parking lot and left the police barracks in the rearview mirror as he drove me home.

When I got home, Noreen was sleeping but Gram was sitting on the sofa, her memoir notebook in her hands. I rushed over to hug her.

“Hi, Oli,” she said, as if nothing was wrong.

She had hardly noticed I had been gone, but that’s just how she was now. She never had found that note I’d left her, and neither had Noreen. All this time, they must have thought I’d just gone away with my bird-watching friends or something.

I found the note where I had left it, and I reread what I had written:

IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME . . .

And so much had happened.

In a way I was glad Gram didn’t know it all.

And, in another way, I knew that what had happened to me was as much a part of her story as it was mine. My grandmother had stepped up as soon as Eloise and I had needed her. She became both our mother and father—while keeping our parents’ memories alive for us. I knew she would have done anything she could to protect Eloise and me from Fitch.

Yes, Gram. A few things happened to me.

I set those thoughts aside, but I knew I would return to them soon.

***

Detective Tyrone had said that I liked to figure things out, and she was right. There was still a lot to unravel.

I texted with Iris and Hayley many times a day. They were so happy to be reunited with their parents, and all the kitties in the Cat Castle. It felt weird to have been so close, to have been through life and death with them, and to now live in separate states, over an hour away from each other.

Minerva came to visit me, and I had questions for her about the gold charms I had found attached to the panels. In those desperate moments, I had thought maybe Minerva had put the charms there, that they were part of a bizarre family ritual—like Fitch spreading gold dust over his victims.

“That’s not it at all,” Minerva said. “I’m sorry you had doubts, but I can understand it. Everything was happening so fast, and it took ages for me to get back to the Miramar.”

“What kept you?” I asked.

“That brochure,” she said. “I was racing around trying to find it. I ran into Matt outside the library, and that’s when we put everything together. I headed straight back to the hotel, following Matt. But by the time I got to the front porch, Daphne didn’t know where you’d gone.”

“Up to the attic,” I said. “Fitch drugged me and took me up there.”

“That’s where Iris thought he’d probably taken you,” Minerva said. “I managed to find both Matt and Iris, and together we started planning how to help you all. Of course Daphne had no idea what Fitch was up to, but she had lived in the Miramar so long, she knew a few secrets about it. She told us about the crack in the hurricane window, and she helped us figure out which room Fitch was most likely using to sleep in and keep his surveillance equipment. My job was to distract Fitch in the hallway once he realized Matt wasn’t on his side.”

“And that Matt and I had disabled the cameras,” I said.

She nodded.

“Sometimes I think we could have just overpowered him,” I said. “Tackled him when he came rushing through the door. With Hayley and Abigail, it would have been four against one.”

“But your instincts told you not to, right?” Minerva asked.

“They must have,” I said. “Because all I knew was that we had to break that window and get down the fire escape, away from him, as fast as we could.”

---