Page 100 of In the Pursuit of Haven
Jessie held up his hands. “I’m not arguing, just shocked… very, very shocked.”
Sure, he was. And now to dodge these strangers, who seemed to be watching us closer than they should. It could really be nothing, but at the same time, they were making me paranoid. Jude held them captive with his lectures, and so whether he meant to or not, he was facilitating our escape from them both.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to Jessie.
Ducking our heads, we left the gift shop. The compass rose painted into the cobbled sidewalk in front of the iconic Bowditch home seemed to guide our way out as we dashed across the deserted street. The ongoing parade had cleared out historical downtown. We headed for a bakery, using the pillars to hide our retreat. “You think Jude’s a Shepherd of the Relics?” I asked Jessie.
“No… but those strangers who walked in after us? Maybe.”
He’d noticed them watching us too? Moving past the gift shops, we took a sharp left into an alleyway, glancing back. The redhead and her boyfriend had rushed out of the Witch Museum after us. They circled the premises like modern day witch hunters searching out their prey.
Yeah, I was also suspicious of them… and Jude. He was related to the Crowninshields and they had definitely been into this treasure, no matter how he tried to play it off that they weren’t!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Ithought Shepherds of the Relics were supposed to be locals!” I cried out over the noise of the boat’s engine. We were on our way to Children’s Island. The wind blew my hair around, forcing me to throw my hood up and cinch it tightly.
“Maybe they are!” Jessie said. He drove us over the glistening silver water. “They could be from Andover or Beverly. I don’t know everybody over there.”
I sat down behind the windshield, searching around my pack for a pencil. It was time to get that number that Jude kept from us. Flattening the paper I’d stolen from the older man’s notepad against one of the books I’d packed, I ran my pencil lightly over the spot to expose the indentation left by Jude when he’d written in the number on the paper above it.
“What are you doing?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, I learned this one in kindergarten,” I said brightly. “I always wanted to be a spy.”
He guffawed. “You’re a little too honest for one, if you ask me.”
My cheeks burned at how badly I’d flubbed our interrogation earlier. “I’m just a bad liar… ask Bette Ann…”
And I shouldn’t bring her up after their run-in.Jessie stiffened at the mere mention of her.
Not able to do anything about those wedges that had been thrown between us, I concentrated on revealing that phone number Jude had written. One number appeared under my pencil and then another and another.
Yes! We had all ten digits. “It’s time to figure out who has Corwin’s cane,” I said. Hoping it was someone we knew or another museum, I dialed the number and let it ring until the call went to voicemail: “You reached me. I’ll call you back.”
My throat tightened when I recognized the voice. Even after my short acquaintance with the man, I knew exactly who I’d dialed. Hanging up without leaving a message, I turned to Jessie. “It’s Robert Corwin,” I said. “He got it back.”
Jessie groaned.
In a strange way, I was relieved that it wasn’t Hunter. And Robert, as much as I thought he was behind all this, at least had given me an “in.” He wanted to connect, but it would be a hard sell. “Robert said he wanted to talk to me earl—” I began.
“No.”
“We could—”
“No!” Jessie seemed shaken by the thought, but from past experience, I knew if I planted the seed in his head that he’d think he came up with the idea himself after a while. “We’ll figure something out,” he said, “something that doesn’t involve him murdering you. Let’s just get the rest of these Relics first.”
I leaned back against the bench seat, staring across the silvery waters. Children’s Island wasn’t too far from the peninsula, just a short jaunt from Pickering Wharf where the kids piled onto a ferry in the summers to enjoy day camp. Jessie came as a kid. His dad made the mistake of letting him watch too many slashers that took place in the wilds and so he’d been terrified, but the sweet camp counselors had quickly won him over.
“I got my ranger badge here,” Jessie said as we neared the familiar banks.
I broke out in a smile, desperate to patch up our earlier disagreements. “Ooh, what did you have to do for that?”
Letting out a laugh, Jessie circled the miniature island on the southeastern tip of Children’s Island, called Cormorant Rock. “Let’s see, I had to learn some knots, build a fire from scratch, swim through Pirate’s Cove, and be good to my neighbors, the usual survivor stuff.”
“I hope they taught you how to search for treasure.”
“Sweetheart, that comes naturally.”
