The Law of Finders Keepers Page 3

  “We can ask Starr to run it,” Dale said. “Or Skeeter, but she’s expensive.”

  Test it? I just found it! This was moving fast. Too fast.

  Dale studied the box top’s raised letters. “Mo, your mom shopped at Belk’s.”

  “No,” Miss Lana said. “That’s my box, Dale. I put the things inside.”

  Something in the box glinted. “This is yours too,” she said, lifting a golden, tear-shaped pendant with an engraved initial: J. I let its delicate chain flow over the back of my hand.

  “The letter J. Was it hers?” I squeezed the necklace so tight, it bit my hand.

  “Perhaps. I found the chain looped around your ankle,” the Colonel said.

  Dale cleared his throat. “It probably got caught in the rolls of . . . chubby.”

  “We couldn’t get a good fingerprint,” the Colonel said.

  “J. First name? Last?” Harm asked, making a note.

  Miss Lana shrugged. “First, probably. We made calls, placed ads, sent messages, but . . .” She looked at me. “We thought you’d like to wear it someday.”

  My feelings fluttered like startled birds. “Thank you. I love these things. But . . . but why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked, trying to sand the ragged from my voice.

  Miss Lana’s voice held steady and calm. “I thought of giving you the necklace earlier. But I was afraid you’d lose it. And the sweater would have swallowed you alive—until now.”

  “We decided we’d give it to you when you were old enough. Today you are, and we have,” the Colonel said, very firm. “There’s one more thing in that box.”

  Excitement tightened iron bands around my chest as Miss Lana moved the last layer of tissue. “The ads we placed, looking for your . . . other people. And newspaper articles about the hurricane, and flood.”

  “Great background,” Harm murmured. “If you decide to look for her again.”

  I stared at the sweater, and waited to drift from the ceiling and settle in my body. “Is there anything else you forgot to mention? I mean, I only been looking for her my entire life.”

  “Yes,” Miss Lana said. “I forgot to mention how much we love you and how grateful we are to have you in our lives.”

  The Colonel stretched. “My bubbly nature is losing its fizz. Who wants snow cream?”

  “Me,” Dale said. “Queen Elizabeth gets brain-freeze.”

  I looked at Miss Lana and then the Colonel, and searched for the right words for people that saved you and raised you, and packed your past in a box until you were old enough to hold it in your hands. The words ain’t been made. I hugged Miss Lana, who’s warm and soft as a feather bed. Then I squeezed the Colonel, who hugs like a bag of confused bolts.

  It’s funny how two hugs can feel so different, and still be true.

  * * *

  An hour later, Dale settled on the couch and Harm hurried to Grandmother Miss Lacy’s to bodyguard her. I slipped into bed and opened Volume 7 of the Piggly Wiggly Chronicles on my lap. Volumes 1–6 sit in a bright line across my shelf—spiral notebooks filled with a lifetime of letters to my Upstream Mother.

  I used to think she would write back, or find me. One day, I knew she wouldn’t. I kept writing anyway, to stay in step with my heart. Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I might actually find her. I picked up my pen.

  Dear Upstream Mother,

  I got your sweater beside me, so close I can almost feel it breathe. And your necklace, with its tear-shaped pendant.

  Touching them is almost touching you.

  Your lost girl,

  Mo

  I snuggled in and waited for sleep, but my thoughts whirled like the lights on Miss Lana’s Winter Tree: the sign, the sweater, the pendant . . . New clues. But what if I still can’t find her? What if I do find her, and she doesn’t want me?

  I sat up, my heart pounding.

  I had too much new in my life. I needed something familiar. I grabbed the phone and dialed Grandmother Miss Lacy’s number.

  “Hello?” Harm murmured, and I pictured him clutching her avocado-green phone.

  “It’s Mo. I got a plan for Attila.” I whispered quick instructions, hung up, and settled back into bed.

  There’s comfort in the familiar, I thought, dozing off. Even when the familiar is revenge.

  Chapter Four

  Revenge Plus a Slimeball

  At five o’clock the next morning, I slipped into the living room primed for action. Nobody hurts my people and gets away with it, especially not Anna Celeste Simpson. Dale slept flung across the settee, his arms wide open to dreams. “Wake up,” I whispered.

  “Where?” he demanded, sitting up. Queen Elizabeth growled.

  “Mo’s living room,” I whispered. “We got to meet Harm. Now.”

  He looked around like a flustered blond owl. “Is it still dark again or is this yesterday?”

  Dale doesn’t wake up good.

  Moments later Dale, Harm, and me trudged down Last Street, the moonlight soft as a baby’s kiss on the snow. Harm stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Sunrise is at six thirty. We should be in and out of the steeple, but if we’re not, you did bring an Emergency Exit Plan, right, Mo?”

  I squeezed the package beneath my jacket. “Right.”

  Dale plucked a branch from the snow and side-armed it into a six-inch drift. “Liz! Fetch!” Queen Elizabeth tossed her head and trotted in the opposite direction.

  “So,” Harm said, walking backwards to face me. “New clues about Upstream Mother. When do we start?”

  My stomach swayed like a hammock full of monkeys.

  “We have better resources now,” Harm said, breath steaming. “We have Miss Lana, Detective Starr, and Lavender. Skeeter and Sal, with their genius and connections. That sign could hold a thousand clues, Mo. We can DNA-check the sweater. Plus, Mo, you’ve got the best-looking detectives in Tupelo Landing,” he said, grinning.

  “We are nice-looking,” Dale said. “And Mama says I haven’t even bloomed. She says I’ll be tall as Lavender when I blossom, and better-looking too.”

  Nobody will ever be better-looking than Lavender. Still, as a best friend, I nodded.

  “This is what you always wanted, Mo,” Harm said. “Right?”

  “Right,” I said, trying to settle the swirl inside me.

  Dale studied my face. “Take your time, Mo,” he said. “Sometimes you got to wait for your heart to catch its breath before you know which way to go.”

  Dale reads me like footprints across snow.

  We crunched to a halt before the tiny Episcopal church. A small sign by the door read: FOUNDED 1726.

  “Around back,” I said, the snow squeaking as I led the way to the back door.

  “Breaking and entering a church,” Dale muttered. “Mama won’t like this.”

  “You can’t break and enter if it ain’t locked, and they never lock the back door,” I said, slipping inside.

  As we scaled the steeple’s narrow stairs, Dale tugged a flashlight from his red snow boot. He tilted the beam to a giant sound system as Queen Elizabeth plunked down.

  “Wow, this system’s huge,” Harm said. He examined the switchboard and flipped a switch. “Let’s see. This is the mic, and . . .” He lifted a vinyl from the turntable. “The Hallelujah Chorus. What did you bring, Mo?” he asked, setting Attila’s selection aside.

  I slid a vinyl from beneath my jacket. “Elvis. ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’”

  Harm grinned, rocked his slim body to the side, and rose onto his toes à la Elvis. “Well it’s one for the money, two for the show . . .” he sang, going into a graceful, knee-wobbling dance. Dale grabbed the dead microphone and joined in, mugging to the mic as their voices flowed together like rivers twirling toward the same happy sea.

  Dale and Harm are musical. I ain’t.


  As Harm slipped Elvis onto the turntable, Dale and me went to the window and gazed out over the curve of our river, and our sleeping town.

  Harm flipped a switch and the mic screeched, its cry piercing the first hint of day.

  A light clicked on, over on First Street. “Sorry,” Harm whispered.

  Dale pointed to the snowbank beside the river. “Who’s that?” A broad-shouldered man stepped from the pines, his long black cape flowing. He swept off his wide-brimmed hat and waved it at a low-flying airplane as a smaller figure stepped up beside him, hand on hip.

  “Clowns,” Dale whispered, his voice shaking. Dale has a terror of clowns.

  “Nah,” Harm said, glancing out the window. “Just a couple of strangers. Only . . . who’s that woman?” he asked. “She reminds me of . . .”

  “Of who?” I asked as she melted back into the woods.

  “Nobody,” he muttered. “I think this thing’s set up. Let’s get out of here.”

  The man turned like he could feel Dale’s stare, raised his arm—and pointed straight at us. Dale screamed into the mic, blasting his terror across the town. I staggered back, slamming into Harm—whose elbow hit the play switch. Elvis went spinning: “Well it’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now, go, cat, go but don’t you step on my blue suede shoes . . .”

  House lights blinked on all over town.

  Harm snatched up the needle, scratching Elvis silent. A bird chirped. A siren sounded in the distance and the man disappeared into the pines.

  A blue light swirled across the snow—coming straight for us. Only one man in town owns a blue light and siren: Detective Joe Starr.

  “I told you we shouldn’t break into a church,” Dale said, his eyes filling with tears. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “Run,” I said, shoving him toward the steps. “Run!”

  As Harm, Dale, and Queen Elizabeth fled in a wild tangle of paws and shoes, I yanked my Emergency Escape Plan from my jeans pocket. I tossed the note to the floor and thundered behind them as Detective Joe Starr’s Impala wheeled into the back parking lot, blue light spinning. “You’re surrounded,” Starr shouted. “Come out with your hands up!”

  “Like he can do a Solo Surround,” Dale said, very scornful.

  “This way,” I said, pushing into the sanctuary. We pelted across the ancient stone floor—clap, clap, clonk. My foot went off-balance against a wide, flat stone as it gave slightly beneath my foot. I slammed into Harm.

  “Graceful, LoBeau,” he whispered.

  Miss Lana says grace may come with puberty, but I ain’t holding my breath.

  We jetted through the door and across the snowy lawn. “We’ll never make the café,” I gasped. “Grandmother Miss Lacy’s house. Go!”

  * * *

  Moments later we skidded across Grandmother Miss Lacy’s icy porch and pounded on her door. “What on earth?” she cried, swinging it open.

  We zipped inside. Harm turned out the foyer light as Dale and Liz crouched beneath a window. I edged the draperies aside, breathing hard.

  “What’s going on?” Grandmother Miss Lacy looked at us, her old eyes huge behind her bifocals.

  “Nothing,” we said as Starr’s patrol car purred by.

  She burst out laughing. “I was just wondering who played Elvis in the steeple. I don’t suppose you know.”

  “We plead the fourth,” Dale said, wiping the snow from Liz’s whiskers.

  “He means the fifth,” I told her as someone stomped across her porch and knocked.

  “Hide,” she whispered. I stepped behind a drapery as the boys dove for cover, Queen Elizabeth at Dale’s side. Grandmother Miss Lacy swung open the door. “Yes?”

  The man from the river swept off his hat: black curls, high cheekbones, gray eyes. A razor-thin scar ran from the outer edge of his right eyebrow, down his jawline, to his square chin. He flashed a megawatt smile and dropped a briefcase on the floor. “Miss Thornton? Gabriel Archer the Tenth, at your service.”

  Gabriel Archer the Tenth? The treasure hunter?

  Miss Lana says always make an entrance. I waited a beat and swept the drapery aside. “Greetings,” I said, and weighed my next move.

  Dale, who babbles when nervous, didn’t weigh nothing. He popped up from behind a fern. “Yes, she’s Miss Lacy Thornton. I’m Dale, and that’s Mo LoBeau, Miss Thornton’s honorary granddaughter. I’m glad you’re not a clown,” he added as Harm casually rose from behind a chair.

  “And you must be Harm Crenshaw,” Gabriel said, smiling like we were normal.

  Every red flag I own went up. “How do you know Harm?”

  “You Desperados are in the newspapers. The photos don’t do you justice.”

  Flattery. Even when I hate it, I like it.

  “Charming town,” he added. “Love the old church. Miss Thornton, I just happened to be in Tupelo Landing, with that clue of a lifetime—”

  “No one just happens to be in Tupelo Landing, Mr. Archer,” she interrupted. “But as long as you’re here, take a seat in the parlor. I won’t be a minute.”

  He walked into the parlor like he owned it and tossed his hat on a table.

  “Keep an eye on him while I dress. If he tries anything, use this,” she whispered, handing me her walking stick.

  Excellent.

  We followed him into the parlor, which is prim and neat, and I sat on her swoop-back sofa, her cane across my knees. Gabriel explored the mantel—my school photos, a black-and-white of a very young Grandmother Miss Lacy. “Stylish,” he said. He wandered to the window, took out his cell phone, and held it up. Like we got reception in Tupelo Landing.

  “He needs to wash his hair,” Dale whispered.

  “That’s product,” Harm told him. “We should try it.” Lately Harm thinks about his hair.

  “I hate to be nosy,” I lied, very casual, “but how did you get here?”

  “A red Jaguar pulling a trailer of very expensive gear. I parked it at the bridge, and explored your river. Lovely waterfront.”

  Dale frowned. “A Jaguar with a trailer hitch? Lavender won’t like that.”

  “Lavender,” Gabriel murmured, leafing through Grandmother Miss Lacy’s photo album. “The race car driver.” He turned a page. I glanced over to see a photo of Tinks in an old-timey band uniform, maybe from high school. “And here’s Tinks Williams as a boy,” he said, the hint of a smile in his voice. “Looks like he was in an awkward stage.”

  “He still is,” Dale said, tipping the album shut. “How do you know Tinks?”

  “And how do you know Lavender?” I glanced at Harm. “And who was that woman you were with this morning? And how’d you get that scar on your face?”

  Gabriel perched on a delicate chair. “I do my research. The woman’s a friend from the city. And I got the scar in a sword fight, in Madagascar,” he said as Grandmother Miss Lacy bustled in, her navy suit trim, her pale hair shimmering. She took her usual chair.

  “Tell me, Mr. Archer: What can I do for you?”

  “The question is, what can I do for you?” Gabriel leaned toward her, Zorro handsome. “But before I explain, perhaps the Desperados could be excused.”

  “There is no excuse for us,” Dale said, very steely.

  “The Desperados stay,” she agreed, and I took out my clue pad. “We were on our way to breakfast, so please be succinct.”

  Dale looked at me. “Make it snappy,” I whispered, and he nodded.

  Gabriel hesitated like a card player reshuffling his hand. “Very well. We all know of Blackbeard’s treasure. Gold, silver, jewels—much of it from Spanish treasure ships. Scores of treasure hunters have looked for it. Have they found it? No. Why?”

  “They’re wrong?” Dale guessed.

  “Exactly,” Gabriel said. “They’ve looked in Bath, where Blackbeard liv
ed. They’ve looked on Ocracoke, where he died, or around Beaufort, where he sank his own ship. They’ve looked in Canada, where people say he mingled his treasure with Captain Kidd’s. They haven’t found it simply because the treasure’s in Tupelo Landing. And I have the clue that proves it.”

  He snapped open his briefcase and pulled out a paper.

  “Is that your clue?” I asked. He ignored me.

  “Miss Thornton, I use the latest equipment—Ground Penetrating Radar, metal detectors, aerial photography.” He smiled. “Here’s my resume. Duke University, and a treasure hunter ever since: Madagascar, Spain, the Florida Keys. And here’s your contract,” he said, putting both papers on her end table.

  “You own the land around Tupelo Landing, and I own the clue. Let me search your property and I’ll give you half of my find. I’ll set up in that old fishing shack on the river—I won’t be even a shade of trouble. This is a fair offer based on bona fide information.”

  Dale looked at Harm. “Bona fide,” Harm whispered. “It means good faith.”

  Sometimes I think Harm and me are subtitles for Dale’s life.

  “And the clue?” she asked.

  “That’s between me and a pirate,” he said. “And you, after you sign my contract. One last thing,” he said. “I don’t do business with children other than my niece, Ruby. It’s too dangerous. Six men have died hunting for this treasure—which is guarded by a curse.”

  “A curse?” Dale said, going pale. Dale’s not good with curses.

  “Piffle,” Grandmother Miss Lacy replied. “I don’t believe in curses, Mr. Archer, and I hope you won’t waste any more time trying to scare me. To be clear, I own most of the land around Tupelo Landing. Not all of it. Leave your contract and your resume. Call me at two p.m. for my answer. Harm,” she said, “would you show our visitor out?”

  Harm, who’s practically her grandson if her and Mr. Red ever get married, walked him out. We watched Gabriel stroll toward the river, a stark black figure against the snow.

  “You don’t like him,” I said, watching Grandmother Miss Lacy’s face.