Or maybe he’d been trying to protect me from an even more horrific truth, whatever it might be.

   I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. Even worse, I had this nagging feeling that I was missing something obvious, that this was an instance of Fletcher’s hiding something in plain sight, just like Deirdre had put the gems in those snow globes as though they were ordinary rocks. But try as I might, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Or the trees for the forest. Or however that stupid metaphor went.

   I picked up the safety-deposit box key from the table and examined it from all angles, but it too was the same as before—just a key with a number on it. No runes, no marks, no symbols of any sort adorned the metal. Gin Blanco strikes out again.

   That familiar frustration surged through me, but I couldn’t be too melancholy. Not with freshly baked cookies spreading their chocolate perfume throughout the house. Even if I couldn’t figure out Fletcher’s riddle tonight, then I could at least have one more cookie—or three—before I went to bed.

   I tossed the key onto the table, but it flipped end over end and skittered across the wood, landing right in the center of the rectangle on the sheet of paper. I started to get to my feet to go get more cookies, but something about the key’s lying there made me stop, lean forward, and look at it again.

   It reminded me of . . . something . . . something that I’d seen recently. Some . . . shape. But what?

   I sat there and thought about it for a few minutes, but the answer wouldn’t come to me, so I got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with three more cookies on a paper napkin. I set the cookies down on the table next to the sheet of paper and arranged them in a neat row. . . .

   That’s when I remembered the exact shape that the key in the center of the rectangle represented and, more important, where I’d seen it before. I stared at the key, the rectangle around it, and the cookies lined up on the table. My heart started pounding with excitement. I was right. I was sure of it. But even more than that, I felt a growing sense of anticipation, knowing that Fletcher had left something for me to find after all.

   “Fletcher,” I said, grinning, “you sly son of a bitch.”

30

   “This is a bad idea,” Finn muttered. “A very bad idea. You know how thin the ice is for me around here these days.”

   We were back at First Trust bank, down on the basement level, standing in front of a closed office door. I’d called Finn first thing this morning and told him what I’d realized about the clue that Fletcher had left behind. Finn had been a little doubtful, but he’d agreed to help me see this thing through.

   “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see. Now knock on the man’s door.”

   He shot me a disbelieving look. Finn stared at the brass nameplate and winced, obviously not wanting to do this, but he raised his hand and knocked on the office door anyway.

   “Come in!” a voice barked.

   Finn sighed and twisted the knob, and we stepped into Stuart Mosley’s office. Although he ran Ashland’s most exclusive and influential bank, Mosley’s office was simply furnished, with a large wooden desk, two chairs in front of it, and several metal filing cabinets lining the walls. A few large rugs were scattered across the marble floor, and the only painting on the wall featured a lovely scene of a waterfall on Bone Mountain. My eyes narrowed. I’d been to that same waterfall with Fletcher many times. Once again, I wondered just how well Fletcher had known Mosley, but that wasn’t what I was here for today.

   Mosley was sitting behind his desk, poring over a stack of papers, and he didn’t even look up when we stepped inside. “Yes?”

   Finn shifted on his feet. I elbowed him in the side, encouraging him to get on with things, and he stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Mr. Mosley, I’m sure that you remember my sister, Gin Blanco. She wanted to speak to you about something.”

   The dwarf still didn’t look up. “And what would that be?”

   “A safety-deposit box,” I said. “Nine of them, actually.”

   That finally got his attention. Mosley paused a moment, then set aside the papers he’d been looking at and slowly lifted his head. His black reading glasses made his hazel eyes seem larger than they really were, and I noticed the sudden, sharp interest in his gaze. “And what box would that be?”

   I held up the safety-deposit box key where Mosley could see it.

   He arched his bushy eyebrows. “Yes? I believe you already looked in that box several days ago, Ms. Blanco.”

   “Yep. I did look in that box. At first, I was very disappointed with the contents, since the only thing inside was this single sheet of paper, as I’m sure you already know.”

   I pulled out the paper from my jacket pocket and unfolded it before laying it down on Mosley’s desk and placing the key in the center of the rectangle just like it had been on my coffee table last night. At first, I’d thought that the paper was a dead end, but it was anything but. Instead, it had been a message about where the real information was—in the safety-deposit boxes all around that first one, forming a rectangle around Fletcher’s original box. Or a circle, depending on your point of view and appreciation for irony.

   I drew my finger around the rectangle, tracing the shape all the way around. “And now I want to open the rest of Fletcher’s boxes. All the ones that form a ring around that first center box. Nine boxes total, counting the one that I already opened.”

   Mosley took off his glasses and set them aside, then leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands together, studying me. I stared right back at him. Beside me, Finn kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, still uncomfortable about my confronting his boss.

   “And why would you think that Fletcher had another box here?” Mosley finally asked. “Especially so many of them?”

   “How interesting that you would call him Fletcher, instead of Mr. Lane. Are you that familiar with all your clients?”