didn’t add in Agent Sherlock or Kit. He wouldn’t understand.
“Poem? What poem?”
“A poem my father had me memorize when I was young, made me swear never to tell anyone else. It’s part of the Big Take story I told you about after those men attacked me, the one Zoltan wanted me to talk about, the story she thought was real.” She looked at him and said in a flat, singsong voice:
Don’t let them know it’s hidden inside
The key to what I wish to hide
It’s in my head, already there
And no one else will guess or care
Remember these words when at last I sleep
And the Big Take will be yours to keep.
His hands tightened around hers. “In his head? The key is what he wants to hide? But it doesn’t really say much of anything. Do you know what it means, Rebekah?”
“Nope. I haven’t got a clue, and believe me, I’ve thought and thought about what that ridiculous poem could possibly mean. So it never really mattered that I didn’t tell Zoltan or that Gemma never heard it.”
He pulled away from her and began to pace. He paused, turned back, fanned his hands. “The poem says you know everything you need to find the Big Take even though the poem itself doesn’t seem to be of any help at all.”
“I told you, Rich, even if I knew where Father hid the Big Take, I wouldn’t want it. I have no intention of becoming a criminal, no intention of letting the world find out what Grandfather—Father—and Nate may have done.”
He searched her face a moment. “I tell you, Rebekah, this whole situation keeps escalating. There have been shootings now, violence, and I want to help put a stop to it, to protect you. And to be honest, protect myself. If the press were to get a whiff of what’s happened already, my career could be in danger. I’m happy you trusted me and told me the poem. I wish you’d told me about it sooner, but I understand. It’s a pity you don’t know what it means. Maybe we can figure it out in time, and you’ll change your mind about that money. Is there anything else important you’ve kept from me?”
Change her mind? She knew she shouldn’t say the words, but they marched right out of her mouth. “After all that’s happened, it’s your career you’re worried about, Rich? And finding the Big Take?”
He stopped cold, searched her face. He said slowly, “Why would you ask me that? Shouldn’t my career concern you as well, Rebekah? I mean, we live in this fishbowl together. As for the Big Take, you can do with it as you wish if we find it.”
The doorbell rang.
He gave her a long look. “Stay here, Rebekah. I’ll see who that is. And then you and I need to get this straightened out.”
60
It was a professional messenger service with a package, asking for a signature.
When Rich returned to the living room, he handed Rebekah a heavy square box. He said, “It’s addressed to you, from your father’s lawyer, Mr. James Pearson at Pearson, Schultz and Meyers here in Washington. I signed for it.”
Rebekah felt her heart pounding as she carried the box back into the living room and set it on an antique marquetry table. Rich handed her scissors, and she cut away the tape and opened the box, her hands unsteady. Taped on top of a thick bubble-wrapped package was a sealed envelope with REBEKAH written in black ink. Her breath caught at the sight of her father’s distinctive sloping handwriting. She stood there a moment, holding the letter, wondering if her world was about to change.
Rich said, his voice gentle, “Do you want me to open the letter, Rebekah?”
“No, no, I will.” She got it together and slowly opened the envelope to find six handwritten pages. Her heart pounded slow, deep strokes. The letter was dated four years before the strokes had plunged her father into a sixteen-year coma. She’d have been eight years old.
She stepped away, holding the letter close, and read:
My dearest Rebekah:
As I write this letter, you are still my delightful girl, my Pumpkin. Since you are reading my letter, I’ve been dead for one month, and I hope you are at least twenty-one. Perhaps you are married, with children of your own. I hope you’re happy, that your husband is, or will be, faithful and kind. Ah, isn’t that what all of us wish for when we marry? I would have