Leo repeated the cryptic lines, puzzling this out. Lily could hear the hesitation in the way he seemed about to speak but then held his breath.
Turning, she looked at him. His face was so close, only an inch away. “What are you thinking?”
“That Terry was looking for these pages specifically,” he said quietly enough so that only she could hear.
“Agree.” Lily looked back at the page. “But why? Out of the hundreds of pages in here?”
“They were the ones at the very end, right?”
She nodded. “But they’re no different from anything else. A map and a riddle—that’s literally like every other page in here.”
He stared at her, eyes unfocused as he thought this through. “I’m wondering what the odds are that Bradley is right,” he whispered, “and Terry really believed Duke hid something out here—or knew something was out here and left it for someone else to discover. Maybe these pages were what Terry needed to find it.”
“How do you take that from this riddle?”
Leo turned her to face him. “Read the first line again.”
She scanned the words. In the end, the answer is yes.
“If the answer is yes,” Lily said, understanding, “then what is the question?”
“Exactly.”
Of course. This would be where he’d want her to start. Duke’s approval echoed in her thoughts: That’s the first thing I’d ask, too, kid. Lily closed her eyes, thinking. What was the one thing that people had asked Duke all the time?
The answer was as clear as day: whether he’d ever found Butch Cassidy’s treasure.
When Lily looked up again, Leo was staring right at her. Understanding lit up his eyes the same way it ignited her. A sharp ringing began in her ears, clear as a bell. She’d never been a religious woman, but an eerie awareness spread like static along her skin.
“Are the pages so important right now, Dub?” Nicole walked over and waved a hand in front of her face. “It’s almost dark, and we have a dead man at the bottom of the canyon and another man who I still think we’d better hog-tie.”
Lily hedged unsteadily, looking over at Nicole. “I think Bradley’s right.”
“See!” Bradley shouted from his rock but immediately shrank into himself when they all turned to glare at him.
“I think it’s possible Duke found the treasure and hid it out in the desert again.” Lily swallowed, looking back to Leo, who nodded. The torn pages shook in her trembling hand. “And if he did, I’m pretty sure this tells us where to find it.”
Chapter Twelve
THERE WAS A long moment of quiet, and it stretched tighter and tighter like a rubber band as Lily’s meaning sank in.
“Do you mean the actual treasure?” Walter finally said. “The—the Butch Cassidy money?”
Lily nodded, head spinning. “I think these pages have a hunt written for whoever Duke planned to give this book to. I didn’t know any of his friends in that circle. So I have no idea who.”
Bradley looked around the group, ran a hand through his hair, then fixed his gaze on her face, jaw working. “Finders keepers, right? Even if he didn’t mean for you to get it, you have it now.”
That one hit harder than she wanted to admit. It was the bullet she’d been avoiding, because if Duke had found the treasure, and hid it… then by definition he had hidden it from her. He hadn’t specifically left her the journal; he hadn’t left it to anyone else, either, but if he’d meant for Lily to have it, surely he would have told her that at some point.
“There’s something about the phrasing here,” Lily told them, pulling herself together. “He says, ‘The answer is yes.’ If I’m right, then the question is, ‘Did you find the hidden money?’？”
“What does the rest say?” Bradley asked, craning his neck.
She read it aloud, tucked the pages back inside, and passed the whole thing to Nicole with a shrug. “I have no idea what the other stuff means.” Lily turned to Leo. “What else is in that bag?”
“Oh, um.” He opened it again, looking inside. “Looks like a cell phone. No signal.”
“Turn it off to save the battery,” Lily suggested.
“Good idea.” He did, and then handed it to Lily before returning to the bag. “Ammunition clip. A very big knife.” He paused and turned wide eyes up to hers. “Zip ties.”
Nicole walked over, took the strips of hard white plastic in her hand. “These aren’t meant to keep the cords on your TV from getting tangled; they’re zip cuffs.”