Bradley looked around the campfire. “Someone Google how much the Wilcox robbery was.”
“Google?” Nicole said. “With what? This rock and a fork?”
“They stole about sixty thousand dollars,” Lily said, waving them off. “I’m sure they spent some of it somewhere, so let’s say fifty thousand, give or take.”
“That’s it?” Walter said. “Terry was going to kill us all for fifty thousand?”
“But that was in 1899, right?” Bradley asked, looking around to each of them for confirmation. “It’d be worth way more now.”
“Plus,” Lily said quietly, “that was just one holdup.”
Leo stared at her. “How much did Duke think they hid?”
“Altogether? About a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 1899,” Bradley said, awed. “And I bet some of the gold coins are so rare it’s almost unheard of. That’d be worth millions in today’s money.”
“At least ten million, Duke thought,” Lily said, eyes on the fire.
Walter blinked. “It’s funny because it sounded like you said ten million.”
“She did,” Leo replied, and everyone went very, very still.
“Holy shit.” Bradley stood and began pacing the camp. “Holy shit.”
Nicole stepped into his path. “Sit down. I still don’t trust you.”
He immediately complied.
“What’s wild,” Walter said slowly, “is that Terry knew to bring a gun and GPS and all that stuff with him. And how he was so into this treasure hunt.” He looked over at Bradley, his expression perplexed. “But wasn’t it your year to plan this trip?”
Everyone looked at Bradley now, too. His shoulders hunched. “So, okay, don’t get mad.” He smiled nervously. “But I told him he could come if he picked the spot and planned the whole thing.”
“Jesus Christ, Bradley,” Leo said. “You’re the biggest flake I’ve ever met in my life.”
“I was really busy!” he protested.
Leo glared at him. “Busy like when you were supposed to plan my thirtieth birthday, and we ended up at the Golden Krust? Or Walter’s promotion?”
Loyally, Walter piped up to tell Bradley, “I actually think supermarket cupcakes are better anyway.”
“Could we just throw them all over the edge?” Nicole asked Lily. “It’d be so much quieter.”
“But if the treasure is real,” Walter said, focusing everyone back on the subject at hand, “and Terry needed your journal to find it, doesn’t that mean we have the map to the real treasure?”
“Hypothetically,” Lily said.
Bradley looked around the fire at each of them. “We’re doing it, right? We’re going to follow Duke’s clues to Butch Cassidy’s money.”
“And what makes you think you’d get any of it?” Nicole said, glaring at him. “It’s Lily’s map.”
“Because we had a code,” Walter said. “Like the outlaws. Remember?”
Bradley grinned. “That’s right, Walt.”
“I think we’re missing the point,” Leo said. “Terry is dead. If we go back and tell the authorities that he fell, there’s a good chance we won’t be suspects in a murder case. Going off on a treasure hunt is a very bad look.”
“But if our plan is to tell them that Terry wandered off anyway, why can’t our story be that he wandered off and we went looking for him?” Bradley paused, seeming to wait for immediate dissent. At Lily’s silence, Bradley continued, bolder now: “We were already planning on doing a fake treasure hunt over the next three days. Why not do a real one?”
“Dub,” Nicole said quietly. “He’s on my shit list, and Lord knows I hate to admit it, but—Brad makes a good point. Why not just go and see?”
Lily’s eyes flew to hers. “I thought you said you couldn’t lie to the cops.”
“It’s ten million dollars.” She shrugged, like Sorry, but you know I’m right. And then she looked around at the rest of the group. “Whatever I say here stays here, okay? I’m just spitballing, but… We could go ahead as if we’re going to look for him. How many times did he say he knew this place better than any of us? Maybe he took off and fell over. Maybe I can trick my brain into thinking that. Maybe,” she said, her voice thick with emotion now, “we go looking for the money.”