“Keep pushing,” he told Avery. “When we get to a position where only one bell rings, she’ll be pointing us where we need to go.”
First. As in, number one.
Jameson and Avery repeated the process they’d already been through, turning the statue, listening to the bells when it locked, then turning it again.
And finally, just as Katharine hit the beach a hundred yards away, the statue locked into a position where only one bell rang. Jameson looked up. The Lady pointed them onward.
Again, the two of them ran—straight into the smallest of the caves. There was a sharp turn just past the entrance, and when they followed it, the light from outside disappeared almost completely. Jameson reached for his phone to use it as a flashlight, but then he remembered: No phone.
“There’s no time,” Jameson said fiercely. “We have to keep going.”
He felt along one side of the wall, and Avery felt along the other. A minute in, there was a split. Which way do we go?
“What do you feel?” he asked Avery.
In the darkness, he could hear her breath, and no matter the stakes, he couldn’t shut down the part of his brain that imagined the rise and fall of her chest.
“Water,” Avery said. “The cave on this side, it’s wet.”
Jameson wondered how high the tide got. Were there times of day when this cave, with its shallow ceiling and utter lack of light, was deadly?
The water made Avery’s side of the cave seem that much more treacherous.
“We’ll split up,” Jameson said. “I’ll take your side, you take mine.”
“We’re looking for a key.” Avery didn’t say that as a reminder to him—or even herself. She was steadying herself.
Like she needed it.
Like his Heiress wasn’t always so damn steady.
Jameson made his way forward, aware that Katharine had to be closing in on them, that she had likely seen which way they went.
And she might have thought to bring a flashlight.
Jameson pushed himself forward, feeling his way along the damp cave wall as he went, following the twists and turns of the cave until he saw something.
Light.
The cave dead-ended into a shallow pool. And standing shin-deep in that pool was Branford.
Jameson’s uncle was holding two items: a lantern and a key.
CHAPTER 62
JAMESON
The key in Branford’s hand was made of shining gold, encrusted with green jewels.
Branford found the key first. A dull roar in his ears, Jameson turned back. On his way out of the cave, he didn’t even bother feeling his way along the wall. He moved quickly, without a single safeguard in place to keep himself from falling.
Jameson hated losing.
He passed Katharine near the entrance but didn’t say a word to her. Bursting back into the sunlight, Jameson wondered how long Branford had been in the cave. Minutes, definitely. But how many?
How much did he beat us here by?
Given his uncle’s familiarity with the manor and the estate, Branford wouldn’t have had to work to find his way out of the house, wouldn’t have had to search for a way out to the edge or down the cliffs.
Had he even decoded Rohan’s verbal clue? Or had he just assumed that of course there would be a key in one of the caves? Was that particular cave known as the smugglers’ cave?
Had he played there with Jameson’s father as a child?
No. Jameson wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole—or any rabbit hole other than figuring out where the hell the remaining two keys were.
Katharine and Branford are here. What about Zella?
What if she had already found one?
What if the Game was already lost?
No. Jameson refused to give into that line of thinking. If Rohan suspected how easily Branford would find the smugglers’ cave key, then it won’t be the one that opens the prize box.
But it might be the one that opens my secret.
“Jameson?”
Avery’s voice pulled him back to the present. Neither Katharine nor Branford had yet exited the cave. Unless there’s another way in and out. Yet another piece of information that Branford would have had from growing up here that Jameson didn’t.
“The odds are stacked.” Jameson said that like a fact, not a complaint. “Branford knows this place. He got to the key first. And Katharine—I don’t know who exactly she is, or how far her connection to this family goes back, but I’d guess pretty damn far.”
Jameson would have bet everything he had that this wasn’t her first trip to Vantage. She’d clearly known Branford since he was a child.