“If you’ve got anything weighing on your mind, Matthew, I’ll listen to it. You can tell me.”
“Uhh…”
“As long as it doesn’t involve money, gambling, or women,” she insisted. For a little squirt, she was awfully impertinent. Now that April had said what was on her mind, she seemed deflated. “What’s going to happen now…?” she wondered.
We couldn’t stay at this house for too long. Various bounty-chasing scrubs we could deal with, but the Devil’s Alliance was determined. They would keep coming after us, even at a cost. They couldn’t hurt Dez, but they could hurt his wife and infant son.
“I’m sorry. I was the one who said I would give you advice,” she said.
“It’s fine,” I replied, shaking my head. “I think I know what we can do next.”
It wasn’t in my nature to keep running away.
“Are you planning to raid the Devil’s Alliance?”
“They’re not going to entertain any visitors who don’t at least bring some gifts,” I replied. They’d do worse than just turn me away at the door; they’d capture me and give me the seven-course torture buffet. With the temporary sun, I could easily handle the average mobsters, but there were too many of them. At best, I’d end up in a draw with their leader, if he didn’t simply escape first.
“This whole kerfuffle is about the hidden fortune. That’s why the old man was arrested,” I said. Technically, it wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to explain the real reasons to the granddaughter who worshipped him.
“In that case…”
“That’s right,” I said, “we’re going to find that treasure.”
Everything was getting worse because no one had found the treasure yet, and the stories and rumors were running wild. We needed to find the treasure that was the cause of all this, cutting off the problem at the root. I could give it to the Devil’s Alliance, for all I cared. Or offer it as a bribe to some lord or official to get Arwin some kind of preferential treatment.
Once people realized there wasn’t any hoard of treasure to gain, they would withdraw. Nobody wanted to waste their time with something that wasn’t going to make them money.
“I’m going to put an end to all this horseplay.”
Despite the moistness in her eyes, April sounded skeptical. “Do you have a plan?”
“Of course.”
I pointed at Oliver, who had already made himself completely at home, lazing about in Dez’s house. He felt like everything belonged to him. Fat lazy cat.
“He’s the key to the treasure.”
The old man wasn’t completely senile yet. If he’d left a message about the cat, there had to be some hint involved.
“Do you think there’s a treasure map on his body somewhere?”
“You’ve read too many stories,” I said. I’d looked over the cat’s body already but found nothing like that. He also didn’t seem to have swallowed anything. And you wouldn’t be able to hide anything in a cat’s belly because they were always vomiting up hairballs and grass. Of course, he hadn’t embedded anything into the cat’s body, either.
I felt something strange on my feet. I looked under the table and saw why—Oliver had gotten up and was holding a dead rat in his mouth.
“The mighty hunter awakens,” I said, reaching down to pet him. Instead, he bit me and scampered off, leaving me to take the dead rat.
“Maybe he thought you were stealing his catch.”
“This is why I’m more of a dog person,” I said, turning to April. “Why don’t you have a dog? A nice, big, fluffy one.”
“Why don’t you get one?”
“Arwin won’t let me.”
She’d kept one as a guard dog ages ago, until someone poisoned it to get back at her. That was an awful story.
…But wait.
“Hey, I need to ask you for something,” I called out to Dez in the back.
“You need money again?”
“No.” I put Oliver on my shoulder. He was surprisingly well behaved there. “I need to sneak into the mansion with him. I need you to help me get in there.”
Without my strength, just getting over the fence would be a major undertaking.
“The little girl’s mansion, you mean? I would assume it’s been scoured already,” Dez said. They must have turned the place upside-down.
“But the old man wouldn’t have left it somewhere easy to find, right?”
“And you think the cat is the key?”
“Most likely.” I put Oliver back in his cage. “Well, I’ll be back in a jiffy. You stay here and hold down the house. Sorry that you’ll only have Ralph to protect you…”
April bounced to her feet with great intention. “I’m going, too.”
“No.”
Going outside would only make her a target for all those bounty-hungry creeps.
“But you’re doing all this for me, Matthew! I can’t just sit inside under watch and wait for help!”
“You’re overestimating what you can do,” I said. I was doing this for personal profit. “I was thinking I might find that hidden treasure first and help myself to just a little bit of it.”
“You’re lying!”
How could she be so sure? She knew I was just a degenerate kept man, after all.
“Anyway, I’m going with you. This is my problem, too. I can’t just stay behind and wait.”
“And I’ll be joining in, too, of course,” said Ralph, who had overheard from behind the door. “You cannot get rid of me that easily. I’m never leaving your side.”
Don’t say that line unless you’re a beautiful and seductive woman, I thought.
There were two men standing guard outside the mansion who looked like town guardsmen. There were several padlocks on the gate to keep it shut. More guards stood at the rear gate and service entrance, which were boarded up. It seemed like there were regular patrols around the property, too.
I could hear sounds and voices within the mansion. They were getting desperate, pawing through the place in search of a hidden treasure they would never find.
“We’ll just have to jump over, then,” I said. If we could get over the wall, we’d be in the spacious yard, where there were plenty of trees and bushes to hide behind.
“Are you going to scale it with a rope?” said Ralph, pulling a rope with a grappling hook on the end from his rucksack. Adventurers had to be prepared with tools like that.
“There’s a simpler way.”
This was why I’d brought Dez along. He wasn’t built for sneaking around; his role was transportation.
“Go ahead,” I told him. Dez lifted me up with one hand. April and Ralph looked stunned, but to Dez, my weight was no harder to lift than a piece of paper.
“Just make sure you land right,” he said, then hurled me.
My body soared over the wall and landed in some tall grass. The impact left me briefly blinded, but I didn’t have time to deal with that. I could easily imagine Dez’s next move. He was softer on women and children, but he didn’t spare any power on grown men. I had to get moving before it was too late.
A moment later, Ralph came falling toward me. I jumped out of the way, and Ralph seemed to have just barely caught himself on impact. I grabbed his rope and tossed it over, ignoring his protests.
“Go on, grab it,” I called out.
I had Ralph keep the rope taut from this side. April came climbing over, carrying the cage with Oliver in it on her back. I could hear an angry, admonishing voice from the other side of the wall; Dez had been spotted by one of the guards. I’d anticipated this, of course, and told him to make up something and go back home.
The first thing I smelled in the yard was dirt. April groaned. They’d torn up the place, digging here and there in search of the “buried treasure.” At this rate, the inside of the building was going to look even worse. They just had to get impatient, didn’t they? The old man would never hide something in his garden.
I let Oliver out of his cage. There was a narrow string tied to his collar. That was our lifeline.