Chapter 18
Maddox had just told her “You’ll know when you know” in his inscrutable way, and she’d trusted him at the time, thinking it was another test.
She was now sure she was failing. Because apart from there being dust-covered rich person knickknacks lying around, and the hunting trip conquests in the front room, nothing they’d passed looked all that interesting to her. Not like it belonged in a magical alpha transition ceremony for the Starry Sky werewolf pack.
Junior gave a belabored sigh, walked over to the bookcase, counted several books over from the right, and pulled one out.
The entire bookcase popped out on hinges and quietly spun as he pushed it. He stepped into the darkness behind it without question, while Zach and Stella glanced at one another.
“Well? Come on,” he demanded from the shadows.
Zach made sure he went in first, to protect her—like she couldn’t protect herself.
“Rich people and secret passages,” she muttered and heard Zach snort.
THE SHORT, dark hallway led them into a room that was illuminated so brightly the second Junior stepped into it, it looked like he was stepping into heaven. Stella cast an arm over her face and then blinked until her eyes could acclimate.
The room they entered was narrow but quite tall and outfitted like a miniature museum crossed with a tiny homemade candy factory. One wall held little ovens and burners, cooling slabs, and weird twisty hooks at eyeball height. Another was full of shelves holding specimens of rock, pieces of skeleton, and jars full of assorted murky fluids. And then the last wall was full of old-timey maps, plastered up so high Stella couldn’t even make out the top ones. In front of these, there was a nice-looking telescope, even though the room had no windows.
“So,” Junior said, matter-of-factly, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dress slacks as he turned to face them, addressing the Beast alone. “You collect weird shit too, eh?”
Stella stepped away from Zach’s side to inspect things as Junior went on.
“Of course you do. After a while men like you run out of real things to buy with their money, right? Who doesn’t want immortality in a jar?” He swept up a jar off a shelf behind him and threw it at Zach, who caught it deftly, raising it to eye the contents. “You see how well it worked for him—I’m sure it’ll do the same for you,” Junior huffed, the sound echoing on the marble walls. “You should go back to being ashamed of yourself and taking too many testosterone supplements. Even though those are fake too, they still probably work better than all of this bullshit.”
Stella scanned the maps as quickly as she was able, saying a small prayer. Remi, if you’re still listening somewhere—help! If her brother were here, he’d have already known what to do.
Some of the maps were weather maps, others topographical, and still more seemed to map out continents that she’d never seen before, Here There Be Dragons-style. There were too many to go through, more than she could even properly comprehend, as they were haphazardly placed over one another.
And then she saw something she recognized on a corner. A constellation that she—someone who had spent a great deal of her life, looking at the stars at night—did not recognize from up above… but from below.
Because the same strange constellation was tattooed on her thigh.
She reached up to free the map it was drawn on in awe, and Junior snapped at her. “Don’t touch any of it!” he shouted. Stella yanked her hand back. “I’m not selling a single piece until I’ve had it all properly appraised.”
“Wrong. You are selling me that one,” Zach said, stepping forward, holding the papers he’d printed off.
“Not. I don’t know how much it is worth.”
“I’m betting it’s less than seventeen million, to start,” Zach said. She turned around slowly to watch, her jaw dropped, as Junior slowly took the papers from Zach’s hand.
He pulled out reading glasses from his suit’s inner pocket and started scanning them. “Undeveloped waterfront property?”
“Just a few acres. Don’t get too excited,” Zach said, coming to stand by Stella and stare up.
Junior made it to the bottom of the last page. “How do I know you’re not conning me?”
One of the Beast’s imperious eyebrows rose. “How many people do you know that’re interested in this ‘shit,’ as you say?” he asked archly. “It’s not enough to know the value of an item, Junior—the buyers need to exist. Or did your father teach you nothing?” He rounded on the man. “Do you want to wait months for an appraisal, and then months more for a buyer? When you could start working on the waterfront multipurpose building of your dreams, right now?”
Junior gave him a shrewd look. “So that one piece of paper is worth seventeen million dollars to you?”