Kids These Days

Chapter 50: Becca

We're back in the Corvette. This time, I'm driving. I made Kiran pull over and get out after he almost swerved into a fire hydrant trying to put a tape in the cassette player.

The Corvette is a smooth ride, and for the first time in my life, I understand why guys are so obsessed with their cars. If I had fifty thousand dollars to throw away, you can bet I'd be cruising around town in a sports car like this, sticking it to the speed limit. I press my foot against the gas pedal and Kiran lets out a delighted whoop as we hit on ninety on the highway. We speed into Dusty Valley with the wind at our backs, the morning electric and alive with possibilities.

After we left the Joshua tree behind in the dust, Kiran declared, seemingly out of nowhere, "I know how to find the gold. We have to go back to the beginning."

I didn't ask any questions. I just believed him. I'd never heard Kiran sound so sure about anything before.

So here we are, back at the beginning, idling in front of Sorrento's Pizza. Sunlight bounces off the restaurant windows and the neon sign advertising the best calzones in Dusty Valley. The streetlights start to flicker off, one by one, down a deserted Main Street, like the town itself is trying to show us the way to the gold. I ease the Corvette into an empty parking spot and we hop out onto the sidewalk.

Kiran digs a set of keys out of his pockets and unlocks the front door to Sorrento's. "Don't tell Talia," he says with a grin. I draw an X over my heart.

It feels strange to be in the restaurant before opening. Like we're on a movie set and the director is about to yell, "Cut!" Everything is too clean -- the floor has been swept free of crumpled napkins and pizza crusts, all the Formica counter-tops freshly scrubbed. It smells like oil from the deep fryer and lemony Fabuloso spray.

Could this really be where it all began -- a treasure hunt spanning generations? It looks more like where a twelve year-old would go to celebrate their birthday.

Kiran dips into the kitchen, returning with a bag of Ruffles. "I know what you're thinking. Why the hell would the gold be here?" He offers me a chip, which I accept. (My stomach isn't pleased about skipping breakfast to go on a treasure hunt.) "I thought the same thing. I I ruled this place out when Talia started working here, figuring that she would've noticed anything usual, so there was no point in pissing her off by searching again."

"What made you reconsider?"

He crunches down thoughtfully on a chip. "Something that Rachel said. It's starting, it's ending. I know she wasn't talking about the gold, but it made me think of Sorrento's. This is where my sister first looked, but what if she wasn't looking in the right place? What if the gold has been hiding in plain sight all along?"

I cast my gaze around the empty restaurant. "I don't see anything."

"That's because we're looking for the gold in 1989. This building was originally constructed in 1842. We're not going to find anything up here in the modern-day -- we need to start with the foundations."

"I thought Andy and Talia already searched the cellar."

"They did, but not with someone who was born in Dusty Valley." Kiran gives me a significant look, the moment slightly ruined by him wiping cheese dust on his jeans. "Like I said. You might be the key to everything, Becca Fisher."

"Just as long as it doesn't require a blood sacrifice."

"I doubt that," he says with a grin. "But we are going to need this."

He pulls a silver necklace out from under his t-shirt. Dangling from the chain is an ancient-looking skeleton key.

The last time I saw that key, it was hanging from Rachel's neck. And the last time I saw Rachel, she was dissolving into a spell of her own creation. Everything -- including the knife Leigh used to complete the sacrifice -- vanished with her. "How the hell did you get that?" I ask, leaning forward to get a better look.