Hi everyone! I hope you're not too mad at me for the absence. I never intend on being so long with updates, but the sophomore year of college is horrendously pressing and busy. Such as, I have an English Undergrad Conference on Monday I am presenting at and should be preparing for, but I finished this instead before I got to work on my presentation. Hope you all like it, thanks for the great reviews, and keep reviewing! I feel like I'm losing people from lack of updates which is expected, but I still love getting feedback. Enjoy!

- Dis/Claimer –

x x x

. Chapter Nine .

"'Find your pearl where the massacre rests?' What's that even supposed to mean?" Riley asked, picking up one of the letters with care. "When did we start looking for a pearl?"

"No idea," Carolyn sighed. She clicked her nails boredly and looked to Patrick. "Is it a code word?"

"That's the thing about covert treasure protectors," Patrick said with a wry smile. "You never can tell." At their despondent reactions, he added as he shook the letter in his hands, "But I think I found something here."

"You mean there's more?"

Carolyn gave Riley a reprimanding glare. "Try not to sound so enthused."

"Oh, but I can't help it.. Maybe it rhymes! 'Find your pearl where the massacre rests, but if you can't, we understand; you did your best!'"

Carolyn met his cheeky grin with a stern smile of her own, mocking him. "'We're going to find compasses South and West, so perk up, sweetie, and try not to get too stressed.'" She batted her eyelashes at his sour frown, and he put the letter he was holding back on the table.

"Show-off."

"It says," Patrick interrupted, shifting forward in his chair more, "that Greenleaf was to have a look at Paul Revere's latest engraving 'for minutiae'."

Riley huffed. 'Minutiae' sounded like a bland Asian soup diluted with too much water.

"What is that?" Carolyn asked before he got the chance.

"Details. Details and information to further explain this hiding place," Patrick said. Carolyn and Riley watched his eyes grazed the letter over once more in silence, his hand coming to his mouth in thought. "We have to go to Boston."

Riley forced a rigid smile. He yearned for the warm sun of Barbados and normality to the point that it made his heart sick with longing. "Boston. Great!"

"Why there?"

"That latest engraving Paul Revere mentioned documents a very historical moment in the city of Boston's history: The Boston Massacre," Patrick said as familiarity and the connection came to his audience of two. "The date on this letter is summer 1770, a few months after the Massacre in Boston Square on March 5, 1770. Paul Revere made this engraving the most famous depiction of the event. This is what he wanted Oliver Greenleaf to find."

"That doesn't explain his riddle much," Riley said after running his hands through his damp hair, the snowflakes having melted on it. "Boston is where the massacre rests, then?"

"The 'pearl' is there," Carolyn deducted. Patrick confirmed with a concise nod.

"We need to find the engraving, probably in the Boston Massacre Historical Society right in front of Boston Square where it took place. I doubt we'll find the compass there, but it's one step closer to the next."

"We'd get even closer with that pin you mentioned," Carolyn said to Riley. "Did Abigail say to meet them anywhere after they met with Maddox?"

Riley pulled out his phone, rolling it in his hand. "Not yet. I imagine they're waiting for us to figure this out."

x x x

Ben stood silently before the lit Pennsylvania Monument with Maddox and the others nearby trying to figure out a good picture angle while waiting for news of where to go next. Ben clutched his phone in his winter coat pocket as they did their sightseeing, the gravity of guilt and anxiousness pulling on his heart.

Priscilla marched by behind Maddox in the snow, and Ben gave a short whistle. She stopped.

"Did you send him?"

She looked him up and down and eventually nodded. "I told him it was his idea," she said, inclining her head in her boss's direction.

"Alright."

"Maddox never thought you'd make such a suggestion, but he's impressed with it. Even more so that you're following through with it."

Ben nodded dizzily, his chest swelling. "Stop."

Priscilla walked away, stinging Ben with the reminder, "It was your idea."

He hung his head with a sound exhale. Abigail looked between the growing distance of the two of them as she approached her husband, shivering.

"What if they haven't figured it out by the time he gets there?"

"My dad's with them. They'll know."

"What if he does do it though? You don't know him, Ben."

He smirked, repositioning his feet in the snow. "No, but I know someone just like him."

x x x

Just then, without a knock, the hotel room door opened. Patrick, Riley, and Carolyn shot up from their chairs as they stranger stood there with a suspicious calm about him. Riley kept looking around the corner at the children, all asleep save for Alex. He felt Carolyn grip his sleeve and put an uncomfortable pressure on his bandaged shoulder.

"Who are you?"

The young man crossed the room past Patrick, sliding open the patio door and allowing wintry gusts to fill the alcove. Riley shouted at him, "I asked who you are!"

"Harper Kacy. I work for Maddox Whittacre," – Riley, Carolyn, and Patrick tensed as he took a gun from his coat and threw it outside – "and I was sent to kill you."

Carolyn's hold on Riley lessened significantly, the three of them staring at Harper. Patrick leaned out the door to see the gun lying below on the edge of the pool. He slid it closed quietly, Riley's eyes going between him and Harper. The young man with tufty red hair calmed the panic in his own eyes.

Maddox would just have to deal with it.

"He wants you two out of the way and you and the kids to come with me," he said to each respectable party. "Your friends aren't safe."

"We know that," Carolyn said, stepping out from behind Riley.

"Why should we trust you?" Patrick asked, going to pick up Alex. "You just told us you worked for Whittacre."

"Yeah, as his meteorologist on the boat," Harper replied flatly. He shrugged at their expectant faces. "I track storms, not people. And I definitely never agreed to kill anyone. I didn't sign on for any of this."

An empathetic pang hit Riley as he looked the nervous man up and down. It was like the younger version of him, only braver in defying authority.

"I didn't sign on for this either," he told him softly. Slowly, Riley's defensive stance relaxed, and he tilted his head to the side. "Why did you come up here?"

"To warn you that he's going to be on a warpath when he finds out I didn't actually kill you. He wanted me to have you call Ben before I did it and then meet him there with Mr. and Mrs. Gates." He inhaled shakily, looking to Riley and Carolyn. "You two need to leave."

Carolyn chuckled. "Leave?"

"You have to. Maddox has guys on the inside of the FBI-"

"Whoa," Riley said. "Who?"

"I don't know, but please - just do yourselves and your friends who are always within point blank range of Maddox a favor and go. You need to disappear now, before things get worse."

Riley looked to Carolyn with a raised brow. "I think we should-"

"No!"

"Carolyn, why not?!"

"Why not?! Just drop off the face of the earth and abandon them in the middle of all this? Maddox has our compasses and soon he'll have the information he needs to find the others."

"Lady," Harper interrupted, "I'm trying to do the right thing here."

"You threw the gun out the window and now you're trying to threaten me."

"It was a door…" Riley mumbled.

"I'm not threatening you!"

Riley held up his hands to cease the shouting between them, placing them gently on Carolyn's shoulders. "Carolyn."

"You didn't want to be here from the start."

"Yes! Very true! I believe you are partially responsible for that," he said as she rolled her eyes. He motioned to Harper and said, "Here is our opportunity to go back to the Estate, finish unpacking, let my shoulder heal, get married, go to Barbados, and talk about redoing that third floor nursery."

Carolyn's head jerked up immediately. "Really?"

"Yes. Really. Don't you want to be able to use that nursery someday?"

"You're changing the subject."

"Worth a shot, right?"

"No."

"Look," Harper said, "I don't know anything about this compass and Lost Treasure business if it makes you feel any better; just that he wigged out over that pin we found last week."

"That's because it is the vital piece in the whole scheme of things," Carolyn assured shortly. Harper glanced away trying to figure it out until Carolyn said, "Don't worry about how, just that it is."

Riley gave the exasperated meteorologist a look that conveyed he knew exactly how frustrated he was. "Give him a break, Carolyn. He just opted not to kill us, which was quite generous." He smiled at Harper. "Thank you, by the way."

"Don't thank me," he replied seriously, eyes strained from his nerves. He met Carolyn's dark eyes hesitantly. "I want you to be safe. That's my job, and not just where weather is concerned anymore. You have to call, and that's the last they hear from you. For a while at least."

Patrick rejoined their solemn atmosphere with Alex falling asleep in his arms. The little stuffed frog in his tiny hand fell to the floor soundlessly.

"Can't the kids just stay with them and be safe? I'll go alone."

Riley sighed. "Patrick, if you show up without them, Ben and Abigail are going to be devastated," he said gently.

"But we're going to get back in touch with them," Carolyn said.

"Yeah, but… If I ever thought for a second I'd never be able to see my kids again… I… It's just not something you put a parent through."

For the first time, Carolyn's face softened, her eyes admiring Riley beyond measure. She swallowed and nodded slowly in surrender, picking up one of Paul Revere's letters to Oliver Greenleaf from the table resolutely.

Riley smiled to himself briefly and looked up at Harper.

"What do we have to do?"

"Meet me in five minutes downstairs, and have your things in your car ready to go," Harper said, going for the door. "I'll just be a second. I need the gun."

x x x

Ben's cell phone rang, and everyone seemed to surround him in a matter of seconds. He eyed Maddox as he turned on the speaker phone and reluctantly took the call.

"Yes?"

"Don't you say hello anymore?"

"Hello, Riley."

"Hi, Ben. Listen, we made it to New Jersey just fine. I'm with Carolyn and your dad, and the kids are asleep. Are you and Abigail all right?"

"We're fine," Ben told him, looking around at the faces that surrounded him. "Did you tell them about the pin?"

"Yeah, and the compasses being connected, yeah, yeah."

Maddox was pressing into Ben with his eyes urgently. Ben cleared his throat. "Uh, Riley, have you guys figured out anything yet? Clue-wise?"

"Your dad and Carolyn found a hoard of letters to Oliver Greenleaf from Paul Revere in that library after the Liberty Tree meeting in Dorchester."

Ben's eyes lit up. "Paul Revere?"

"He found a hiding place for the Lost Treasure. In one of the letters he told Greenleaf to see his 'world famous' engraving of the Boston Massacre for minooshi."

"Minutiae," Carolyn's voice corrected from the background.

"Whatever. Mishu, Mi-nu-ti-ae-"

"Details!"

"Oh yeah, details," Riley repeated. "Details for where to go after that."

Ben nodded. "Boston, then."

"Yeah," Riley confirmed. Maddox's smile spread like wildfire.

"There's also this little phrase on that same letter about the engraving that says," – they heard him get the letter – "'Find your pearl where the massacre rests.' Your dad said it's obviously Boston, and that pearl is some kind of code word or clue reference. We're going to leave tomorrow morning and head up there. Where do you want us to meet you guys?"

Ben made a face. "What?"

"Ben, come on. Don't tell me you weren't going to bring Mr. Roanoke. He's probably listening right now."

"Yes, I am," Maddox said, leaning toward the phone.

"Yeah, see? Hi, everyone. Your dad just said meeting at that Massacre Museum would be best. We'll-"

Suddenly, a gunshot came.

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

Ben and the others started as screams came over the other end frantically. Maddox's face was serene.

"Riley! RILEY!"

Another came, silencing the uproar. A long dial tone followed.

Abigail's hands flew up to her mouth, a breathless "No" rushing from her when she turned to her husband. Priscilla was immobile as well, her face losing more color than it normally had. Ben stared at Maddox terror-stricken, but his only response was a furrowed brow.

"Didn't know Harper had it in him," he admitted, straightening up. Ben looked impacted so that he was calmly building up a rage of disbelief, ready to beat him into the snow continuously. Maddox sighed with the slightest apologetic intonation. He seemed as genuinely shocked as Ben.

"Guess you did see potential in him I didn't. Ah. Well. To, uh, to Boston, yeah?"

Abigail's face twisted with anger beyond recognition. "You bastard."

Maddox's eyebrows shot up. "No no, Mrs. Gates, you bastards," he said, walking away. "Was all your idea."

"Ben."

She saw his eye shine like glass on the profile of his stony face. Without word, he took the first heavy step forward.

He couldn't blame anyone but himself.

x x x

Cheeks flaming from the cold and the anger-guilt, Riley ripped the battery out of the back of his phone and chucked it across the tall grass of the dark field. His injured shoulder burned even though he had not used it; he bit his bottom lip as the phone itself now sailed away in the opposite direction. Carolyn had stepped on hers and ground it into the soft snowy mud with her boot, still deeply regretting the decision as silence grew around them once more. Riley took the letter in his hand and gently refolded it, putting it back inside his coat.

Harper lowered the gun from the sky. He handed it to Riley.

"Whyyyy give this to me?" he asked, reaching for it slowly.

Carolyn swiped it from Harper quickly and secured it in the back of her jeans. Riley stared; he kept forgetting she was half a professional with guns, and he'd rather, to be honest.

"Just take it," Harper said. "Protect yourselves. I'm never going to use it."

"Protect ourselves? We've just been killed, remember?" Riley asked.

Harper shrugged. "Just in case." Seeing Carolyn's face directed longingly at his car, he said, "I'll make sure they're okay. I don't drive fast or anything."

She smiled at him. Hard as it was, she held out her hand. "Thank you."

Harper shook it cordially. "You're welcome." Carolyn stepped back as he shook Riley's next. "When you get your new phones, put me in immediately."

"You got it," Riley said. He followed Carolyn toward the road, turning and walking backwards as he shouted back to the younger man. "Hey, Harper!"

"Yeah?"

"If you get the chance, do me a favor?"

"What?"

Riley slowed somewhat, meeting his gaze and wetting his dry lips. Then he stopped altogether.

"Tell… Tell Ben I'm sorry. You know. If you can?"

Harper didn't understand but nodded sincerely. "I'll get him the message."

Riley inhaled shakily, taking a few more steps backwards. "Thanks." And he turned back around to go.

x x x

Harper watched them get in their car and spin gravel and snow to get back on the road from the middle of the field still. The car sped away after passing the one with Ben's father and children in it that he was driving back to Maddox.

Speaking of...

Harper hit a button on his phone and brought it to his ear. He picked up instantly.

"I heard some of the show," he said, humor subdued. "Can I get a play-by-play analysis?"

"I got Patrick and the three kids. He says to go to Boston."

"Great," Maddox said. "I got to hear Poole and Carolyn tell Ben himself right before you made your grand entrance. Quite a screamer from what I heard."

Harper shut his eyes at his boss's chuckle. His heart pounded uncomfortably. "Where do want me to take them?"

"Boston Massacre Historical Society. Tomorrow afternoon around two."

"How do I get there?"

"You're a weatherman for god's sake, Mr. Kacy; you love maps. Google it if you have to."

x x x

Joseph Myers was not akin to his predecessor, the late Peter Sadusky. That guy was a friend of Ben Gates, willing to give him a break every so often, and look where it got him: lying face down in the historian's backyard with a bullet in his back. No, Joseph Myers knew that if an FBI agent were to favor anyone, it would be the man with the upper hand and the one whose enemies weren't partial to using guns when confrontation arose.

Maddox didn't have much power yet, but he was on his way. Myers could respect that since he was the son of his old friend, and according to legal documentation, his godchild. He also paid loyalty well since his father passed away, but somehow Maddox made it clear that he was not as corrupt as he seemed. His heart was still in finding out the mystery of the Lost Colonists, and the only way to do so was by way of this Lost Treasure.

Something like that anyways. Myers was never one for history.

Be he could learn to love it as much as Maddox and Gates put together if paid properly.

"I'm still wondering why you won't have us arrest Gates yet," he said over the phone from his office to Maddox. "He'd be out of your way, he's robbed a national bank-"

"Yes, but I burned down his house and practically kidnapped him, so we're even as of now. He's telling me the descendants of the colonists are the Sons of Liberty which is a fascinating cover-up. There's a lot more here involving later Colonial America than I thought, so he and his father are going to help us with that. Paul Revere is suddenly making an appearance, and god knows who else next."

"How does this prove anything?"

"Descendants, Joseph! If the Lost Colonists actually survived, they would have descendants, and they would have hidden the treasure! You can't very well have dead people hiding a treasure, now can you?"

Myers took a drink from his coffee mug. "Others could have found it and moved it, Maddox."

"No, they were too protective of it. Their first mission failed and they wanted to prove to the Queen that they were trustworthy enough to expand her reign and protect the gold. All the signs point to an abandonment of the colony, Joseph, and the treasure went with them."

"And if it was left and taken by natives?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to disprove. They moved it themselves, and their great-great-grandchildren in the Revolution came to the forefront again as Sons of Liberty, chatted with the Masons, said no thanks, but we'll keep our gold separate, and now we're getting somewhere."

"Where would that be?"

"Boston. Paul Revere gave a letter to a descendant of the Lost Colonists offering him a hiding spot for the treasure. This is where I'm going to need Gates and why you can't arrest him."

Myers sighed. If he said so…

"What about his band of followers?"

"Carolyn Howe and her fiancé are out of the picture."

"I thought you needed her?"

"Well, for the compass. Now that I've got it, she's not much use unless we need a paintbrush. Priscilla has a few of those lying around herself, though. More talented anyway. She painted the name on the boat."

"So you've mentioned. A few times."

"Really? It couldn't've been that many."

A smile came to Myers. "She's going to elsewhere if you don't suck it up soon, boy."

"I have another call to take, Myers."

"Of course," he said knowingly. "Call me should the occasion call for it."

"Will do."

Myers put the phone down, his forehead finding the palm of his hand. There was no talking to him about anything, let alone Roanoke.

x x x

Dust hung suspended in the sunbeams that poured onto the dark blue-grey carpet from the heavy, parted curtains, the golden pendulum of the grandfather clock catching the bright gleam of the early morning sun each time it swung. The untouched stillness was intruded on then with the opening of the front door, large and white. Riley kicked the snow from his boots before entering quickly with a suitcase in hand and duffel around his shoulder. Carolyn came in wordlessly after him, having no motivation whatsoever to shut the door. She looked at the leg of the coffee table being skirted by the sunlight as Riley dropped the bags with a loud sigh. He rolled his shoulder.

"I don't think I've ever been happier to be in this place."

Carolyn didn't look up.

"I'm really getting sick of you running off," Ian said as they came in, ripping is hat from his head and sending feathery snowflakes everywhere. "They send me to find you, and hell, I'm mad enough to oblige."

Carolyn tore her boots off hotly. "Why? You could just say you never found me."

"And give your seventeen-year-old self the pleasure? Come now, dearest, there are crueler men out there than here. They might corner you in a dark alley."

She shoved him back into the door to his surprise as she passed. "I live here. I think I can manage a dark alley."

Riley's smile died off at her begrudging silence. She hadn't said much during their four-hour road trip back to this place. He was willing to call Ian's house his 'home' just to get them out of the mess they were involved in, but the satisfaction he had hoped he would be feeling long ago when they left the field hadn't come at all.

He was rid of Ben, rid of Whittacre, rid of all this ridiculous history and treasure stuff.

Free to live peacefully and get married, start a family and retire early. Buy a small country.

Yet as he looked at her tired body leaning against the wall, her eyes far off, he knew he wasn't going to be rid of anything regarding this Roanoke treasure for a long time.

"Go lie down," he suggested gently. "I'll bring the rest of the stuff in. I'll get lunch-"

"Leave mine in the car."

Riley stopped next to her in the doorway, meeting her eyes for the first time in what seemed eternity. She still had haze in hers from the lack of sleep and overabundance of stress, but behind it was her persistence and Ian's quiet rage.

Ian. She was doing this because of him.

Even in death he managed to put their lives in an unwanted whirlwind.

The most undeserving of people.

Carolyn winced slightly. Riley reached for her. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"Nothing you aren't experiencing. Headache, tired, hungry."

"You're making yourself dizzy from all this," he said, easing her to the floor. Her back slid down the wall until it met the baseboard. He sat beside her as she hid her face in her hand. Riley stared at the suitcase and duffel bag in front of them. He looked at the diamond on her finger, trying to block everything from his memory. He had to before he asked, "Rest a day and then we'll go?"

She shook her head. "We have to at least follow them. They could be out of Boston by tonight."

Riley sighed, falling back into the wall more.

"Airport it is."

x x x

There was not a trace of snow anywhere in the city of Boston, making that March 5th perfectly nice for the reenactment of the Boston Massacre. Abigail looked out of a window in the Boston Massacre Historical Society's Museum at the actors preparing for their celebrated show in the street as Maddox's voice broke over them.

"Mr. Kacy, Mr. Gates, great to see you. Children."

She turned. Her children were rubbing the sleep from their eyes but were otherwise unharmed. The anxiety in her heart was released as she ran over to them. Ben approached, staring down Harper as he took Alex from his father. Harper felt ill with this necessary misunderstanding.

"Alright, no tussling, Ben," Maddox said with an intonation that sickly reminded him of Ian as he walked up to him. He smiled at Alex warmly despite Ben's eyes strongly discouraging interaction with his son.

"Oh, you're a big boy!" Maddox said, making Alex look at him with his big eyes. "You look just like your dad. Maybe your mom's nose."

"Stop talking to him," Ben said shortly.

"Dad! Is that the Roanoke Man?" Charlie asked from his mother's side. Sally got excited at his mention and said, "Wow! Cool! Did you find the treasure yet?"

"No, sweetheart," Maddox laughed. "But with your dad's help, I'm going to."

"Dad's found two treasures," Sally said. "Uncle Riley helped him, too."

The room tensed, and Charlie inevitably spoke of him and Carolyn.

"Where are Uncle Riley and Carolyn?"

Patrick forced a smile to his grandson. "I told you in the car, Charlie, they just aren't here yet. We'll see them later."

"Oooh. Hi, Mr. Whittacre! I'm Charlie. I like your boat!"

"Me, too!" Sally said. "Can we ride on it? Please?"

Maddox grinned sideways at Ben and Abigail, feeling their hatred crushing him from both sides. He crouched before the twins, Abigail protectively putting her arms around their shoulders more.

"You can ride on it anytime you like. But first, we have to look at this picture very closely for another clue in our treasure hunt," he said, nodding to Paul Revere's famous engraving on the wall behind them amongst several other works. He held out his hands to the two children. "Deal?"

"Deal!" Charlie said, the two each shaking one of his hands with both of their small ones.

Maddox rose. "Great! You two are the most charming kids I've ever met. And I've met lots of kids!"

"Where is this message on the engraving?" Patrick suddenly asked loudly, silencing the room. Maddox swallowed under his threatening demeanor, looking at Priscilla's tight face and then the engraving.

"It's on the back. I could use some help from everyone."

Everyone slowly moved forward towards the portrait except for Harper. He endured another hateful look from Ben before Maddox barked at him, "Harper! If you're not going to help us, at least stand at the door!" He obeyed, stiffly crossing the room past the children.

"Careful," Abigail cautioned as they lifted the original chipped frame from the wall. She, Ben, Priscilla, and Maddox lifted it evenly, a stale scent rushing out from behind it. Maddox glanced at the wooden back to make sure he had a good hold. However, he did a double take, noticing a fine stream of words running through his fingers.

"Hey, it's on the back here!"

"What?"

"Yeah, have a look! Ease it down. Priscilla, step back and get the top edge of it."

"What does it say?" Abigail asked once it was suspended in their hands horizontally. Maddox leaned close to it, the scrawls faded to the point that they could almost not be seen.

"'Find your pearl where the massacre rests.' Just what the letter did."

"There's another line," Ben said, spotting its faint presence below the first.

"There is. 'Polybius Square.'"

"Where's that?" Priscilla asked.

"Got me," Ben said. "I've never even heard of the place."

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