“Meanwhile, the people who hired you got desperate to get their hands on the key. What I don’t get is, shouldn’t they have believed the one lost in the river was the only copy?”
Nora was well informed. He shrugged. “I don’t know why their sudden interest again.”
“Somehow they figured out it was a fake. Which makes me wonder if they know the book you gave them is different than the one you kept.”
“Only subtly,” he stated. “Slight variations in the wording.”
“Such as the tsarina becoming the beast instead of vice versa.”
“Which is just as dumb as the other version I’ve heard of where the monster turns into a man.”
“You don’t think it’s possible?” she asked as if utterly serious.
He couldn’t help but scoff. “Werewolves aren’t real. It’s just physically impossible.”
“And yet don’t skinwalkers exist in just about every culture in legend?”
“Doesn’t make it real. In olden days they also used to think the sun and moon only rose because of the gods. That sacrifices could make for a good crop.”
“There are things in this world that would seem fantastical to people only a century ago. Look at technology and its evolution.”
“Technology is built. Biology is static.”
She laughed, as if that were the funniest thing ever. “For a man who believes in a treasure quest, you’re awfully rigid on other matters.”
“I’ll admit I don’t know if that book and the key lead to anything. Probably fool’s gold, but…” He shrugged. What if he could hit the jackpot? The score of all scores. Even if he didn’t, the adventure itself still appealed.
“If we assume the book and its story are clues, then we can replicate the hero’s journey so long as we find the starting point. Which would be here.” She found the image she wanted and pointed. “Some kind of place with sandy dunes where we have to enter the mouse’s lair to find the path to the icy field.” She kept flipping, but he jolted forward.
“Wait, what did you say? Go back a page.”
“Why? Did you see something?” She flipped to the previous image, the white and silver illustration glinting bright.
“You called that an ice field.” He pointed.
“What else would it be?”
“The book refers to it as the land of diamonds. For some reason, I took it literally. I’ve been trying to find a way to check out some of the mines located in Russia without getting shot for trespassing. I never even thought it might be ice.”
“The advantage of not being too close to the story,” she quipped. “Which leads me to ask, what makes you think the treasure is in Russia?”
“Where else would it be?”
“Somewhere tropical for starters given it starts on a beach.” She pointed to the early image of dunes by an edge of water.
“Siberia has those kinds of sandy hills.”
“Sounds like you might be stretching. Especially since the last location clue is a volcano with a tunnel. Still sounds more tropical to me.”
“Except there are volcanoes in Russia, like the ones by the Kamchatka Peninsula.”
“I guess it’s possible.” She chewed her lower lip. “But what if you’re wrong and we go off in the wrong direction?”
His stomach dropped. “We’ll never get the key back or beat them to the treasure.”
“You said we.” She grinned. “Finally ready to admit you need me?”
“I need the reward I’ll get for solving this thing.”
“How sure are you? Ready to put your money where your mouth is?”
“Meaning?”
“If you’re wrong, and it’s not in Russia, you don’t get any more money.”
Wager on a hunch? He held out his hand. “It’s a bet.”
Chapter Ten
“So where to first?” Nora asked.
“A part of me wants to just go looking for that final volcano, but…” Peter trailed off and shrugged, his expression sheepish.
“I get it. In the book, the hero has to do the quest in order, or he’ll never find it.” She laughed. “Guess if we’re going to do this, we should do it right. First stop, the sand dunes in Siberia.”
Since she seemed keen on booking their trip, he let her handle it and was glad of it. It meant first class flights into the heart of Russia. Once there, she hustled them off to the train station where they got not just a private cabin but all the bells and whistles.
He sat down on the plush seating and sighed. “This is the life.”
“Might as well travel in style, given we could have to rough it at a moment’s notice,” she stated.
“What is the plan once we get to the next station? Are we riding into the desert?”
“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.” Scarier words had never been heard.
Then again, he didn’t get the impression she expected to rough it much. His knapsack of supplies held more than her satchel did. She liked to travel light, or so she claimed. She had also boasted, “I’m a most excellent hunter and can easily live off the land.”
“I’d rather sleep in a bed,” had been his grumbled reply. True and false at the same time. He did enjoy his creature comforts, but he also loved the exhilaration of a quest. Of setting out to solve a mystery. To locate a treasure. To outsmart everyone else.
“I imagine the dunes have shifted since the book was written,” he said as they waited for their trip to begin.
She held out her phone on a selfie stick, oddly enough, aiming it at their window. Doing what? Was she videotaping the station outside? Should he remind her about not posting to social media?
“If the treasure was easy to find, then it’s already gone. We have to assume it’s not.”
“Surely we’re not the first to try.” The closer they got, the more worried he was they’d gone on a possible wild goose chase.
“According to the book, you have to use the key to get the treasure.”
“We don’t have the key.”
“Yet. You’re a professional thief. Steal it back.”
She said it as if it were simple. And it might be if they could catch up to the goons who took it.
“We don’t even know if it’s the right key.” He ignored his gut that said it was.
“It’s the only key we know about, though. Despite looking deep, Melly hasn’t found shit except for another knock-off copy of the fairy tale, but in that version, the hero dies before he can get the treasure and the heroine throws herself off a balcony.”
“That’s a Brothers Grimm kind of ending.”
“I like it!” was her dark reply that had him laughing. “We’re in the process of acquiring it to compare against the version you left behind.”
“I wonder why all the differences,” he mused aloud.
“Only the ending seems to change. In other respects, they are almost the same. The quest. The location. Just the outcome shifts based on small things.”
“It’s the little things that usually get you in the end. Such as the mouse in the first clue.”