Henry linked his fingers in his lap, and his expression turned grave. “You don’t understand. I know what the treasure is.”
Emma froze and glanced at the faces of the others gathered. Most of them met her gaze with shell-shocked expressions.
Except for her mother.
Was this another one of their lies?
Had Emma walked right into it?
“A few months ago, I started looking into my father’s research and trying to put the pieces together. I called in a few favors at Oxford and Harvard, and we managed to decode some of the letters. My father didn’t bury treasure. He buried his research.”
Emma’s ears were ringing now, and she thought she could feel the ground beneath her feet shift. “What?”
“I knew if I told you the truth, you’d dismiss me. You haven’t been interested in astronomy in years, not the way you used to be, and I needed to get you here.”
Emma opened and closed her mouth several times.
Marley said something in the background, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
“So, you…youliedto get me here?”
He’d lured her here under false pretenses and had her chasing her tail for the past ten days, all in the hopes that she was doing something good.
As if trying to pull her family back together wasn’t hard enough.
“You had to come back to Rockport,” Henry continued in the same even tone. “You needed to reconnect with who you were, and I couldn’t force you to do that.”
“No, you decided to trick me instead.” Her words were hollow and strained, even to her own ears, but she wasn’t sure how else she was supposed to respond.
Or how she was meant to react to any of this.
Emma wanted to hide behind the nearest bush and empty the contents of her stomach. She swallowed, and the hot chocolate rose to the back of her throat, tasting like bile.
How could her father do this to her?
“I didn’t want to trick you,” Henry maintained. “But I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist looking into the mystery of the eclipse. So, I’ve been talking about it for months, getting the rest of the townspeople interested enough that I knew you’d hear about it when you came.”
Emma took an unsteady step back, and her chest tightened. “The letters and everything in your drawer? You planted them there?”
Henry nodded. “I did. I usually have your grandfather’s things in the attic, but I figured having them in my study would be easier. I knew you’d figure it out, honey. You just needed some time and a push in the right direction.”
Emma took another step away and made a vague hand gesture. “Marley and Jack were in on it too?”
“What? No, Emma, we would never—” Jack began, his eyes flashing as he lurched toward her.
“Neither of them knew what I was planning,” Henry interrupted with a sharp look in Jack’s direction. “But I knew they’d be able to help you. The three of you always liked working together, and I knew you just needed a nudge.”
Emma glanced over his shoulders at her mother, who was staring at her feet. “You knew about this?”
Marie swallowed and lifted her gaze. “I began to have my suspicions a few days ago.”
Emma let out a low, humorless laugh. “So, you had me wasting all this time on stupid folklore.”
Henry shook his head. “No, thereisa Sullivan family treasure, but it’s not gold. It’s not even material. According to what I’ve read, it’s my father’s astronomical research, things he had been working on during the war and in the days leading up to his death. Based on his notes, I have every reason to believe that whatever he unlocked is going to be groundbreaking.”
Silence stretched between them.
“I was going to go looking for the treasure myself, but when I started feeling sick, I knew I had to bring you back, Emma. You have to finish what I started. You’re the only one who can.”
