Page 52 of Your Every Wish

Kennedy’s right—in the aftermath of everything that’s happened, we may have made a few blunders. The agents whisked the bag away so quickly, we never got a chance to ask for a full accounting. Or to ask what happens next.

“We’ll call Mr. Townsend in the morning. He’ll be able to get answers.” I’m still overwhelmed by it all, and will be sharper tomorrow.

What is clear today, though, is that Kennedy will never get the money in time for Monday.

* * *

“You knew it was there all along, didn’t you?” It’s the first time Liam and I are alone today and the first chance I’ve had to confront him about what I saw out there.

It happened on Wednesday, when we came up empty-handed during the first dig.

I watched him, which I find myself doing a lot these days—but that’s another story—and he wasn’t at all surprised when we didn’t find the bag.

In fact, he spent a lot of time with his face buried in his phone.

I only caught a quick glance of what he was looking at, but it appeared to be a diagram.

And when Misty directed us to the real spot, I saw Liam visibly grow animated. He knew it was there, I could feel it. The question is how, and why didn’t he tell us?

Liam stares down at his feet.

It’s a perfect autumn night. Cool but not too cold to sit outside in Liam’s front yard wrapped in a lightweight throw blanket next to his propane firepit with the jack-o’-lanterns next door adding an orange-tinged glow. The smell of wood fire in the air is as thick as my suspicions.

“Liam?”

“Yeah . . . about that . . . Don’t hate me, Emma.”

“Why would you even say that? How did you know the money was there?”

There’s a long pause and then, “Because I put it there.”

I’m stunned silent, so many possibilities flitting through my head that I don’t know where to start. Or what to believe. Who exactly is Liam Duffy?

“Please explain,” I say tightly.

Liam blows out a long breath. “Where do I start?”

“How about at the beginning. Is Liam Duffy even your real name?”

He laughs but it isn’t a happy laugh. “Yeah, it’s my real name. I never lied to you, Emma. I only omitted the truth.”

“Tell me the truth and let me be the judge of whether you lied. ”

“I worked for your dad. He asked me to bury the money and to make sure you found it. It’s about three million dollars, by the way. As it turned out, you didn’t need me to find it.”

“Whoa, back up. When did you work for Willy and how is it that you’re living here?” None of this makes any sense and I wonder if he’s making the whole thing up. Yet, something tells me he isn’t. “Why didn’t you simply tell us from the beginning? Why all the clandestineness?”

He considers the question or at least how to answer it, which seems pretty straightforward to me.

“Because I didn’t want to wind up in prison like your father.

I was . . . am . . . an accessory to a crime.

” He lets that sink in. “Your father owes money to the IRS and restitution for his conviction. After the insider trading, they were coming after him with everything they had. To get out of paying a lot of it, he hid money in an offshore account, then claimed he was broke. Bad investments and unlucky sports betting. Not completely untrue, at least the part about bad investments and sports betting. His fortune had dwindled significantly by the time the feds started investigating him. He knew it was only a matter of time before they tracked down what little he had left. So he moved it to me and told me to bury it here. Then he paid me to watch over its hiding place. He knew the cancer would kill him soon and he wanted to make sure that you and Kennedy found what should rightfully be yours.”

“When? When did this all happen? How did you know him?”

“It’s a long story, Emma.” Liam turns away from me but I’m not having it.

“We have all night. Start talking.” Is anything about him even real? I feel so stupid . . . so betrayed.

“I was in charge of his security,” he says.

“Or I should say I was his lone security person. We met more than a decade ago when I was a fledgling agent with the Secret Service. At the time I also had a taste for gambling, which got me into hot water with my employer, as you can imagine. Willy took me under his wing and gave me a job.” He pauses for a beat, deep in thought.

“I was not aware of his insider trading. If I had been I would’ve warned him against it.

But Willy thrived on risk, so who knows if he would’ve listened to me?

You should understand that other than that one lapse he was a law-abiding person. ”

“Except when he failed to pay his taxes, hid his money in offshore accounts, and then buried it in a wall. Very law-abiding.”

Liam pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, there’s that. But he was dying, Emma. He was dying and he wanted you and Kennedy to have what was left of his fortune. He wanted to make up for being a lousy father. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just telling you his reasoning.”

“And yet, you went along with him.”

“I’m not proud of it, but yes, I went along with him and broke the law and will probably pay the consequences for that.”

“Why? Why did you go along with him when you knew it was wrong? Illegal?”

“Because I owed him. He picked me up when no one else would. I lost my job, my fiancée, my family, and my self-respect. Willy put me back on my feet again. And because at his core he was a good man who made mistakes when it came to his family and wanted to go to his grave making amends.”

“So you moved here, lived in the middle of nowhere just so you could guard the money?” I shake my head because it doesn’t make any sense. Who gives up their life for . . . a criminal?

“Moving here was one of the best things I ever did. It gave me time to evaluate my life, my mistakes, and my future. And it gave me the chance to meet you.” He looks at me, really looks, and the sparkle of affection in his eyes leaves me breathless.

“Then again, I was already acquainted with you. You just didn’t know it. ”

“What do you mean?”

“Part of my job was to keep tabs on you and Kennedy. I was at your college graduation, Kennedy’s high school graduation. Willy used to read all your advice columns.” He smiles.

I’m a little weirded out by this. Not so much Willy reading my columns as Liam stalking us on Willy’s behalf. “Were you the one who took the pictures of us, the ones Willy collected in his photo album?”

“Some, yeah. But I made sure that you were always in public. I never did anything to invade your privacy.”

That was debatable. But sure, my graduation was in a park and open to the public. Every friend and relative there was snapping pictures.

“Why didn’t you just tell us from the beginning?

Why make a show of helping us break into Willy’s house when you probably had a key?

” It makes sense now how Liam knew exactly how to disconnect the alarm and cameras the night we broke in.

“Why not just say, ‘I worked for Willy. He left a message for you in the wall’? And then all that baloney with Azriel cracking the code when you knew all the time where the bag was. I don’t get it, Liam. ”

“I actually didn’t know anything about the note or the code.

That was all Willy. Truthfully, in the end, he got into all the .

. . I think Kennedy called it ‘cloak and dagger’ .

. . He could’ve just given the note to his attorney to leave for you with the rest of his estate.

But he enjoyed making it a game and duping the FBI.

He always liked to be one step ahead of everyone.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. ”

No, he wasn’t. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended up in prison.

“Will you ever forgive me for deceiving you?” he says.

“I’m not sure, Liam. You could’ve trusted Kennedy and me. We never would’ve turned you in. Honestly, I don’t even know who you are. Then again, I never really did, anyway.” And with that, I get up and walk away, more confused than I’ve ever been.