“I keep meaning to go by there again. I’m not much on fancy-lady shops, but I’m wondering how Laura handles clerking.”

“I think you’ll be surprised, and impressed. I have been. It’s given them something solid and special.”

“Gives them a living.”

“It gives them more than that. It gives them unity, and a goal and love.” Either the beer or the women were making him sentimental, but Byron went with it. “I wasn’t around when they conceived it, put it together, took the chance. Margo selling off almost everything she owned, my conservative accountant pooling her investments to make her share. And Laura selling her wedding ring.”

“She sold her wedding ring to build that shop?”

“Yeah. It was right after they found out Ridgeway had pretty much cleaned out their joint accounts. She wouldn’t take Templeton money for the shop, so she hocked her wedding and engagement rings to make the down payment on the building. What women they are!”

“Yeah.” Michael frowned out to sea. “The socialite, the model, and the accountant.”

“They sweated over it. They cleaned and sanded and painted. And figured out how to make it work. It knocks me out to walk in there and see how they are together, how they are together anywhere. You see them out on the cliffs, rooting around in the rocks and dirt for Seraphina’s dowry. All these years they’re still together, still looking. Kate was wild tonight when she told me Laura had found another coin.”

He was trying to see it all, to settle all these facets into an image in his head. He blinked. “Laura? She found a coin? When?”

“Last night. Took a walk down on the cliffs. Kate says she does that from time to time when she needs to clear her head or just be alone. She found one, a gold doubloon just like Margo did, and Kate did. Oddest fucking thing. Each one of them finding a coin, months apart, by accident rather than design. Their treasure hunts turn up nothing, then boom, one of them just picks up a gold piece off the ground as if it had been there all along. Makes you wonder.”

The back door slammed open and Thomas’s voice boomed out. “Is this a poker game or a damn church social? Cards are getting cold.”

“Then deal ’em,” Byron called back. “Coming?” he asked Michael.

“Yeah. Laura walks on the cliffs at night?”

“Now and again.” Byron waded through the dogs, who ran circles around him.

“And last night she just reached down and picked up a gold coin?”

“Spanish, 1844.”

“Son of a bitch. That’s weird.”

“I’ll tell you what’s weirder. I’m beginning to believe they’re going to find the whole thing. That they’re the only ones who will.”

“Never believed it existed.”

“Ask Laura to show you her coin,” Byron suggested. “You might change your mind.”