Prescott and Rose’s daughter had been named Miranda and Prescott had always referred to his crystal cane as his magic wand. Were they just coincidences or did Prescott consider himself a magician of some sort who could control others? Had he and Rose named Miranda after the beautiful young woman in The Tempest?

Maybe they just liked the name. Maybe I was reading too much into this and there was nothing at all special concerning Prescott and Shakespeare’s play.

Somehow, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a connection somewhere. It was no accident the Hogarth painting—a copy, no less—hung in his wine cellar and that it was tied to his secret Masonic room. But how did it relate to his daughter who died more than thirty years ago?

Because I also had a feeling the answer had something to do with Prescott’s secret, his lost treasure. And more than ever, I wanted to know what it was.

Eleven

As soon as Blue Ridge Federal Bank opened on Monday morning, I planned to call Seth Hannah, its president, and ask him for a meeting to talk about the envelope with Leland’s mysterious safe-deposit box keys. Not only was Seth a Romeo who’d been a good friend of my father’s, but also he had gone out of his way to help me after Leland died when I discovered Leland had put up the vineyard as collateral for a loan and fallen behind in paying it back. Seth had cut me some slack on the loan because he didn’t want to see me lose the vineyard and the house and I’d been grateful. What I couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t told me about the other safe-deposit box.

“If your father had another safe-deposit box at Blue Ridge Federal, I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t have received a notification that it existed,” Quinn said, echoing my thoughts. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. “Things like that don’t slip between the cracks. At a government office maybe—they lose paperwork all the time—but not a bank.”

“That’s not entirely true. What about The Urn?” I asked. “Banks lose paperwork, at least Blue Ridge Federal does.”

Quinn stopped buttering a slice of toasted baguette to consider the plight of The Urn. “Well, that’s kind of an unusual case, don’t you think?”

“It contains the cremated remains of a human being.” I gave him an indignant look. “How do you lose the documents for a person?”

“Okay. Fair enough. Maybe the same thing happened to your father’s safe-deposit box and that’s the explanation.”

“Maybe.”