A Grizzly Discovery

18

“Wait, what?” Jason asked. “Slow down. Explain this to me like I’m an idiot, because I have no idea where this is coming from.”

“The person who killed Jeremy Wallace had to be after the diamond. Otherwise why would he be out in the woods? What if someone threatened him, and made him go out there? You with me so far?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Jeremy went out the night before. That had to be when he hid the diamond. And it sounds like Andrew tried to follow him, but failed since he came back just a couple minutes later. So presumably, Andrew knew that was when he went out to hide the diamond, and the next day he would have threatened Jeremy, made him show him where he hid the diamond, but for some reason he killed him before he found out.”

“Ok,” Jason said slowly. “I guess that maybe makes sense. So what are you going to do now?”

“I need to find Andrew and get him to admit what he did.”

“Seriously?” Jason crossed his arms. “Come on. We’re going back to the car. You do realize a seasoned thief is never going to admit to murdering two people for you, no matter how nicely you ask him.” Jason had a point, I grudgingly had to admit. “Go home, figure out a way to prove it was him, and then you can prove he committed the murder.”

“Fine,” I replied, trying not to sulk too much. What Jason said made sense, but I wanted to do something now. I’d been so frustrated with this case, there was nothing more in the world that I wanted than to find Andrew, tell him I knew he’d killed Jeremy Wallace—and also probably Jack—and have him admit to me the truth so I could tell Chief Gary and have him arrested. But of course, Jason was right. There was no way that was going to happen. I was going to have to be stealthier. I was going to have to find proof.

Fifteen minutes later we were back home, but I let Jason tell Charlotte, Sophie and Taylor what had happened while I went into the bathroom to check on Bee and the kittens and then took a few minutes for myself. I had no idea how I was going to get proof that Andrew Fischer was the murderer. But at least now I was almost completely certain I knew who the murderer was.

The next morning, I was no closer to figuring out how I was going to prove that Andrew Fischer had killed Jeremy Wallace. We had a two-hour break in the middle of the morning—now that everyone was getting settled the vet clinic’s schedule was filling up pretty quickly once again—and so I settled myself in a chair in the back room with my iPad and began to absent-mindedly look through Jeremy Wallace’s Facebook profile once again.

I thought back to what I’d heard the others say. Jeremy Wallace was arrogant. He thought he was better than everyone else. Kevin had said it would eventually get Jeremy into trouble during a job, that he would eventually get caught because he was so sure of himself.

Scanning through the photos, it was obvious that was true. The man never met a selfie he didn’t post to social media. I had no idea how much of his profile was legitimate and how much of it was simply a front to make it look like he was a real tourist, but nobody showed off their abs that much if they didn’t absolutely mean it.

Rolling my eyes at the photo, I opened the only photo Jeremy had posted while in Willow Bay. It featured him showing off his abs once again, standing at the end of one of the most popular hiking routes in Willow Bay, the Bay View Trail. He was at the end of it, standing next to Old Oakie, one of the Willow Bay landmarks. I realize the irony of an Oak Tree being a landmark in a place like Willow Bay, known for its willow trees, but that was just the way things worked out.

Behind Old Oakie was the reason almost everyone who visited Willow Bay did the short and easy one-mile hike to get there: the absolutely stunning view of Willow Bay. Jeremy’s photo had obviously been taken in the evening; the low sun cast a beautiful yellow glow on the still water. A single paddle-boarder in the background was making his way back toward shore, and a man threw something—maybe a stick? It was hard to tell from so far away—for a dog on the beach.

Suddenly, though, my eyes moved away from the beach and back to Old Oakie. I gasped as I looked at the tree. One of the biggest features of the tree was the natural hole about six feet high; it was known as Oakie’s Eye. About six inches in diameter, the hole was natural, perfectly round and frequently visited by squirrels, Stellar’s Jays and other small woodland animals. I’d obviously never thought of it this way, but it was also the perfect place to hide a fifty-million-dollar diamond.

After all, Jeremy Wallace was an arrogant man, and a risk taker. That much I’d gathered from his associates. Maybe posting a picture of the place where he would go to hide the diamond on his social media was his way of arrogantly flaunting what he’d done. Maybe he didn’t know that was where he was going to hide the diamond. But that had to be where it was!

Noticing that my heart was beating around three times as fast as normal, I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. After all, there was no proof the diamond was in Oakie’s Eye. It was just conjecture on my part. Still, this was the closest I’d come to getting a clue in this case for quite a while, and it excited me enough that I was definitely not going to wait until the end of the work day to see it through. After all, what if one of the others figured out what I did first?

“I’m going out,” I told Sophie. “I think I know where the diamond is.”

“Oh, like you’re going to go get it alone,” Sophie replied. “I’m coming with you.”

We drove to the Bay View trailhead and parked in the little twenty-car dirt parking lot by the entrance. With it being September and the low tourist season in the middle of the week, we were the only car parked in the lot. I’d explained my reasoning to Sophie on the way, who agreed that this was definitely worth a look. Suddenly, I remembered what Betty had said at the Café.

“Wait, isn’t this trail supposed to be closed?” I asked Sophie.

“I think I heard it was going to re-open this morning,” she replied. There were no signs indicating the trail was closed, but the deep tire tracks in the mud showed that there had been heavy machinery here recently. I was pleased; it meant we wouldn’t need any magic to get past anybody working on a closed trail.

The Bay View trail was only a mile long, a single-track dirt path meandering through the forest, surrounded by beautiful Pacific coast forest trees, ferns and wildlife. A rabbit hopped off the trail as we made our way past, and the shrill cry of Stellar’s Jays rose through the trees above us along with the chirps of robins preparing for either a migration south for the winter or braving the upcoming winter. I let myself take a deep breath of the fresh forest air. The crisp, clean air and the connection with nature was one of my favorite things about Willow Bay. Sophie and I walked in silence. I knew I was a bundle of nervous energy right now, and idle conversation wasn’t exactly going to help, and I figured Sophie was probably in the same situation herself.

The mile-long walk toward the Bay View lookout point seemed to take hours, even though it was more like fifteen minutes. I was horrendously out of shape, but the desire to know whether or not the diamond was where I thought it might be overpowered my complete inability to do anything remotely resembling cardio.

When we hit the lookout point I was breathing somewhat heavily. “I swear,” I told Sophie as I made my way toward Old Oakie, “I say this every single time I do anything remotely strenuous, but I really need to start going to the gym more.”

“I’m so glad you said that and it’s not just me,” Sophie replied. “You were walking so fast I was wondering if I was literally the least fit person on the planet.”

I laughed as we both made our way toward Old Oakie. “You reach in,” Sophie told me. “You’re taller, and this was your idea.”

I looked at the hole in the middle of Old Oakie. “If there’s anything in there that could possibly bite my hand,” I told the tree, “please don’t. I’m just checking for something lost.” What? You could never be 100% sure in the outdoors. I tried to quell my excitement by telling myself the diamond almost certainly wasn’t in there as I reached my hand into the hole. I didn’t even know how deep the hole was; for all I knew it was going to be impossible to get anything out of there.

But, a second later, my hand landed on something hard, but made of fabric. My eyes widened and Sophie noticed, her face breaking into an excited smile as her eyes widened.

“Is it in there?” she asked. I wrapped my fingers around the object and pulled it out of the tree. I unwrapped my fingers, exposing a piece of blue velvet wrapped around an object the size of a large walnut. My fingers trembled as I grabbed the edge of the velvet cover and slowly began to expose the most incredible diamond I’d ever seen in my life.

The round gem had a light pink hue to it; it wasn’t perfectly clear like most diamonds. The late morning sun shining down on the rock made it sparkle in the light in a way I’d never seen before; it was as though the light of the day danced lightly on the surface of the rock. I was breathless, completely taken away.

“Oh my God,” Sophie whispered. “It’s amazing.”

“I know,” was all I could reply. We both stared at it, mesmerized, for at least a full minute. No wonder this diamond was worth so much money. “We have to put this away,” I said suddenly. After all, this diamond was worth over fifty million dollars, and there were four thieves who had already stolen it somewhere in this town.

“Yeah,” Sophie replied. “We have to take it straight to Chief Gary.”

“Definitely,” I replied, carefully putting the velvet cover back over the diamond. It felt rather unceremonious, but I hadn’t brought anything with me to carry the diamond in, so I simply slipped it into the zippered pocket of the light jacket I was wearing.

“Thanks, I’ll take that off your hands,” a familiar voice said suddenly. I heard Sophie inhale sharply next to me. I turned around, facing the path, and found Andrew Fischer coming out of the woods toward us, holding a gun. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.