City Skylines

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"I'm sorry," Lanie said as she gave me her necklace to look at.

"But why couldn't you tell us?"

"I was told not to."

"By who?"

"It's a really long story."

"I think we deserve to know."

She sighed. "Ok. Fine. This necklace has been in my family forever. It is part of a stone carving that when this is placed in, the pieces will turn and show a map to the tomb of my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. They were royalty and had a ton of treasure. But when their kingdom was attacked they hid all of it. Once the rebels were defeated, their daughter hid all of the treasure in their tomb and created the locking device.  The stone piece is at the museum Kyler went to on the field trip."

"That wasn't that long of a story," Jill said.

"I told the short version."

"But why did they go to so much trouble to get it? And how did they know about it?" Rose asked.

"They probably are descendants of the rebels. And if they got the treasure they would be freaking rich."

"How rich?" Meghan asked.

"Last my parents said it is worth about 1.7 billion in today's dollars."

"1.7 billion? As in, billion?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah."

"And you just keep it locked up?"

"What Lanie does with her family's treasure is her decision," I said.

"Thanks, Ky."

"No prob."

"But were they really willing to kill for that key?" Meghan asked.

"It's almost 2 billion dollars," Lanie said. "If you had an organization of people who could do whatever they needed to in order to get something and the only thing standing between you and the key was a teenage girl, wouldn't you send them?"

"Well, yeah I guess. But it still all seems a little extreme."

"Extreme is today's normal," Annette said.

"Speaking of extreme," Abby said. "Now what?"

"Yeah, how do we go from running for our lives to back to normal?" Rose asked.

"It won't be normal without Mary Beth and Victoria," Jill said.

Everyone was looking at me, expecting me to lead them. My conversation with Janessa was still haunting me.

"Look, guys. I've been thinking about everything that's happened. I don't think I can do this anymore."

"What?" Zoe asked.

"You all look to me to be your leader, but I can't deal with all that pressure anymore."

"So choose someone to be the new leader," Rose said.

"It's not that easy. Even if I'm not the leader, you guys will still be looking to me for guidance."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm going to quit the team."

_____

Two weeks later

"Are you sure?" Janessa asked for the millionth time as I loaded my bags onto the helicopter.  "We have jobs that you can do here.  You don't have to leave if you don't want to."