She held Bette gently by the shoulders, “But he slipped into that coma before he could help me decide who. And then I got in touch with Peter, who told me about this amazing person who had been working selflessly to solve this puzzle, while facing down pretty powerful interests and protecting her friends and family at the same time. Someone who’d earned his own admiration about all the good that she’d done…”

Before Jancis could tell Bette about what Peter had shared with Jancis, regarding his plans to ask Bette to manage his foundation and name her as his beneficiary, Bette interrupted Jancis, “Please: I couldn’t possibly take this whole thing on …”

Jancis shook her head and smiled gently at Bette, “The history of this gold has run its course, Bette, Phillip and I were agreed on that. You have all you need to locate the gold. There are bearer bonds there that Phillip and I got when we sold a few bullion in the market to help finance the initial things you’ll need to do to get started …”

This was all happening too fast.

Bette rubbed her temples, and asked, “Do you mind telling me where the gold is, then, so that I can get started on all of this?”

Jancis smiled, “No not at all. But I only know where approximately 10% of it is. Phillip arranged to have the rest moved.  All of the relevant codes are in those papers, and in the small-leather notebook.”

“He and I decided to break up the cache and move chunks around because Phillip felt that the criminals were getting close. He spoke about feeling watched, being shadowed. Almost the way Jim described it. So he convinced me to agree with his plan to break up the cache, and have various parts of it moved to different locations.”

Bette eyed the sheaf of papers and the leather notebook sitting on the couch, where she’d left them. This means I have to work fast to decode whatever’s in them.

“Do you want to know where the 10% is?” Jancis asked.

Bette nodded, still rubbing her temples.

“Not far from here, actually,” Jancis answered. “In the middle of a maze of tunnels, and you’ll never guess where the entry point is.”

“Your house?” Bette asked with a smile.

Jancis shook her head, and answered, “The Gold Mining Museum.”

She returned Bette’s smile. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
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