Chapter 20

Walking out of the elevator to dinner that night was uncomfortable for several reasons. Her bottom hurt despite the cream her Daddy had slathered on it. Juniper was embarrassed to have acted so rashly and didn’t know if her friends would want to be around her anymore.

The sound of rushing steps made her look up from the floor. All three Littles wrapped their arms around her to hug her tightly. Looking at them, Juniper knew her surprise showed on her face. “You guys aren’t mad at me?”

“Why would we be mad?” Celeste asked.

“You were fierce! And part monkey!” Zara said in awe. “Coco was very impressed.”

“Little Swan, remember that talk we had about encouraging others to do bad things,” Kestrel reminded her.

Zara winked at Juniper and flexed her bicep subtly so her Daddy couldn’t see.

“I thought I saw you in the hallway, but that shirt and the hat threw me,” Sadie shared.

“And…” Rocco prompted.

“I now promise to always let someone know that something is wonky even if I don’t really know something is wrong,” Sadie recited.

“Good girl,” Rocco praised her.

Sadie turned to hide her eye roll from her Daddy.

“That will get your bottom hotter than Juniper’s,” Rocco warned.

“How did he see that?” Sadie whispered before announcing loudly, “I’m being good.”

Rocco just shook his head and walked to the table. “It’s time for dinner, Little girls. Come sit down.”

When everyone was seated, Juniper lowered herself slowly to the bare wooden chair that sat at her normal spot next to her Daddy. The cushion that softened all the others had been removed. She sat down slowly and felt every spank of her punishment.

“Sorry, Daddy,” she whispered.

“So, do we talk now or later?” Phoenix asked as he helped himself to a big bowl of stew that the kitchen had prepared.

“Now,” Magnus declared.

Phoenix nodded. “I sealed off the conference room after equipping it with a motion sensor that will catch any movement by the new door Juniper created. By the way, if we seal that off completely again, it will require a lot of wall restoration. I’d suggest restoring the bookshelf to conceal the secret opening. I’ve also looked into sensors for the windows upstairs to keep everyone out and in,” he continued with a meaningful look at Juniper.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Can I go next? I need to get this over with.”

“Of course.” Phoenix handed over the ladle to Juniper, who gasped when she shifted to take it, her butt screaming from the burn.

“Let me scoop you up a bowl,” Magnus offered. “You go ahead and tell us everything.”

“I’m sorry for worrying everyone today. I took way too big of a risk. I wanted to see if I could clear my father’s name of any possible association with the bank robbery. I knew Eric was climbing with Rocco today, and I decided to go down in the tunnels to see if the money was even there. I thought maybe this was all a big misunderstanding.”

“We’ll talk about you hacking into the computer system later,” Magnus said ominously, and Sadie gasped.

“I got into the library… Well, conference room, now. The lever took some manipulating, but I saw the wall crack where I remembered the door being. It just took one big push to get it to open over the stairs.”

“Did you fall?” Celeste asked, looking worried.

“I caught myself on the third step. It wasn’t too bad,” Juniper said, watching Magnus shake his head in disbelief.

She continued quickly. “I explored all through the tunnels and found nothing. I knew I had to get back in my room before Eric’s lesson ended. I was headed back to the stairs when I saw a small nook. There was a hole, and I pulled out a bag. It had the name Southern Star Bank barely legible on it. I opened it up, and there were stacks of New Zealand money inside.”

“How many bags were there?” Hawking asked, accepting the ladle as it moved around the table.

“I don’t know. I just pulled out that one. There were others,” she revealed before saying quickly, “I don’t think it was my dad who robbed the bank. If it had been, wouldn’t he have taken the cash? Why hide it and never return to New Zealand?”

“That’s a good point, Juni,” Magnus agreed. “What if he was forced to be involved in some minor way and took advantage of Edmund being jailed to hide the money from him?”

Juniper nodded her head quickly. “He would’ve done that. Edmund Rivers must have threatened him with something.”

Something clicked inside her. The only thing her dad had cared about was her. Edmund had been arrested two weeks before she was supposed to visit for the summer break. Her father had called her mother at the last moment and canceled her trip with the excuse that the resort was closing.

“Edmund threatened to hurt me. That’s the only thing that could’ve forced him to take any part of this,” Juniper guessed as her eyes filled with tears.

“We may never know the truth, Juni. You’re right that his abandoning the money supports your father’s innocence,” Magnus said, wrapping an arm around her.

“Now, what do we do?” Juniper asked.

Magnus rubbed his temples. “When was the last time you saw your friend Sammi?”

“The summer I was twelve. I never saw her again. We sent a few letters over the next couple of years, but then it fizzled out.”

“Let’s eat,” Rocco proposed. “After dinner, we can clear the table and brainstorm.”

* * *

Juniper forced herself to eat the food on her plate, but she didn’t remember it well or taste it. Everyone was pretty quiet until dinner was cleaned up, and the cart was sent back to the kitchen.

Magnus brought a laptop over to the table and started clicking away, his brow furrowed.

Juniper sat on her hands next to him, worrying her bottom lip. The other girls looked about the same as she felt.

“Looks like the resort closed for about six months soon after Edmond Rivers was arrested,” Magnus murmured.

Juniper nodded. “That’s what my dad said. I mean, the reason I didn’t come that summer was because the resort was closing. I didn’t know anything about a bank robbery or Rivers.”

Magnus drew in a breath. “I doubt most people did. There was no obvious connection. I suspect if we were able to dig into the guest lists from those years, we would find Edmond Rivers was a regular visitor. He obviously didn’t know about the tunnels, nor did his brother. Otherwise, one or both of them would’ve found a way into them by now…”

Phoenix grimaced. “What about the fact that Eric was snooping around in the conference room yesterday? He sure looked like he knew there might be a secret passageway in there.”

Caesar leaned back in his chair. “That’s true, which means someone had to have recently fed him information about the underground tunnels. Like yesterday.”

Juniper gasped and looked around at everyone as she sat straighter. “What about Sammi or one of her parents?”

Magnus cringed. “Shit. That’s possible. It could be that while Eric is snooping around here, his brother is off hunting down the resort”s owner from that time period.”

Juniper wished she was holding her own laptop, but it was upstairs. She chewed on her thumbnail while two of the other Daddies—Caesar and Phoenix—started typing away.

After a few tense minutes, Magnus said, “I think I found their last known location on the North Island. Vincent and Rosaland Markham. Only child is Samantha Markham. It looks like she’s not married or didn’t take her husband’s name…”

“Do you have addresses for any of them?” Caesar asked.

“Yes. Samantha lives in the same town as her parents, but not with them.”

“She’s the same age as me,” Juniper pointed out. “Thirty-two. She wouldn’t likely live with her parents.”

Magnus was frowning. “Shit…” he muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Rocco asked.

“I’m trying to hack into their email. Perhaps there’s something fishy in there,” Magnus muttered.

Juniper swallowed hard.

“Their texts and phone messages would be even better,” Hawking joked.

“I’m good, but I’m not that good,” Magnus stated. “I’ll work on it. It might take me a while.”

Juniper blew out a long breath and stood before shuffling toward her Daddy. Would he still be her Daddy after she revealed her secret? The last thing she wanted was to upstage him. Half the reason she rarely dated was because she intimidated people. Men did not like dating women who were smarter than them.

Juniper in no way believed she was smarter than Magnus. He was brilliant. She’d learned that fast. She’d also enjoyed keeping her experience a secret these last few days. Things always changed after she told someone what she did for a living.

Magnus lifted his gaze as she set a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Juni?”

She inhaled slowly and whispered, “I can do it.”

“Do what, Little one?”

“Hack into their email and phones.”

There was a collective gasp all around the table, and Magnus’s eyes grew wide a moment before he smiled, not a small smile, but one that grew so big that she could easily see the wrinkles around his eyes even with the ball cap on. “Why does this not surprise me?”

She pursed her lips, confused by his reaction.

He leaned back in his chair, lifted her off the floor, and settled her sideways on his lap. A second later, he cupped her face and kissed her as though she’d solved world hunger—a giant, wet, noisy smooch.

A moment later, he spun her so she was facing toward the table and pushed the mouse in her direction.

She twisted her head around to look at him, shocked. “You’re not mad, Daddy?”

His brows furrowed. “Why would I be mad?”

She shrugged.

“I think it’s sexy as fuck, Little girl. Now, get to work. Show me what you can do. Later, though… Later, I expect you to tell me a bit more about your previous career.” He lifted one brow.

“Okay, Daddy.” She took the mouse from him and started clicking, trying to focus on the important task at hand instead of the awkward silence and wide stares coming from every single person in the room.

In her peripheral vision, she was aware that the men were all grinning, though. No one seemed upset. That was weird and unexpected.

It took her about five minutes to get into Vincent Markham’s phone records, and then she saved incoming and outgoing numbers from the last few weeks to a file before she switched to working on possible text messages.