He gave her a puzzled smile, surprised by her choice of words to describe his mom’s recent passing. He also noted her sudden pause, and mused out loud, “I can’t decide if you gave me too much information just now, or too little.”

Bette squeezed his hand in response and smiled at him. And then she boarded the truck.  Jules walked over to the passenger side, waving tiredly at Tom.

After squeezing Jules hand in thanks for her help also, and for training her in the series of moves that she’d used to fight the man off, Bette started the truck and slipped it into gear. But just as she was nudging forward Tom signaled that he wanted to tell her something.  As she rolled down her window she heard him call out over the low rumble of the truck’s engine, “You finish this for mom, Bette!  And for everyone who’s sacrificed themselves for this, ok?”

“Then tell me when you do, because I’d like to know how it feels!”

She flashed him a thumbs up and pressed the button to roll her window up.   They waved at him as Bette carefully drove past him, and then down the slight incline that would take them to the country road that connected with the highway.  From there, the late-model truck’s GPS would guide them back to Skydance.

And then Bette would have to figure out how to surface the gold. Firstly she’d need to decipher the codes in the papers and other small leather notebook Jancis had entrusted to her.  They likely held the clues to the certificates that would allow her to claim the gold, starting with the stash in the trailer.  And then she could probably enlist Richard Yu’s help to move the gold into the market, and monetize it, through the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

But before anything, she’d have to find another hiding spot for the gold.

And she knew just where that could be.

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Bette drove down the gravel road that rimmed several enclosures where Peter’s horses could graze or canter around. Skydance’ stables lay at the end of the gravel road and Bette was going to park under a carport next to the stables, as she and Peter had agreed.  In this way, the trailer and the truck wouldn’t stand out – rather, it would look like the trailer was going to be used to transport some equipment.  Indeed, Peter had alerted the staff that he was storing some equipment in the trailer for Jackson, and that they shouldn’t be bothered about it.  It was something he’d done for Jackson before in the past, so the explanation was passed around without comment