Flipping onto her stomach, Dani worked her body down so that she was pretty much hanging from the flat rock by her arms. Inexpert, but it got the job done. Glancing down, she saw the narrow ledge directly below, where she’d found the gold key.

She counted to three and let go.

Keeping her body close to the rocks, but not so close she’d smack her face, she dropped onto the ledge. It was just three feet wide, but she was small. She fit fine.

She squatted and groped in the dirt, moss, dead leaves and doomed seedlings for anything interesting, any clue as to how her key had ended up there. Finding it had been a pure accident. At first she’d thought it was just an old key. Only afterward had she realized what it was. This was her first opportunity to return to the ledge, and she took her time and examined every inch of it in case she’d missed something.

But she hadn’t. There was nothing.

How had the key gotten there?

She imagined Ulysses and his practical wife arguing, imagined her urging him to concentrate on saving and investing instead of throwing his money into idiotic things like gold keys.

Dani could see her great-great-grandmother flinging the key off the cliffs.

Probably there was a more ordinary explanation. Or, at least, a less dramatic one.

Getting back up from the ledge without her gear proved easier than she’d anticipated. There were good handholds and toeholds, and she hoisted herself up in no time. But it was a warm afternoon, and she hadn’t slept much last night. She was sweaty, and as she sat on a boulder to catch her breath, she could feel the ache in her legs.

“Miss Pembroke?”

Dani whirled around, immediately recognizing a young local reporter at the top of the cliffs. A camera dangling from her neck, she apologized for startling Dani and explained she’d been assigned to do an article on the Pembroke and Pembroke Springs.