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After dinner, Ray volunteered to take Jessica back to her dorm. Dorrie decided to this take time to check in with the ring. She hadn’t stopped to connect with it and after what she had learned about diamonds today from Mr. Johnson, she was more convinced than ever that the diamond was trying to tell her something.
“Come,” she called to Pumpkin as she walked back into her store. He followed and jumped up on his window sill. The night had grown dark but Dorrie didn’t turn on lights; she wanted no distractions. She sat on her favorite stool, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the ring. Even In the dark, she could see the diamond. Where before it sparkled, now it glowed. Something about the ring had changed.
She held it between the palms of her hands and closed her eyes. In rapid succession, she felt the fear she first felt, then the confusion, then the warm flow of love. This she knew was just the memory of what she had already learned. All of those things were still there but this was not what the diamond wanted to tell her now. This time she sensed it wanted to tell her something about itself.
For a moment, all she saw was blackness. Slowly she began to see a glimpse of red. First it was a dim flash briefly emerging and then being engulfed by waves of darkness. Eventually it grew bigger and brighter until she saw fire. The ring got warmer and warmer and then suddenly became so hot she almost dropped it.
“Push through it,” she heard Pumpkin say. The ring continued to burn in her hands and then the fire was gone and she came out into day. She saw a shallow creek, rushing over a rocky bottom. The scene was bathed in pale, morning sun. The trees that lined the creek were just starting to get light green leaves. Spring. She could see a man on the shore. He seemed sad. His head hung down and he was just staring at the water and then he reached into it and picked something up and put it in his pocket. Then the image was gone.
Now Dorrie’s hand relaxed releasing the ring. She heard it hit the floor but she did not open her eyes. She wanted the image to linger longer. The ring had not talked to her in images before. She took a minute to let it sink in.
She sensed that somehow the diamond was showing her about its very birth. She had asked for the next step and been shown the beginning. The heat, the creek and the man; she knew there was something special about it. Somehow the story of the diamond itself was important to the mystery.
Now Dorrie heard something else hit the floor. This was a sound she was familiar with. It was Pumpkin jumping off of his favorite windowsill. She turned on the light to grab the ring before Pumpkin started to play with it like a new toy. “Sorry Pumpkin, but this one I have to keep.” Dorrie scratched him behind his ears. It still amused her how Pumpkin could be her familiar and yet such a typical cat. She put the ring in her pocket and tossed Pumpkin one of the toys from his basket. He just yawned and let the ball with its bell roll under the counter. Then just as quickly as he had jumped off the windowsill, he jumped back on and stood alert with his gaze directed out the window.
“What do you see out there?” Dorrie asked. “Is it that pretty neighbor cat?”
Pumpkin didn’t answer; he just twitched his tail back and forth. Now Dorrie looked out of the window and followed his gaze but all she could see was darkness.
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When Jessica got back to her dorm room, she found that both of her roommates were still out. That was one of the problems about having science classes. They were at 8 o’clock when all other majors seemed to let you sleep until 10. She was used to it now and her roommates were nice and never brought other friends back with them late at night the way some roommates did. She brushed her teeth and began to put on her pajamas when she saw the small note on her bed. “When you get home meet me downstairs.”
Jessica shrugged. She was tired and didn’t feel like getting dressed again. She was warm and comfortable in her in her pink sweat pants and fuzzy orange cat slippers that Aunt Dorrie affectionately called Pumpkin’s kittens. Whatever they had to tell her could wait until morning. Besides, her roommates could easily call her cell if it was anything important.
She climbed into bed and reached up to turn off the light when a question stopped her. Why didn’t they just call? She sat up again. Maybe they lost her cell phone number. Not likely. Maybe it was too private to talk about in front of the other roommate? No, they shared everything with each other. Why would they have written a note? No, that was the wrong question. That’s why it kept bothering her. What she needed to know was who wrote this note.
Now she sat up completely and reached for the paper. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen either of her roommates’ handwriting but still she looked closely at the words. The letters were carefully printed, almost like being typed. It scared her a bit. She briefly scanned the desktops to see if it could have been one of her roommates writing, but their notes were scribbled and full of loops. Nowhere did she see anything vaguely resembling the small, careful print on the note. Had someone gotten into her room?
The door had been locked but the note had been carefully placed on her bed. She quickly checked the lock on the door. It worked perfectly. She had never seen a door that had been broken into but still she examined it for any sign that something had been done to it. The lock and handle looked completely intact. She began to feel scared.
It was only 10 o’clock and her roommates might not be home for hours. The locked door would not help her against this person who left the note. Clearly, they had no problem getting in the first time. Maybe I should go downstairs and confront this person. Maybe it was just an honest mistake or someone wrote the note for one of my roommates. There were a lot of possibilities. Still, she knew this was not a mistake. She felt instinctively that someone had somehow gotten in the room and left this note for her to find. Suddenly her room felt totally unsafe.
“Stop it,” she told herself firmly, even stomping her fuzzy orange cat slippers to snap herself out of it. “I won’t let him scare me. I have to remember to be a scientist, a detective. This note is not a trap or a threat, it is a clue.” This time she picked up the paper with a tissue and carefully laid it on the table. “This person left me a handwriting sample and possibly fingerprints.” She had seen her share of detective movies and began to feel better. While the vague possibility of fingerprints would not help her tonight, the handwriting might. Without thinking she had described the writer as “him” and the handwriting was careful.” “Well,” she continued, “if he is trying to be careful, I will let him know that messing with me will not be safe.”
Jessica went over to her desk and quickly wrote her own note. “Sorry I couldn’t meet you downstairs, but know, that if you still want to meet me, I will be waiting for you.” She pushed the note under the door and climbed back into bed. She had no idea what she would do if he came back, but she kept the light on and decided she would just have to figure it out if it happened.
The next thing she heard was the laughing of her roommates. They were a little bit drunk but not so drunk that they didn’t read the note. “What’s with this?” they asked, holding up the paper. She told them what happened.
“Oh, Kim is at the desk tonight,” said one of her roommates. “She probably just gave someone our room number by mistake.” They looked at each other and laughed, “ And if he was in any way good looking, she might have just let him in.”
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AFTER VISITING THE restaurant, Carol decided on a new strategy. The owner showed her there are people who don’t always believe Eric. Maybe she could confront him with what she knew and there would be people who didn’t think she was crazy. Eric was following her anyway and now she decided to let him find her. She could confront him on her own turf.
With this new plan in mind, she was on light rail with her belonging stuffed in her backpack, heading to a hotel for the night. She looked out the window of the train. It was black outside and all she saw was the reflection of herself on the glass. For someone who had lived in bushes and on park benches for weeks she thought she didn’t look too bad. Her shoulder length hair, while not clean, was brushed.
For the first time since she left him, she started to feel more anger than fear, but she knew it was still a delicate flame that could easily go out. For this reason, she made herself carefully nurse this anger as she rode on the MAX to the hotel. She fed it memories of his rudeness and arrogance.
As soon as they were engaged, he convinced her to quit her job, saying the small amount of money she made as a receptionist wasn’t worth it. Besides, he told her, she wouldn’t need it, He wanted her to move into his apartment in Santa Monica. It seemed like a dream come true. The apartment even had a balcony that overlooked the ocean. She was thrilled to live somewhere like this and had only been worried about missing her friend Ana. He assured her that she could visit Ana whenever she liked and she would make new friends now. But the new friends never happened and Ana seemed to fade into a different world so she was alone a lot and had no one to talk to when she first saw the images of the woman’s body.
The image had come out of nowhere. At first, it was just flashes, but then it kept returning and staying longer. Like a persistent dream, the image seemed to be telling her something that she kept missing. Her brain went back and forth trying to figure out who this woman might be.
One day she remembered that Eric said her engagement ring had been his grandmother’s engagement ring. She got the idea that maybe in some beyond- the- grave way the image might be his grandmother when she was young. She even began thinking that he might be touched that the ring he gave her connected him to his grandmother so she described the woman in the image to him and asked him if he knew who she was.
He looked surprised at first and got quiet. Then his expression changed to one of pity. He took Carol’s hand and said he should have known this could happen. He was asking too much of her. She had been a foster kid and to now have so much wealth was obviously overwhelming her. He then said he was sorry and should have thought of this before. He told her he would completely understand if she wanted to give back the ring and he would be happy to get her another one that she was more comfortable wearing. Then went on to say he had a client who was an excellent therapist and could help her with the stress.
That was the first time she didn’t completely trust him. She did go to the appointment at the fancy high rise office. The doctor was an older version of Eric, charming and sure of himself, but something told her not to describe the woman to him. She just told him she was nervous and he prescribed some medication which she never took.
After that something had changed in her. She began to see how Eric never answered her question about the woman and she began to see how he did that in every aspect of his life, never really answering what was asked and diverting attention to where he wanted it to go. It was like a game to him.
She remembered one time when he took her to the rooftop of a downtown hotel to show her the view. It seemed like such a romantic thing for him to do. He took her hand, telling her she would be amazed and she had excitedly walked with him to the front desk. He just asked the desk clerk for the keys to this rooftop door saying he was a photographer and the owner was allowing him to go up there to plan a photo shoot. The clerk readily gave him he keys with a smile. In retrospect, she told herself that she should’ve called him on his lie and refused to go. At the time though she had still been so impressed by how he so easily opened doors, she went with him and still remembered the amazing view. It was only later that his falseness and arrogance became so obvious to her.
Her fingers reached for the ring and remembered again it wasn’t there. “This is how it began,” the words rushed over her mind like water making it suddenly clear. It was only after she started wearing the diamond that she started to see his true nature. It was like somehow the enchantment was broken.