THE WATCH WAS GONE.
She’d left it on Carole’s dresser.
Hadn’t she?
She raced through the big house. Then the playhouse. Under furniture, on the tops of tables, under sofas. Nowhere. It had tumbled into the black hole of missing things, single earrings, stones out of rings, buttons, socks.
It couldn’t be just…gone.
She sat in Jem’s room, surrounded by pink toile. For the first time she realized that it was made up of Alice in Wonderland imagery. Poor Alice, trying to hit a croquet ball with a flamingo. Poor Alice, down the rabbit hole, and having to make sense out of nonsense. She’d never liked Alice in Wonderland as a child. It had made her feel queasy to think of a world without rules.
What kind of an idiot criminal loses the loot? Had she left it on the dresser, or had she worn it again and just thought she put it on the dresser?
She heard Jem’s step and a moment later she swung in, a little rushed, a little distracted. “Sweetie, have you seen a watch lying around?”
“You don’t wear a watch.”
“I mean, just, a watch. Have you been in Carole’s house?”
“Why would I go in Carole’s house?”
“I’m just asking. I’m missing something. I left it there.”
Jem had her head in the closet. “Where?”
“On Carole’s dresser. I think.”
“I haven’t seen a watch.”
“Are you sure?”
“Is this an interrogation?” She tossed a sweater on the bed, light and soft, in a shade of blue that was close to the color of her eyes.
“That’s pretty,” Ruthie said. She crossed to pick it up. She read the label. Isabel Marant. “Where did you get this?”
“More questions!” Jem’s mood had shifted to defensive. “Adeline bought it for me a while ago. That time we went to East Hampton for lunch with Roberta. I was cold. She went next door and bought me a sweater.”
“She bought you a designer sweater because you were cold?”
“It was no big deal!”
“It’s got to be two hundred, three hundred dollars. It’s a pretty big deal!”
“Not to her. It’s like a Gap sweater to her. What was I supposed to do, say no?”
“We haven’t really talked much about her,” Ruthie said. “I mean, you and me. I guess you’ve talked to Daddy.”
“Yeah. We had a chat.”
“What did he say?”
“That he hoped that I didn’t think that you two were getting back together. Which I didn’t, duh. And he said we have to give you room to adjust and everything? But that it will all work out in the end. Daddy says since you lost your job, you need time, but if Adeline bought the house it would solve things. Like, you’d have money. And there would still be the house in the family.”
“In the family?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Adeline’s not family.”
“Well.” Jem slipped her arms into the sweater. “That’s what he said.”