Nick left at midnight. In the morning, I slept through my alarm. When sunlight forced my eyes to open, I lumbered out of bed to take Candace to school. Luckily, she’d roused herself and had eaten a hearty breakfast.
As I was driving home, a gaping yawn nearly made me drive off the road. My aunt was right. I needed sleep and time to regroup.
My cell phone rang. Happy to have something to focus on, I answered.
“I thought you’d like to know,” Quincy said with no preamble, “that Tammie Laplante was arrested as an accessory in your parents’ murders. She has already lawyered up.” I heard him moving papers around on his desk. “With the same lawyer who helped her with her, um—”
“Second job,” I said.
“Exactly. She has secured a separate lawyer for her daughter’s defense. And a third lawyer to take on the custody battle.”
“Mia’s husband can’t get sole custody of the child,” I exclaimed. “He went after Mia with a knife.”
“So I’ve heard,” Quincy said. “Miss Laplante has put in her two cents about the husband and, as it turns out, the girl’s gestational surrogate mother is weighing in. It seems Miss Laplante has reached out to her. The woman has wanted to be part of the girl’s life from the beginning. Miss Laplante thinks this might be the best solution until Mia is released from prison.”
“Is the surrogate fit?” Silently, I chided myself for never having questioned Tammie about the woman, figuring that, by contract, she was out of the picture at birth. How could I be so disconnected? Both of my careers as psychiatrist and investigator required me to be more invested. More inquisitive. I made a promise to change that aspect of my personality going forward.
“The woman has three children of her own. She’s a good mother with an upstanding reputation.”
“Will Mia get parole?” I asked.
“I have no idea. She’s looking at three murder charges. It will be up to the courts and her behavior once she’s behind bars.”
Worry shimmied through me. I didn’t want her to garner an ounce of sympathy. She’d mercilessly killed my parents and had kept quiet all these years. “I’ll need to be there for the trial.”
“Already noted with the D.A.”
• • •
Unable to sleep—I’d never been able to during the day—I idled around the house. Dusting. Cleaning. Sitting on the porch with a book I couldn’t read. Making a grocery list. Setting an appointment with the dentist.
At three p.m., I picked up Candace at school. She, like Cinder, didn’t want to leave my side, so we threw together a plate of treats and played a few hands of dominos.
At dusk, Nick showed up with takeout for dinner. Gluten-free pizza and salad. Perfect. We ate and chatted as if nothing untoward had happened in the past week. Life as usual. Candace didn’t press me about her mother. I didn’t raise the subject. When she retreated to her room to do homework, I told Nick about Quincy’s recap. He listened attentively.
When I finished, he said, “Sounds like he’s on top of things.”
“I agree.”
Someone knocked on the front door. Nick was on his feet in a nanosecond and beat me to the foyer. He peered through the peephole.
“Is it Rosie?” I asked, expecting her to burst in.
“It’s your aunt and Yaz.” He whipped open the door.
Max entered first.
Yaz, in all his colorful glory—purple mohawk, purple sweater, tie-dyed jeans, and silver-studded cowboy boots—followed. Cinder rushed him and demanded love. Yaz never failed to nuzzle the dog’s ears. When Yaz rose, he said, “Hey, gorgeous. Congrats on finding resolution. Nothing like it in the world.” Tracking down the driver who had killed the love of his life and making the guy pay had done wonders for Yaz’s belief in the system.
“What’s so urgent that you needed to come by?” I asked, acid blooming in my stomach right when I thought it might be subsiding.
“The gun,” my aunt said.
“Sit in the dining room,” I said to everyone. “I’ll get us all something to drink. What’ll it be? Wine? Beer? Tea?”
My aunt opted for ice water. Yaz accepted a pale ale from Nick.
After setting beverages on the table, I joined them, choosing the armchair at the far end, nearest Nick. He brushed my cheek with his knuckles and smiled.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I said.
Max leaned forward on her elbows, the glass of water between her hands. “The lab sent your grandfather’s gun on to Atherton P.D.”
“Good. Let them keep it.”
“You’ll need to fill out some forms.”
“You came all the way to tell me this?” I couldn’t hide the crispness in my tone.
“And to bring you this.” My aunt reached into her oversized tote. She pulled out the foot-square cedar gun box and set it on the table.
I shivered. “I don’t want it.”
Nick said, “Take it. Your grandmother made it.”
“The gun was in it.”
“It doesn’t have bad karma,” he said. “Put it where it was. In a week or so, we’ll strip the insides. Make it a jewelry box. Candace might want it as a keepsake.”
“She knows the gun was in it,” I argued.
“Take it. We’ll figure something out.” Nick gave me a wry look. He was right. It was a keepsake.
Yaz passed the box to me. My hands shook as I held it.
“I’ll be right back.” I slinked down the hall, glimpsing Candace’s room as I passed. Her door was ajar.
“What’s that?” she called, catching sight of me.
“Nothing.”
The word nothing worked like a charm with teenagers. It was the same as whispering near them. They would want to listen harder. She trotted out of her room and followed me into mine.
“Is the gun in—”
“No,” I snapped and quickly apologized. “It’s on its way to Atherton P.D. This is just a box.”
“Well, duh,” she said in that inane way teens spoke.
I opened the hope chest and started pulling out items, intending to stow the box where it had been before. At the bottom. Hidden. Buried.
“What’s that thingie?” Candace asked.
“What thingie?”
“That little doodad there?” She pointed at the inside of the chest’s lid. “It looks like a paper clip or something.”
The doodad wasn’t a paper clip but a handle to access a tiny compartment. Not big enough to hide a silver dollar. No reason to hold my breath. I set the gun box aside and slid open the compartment’s lid. Within was a metal circle about the size of a quarter. No markings.
“What are you two up to?” Nick asked from the doorway.
“My grandmother, or possibly my mother, hid what looks like a slug for a slot machine in the top of the hope chest.” I held it out to him.
He rubbed it between his fingers. “It’s a magnet.”
By now, my aunt had entered the bedroom. “Are you okay?”
Yaz followed her. “No tears.”
“No tears,” I said. “We’ve made another mini discovery. Candace found a hidden compartment in the top of the hope chest. Inside was a magnet.”
Nick tapped my shoulder and grinned. “When I first started woodworking, I took lessons from an old guy who loved to make puzzle boxes, like your grandmother. Big ones, little ones, you name it. He enjoyed making people work to hide their valuables.”
“Your point?”
“A magnet can open a secret drawer.”
Candace sniffed. “We opened a secret compartment with that clippy thingie.”
“That one was obvious,” Nick said. “A drawer that opens with a magnet is completely concealed. The way it works is that you have to match up your magnet to another magnet hidden in the framework of the container.” He handed the magnet to me. “It could be on the side of the hope chest or on the back or even underneath. Run the magnet all around. If there’s a mate, this magnet will find it.”
I rolled my eyes, not believing him, but to humor him, I did as he suggested.
“Slowly,” he advised.
For a half hour everyone chimed in, telling me where I might have missed a spot.
When I was ready to give up, I felt a tug on the magnet. At the front of the chest. Near the bottom. A rush of excitement made me drop the magnet. I picked it up and placed it where I’d felt the tug. It clung.
“Use it like a drawer handle,” Nick suggested.
Pinching the coin between two fingers, I dragged it toward me. A drawer, about one inch deep and twelve inches wide, opened up. The grain of the chest’s wood had made it impossible to see the drawer’s seam.
Inside lay a velvet pouch-style bag, folded in thirds. I removed the bag, unfurled it, and spilled out the contents—a letter, a piece of parchment paper, and a tinier velvet bag.
Nick nodded for me to continue.
Carefully, I turned the bag upside down. A thin plastic box fell out. It held a silver dollar, its face engraved with a picture of a woman, her hair wafting behind her.
Nick opened the letter and then the parchment paper.
“What do they say?” I asked breathlessly.
“One is a letter to your grandmother, and the other is a document, stamped for authenticity, describing the 1794 Flowing Hair silver coin—the image is of Lady Liberty—and the coin’s worth at the time the document was authenticated.”
“Which was?”
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Candace and Yaz whooped. My aunt clapped a hand to her chest.
A shiver raced down my spine. Tears sprang from my eyes. “We found it.” I gazed at Nick. “We found my family’s insurance policy.”